A rendering of a NewVistas community
Utah millionaire David Hall has decided not to pursue his vision for a high-tech sustainable community in the Sharon area after local opponents mounted vigorous opposition to the plan. Hall said he plans to sell the Vermont property he owns as soon as he can.

“I won’t pursue my dream there, and so I’ll exit as it’s possible,” Hall said in an interview with Seven Days Wednesday. Valley News first reported that he was abandoning the plan.

Residents quickly objected after Hall purchased hundreds of acres in Tunbridge, Royalton, Strafford and Sharon. He explained to residents in 2016 that the goal of his NewVistas Foundation is to build a new type of community based on sustainability and a minimal carbon footprint. His vision was inspired by a historic document drafted by Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon religion.

He said he never even applied for a permit to implement the plan, and local opponents didn’t take the time to hear him out.

“People were certainly a lot more dramatic than they needed to be,” Hall said. “There was very little discussion — hardly any at all — as to the merits or non-merits of the NewVistas approach. There was very little understanding as to what the real objective of the NewVistas was.”

The Mormon engineer still plans to implement his vision for sustainable communities, but not near the South Royalton birthplace of Smith.

Hall said he decided to give up on his plans Tuesday when the National Trust for Historic Preservation put the four towns affected by his plan on “watch status,” meaning their historic nature is being threatened.

“I thought, you know, that really was genius,” Hall said. “What [opponents] managed to do is turn every rock wall into a historic site in the area. So how do you overcome that?”

Hall repeatedly expressed awe at the intensity of the opposition, and said he doesn’t want to be involved in an acrimonious legal battle for decades.

“I think it’s best for me to move on and move out,” he said.

Kevin Ellis, a Montpelier lobbyist who briefly served as a paid spokesman for Hall last year, said he was disappointed that Vermonters were so hostile to Hall’s plan.

“Any time a guy with millions and millions of dollars comes into a community and says exactly what Vermont environmentalists have been saying for 50 years — we need to get out of our cars, live in clustered living arrangements, and allow the surrounding farm and forestland to sequester carbon — I think you should listen to him and engage him in a discussion,” Ellis said.

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8 replies on “Utah Millionaire Abandons Plan for Futuristic Community in Vermont”

  2. Vermont hypocrisy at its blatant worst. As Hall’s spokesman Ellis noted, “Any time a guy with millions and millions of dollars comes into a community and says exactly what Vermont environmentalists have been saying for 50 years we need to get out of our cars, live in clustered living arrangements, and allow the surrounding farm and forestland to sequester carbon I think you should listen to him and engage him in a discussion.”

  3. My suggestion is that human beings start eating from garbage cans and let the bears and skunks and raccoons do the thinking, they are better suited to it.

  5. Yay! I don’t care how laudable his goals were. It is undemocratic, arrogant and offensive to suppose that the possession of millions and millions of dollars gives you license to stomp into someone else’s neighborhood and remold it to your own vision.

  6. Right wing cult??? The right has nothing to do with this jerk Hall.. Remember the “The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project,” better known by its informal name “Jonestown”, was a remote settlement established by the Peoples Temple, an American cult under the leadership of the false Reverend Jim Jones, in north Guyana??
    November 18, 1978, a total of 909 died from drinking Cyanide poisoning, 304 were minors. Jim Jones was a democrat, he started these temples it purported to practice what it called “apostolic socialism”. In doing so, the Temple preached that “those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment socialism.” Criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views, the Temple moved to Redwood Valley, California in 1965, the early 1970s, the Temple opened other branches in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and would eventually move its headquarters to San Francisco. He was a big supporter of Gov “Moonbean” Brown back then So it’s not a right-wing cult. Thank God the people of these towns fought back against this failed take over.. We got enough problems with the liberals here in Vermont we don’t need cults to boot..

  7. I am confused…was it his environmental friendly planned community, or his Mormon faith, or his plan to have 20k residents, or his $ he made as a self made person that offends? If it just his $ being thrown around, please see the Seven Days story today about a wealthy heiress peace activist from an extremely privileged background of a family of admitted Communists who has spent the last 50 years funding VT projects to fit her beliefs. What is the difference, other than Mr Hall’s plan would have added significant property tax base to fund teachers healthcare and pensions. ACLU should take up his case…discrimination at its best.

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