Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So I'm David Durfee, I live in Shaftsbury. I represent Shaftsbury, Sunderland and Glossombury, chairing the committee. Vice chair is John Bartholomew, and I live

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: in Hartland and also represent Windsor and West Windsor.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: John O'Brien, I live in Tunbridge and also represent one of them.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Greg Burtt, Cabot, or sorry, Cabot in Long Beach. Michelle

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Bos-Lun, I live in Westminster and also represent Rockingham and Brooklyn.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Jed Lipsky, Lamoille one. I live in Stowe and I represent Stowe. Richard Nelson, Orleans One, which is the town of Derby where I live and represent, and all the dairy farmers and people that work the land. And

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: I'm Janet Hurley, the chair of the Land Use Review Board.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Kirsten Sultan, I'm a member of the board.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And Pete Gill, executive director of the board. Nice to see you all.

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: I guess we'll get we'll get started with the presentation here. But on the next slide, just for a quick overview, We promised to come in and talk to you all about the wood products manufacturers report, which we will certainly do. We'll give the balance of time out of Kirsten, who is the board lead on that. But a couple of quick things for a little extra cream on the top there for you guys.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We've got a little bit

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: of Act two fifty background, let you know where the program's, how it's going, and then some updates on, the implementation of Act one eighty one from Janet. Without further ado, act two fifty background. I know we've talked about this before, but it's always good to just level set so everybody has a good understanding of, what we do as a program. Act two fifty is the state permitting, system, ensures that development and development and provisions conform to these various 32 different criteria. You always hear the 10, but with all the sub criteria, we're talking about 32 different criteria that things are reviewed upon ensuring that there's protections for agriculture for for one, farm farmland, prime farmland, transportation, energy, natural resources protections, a whole host of criteria that things are being reviewed under. When do you need a permit? When does act two fifty apply? Well, it depends on, you know, the size of the parcel, the project type, and the location. There's a couple of different triggers. I've got those listed out there. So if you have six to 10 lots, that could trigger the need for an Act two fifty permit. The reason it's six slash 10 is if you have a subdivision and zoning bylaws in your municipality, then you would qualify it would be less stringent there, so it be a larger larger size without review. You'll see that slash down on the third bullet there for commercial operations, one dash 10 acres. So, again, it expands if you have subdivision and zoning bylaws in your municipality. Another trigger there I skipped over was the ten ten units. And then there's a whole host of other triggers within the statute listed a couple of their those there, but the main ones are the ones that I've highlighted. Of note and importance for this committee and others is the logging, farming, and forest forestry exemptions below 2,500 feet do not require an act two fifteen permit for those activities. There's also a number of housing exemptions, interim exemptions that came out of Act 181 that are in effect currently as well. And just in case anybody is wondering,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: wood products manufacturing is not the same as forestry or forestry operations. Yes, correct.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Houston will get into that a little bit later.

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: Here gives you a little bit of a map of how the state is divided from an Act two fifty district's perspective. And this is a good point to remind you all too, if you have questions about Act two fifty that are coming either from you or from your constituent basis, particularly if it's related to a particular project, we've got various districts and district coordinators and staff within those districts, and and folks can reach out to them. We've got this map and and the contact information on our web page. But broad overview here, we've got now under act one eighty one, a land use review board that consists of five new members with variety of expertise. They've been working really hard since January 27 when they first started, and they have not stopped. They are working really diligently and hard. We're really happy to have them as part the program. They oversee the program as a whole. We also have district commissions. Those are the folks that are appointed by the governor, and they're the ones that are reviewing applications. When a permit is needed, they're taking that in and reviewing that application and issuing permits with the help of, our district coordinators, district technicians, and our regional office is helping those, permits get out the door. As noted here, the district coordinators are are also responsible for making determinations of whether an act two fifty permit is needed or not needed in any particular situation. This, just for your reference, is kind of our, organizational chart. I'm not gonna go into detail there, but you've got it in your materials. So permitting by the numbers, these are old data. We're still getting getting our 2025 data shored up here. But initial indications, it's kind of in the range within the same range. We issue about 350 to 400 permits per year. Very small percentage of those is denied, you can see, point 2%. And a very fairly small amount are actually go to hearings. Think as we've discussed before, there's two processes there. Well, really three. There's an administrative amendment for kind of record keeping purposes for permit permittees. And then there's a minors process whereby there's a notice period of a proposed permit that's gonna be issued opportunity for people to submit comments. And then there's what's called the major process when an application is submitted and a hearing is going to be held on that matter.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And as you can see, those going to majors about 5% plus or minus there. Here's the just the point 2% are denied, but a larger number are appealed. Does that suggest that many of those appeals are successful? Am I reading something else?

