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Prompted by several applications for retail development in excess of 500,000 square feet, larger than anything anticipated by the town's existing Comprehensive Plan, the Easton Town Council enacted a temporary moratorium on new "big box" retail stores in September 1999. The purpose of the moratorium was to allow time for residents and town officials to consider the impacts of large-scale retail and amend the town zoning law accordingly.
After a series of public hearings and other forums, the Planning Commission released a report concluding, "Once a big box retail store exceeds 65,000 square feet. . . it is of such a scale that its negative impacts outweigh its positive ones and as such has no place in Easton for the remaining plan period."
"Easton is a unique small town which derives its identity, in considerable part from its historic Downtown area and the residential neighborhoods which are in easy walking distance of the Downtown," noted the Commission, which recommended that future development emulate this pattern.
In March 2000, the Town Council adopted Ordinance No. 399, which prohibits retail stores larger than 65,000 square feet and bars the Board of Zoning Appeals from granting a variance to allow a larger store. Easton's zoning rules also require retail stores in excess of 25,000 square feet to obtain a permit from the Council.
August 2004 update: The Easton Town Council relaxed its store size cap to allow stores within three existing shopping centers to expand beyond 65,000 square feet and to permit superstores to locate on land abutting or across the street from those shopping centers. Officials said the change was neceassary to prevent big-box stores from sprawling into areas just beyond the town's borders, even though the surrounding county, Talbot County, had effectively prevented that possibility by also adopting a 65,000 square foot size limit.
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