Town officials in Essex voted to deny local approval for an Amazon distribution facility in an area zoned for an industrial park. It would have been Amazon's first facility in Vermont.
After nearly four months of meetings, the Essex Development Review Board voted 4 to 2 against the proposal at a public meeting Thursday evening, with one board member not present for the vote.
The vote was made during private deliberations, after board members cited security concerns. Chair Ian Carroll said board members and family had been contacted through personal cellphones outside of meetings and that he worried about interruption from the crowd.
After the vote, Carroll said the decision was “based on the merits of the application and the current zoning regulations, only,” not the identity of the company. He said full reasons for the denial will be published on the town’s website.
Developers submitted the application in January for a distribution facility the size of two football fields that would serve over 100 zip codes, an area of roughly 70 miles. The site is part of an industrial park that’s under construction off Route 117, near the intersection of Sand Hill Road, roughly five miles from Interstate 89.
Part of the application included a traffic impact study with estimates for the entire industrial park, approved by state and local officials. Activity from the warehouse was projected to generate about half of that volume of traffic, according to town staff.
At a meeting in June, the Development Review Board requested additional traffic volume data for three comparable sites already in operation.
Representatives from Amazon said the company could not provide that information, because it does not currently operate other distribution facilities in similar-sized communities.
“This is a brand new type of last-mile type facility — it’s super rural,” said Dan Cleary, a traffic engineer for Langan Engineering, who worked on the application.
That will soon change, according to Amazon representatives. The online retailer plans to build more than 200 facilities in small towns in the coming years.
“We made an announcement in late April that we are investing $4 billion across the country to bring last-mile service to smaller communities, more rural communities,” Jonathon Greeley, Amazon’s head of economic development for New England, said at the public meeting Thursday night.
That includes in a town 60 miles away, in Champlain, New York, where Amazon purchased undeveloped land to build a distribution center on the western shore of Lake Champlain, close to the Canadian border, according to My NBC5.
Several residents spoke in favor of the proposed facility in Essex at the Thursday meeting, including Dana Sweeney, who lives on a nearby road.
“Adding another business is only going to be positive for our tax base,” she said.
But the majority of people in attendance were opposed to the project, citing safety concerns around large trucks, air pollution, and traffic congestion coinciding with when kids get out from school.
“This has the potential to really alter life in our little town,” said David Minkoff, of Essex. He thanked members of the board for spending so much time on the application, and other community members for sharing their thoughts.
So did Rev. Jeff Baker, of Essex Junction.
“I would like to thank Amazon,” he added. “For bringing so many people in our community out and motivated and involved in this process.”