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Some are appeals of denials and some are appeals of the permit issued.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yes, appeal of appeals.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Sometimes you don't like a condition maybe, or sometimes it's the neighbors.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: A neighbor might appeal, okay.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: How many permits a year result from a complaint driven? Because an individual or business may say, I'm gonna do this. I know I need a two fifty permit. But a certain amount might either be existing or somebody starts going forward thinking they don't need an active 50 permit. A bus neighbor says, wait a minute, you need an active permit.

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: I don't have those statistics on top of mind. A

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: regular occurrence. It does happen.

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: But I

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: don't think it's a huge number.

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah. I mean, as you saw from the map, we have pretty good distribution of district offices. Those folks are open for calls anytime, whether somebody is interested in a particular project that you see going on and understanding whether that needs jurisdiction or not or somebody is thinking about an operation that they've already started. Kirsten might have a

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: I mean, she was district coordinator for a long time.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah. So I live in Lindenville, and I worked as the district coordinator for the Northeast Kingdom Region, District 7 of Act 250, for nineteen years. For that, I was in the private sector, and my background is in civil engineering. I was in consulting for about that length of time. And, I mean, it runs the gamut. I mean, people call the Act two fifty office. Sometimes it has nothing to do with Act two fifty, and it's referred elsewhere. People think of Act two fifty as a catchall. I guess I would say that the fact that someone's raising a question, whether it's a neighbor or a state agency contact or someone raising the question of applicability of a permit doesn't change whether or not it applies. So that's not the element that typically brings it into Act two fifty. I think it's typically just kind of on its own face value. That is the pathway, you know, that it's not contingent on. But, you know, whether it does or it doesn't. And so I wouldn't I wouldn't say that it's a a large a large number, but I don't have the data either.

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah. I mean, one thing you kind of infer from that last data point on the screen there too is two seventy jurisdictional opinions. That's a pretty good number of jurisdictional opinions compared to the number of permits there, 400 plus or minus there. I think the numbers for 2025 are somewhere slightly lower than that, but within that ballpark. So people are reaching out and trying to understand whether they need a permit or not. And certainly that two seventy is those that have reached out for an official determination of jurisdiction. Others are just coming through the process without necessarily that piece of paper.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So Christian, you would be involved then in those determinations, like you'd go out to a site and say, no, this is farming. You don't need it. Correct.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: When I was in the role of a district coordinator, that was part of my realm of responsibilities to make those determinations for different projects and inquiries and issue that jurisdictional opinion. But now that I'm on board, I'm not in that role directly.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Richard Nelson. Thank you.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Wanna open up a ball of wax. What's what about accessory on farm on farm structures?

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: We're going to get to that a little

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: bit. We're

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: going to be reporting to you on accessory on farm businesses next month. And so we'll save that one, Nelson.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yep. Thank you. So

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: moving on here, just a few programmatic updates. We've received appropriations from you all to help some of these items on this list. We've been able to digitize a lot of our files. There's about five forty boxes of files this last year that have been started to be processed. And this just allows the public and as well as our staff to be able to access these the permit existing permits, amendments going back for a very long time since the existence of the program in the different districts and really makes it a more efficient process overall. So appreciate that. That's ongoing work that we're doing. We also received funding positions for the expanded to expand our capacity as program. We've we had ARPA funded roving coordinators. These were additional district coordinators, the folks that are determining whether a permit is required or not, and also helping shepherd through the permitting folks through the permitting process. And we were able to hire those on permanently with the with the help of the legislature, we appreciate that support. We have one that's been in the role for a significant amount of time and one that is recently recently hired. So we're we're working on building that capacity. Also, we've got a new application form that's being launched as of the fifteenth of Jan January, so coming right up. And that will hopefully the intent there is we really focus those updates on items that would help people through the application process. And it's not to say that it's simpler. It is still a very comprehensive. We've got 32 criteria that have to be addressed. But the idea there is that it's really outlining exactly what we need to see so that people know right in the front, hey, this is what I need to provide for that, application, then it can be reviewed more efficiently and go through the process, in the long run, much more efficiently. So that's that's the goal with that, project. Lastly, I'll just say that we've got, we're continuing to monitor and work through, our permitting case with regards to ARPA funds, for ARPA funded projects. This could be anywhere anything from, you know, municipal infrastructure, three acre stormwater projects to certain housing projects as well. I would say the vast majority of the 500 plus projects that were ARPA funded that we were reviewing, most of those were not going through our process, but where they were, we were identifying them and moving them through the process.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Just quickly, does the state

[Unidentified Committee Member]: of Vermont and municipalities have

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: to go through the act two fifty process?

