At issue with the five-year update of Middlebury’s town plan is a crucial question: should the town keep a cap limiting retail stores to 50,000 square feet.
The measure has been part of the town plan for several years now, and was initially adopted to prevent the location of a Wal-Mart, or any other big-box store, to locate on the town’s outskirts or become the anchor of another strip-type mall on the town’s periphery. If past surveys are an accurate reflection of the public mood, most residents do not want the town to become a haven for big box stores.
