This story by Clare Shanahan was first published in the Valley News on Feb. 24
ROYALTON — A wide-ranging and controversial bylaw that will be decided in Australian ballot voting on Town Meeting Day this year would limit development and restrict how properties can be used in areas at risk of flooding.
The bylaw would prohibit new construction within the flood zones designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and in state-regulated river corridors, including around small brooks and streams.
It also outlines extensive rules for how river-adjacent properties can be used and improved, including requiring that residents obtain a permit for any interior or exterior renovations worth over $500 and many other improvements to or uses of their properties, such as storing RVs or mulch piles. The bylaw also establishes a review board and guarantees fines at a rate of $100 per day per violation. If issues are not resolved, the town’s administrative officer can request that the National Flood Insurance Program deny flood insurance for that person and property.
The Royalton Planning Commission, which wrote the bylaw before passing it on to the Selectboard for review, aimed to create regulations that would promote public safety by keeping physically and environmentally dangerous materials out of rivers and reducing the severity of future floods, limiting property damage in flood-prone areas and helping the town qualify for more disaster assistance.
“Our town has the river going right through it and it’s a major factor in a lot of people’s lives,” Selectboard Chairman Stuart Levasseur said in an interview last week. “… A lot of what we’re trying to do is protect the environment; keep people safe.”
Royalton residents are not unfamiliar with the threat of flooding, whether it was road damage in the July 2023 flooding or several feet of water rushing over roads, fields and into homes during Tropical Storm Irene in 2011.
Still, some Royalton voters are skeptical of the proposed bylaw. Many residents have argued in meetings and through signs posted around Royalton that the regulations introduce unnecessary zoning restrictions to the town, which is one of six Upper Valley towns in Vermont without standard zoning, according to planners with the Two Rivers Ottauquechee Regional Commission. The others are Hartland, Corinth, Tunbridge, Sharon and West Fairlee; all of which have some kind of flood hazard regulations.
The proposed regulations apply to properties in the FEMA-designated, 100-year flood zone, or area that has a 1% chance of seriously flooding every year; the 500-year flood zone, where there is a 0.2% chance that major flooding will occur every year; and river corridor areas. River corridors include the area around rivers, streams and brooks where the water will naturally shift and erode and are designated by the state Agency of Natural Resources.
There are about 215 parcels that would be covered by the bylaw if it is passed, Planning Board Chairman Geo Honigford said in an email, about 180 of which, including about 20 structures, are within the 100-year flood zone and covered by an existing flood hazard policy adopted in 2007.
There is also an unknown number of properties near brooks and streams where construction is restricted within 50 feet of banks
Honigford said that the 2007 policy already created zoning within the 100-year floodplain, where permits are currently required for new construction and certain development. This bylaw, if passed, would replace the 2007 policy.
“We’re not suddenly adding zoning,” Honigford said in an interview. “We are expanding the area that’s incorporated by this, but it’s not a new thing.”
Rhona Tuthill is part of a group of about five families collectively organizing against the bylaw. Tuthill has owned a horse farm on the White River in Royalton, which sits entirely within the 500-year flood zone, for more than 35 years.
“As a group, we’re not opposed to planning for future flooding concerns, that’s not the case. The parts that we are completely opposed to are the zoning parts that they have put in there, the permitting parts that they have put in there that have no bearing on helping or hindering whether I’m going to get flooded or not,” Tuthill said in an interview.
Opponents also say the plan as written will damage property and resale values, oversteps on landowners’ rights, and uses vague and confusing language that leaves too much up for interpretation. Other arguments against the bylaw come down to specific details.
For example, Tuthill is personally against a rule that prohibits residents from storing RVs on their properties through the winter. She also is adamantly opposed to the rule that requires residents to get a permit for any interior or exterior work over $500.
“I’m going to get flooded at some point; it’s all on me,” Tuthill said. “We take responsibilities that if we do upgrades we have the responsibility of losing it, but that’s our choice.”
Sandy Conrad also lives in the floodplain and considers certain aspects of the plan “overreaching,” but she said she is most upset by a lack of transparency throughout the planning process.
“Nobody is saying we don’t need a flood hazard plan, but it’s so radical and hasn’t been inclusive of the people it’s affecting. …All we asked is that they wait until we see what the state brings down in 2028,” Conrad said in an interview.
One goal of presenting the bylaws at this year’s town meeting is to create local regulations that will supersede statewide floodplain development rules that will go into effect in 2028. By beating the state to it, local officials seek to give residents control over the permitting and review process.
The Flood Safety Act, passed by the state Legislature last May, gives the state Agency of Natural Resources “delegable, statewide jurisdiction and permitting authority for new development taking place in mapped river corridors,” unless a municipality has its own state-approved regulations that are at least as strict as the law.
The bill passed without Gov. Phil Scott’s signature. “We support the goals and agree this work needs to be done,” but the timeline of implementing the laws by 2028 is “reckless” and “not achievable,” Scott wrote in a May 30 letter recorded in the Vermont House Journal.
While the specific state regulations have not been written, if the local ordinance is voted down, “that will mean no local control and whatever appeals you have to do you’ll have to do with Montpelier,” Levasseur said. “We feel that it’s much better to be able to come to a local person and present your situation.”
In January, the Selectboard made some amendments to the bylaw to address residents’ concerns, including adding a provision that would allow people to continue certain nonconforming activities as long as they are not expanded — for example, storing materials like mulch or soil in the flood zone.
However, the Selectboard was not able to meet all of the residents’ concerns and keep the bylaw compliant with outside standards, Levasseur said. Specifically, the board tried to increase the $500 provision, which Levasseur acknowledged would not cover more than “a couple of sheets of plywood and a box of nails,” to apply to work over $5,000 but were told this was not possible by regional planners because of state and federal requirements.
Royalton resident and Planning Board member Emily Simpson also lives on the White River and “very much” supports the bylaw.
“It seems like it’s going to be beneficial to be proactive where we can be proactive,” Simpson said. “We can’t really stop the river from flooding but what we can do is put some regulations in place that make it so that when flooding does happen it makes it less likely that items are going to be in the river. …It makes us good neighbors to anyone downstream.”
To the frequent argument that the regulations infringe on individual property rights and that owners should be allowed to make decisions and face the consequences, Simpson said: “It’s very hard to let those kinds of arguments fly when we’re talking about a body of water that affects all of us.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Town Meeting 2025: Royalton considers floodplain regulations.