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: It depends, but yes. The short answer is yes, but it does depend on the specifics of the project. So there is a disturbance threshold for state projects.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Is that a lower threshold than type of lands?

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: In a way, yes. Because with state projects, it's a threshold of the acreage of disturbance versus the acreage that the parcel is that the project is on for other bank.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Can I add

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: to that? Yeah. Yeah.

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: Go

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: ahead. Yeah. But I would also say that if state or municipal entities are undertaking projects on, let's say, vacant land, it's based on having 10 acres of physical disturbance. And it's not very often that a municipality or even the state would undertake a project that has that scope. So it tends to be the properties that are already already under act two fifty jurisdiction or the bigger infrastructure projects that would trigger Act two fifty. So

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: with that kind of overview on Act two fifty, I'm gonna turn it over to Janet for overview of Act one eighty one implementation.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: So, yeah, as Pete said, we started on 01/27/2025, and have worked nonstop. And we'll be very busy through this next year implementing Act one eighty one, or Act 181 charges. We're going to talk about the Wood Products Manufacturers Report today, which was submitted in June. Kirsten will give you more detail on that. Yesterday, we presented on the appeals report to the House Environment and Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committees. We have begun the regional plan review process. We have looked at, so far, three drafts in the pre application process. We are about to receive a fourth. We will be doing pre application reviews for all 11 regional plans. And on top of that, we are going to start in a couple months receiving their final plan applications. And that process is more formal. It is a quasi judicial process. And at some points during this year, regional planning commissions must have an adopted Act 181 compliant plan by the end of this year. We're going to be looking at five and six regional plans at once through the summer and actually right up to the end of the year. A couple of the regional planning commissions are adopting. Their target adoption is December. So our reviews might even feed into 2027. Go ahead, Rep Nelson.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And that would be the MBDA for my region?

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Yes.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: David. Right.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Yes. Yep.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And I I need to work with him more in the town of Derby. So I'm afraid the town of Derby is not jumping on board with the one a, one b the way they ought to. Uh-huh. Really, I'm really concerned about it. This is the opportunity

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: To and this is the opportunity.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: For for the town to identify areas that would be eligible for act two fifty exemption.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I I just before them again Monday night.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah. Well,

[Unidentified Committee Member]: we're gonna go over the town plan next year. Maybe you better do it now.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Well, don't have to have a town plan that identifies these areas. And I'll show you in a little bit what they do need. They need to work with Snedenker and his staff

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yes.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: To for the regional plan future land use map to reflect that they might have some areas that could have act

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: February

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I believe David is concerned as well, he whispered in my ear. Okay.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I'm I'm gonna suggest that we not spend too much time. Okay. Sorry. I'm non wood products maybe. Okay. Okay.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: We'll need a few minutes. So

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Okay. And then finally, we are working we've adopted guidance for tier one a applications from municipalities.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And not to say that that isn't of interest to everybody. Right. And and we can have them back. We can yeah. We can have them back.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: And here here is an example. So we have this map viewer that we're using to do the reviews of those future land use maps. And these are this is a depiction of mostly the Northwest region, a little bit of Chittenden County here. Both of those regions have come to us with their draft plans. So here is what we have left to do on the Act 181 implementation. We are asking for extensions to some of these tasks. It will not affect the implementation effective dates of tier three for this ask for an extension. We are asking for an extension on the tier two area report, except for the accessory on farm business component, which we will still come to you next month with. And then there is a new criterion, criterion 8c, that addresses forest fragmentation and habitat connector natural resource. And we're working on the road construction jurisdiction guidance. That road construction jurisdiction, new road trigger will go into effect in July. We've talked about the regional plans. We also will, as a covered agency under the EJ law, we need to develop a community engagement plan. And so this board will be more engaging of the public overall, not just because of the environmental justice law, but because it's important for us to be more out there and present among all of the state and not just a board that meets in Montpelier and doesn't really have much contact with the citizens of the state. So interim housing exemptions.

