Killington ski village advances
Toolbox
By Cristina Kumka Staff Writer - Published: May 18, 2009
KILLINGTON — The public will get its first official taste of a proposed 408-acre ski village at the base of Killington Resort next week, after the Planning Commission recently agreed to grant applicant SP Land Co. LLC the warned public hearing it had asked for.
SP Land Co.'s combined conceptual master plan and planned unit development (PUD) application is one step closer to getting approved by the commission with the May 27 hearing now set, despite adamant objections by Town Planner Dick Horner, who said he isn't against development, he just wants to make sure the town's only chance to get a major ski village project right is just that — absent any shortcomings.
"It (the ski village) will increase the number of people that come up here and the tax base will benefit," Town Planner Dick Horner said. "If it's planned right and well conditioned, it will be a benefit to the town."
Horner's comments came after he, and commission member Charles Demarest, openly objected to the commission granting SP Land Co. a warned public hearing at a meeting May 13 citing that the application was incomplete, lacking specific information to satisfy 28 town zoning criteria.
Only one warned public hearing is technically required by the commission before it grants SP Land Co. approval for the planned unit development and concept, according to Horner.
Horner argued that before the commission approves the initial application and moves onto the next step, details such as noise, pedestrian and vehicular traffic, engineering reports, setback modifications and impacts on municipal services need to be presented by SP Land Co.
"According to state law, those can't be reviewed under site plan," Horner said. "If sold to another developer, the next one may think things were approved when they weren't."
Site plan review would come after PUD approval by the town, then zoning and building permits would be issued and the plan would go before the state for an Act 250 land use permit, according to Butch Findeisen, a real estate agent and former town selectman who explained the approval process to the commission last week on behalf of SP Land Co.
SP Land President Steve Selbo, Planning Commission Chairman David Rosenblum and members of the public argued that the project must move forward and it was nearly impossible to have all the details of the 25-year project presented at this time.
Selbo said he's been holding workshops with the town since August of last year, at which time he provided information, some of it not included in the final application because it didn't "pertain to the 28 criteria."
Selbo said he stood by the application but denied comment when asked if more reports, such as engineering and economic impact, would be presented.
He said Horner's insinuation that the project would be sold to another company was not true.
"There are 1,800 units in the first phase," Selbo said. "This sets Killington up to be an exciting hub for a long time … that positive energy will outweigh any negatives."
The first phase of the ski village includes 33,560 square feet of commercial space (not including the existing medical building), 157 condominiums, and a new base lodge to replace the Snowshed and Ramshead base lodges.
The entire 20- to 25-year project will include approximately 124,000 square feet of commercial and hotel space and 1,972 residential units, not to exceed a total of 3.3 million square feet, according to the application.
Construction is slated to begin around April 2011 with new roads, sewer and utilities, followed by a retail and commercial building built in the Snowshed parking lot.
The next public hearing on the application is May 27. For more information, call 422-3242.
cristina.kumka@rutlandherald.com
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