On Tuesday, Oct. 18, Judge Thomas Walsh, of the state’s Superior Court Environmental Division, ruled against the Newbury VT Development Review Board and the citizens group Concerned4Newbury (C4N) in their effort to keep the state from creating a secure treatment facility in town for juveniles in the criminal justice or child welfare systems. The case stemmed from a November, 2021 decision by the DRB that the proposed facility was out of keeping with the rural character of the area and would stress the town’s emergency services. In his decision, Judge Walsh sided with the state’s Department of Children and Families and with Vermont Permanency Initiative Inc., a program of Becket, the Orford-based youth and family services treatment provider tapped to run the facility, which sits on land it owns.
In his decision, Walsh notes that the two sides don’t even agree on terminology: The state and VPI argued that the facility would be a “group home” serving young people with disabilities that, by law, should be treated as “a permitted single-family residential use of property,” whereas the town and C4N argued that it would, in fact, be a “secure juvenile detention facility.” In the end, Walsh sided with the state and VPI, granting their request for a summary judgment—that is, agreeing with their arguments without the need for a trial—and ordering the town to consider the project as a “permitted single family residential use of property” that meets Newbury zoning regs. He gave both parties ten days to file any dispute that “the Project satisfies all dimensional standards set forth in the Town’s Zoning Regulations.”
Here’s Nora Doyle-Burr’s story in the Valley News, with reactions and possible next steps.
The full decision is below.