VT Digger
By Mike Polhamus
Killington Grand Hotel is in the background as skiers head out. Killington Resort is planning a major expansion, the first phase of which will include a base lodge and nearly 200 condos and three dozen homes. Wikimedia Commons photo
In a long-awaited decision, Vermont’s Environmental Court has upheld the land use permit for the first phase of a Killington Resort expansion that eventually is to include 2,300 residential units and 200,000 feet of commercial space.
This first phase includes 32 single-family homes and 193 condominiums on what is now a parking lot at the main base area, plus a base lodge and other commercial structures.
The decision last week upholds the Act 250 District 1 Commission’s approval of the plans in 2013.
The court said the development described in the application will actually improve water quality in nearby Roaring Brook and won’t hurt the area’s aesthetics. A landowner in neighboring Mendon had appealed the permit on those grounds, among others.
The ruling, and the permit application, resulted from lengthy and close collaboration with officials at the Agency of Natural Resources, said Chris Roy, an attorney for the project’s principals, who operate under a corporate entity called SP Land Co. LLC.
The development will help Roaring Brook, Roy said, “because what’s there now is a parking lot.” Stormwater now runs unimpeded from the asphalt into the waterway, he said. That can scour exposed ground and contribute to destabilization of stream banks, according to court documents.
Designers have greatly improved practices relating to runoff and stormwater since the parking lot was installed, Roy said, meaning the development will incorporate elements to reduce erosion.
In addition, as the Environmental Court noted, the owners of Killington ski area — operating under a separate corporation called Killington/Pico Ski Resort Partners LLC — intend to build new stormwater treatment systems that will further reduce harm to downstream waters.
The court said some area streams and brooks have become impaired, which it blamed in part on the existing resort development and its aged stormwater treatment system. The court said: “The new proposed treatment system will not only protect against adverse impacts from the proposed developments, but will also reduce the adverse impacts from the pre-existing developments.”
Roaring Brook qualifies as an impaired waterway, meaning it can’t meet clean water standards.
The resort’s plans had been challenged by Stephen Durkee, a Mendon resident who owns several properties in Killington. His lawyer — Nathan Stearns, of White River Junction-based Hershenson, Carter, Scott and McGee — argued before the court that the development would harm his client by polluting Roaring Brook, along which Durkee owns property, as well as increasing traffic and hurting the area’s aesthetics.
Stearns said Thursday he hadn’t found time to read the decision closely enough to comment on its nuances. He did say the case has been underway for years. “We’ve been waiting a long time for the decision,” Stearns said.
The trial that was the basis of this decision ended in late 2014, Roy said.
The court found that dwindling ticket sales at Vermont ski areas, combined with the long stays the resort’s lodging amenities will encourage, mean traffic won’t increase unacceptably.
The court ordered SP Land Co. to pay $20,000 toward a traffic study that will include traffic counts before contractors finish construction on the first phase of the Killington expansion. The study is to serve as a benchmark for future phases of the planned expansion, which critics say may lead to an increase in traffic and other unwanted consequences.
The court in expansive terms rejected, too, the argument that the proposed development would hurt the resort’s aesthetics.
In fact, the court said, “we regard many of the aesthetic impacts from the proposed development to be positive” — bringing, for instance, “an updated and coordinated appearance to the planned Village Core area that will replace the somewhat worn and disjointed parking lots and buildings that currently exist in the main base area.”
The decision is open to appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court.
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