How Can a Golf Course in South Burlington Put Charlotte in a Jam?
by Howard Verman,
September 10, 2010, page 10.....

Report on the Vermont Planners Association Meeting: The JAM Golf Vermont Supreme Court decision and its implications for town planning and development.

The JAM Golf decision by the Vermont Supreme Court reversed the Environmental Court’s decision to deny a permit of a proposed ten-lot subdivision as part of the Vermont National Country Club project in South Burlington. One issue was the South Burlington Zoning Ordinance requires planned residential development (PRD) designs to “protect important natural resources including streams, wetlands, scenic views, wildlife habitats and special features such as mature maple groves or unique geological features.”
The court ruled that the ordinance was essentially “standardless” and that zoning ordinances must “specify…sufficient conditions and safeguards” to guide applicants and decision makers. Zoning regulations need to provide guidance as to what must be reasonably and fairly expected from landowners who own a parcel containing wildlife habitat or scenic views and who wish to develop their property into a PRD.
Another issue is whether the city plan was specific enough regarding the notion of “protection of natural resources or scenic views.” The court found that the city plan, “while it does specifically identify some generic natural resources to be protected – such as scenic views – the city plan fails to define what in particular is to be protected, and provides no standards as to how or when development should be restricted to accomplish protection.”
Panels of attorneys, town planners and environmental judge Meredith Wright all spoke of the recommendation to town planners to write defensible standards using clear, unambiguous language. They spoke of the need to identify what resources need protection, informing individual developers what they need to do to comply, and identifying what legal techniques will help facilitate the process.
Other suggestions included mapping of a town’s resources, using illustrations in the town zoning ordinances to help with compliance, and being flexible in allowing evidence that shows changes in resources, i.e. migrating wetlands or shifting wildlife corridors. It was also recommended that planners consider what development patterns are consistent with what is being protected as well as how a particular parcel under consideration is part of a bigger picture.
The JAM Golf ruling is a landmark case, making it incumbent on local communities to consider carefully exactly what they want to protect and to write clear standards on how they want developers to comply with regulations.