The Waitsfield Development Review Board will hear two applications on May 12, including a proposed expansion at Lawson’s Finest Liquids and a parking reconfiguration plan for the Afterthoughts/Valley Meade/Valero property at the intersection of Routes 17 and 100. The hearing takes place at the town offices at 7:00 p.m.
Lawson’s Finest Liquids is seeking conditional use approval for a $500,000 project that would add a 1,215-square-foot event space to its tasting room facility on Carroll Road. The property is located within the Irasville Village zoning district, an area identified in the Waitsfield Town Plan as a designated growth center for compact, pedestrian-oriented commercial development.
The proposed addition would create a dedicated indoor space for private events such as birthday parties, rehearsal dinners and small corporate gatherings. The new space would operate in coordination with the existing tasting room.
The project is designed to integrate with the existing facility, which includes the brewery, tasting room, parking areas, pedestrian walkways and landscaping installed as part of earlier approvals. No new parking areas or curb cuts are proposed, and the site currently meets zoning requirements with 59 parking spaces available through on-site and nearby off-site arrangements.
According to application materials, the addition will rely on existing infrastructure, including utilities and internal circulation patterns. Construction is expected to take place within previously developed areas of the site, limiting impacts to stormwater runoff and drainage.
Traffic associated with the expansion has been evaluated in the context of a prior study completed for the original brewery project. That analysis, reviewed by the Vermont Agency of Transportation, found that the Route 100 and Carroll Road intersection would continue to operate within acceptable levels of service. While the event space may generate occasional increases in traffic during arrivals and departures, those impacts are expected to remain within the capacity of the roadway network.
The second application before the board addresses parking constraints at the Afterthoughts/Valley Meade property, where owner Aron Shea is proposing to expand and reconfigure parking in coordination with the adjacent Valero gas station parcel.
The proposal would increase parking capacity to between 80 and 85 paved and striped spaces shared across the two properties. Plans call for a two-way ingress and egress connecting the parcels, along with modifications to existing curb cuts and removal of a guardrail between the sites.
The project requires amendments to current parking plans for both properties and comes amid ongoing concerns about overflow parking and pedestrian safety in the area.
Those concerns were raised in March before the Waitsfield Select Board by adjoining property owner John Morris, who said patrons attending events at Afterthoughts are frequently parking on his property and in nearby lots.
Morris owns the parcel across Route 17 that includes Localfolk Smokehouse, apartments, a bike shop and the Mad River Valley Chamber of Commerce visitor center. The property also serves as the base for the Mad River Valley Rec Hub, a public recreation access point developed through a $400,000 grant from the Vermont Outdoor Recreation Economic Collaborative.
He said the approximately 70 parking spaces on his property were designed to meet zoning requirements for those uses and are not intended for overflow from events across the road.
According to Morris, musical events at Afterthoughts can draw crowds of up to 150 people, exceeding the venue’s available parking. He said the overflow results in vehicles parking along nearby roads and in informal areas, with patrons walking along Route 17 and surrounding areas after dark.
“I’m actually here to discuss a situation that’s deteriorating,” Morris told the select board. “People parking up on Dana Hill… the woodlot landing… and everybody walking around in the dark and also taking advantage of the parking on my property.”
Shea said the upcoming application is intended to address those issues by increasing on-site capacity.
