By Tom Ayres, Senior Staff Writer
For the second time in 30 months, the District 3 Commission of the Vermont Natural Resources Board has denied an Act 250 land-use permit for the proposed Peace Field Farm farm-to-fork restaurant on Pomfret Road because the commission found that the project does not conform with the Woodstock Town Plan and zoning regulations.
The ruling by the District 3 commissioners follows an April 24 ruling by Judge Thomas G. Walsh of the Vermont Superior Court, Environmental Division, commonly known as the Vermont Environmental Court, that the footprint of the restaurant project as presently proposed by Peace Field Farm developer John Holland and farmer-restauranteur Matt Lombard exceeds the Woodstock Town zoning bylaw limiting the allowable footprint for on-farm restaurants to 2,800 square feet. The District 3 decision last week largely mirrors the April ruling by Walsh.
“There is no dispute that the overall square footage of the building here is over 2,800 feet,” District 3 Commission Chair Kevin Marshia wrote in announcing the commission’s latest ruling on the Peace Field matter, which was unanimously okayed by Marshia and his fellow commissioners, Suzanne Butterfield and Roderick Maclay. “The Environmental Division concluded the building is 3,393 square feet. Accordingly, the Project is not of a size and scale consistent with the R5 [zoning] area. Because the building exceeds 2,800 square feet, it does not comply with the Town Plan…[the Land Use Permit] is hereby denied,” Marshia concluded.
The District 3 Commission first rejected the Peace Field restaurant proposal in November 2021, arguing then as now that the project was in non-conformance with Woodstock zoning regulations. Two months later in early 2022, hundreds of Woodstock voters petitioned the Town Selectboard to adopt an on-farm restaurant amendment that would allow on-farm restaurants to operate in the town’s R-5 rural/residential zone with conditions. Proponents of the amendment recommended limiting occupancy of the restaurant as a means of mitigating concerns about traffic and scale. The footprint wording was not suggested by the petitioners, but instead was inserted into the present on-farm restaurant ordinance when the regulations were adopted and incorporated into a new Woodstock Town and Village Town Plan in May of 2023.
The long-standing Peace Field dispute, which dates back to November of 2020, is now continuing on two fronts — potentially before the District 3 Commission once again, as well as before the Woodstock Town Planning Commission, which was recently charged by the Town Selectboard with reexamining the on-farm restaurant ordinance language in view of the April decision by Judge Walsh.
The day after the District 3 Commission once again denied Peace Field Farm a land-use permit, developer Holland petitioned for reconsideration of the ruling. The commission’s “decision was based solely on one aspect of the zoning,” Holland wrote in a June 7 letter. “My project has been qualified as an Accessory-on-Farm-Business (AOFB) and can qualify as such. That comes with certain limitations, but the 2,800-square-foot reference is not one of them. The Commission made no note that the zoning allows this as a right and State law requires AOFBs to be permitted.” In a subsequent email for District 3 Commission Coordinator Peter Kopsco later in the day last Friday, Holland further noted that the Woodstock Town Development Review Board (TDRB) had granted the proposed Peace Field restaurant AOFB status in a May 2022 ruling, with restrictions on the hours of operation, sound and lighting levels, and special events.
Local officials are also seeking to come to terms with the latest Environmental Court and District 3 Commission decisions regarding Peace Field. In a special meeting on Monday, June 3, the Woodstock Town Selectboard voted unanimously to send the current on-farm restaurant ordinance back to the Planning Commission for reexamination. In a motion approved unanimously by the five-member board, the town leaders asked “that the Planning Commission review the current ordinance and clarify requirements for the square footage. The options can be anything from leaving the ordinance as is, increasing the square footage, decreasing the square-foot footprint, or removing any restrictions, with structure size to be determined on a case-by-case basis by application.”
In a brief presentation at the June 3 special selectboard meeting, Planning and Zoning Director Steven Bauer referenced the April ruling in the Vermont Environmental Court noting that the Judge Walsh “came down with a ruling on area which, being involved in the process, I don’t know that it matches the intent that the [select]board set out to have.
Bauer is presently scheduling “a couple of sessions” of the Woodstock Planning Commission to discuss possible changes to the on-farm restaurant regulations. The municipality will have to adhere to state requirements regarding the warning of public meetings of both the planning body and the selectboard regarding the potential ordinance change. Bauer said last week that he expected to present the Planning Commission’s findings to the selectboard for its consideration at the governing body’s regularly scheduled bimonthly meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 20.
Peace Field Farm developer Holland said Monday morning that he will press forward with the request for reconsideration before the District 3 Commission while also awaiting a decision from Woodstock, including potential revisions to the town’s on-farm amendment that could make the Holland-Lombard restaurant proposal more acceptable before the courts and quasi-judicial bodies.