No Essex Prison

Please come to the 9/11 Planning Commission Meeting

8/20/2025

Please mark your calendars for September, 11th at 6:30pm! The Town of Essex Planning Commission will be hosting officials from the Vermont Department of Buildings and General Services, as well as the Vermont Department of Corrections. They will be discussing questions submitted by the Planning Commission regarding how our community may be impacted by the construction of the replacement women's correctional facility.

Meeting Details:

September 11, 2025 - 6:30pm
Essex High School
2 Educational Drive
Essex Junction, VT 05452

Come speak out. State officials may or may not answer your questions and concerns, but your input can help guide how our Planning Commission navigates the protracted fact-gathering phase of the zoning amendment process.

Email Community Development

I believe we have a good chance of stopping this zoning amendment from ever taking effect. We have an opportunity to tell town and state leadership we do not want a prison built in our community, but it is also an opportunity to tell them how we would like to see $100,000,000 spent in our community instead? Join me in sharing to the commission how we could see that kind of money being spent locally.

Planning Commission email: community-development@essex.org

Please make sure to send your email to the following address prior to 9:00am on Sept. 5th, so it can be included in the meeting packet and entered into the public record. The Planning Commisison is responsible for realizing the vision outlined in our town plan, we have been told that if we want to build and maintain our community in accordance to the Town Plan, we need to do that through zoning regulations. Now is our opportunity. Our work will become more difficult with each step in this process.

Canvassing Opportunities

Please stay tuned for opportunities to spread the word about this project amongst our neighbors. Even if the Planning Commission and Select Board produce an ammendment, we will have the opporutunity to bring the issue to a town-wide vote. If we collect petition signature from 5% of Essex residents in the 20 days following the amendment's passage by the Select Board, the vote will happen at the next town meeting day, or during a special election.

The good news is, we've tried gathering petition signatures before, so we know we have the numbers to put this on the ballot. We just need more help going out and knocking on the doors. Please respond to this email if you are interested in helping with canvassing efforts!

Thank you for your support.

The State's prefered location is in forested land in the area near where the off-ramp of Rte 289 meets Colchester Road, between the CSWD transfer station and Suzie Wilson Road. Aside from being next to a landfill, the site is also close to a gas pipeline, and potentially impacts access to VAST snowmobile trails in the winter. The State ranks the environmental impact of building a prison on this site as "bad" in their own presentation, but justifies the construction here by essentially saying that the environmental impact is low because there is already a landfill and gas pipeline in the area. They also note how the surrounding area includes protected and endangered species, and has a high biological and conservation value due to VNHI rating. The State has not conducted any environmental impact studies, and they have no plans to do this before the zoning laws are changed to accomodate the prison plans.

The second proposed location is in a partially forested, partially industrial site up the hill from the vacinity where River Road meets North Williston Road. Here, the prison would be built between what is now operated by a heavy machinery company and a large solar array. This site borders several residential properties. The State also states in its own proposal that the area has a "bad" designation for site size, accessibility, topographics, environmental impact, developable area, and available utilities. So this is certainly the more disruptive location to the environment, as well as Essex Town community members.