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: Just to highlight that, too, having been with the previous board and now with this board and no discharging to the previous board, but this board is doing an amazing job reaching out and getting out there to the districts, to the greater state and holding public meetings, etcetera. So I'm very proud of that.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: And as Pete mentioned, there are interim housing exemptions that will be expiring as this new tiered structure takes effect. And then finally, in 2029, we are tasked with reporting back to the legislature on how this is all working. Oops, meant to just go forward. And I'm going to turn it over to Kirsten for wood products manufacturers recommendations that we made.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: So the first report that the Land Use Review Board submitted concerned wood products manufacturing, and I think the next slide has the statutory charge.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Mhmm.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: And this the report was actually due mid December prior to the board being seated, and work got actually got underway, overseen by the Forest Parks and Recreation, and then rolled over to the new board when we got seated in January. And our so Forest Parks and Recreation was very much an important partner and adviser to the board in in its continued work on this. The statutory charge outlines that a stakeholder group is to be convened, which occurred. We gathered a very broad range of stakeholders. There's a list if you're interested. We try to really cover the basis with industry contacts, state, municipal, etcetera, some couple consultants, actual wood products manufacturers, etcetera. It was a a pretty big invitation that went out, and we had two half day meetings. The group was to examine, you know, the Act two fifty permit process, specifically assess how the minor process is working. And as Pete touched on, the minor process is those applications that don't involve a hearing. So it's it's a it's a permanent process that's concluded without a hearing. If there's a hearing, it's referred to as a major. And, you know, addressing whether or not there were specific shortcomings, challenges, the the group could look at permitting holistically with respect to, you know, ANR permits, municipal permits, etcetera, and potentially recommend some alternate framework for permitting for this sector. And the report was due, as I said, mid December. We asked for an extension, was granted, and it was filed June. So the the yeah. I think I think we sort of covered this. Okay. Yeah. The methodology, basically, what we did is Forest and Parks and ourselves undertook a pretty substantive review of act two fifty permit records for this sector. We did you know, we word searched our database, and we think we identified, you know, all of them in the period of time since the minor process took effect and before that date. So we came up with two independent sets of detailed information about what had happened with each one of these wood products manufacturing back to 50 applications. And, you know, we were looking at how long did it take, what were the specific challenges encountered, what types of permit conditions went in, was it a minor versus a major, and we looked at I think that the period of time was 2002 to 2017, which is when the minor took effect, and then 2018 to the sort of end period that was examined, which I think was, like, early twenty twenty five. We don't have a huge number of cases. So since 2018, there were a total of 14 applications through the the, you know, the early twenty twenty five cutoff date. So it's roughly two a year. Most of them roughly two thirds were processed as minor applications. Roughly a third were done as majors. There were more majors for this category in comparison to nonwood products, and there were no administrative amendments. So that was interesting. We also sent out a a very detailed survey. We wanted to compare this sector to kind of a general baseline of all act two fifty applicants, what would what might stand out in terms of feedback from people who had been through the process. We sent it out to the applicants. We didn't send it out to other participants. It was, like, primary applicant contact. And we got a pretty good responsiveness, and there's a detailed compilation of those survey results. Unfortunately, we didn't get survey results from this sector. Like, the the group that had gone out to the wood products manufacturers, we didn't get good survey we didn't get any survey response. So what we then did was we organized some evening meetings, you know, inviting the sector in to have kind of a guided conversation and an interview and board members, myself and other board member, ask some questions and see what information those contacts wanted to volunteer. And so we we did glean information that was more sector specific that way. And so once we once we had all this information in hand, we had two long meetings with the stakeholder group. And it was sort of a, let's look at the information and think about how what do people think about how it is working and what we might do differently? How can we make it better to support this important working land sector? And we had several draft reports that went around inviting everyone to comment on. We also had a public comment period and a board meeting that was held. I think we went to Randolph and, you know, issued a press release. So we, you know, we tried to be thorough and comprehensive in gathering input, and we came up with 10 specific recommendations. And the report is somewhat long, and it also includes a list of, like, here's all the other things we examined that we're not recommending be advanced at this time, but we wanted to to capture them in this document. So that's sort of, like, the end of the report. There's a whole section of we looked at these things too, and and it it it addresses, in some cases, like, why we're not recommending that they be advanced at this time. So the first thing Oh, go ahead.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Just before you get into the two slides earlier, maybe think, is there ever an effort to develop sort

[Unidentified Committee Member]: of reciprocity with the permitting? So if you have an two fifty permit and an ANR permit on water, they would say, well, we accept, because you've been through the same sort of scoping or engineering studies.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yes. So there is an existing feature of Act two fifty that's part of the existing Act two fifty rules, rule 19, that establishes that an applicant can rely on that other requisite, say, ANR permit, what Act two fifty calls a presumption of compliance. So that's that is woven into the process, and the file review reveals the instance of, you know, how many of these other ancillary permits are in play. This is, you know, a sector that that often triggers some you know, numerous, in some cases, other permits, like MSGP stormwater, stormwater discharge, or

