ROYALTON — Voters rejected a proposed plan to regulate development in flood-prone areas by a wide margin of 390-193 Tuesday. 

The 27-page flood hazard bylaw was the subject of focus for many Royalton residents ahead of Town Meeting Day. 

“I’m relieved that our neighbors heard us and our neighbors believed us,” resident Rhona Tuthill, who was part of a group campaigning against the bylaws, said Wednesday. 

Even after the vote went the way she campaigned, “it’s not a done deal,” Tuthill said.

She hopes the Selectboard and Planning Commission will continue working on a new set of rules that consider resident feedback and are “less punishing” with “more understandable wording” that leaves less up to interpretation.

For his part, Planning Commission Chairman Geo Honigford said he was “disappointed” about the vote and concerned that “when, not if, the next time Royalton has a major flood we’ll have even more places impacted” because people will continue to build in the floodplain.

Honigford said he does not know what is next for flood planning or if the commission will try to write new rules.

“The people have spoken and one of the things we heard a lot was this is too much, we think something needs to be done but this isn't it,” Honigford said. “Basically what they’re saying is: ‘You need to control what happens in the floodplain but you can’t tell us what to do.’ And it’s like well I don’t know what that is.”

In the only contested Selectboard race, Robert A Gray Jr. beat out Christopher Bergstrom 284-239. Gray will serve a three-year term on the board. 

Larry Trottier was elected to a two-year Selectboard seat in an uncontested race.

Clare Shanahan can be reached at cshanahan@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.