Williston: Determined to control growth
by Antoinette Supple
From a distance, the historic village of Williston
looks like a scene from Currier & Ives with its white
steepled church flanked by homes and country stores... mountains and pastures in the background. With its picturesque open
land; proximity to interstate, Burlington and IBM; postcard
Vermont village center and low taxes, Williston is in demand.
When asked to describe Williston's growth objectives,
Town Planner David Spitz chuckled and quipped, "In a nutshell,
not to let too many people move in too fast."
With a current estimated population of 5700, Williston
is predominantly middle-aged adults (35-54) with children.
The town has fewer people in the 15-34 and 75+ age groups than
the rest of the county and state. The town is also expected
to grow at a faster rate than the rest of Chittenden county,
2.1% vs. 1.4%, according to the town's projections (from 1985- 1990, however, the town grew at an annual average rate of 4%,
while Colchester grew at a whopping 9%).
The town is attempting to control growth by limiting
the number of newly constructed homes to 60 - 80 per year,
and zoning to encourage new development in growth center
areas, while "working hard to keep the numbers low" in the
rural districts. In essence, the aim is to avoid
unchecked suburbanization by encouraging "compact settlements
and the conservation of resource lands." Roughly speaking, the growth center is anything within walking distance of Taft
Corners - located at the junction of Routes 2 & 2A.
A mid-tier growth center exists closer to the village center,
where developments such as South Ridge has suburbanized the open land. The rest, such the Oak Hill region and North Williston ,
are considered rural districts.
Williston is still predominantly rural. In 1987,
the town surveyed the land and determined that only 4400 of
the 19,100 acres surveyed had been "built-up", or developed
for residential or commercial use. Roughly 7000 acres were
farm land, and 7700 forested. Spitz believes the amount
of forested land remains the same today, nine years later,
although the amount of farm land has decreased.
Williston Golf Course
But not all is quiet in this seemingly sleepy little town.
On the far side of town cranes, trucks and
construction workers are busy building new retail and
corporate buildings near Taft Corners, the town's
commercial/ retail park.
Taft Corners has been the focus of commercial growth
over the past ten years, as large tracts of open land
became available. Located just off exit 12 of I-89, its
easy access to the interstate has lured banks, retail
stores, corporate offices, and business services such as UPS
and Copytek away from Burlington. Most recently a new
supermarket (Hannafords) joined the park, and Toys R Us,
Wal-Mart, and Home Depot are under construction.
Williston residents fought an attempt by Pyramid
Development Co. ten years ago to turn a large parcel of the
land into a mega-mall. Instead, the developer will build
Maple Tree Place according to a much-revised plan, consisting
of mixed-use neighborhoods with retail and convenience stores,
even a cinema, all within walking distance of newly built residential neighborhoods. The tract of land to be developed
is 72 acres adjacent to, and behind, the State Police station just off exit 12.
As part of the agreement with the town, the developer
donated land near Taft Corners for the new grade school,
currently under construction and scheduled to open January of
1997. The new school will serve grades K-4. Central School,
which is located next to the town library in the village center, will continue to serve grades 1 - 8. Williston high
school students attend Champlain Valley Union in Hinesburg.
Fred Nye, Williston resident for 15 years, is happy
with the way Williston is handling the growth: "As a
business owner, I believe in free enterprise. I wouldn't want
to see Williston village changed, but darn it, Tafts Corners
is more than two miles away -- and what's wrong with that
being developed? I think the town's doing a great job with (developing) it, and really paying attention to keeping the
people of Williston happy."
The Oak Hill and Northern Williston regions are still primarily farmland and wooded forest. Views such as this, taken from Oak Hill, show the beauty of Williston's countryside.
Williston has always been farm country, since the land
was first settled in the late 1700's. In fact, the original charter stated that the land must be cultivated or owners
would forfeit their rights to ownership. By 1850, 15,406 acres
of the almost 23,000 acres comprising the town were being
farmed, more than double Williston's current farm land.
And these were industrious farmers. In 1870, a large
cheese factory was built at the top of Oak Hill, which grew
to tremendous proportions for its day, considering that all
cows were milked by hand. In 1885 the Oak Hill Creamery
produced 150,000 pounds of cheese and 16,000 pounds of butter.
At the same time North Williston was becoming a poultry center, with a poultry farm built next to Vermont Central Railroad.
The remarkable thing about Smith Wright's farm is that it
housed one of the first "cold storage" plants in the U.S., refrigerating as much as 500 tons of poultry and other meats
for customers in Boston, New York and other large cities.
Mr. Wright was the talk of the area when he managed to make
one sale of $45,000, being the largest single sale of poultry
ever made in this country to that date.
Indians were responsible for luring Colonel
Thomas Chittenden, Williston's first citizen and forefather of
our state, to the area. Legend has it that the Colonel led
a pursuit of indians who had taken captives and booty up
the Connecticut and Brown Rivers to the mouth of the
Winooski, where they were apprehended and the captives freed.
Col. Chittenden was impressed with the beauty of the valley
and mountains of what is now northern Williston, and ten
years later purchased a grant for the land from New Hampshire
(as well as land that is now Jericho). He was in his early
40's when he moved his wife and ten children to the log cabin he had built.
This monument dedicated to Gov. Thomas Chittenden
was erected in 1896.The town and state owe much to this pioneer
and natural born leader.
If it weren't for him, Vermont would probably still be
part of New Hampshire, or New York. When
an indian attack on the Williston settlement prompted the forty
or so families to leave their farms and head south, on foot,
to more populated and safe towns, Thomas Chittenden became
involved with the troubles of the settlers there. Both
New Hampshire and New York, and even Britain, claimed the right
to the land grants, with New York repeatedly trying to eject
the settlers from the land they had obtained from land grants
sold by New Hampshire. Thomas Chittenden favored declaring
Vermont a free and independent state as being the only
practical method of settling the dispute, and led the fight to do so.
The political (and occasionally physical) battles
that ensued lasted 26 years until finally, in 1791, Vermont
was declared an independent state of the American Union.
Thomas Chittenden was the state's first governor, and held
the office for 18 years. He returned to his Williston log house
in 1787 and replaced it with a brick one (which burned
around 1920). Today the farm on Gov. Chittenden's homestead
site is owned by Wright Clark.
Copyright 1996 Picket Fence Preview, Inc.