BRISTOL — The proposed new Bristol town plan passed with a decisive 68.7 percent of the vote on Tuesday, ending an eight-year process that at times seemed to divide the town on issues of zoning proposals and resource extraction.
“In all honesty, I’m ecstatic,” said Kris Perlee of the Bristol Planning Commission. “A lot of work was done by a lot of people to make a plan that reflects the desires of the town as a whole.”
On the whole, the proposed Bristol town plan is one town residents should pass. We congratulate the Planning Commission and the Bristol selectboard for working through a litany of issues and, after eight years and a rejection of the previous town plan, proposing a plan the public can finally support.
BRISTOL — After eight years of debate, discussion and discord, the Bristol Town Plan will be on the ballot and back in the voters’ hands on Election Day, Nov. 6. The Bristol Planning Commission and the Bristol selectboard, which added 42 changes to the draft given to them by the planning commission based on input from public hearings, unanimously approved the latest version.
BRISTOL — After nearly a decade of work revising and updating the Bristol Town Plan, an effort that has at times been very contentious, the plan is ready to be voted on by Bristol residents.
The Bristol selectboard held its second and final public hearing on the controversial town plan update on Monday at the start of the board’s meeting in Holley Hall. Only two members of the public were in attendance; no objections were voiced. By 7:04 p.m. — within minutes of calling the meeting to order — the board had closed the discussion.
BRISTOL — Most of the roughly three dozen people at Holley Hall Monday evening for the Bristol selectboard’s first public hearing on a new draft of the town plan showed overwhelming support for the general vision of the proposal. Nevertheless, a range of fundamental changes were proposed.
The selectboard will consider these proposed changes at its May 21 meeting, and likely will hold two more hearings, selectboard chairman John “Peeker” Heffernan said.
BRISTOL — The current Bristol Town Plan, first adopted in December 2001 and readopted in January 2007, will expire on Jan. 15, 2012, almost two years after a proposed rewrite was turned down by voters in 2010.
The fact that Bristol, a town where land development has been the subject of some controversy in recent years, will be without a town plan in effect has some legal and practical ramifications.
BRISTOL — As the Bristol Planning Commission has ground away at a proposed new town plan — a document considerably larger than the current 12-page version — critics have repeatedly asked the question, “Why not readopt the present plan?”
Regional planners and town officials say the current town plan, first adopted in December 2001 and extended in January 2007, doesn’t conform to some state statutes. It also conflicts with other town plans.
