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Sanchez earns contract extension BY JASON STARR Observer staff
Architectural plans for a new hotel in Finney Crossing were recently submitted to the Williston Planning and Zoning Department. COURTESY OF WILLISTON PLANNING AND ZONING
A(nother) new hotel planned for Taft Corners BY JASON STARR Observer staff
The first-ever land development application under Williston’s new form-based code was recently delivered to the town’s planning department. The same ownership group that constructed the Hilton Home2 Suites hotel in the Finney Crossing neighborhood in 2020 is proposing a new four-story hotel just a stone’s throw to the east. Once constructed, the two hotels would be about a football field’s length apart. “The existing hotel is doing very well, and that might give you some insight why another hotel might work,” Finney Crossing developer Scott Rieley said, referring further questions to Erik Hoekstra of Redstone development company in Burlington. Hoekstra is the “managing general partner” of both the existing 100-room Hilton and the proposed 115-room hotel, which will be sited at the corner of Holland Lane and Market Street. He could not
be reached for comment. The landowner and official project applicant is Rieley Properties and Snyder Commercial Properties — the partnership of Rieley and Chris Snyder that has created the mixed-use neighborhood that now boasts a variety of national and regional restaurants and retailers, as well as a mix of condominiums and apartments. Snyder, Rieley and Hoekstra attended Tuesday’s meeting of the selectboard, where they asked to purchase 10,000 gallons per day of wastewater capacity to accommodate the hotel’s operations. The board unanimously approved. “Another hotel is a planning goal for the town?” asked board member Jeanne Jensen. “I’m struggling with that. Every hotel, is that housing that doesn’t get built?” The hotel is sited on one of three remaining unbuilt lots in Finney Crossing. On the drawing board for the other two remaining lots are an apartment building and a multi-tenant commercial building. In contrast to the Hilton ho-
tel, the new hotel is designed in an “L” shape and with a sloped roof, in accordance with the new formbased code. The selectboard adopted the form-based code last year, creating new building standards that focus on the look of construction and its relation to streets and surrounding buildings, rather than the traditional form of zoning that regulates building uses. The hotel application is the first to be filed under the new code. It will be reviewed by town staff for conformity with the code, instead of the traditional land use review by the Development Review Board. However, one aspect of the plan does need to go before the DRB for approval, according to Planning Director Matt Boulanger. That is a land subdivision that is a prerequisite of the project. The developers last week filed the required subdivision permit application with the DRB, of which Rieley is a member and former chair who typically recuses himself from applications involving Snyder and Finney Crossing.
This year’s evaluation of Champlain Valley School District Superintendent Rene Sanchez resulted in a contract Rene Sanchez extension as well as modifications to the way the school board evaluates administrators. In his second school year with the district, Sanchez was
School board tackles transgender policy BY JASON STARR Observer staff
“What do you do as an educator if a student comes to you and says that they want to be called a name other than their given or legal name and they want to use pronouns different from what their parents put on a form that they filled out at the beginning of the year, and they don’t want you to tell their parents?” This is among the sensitive specifics that the Champlain Valley School District is grappling with as it tries to ensure equity and fairness for transgender and gender non-conforming students. “We’ve had teachers in that very difficult position,” school board chair Angela Arsenault said, “and I think it’s really important for everyone involved that
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offered a one-year contract extension after his annual review was completed by the school board in late February. The nod of approval came as Sanchez was spearheading the formulation of an over-arching strategic plan for the district, which the board approved this spring. “I’m really excited about Rene’s level of community engagement and especially throughout the process of building the strategic plan,” said board chair Angela Arsenault, “and I’m really eager to see see SANCHEZ page 7
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we have clarity around what we do in that case. How do we support students, how do we support teachers, and how do we include families as partners — and keep kids safe?” To this point, the district has relied on Vermont Agency of Education guidelines written in 2017 to guide decisions about transgender and gender non-conforming student education. But on May 4, the school board’s policy subcommittee began work on a district-specific policy that it plans to present for approval this year to the school board. A draft of the policy is based entirely on the Agency of Education guidelines, Arsenault said. It requires the district to use a student’s preferred name and gender on school records, except when lesee TRANSGENDER page 7
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