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: So that that's the number four. So yep, Kirsten will talk more about that in a moment.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah, do want to go back to

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: I don't want to

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: end the talk. Oh, go ahead. Kirsten. Yeah, that's okay.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Truly heartbreaking to have to excuse myself at this time, but I will review this and also look forward to reaching out for future dialogue. Anytime. And I just wanna say that Peter and Janet, I participate both online and in person. And I really appreciate your acknowledgment that the normal procedures of reaching out doesn't do justice to citizenry, and you get it. And I thank you for that. For example, the more so one that my dear friend, very proud. They sent out a survey, and they got a 119, you know, responses. Well, there were 27,000 constituents in that area. Well, that doesn't tell me that you've reached everyone, particularly rural Vermont landowners are very ignorant, so wrong, uninformed about the impacts of particularly tier two rules, potential or tier three. And it it is critical that those property owners have access to you, the information. And I know you know that, so thank you in advance for those continued efforts.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Sorry, sorry you have to step out.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, I'm not as sorry

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: to Feel free to in touch.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I think exactly. Yeah.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Maybe just by way of quick remark about the rural factor as you're backing up and likewise start and by the way, thank you so much for having us. I don't think we've necessarily said that. We really appreciate being here and having the conversation. We did examine through the final review where are these wood products manufacturing businesses located in the state. And they naturally, as one might imagine, they do tend to be located in the more rural areas. That's probably not a surprise. How are doing on time?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, so we, unfortunately, have lost a couple of community members. We can run past twelve, run as long as we have people in the room, I think. But it may well be the case that we feel like it would

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: be helpful to have you back

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: to either go into more detail, or if we don't get through the entire presentation, that's always an option. Sure.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Well, there's a there's a lot of detail here. So I think what we'll do is kinda stick to maybe sort of 5,000 foot level and try to try to give you some maybe nuggets of interest. Great. Thank the the first item that the board is recommending in this report is some targeted special targeted support for this sector. And it's some special guidance and fact sheet information compiled to help ensure that applicants from this sector and any stakeholder commissions are aware of some of the existing special benefits that are already in the statute that I think you're aware of, but it's the special parameters for hours of operation, relax requirements for PrimeX soil mitigation, and a default minor process as a starting point. And in addition, this would encompass making known the availability of this feature of act two fifty that originates from existing precedent that's called Stony Brook, and that is particularly suitable to larger tracts of land that may, in some cases, be in managed logging or forestry use or perhaps just some other use and the project occupies only a smaller portion of the tract, an applicant can avail themselves of this feature and ask that the district commission, as part of an application, limit the applicability of the permit conditions to that subset of land. So this was seen as quite important, and we have put together the fact sheet and supplemental guidance, and we are in the process of coordinating, getting it finalized, put up on the website in coordination with ANR. So it's 95% done. We will have that available soon. The second task that we recognize would have value is additional training in house and external externally available. We have undertaken some initial internal training at our annual meeting this year, which was a great audience of many district commissioners, staff, and we're gonna be continuing that after the new fact sheet and sector specific supplemental guidance is finalized. ANR offered to make available hey. You're back.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: The

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: agency of natural resources made available to this sector some special permit coordination and regulatory support that it generally makes available and is limited to unique projects or large phased projects. So they are recognizing that this is important and they are making known the availability of this special permit coordination through their office of planning and policy. And we are we are we are also making sure that that is made known through our training, fact sheet guidance. So we're sort of working with them to coordinate that effort.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Is that F 250 permitting or more the more holistic?

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: So it's both. It's ANR's offering to make sure that there's good support with respect to its own permits and with respect to the areas within F 250 that are of interest to ANR.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yep.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: The next tasks that the that the board is is committed to implementing under this report have to do with updating its rules. And this is so this came out in the conversation with the stakeholders that there are some some areas of the rules where maybe people are seeing opportunities for efficiency, you know, ex potentially expanded use of administrative amendments or addressing the necessity of act two fifty permits in the first instance for things like, say, a three acre stormwater permit is triggered. So the board is is committed to looking at those elements of the rules for the sector, but also as a component of our larger overall, you know, rulemaking effort that we anticipate initiating later this year. So we've we've put a pin in this. We recognize the importance and, yeah. For

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: for instance, there's some names of permits in in ANR that are within our rules that don't correspond directly to the actual names of the permits that exist now, that needs needs to be updated for sure.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Sorry, this update and the others that you're recommending would be within your power to initiate Yeah, we have to go

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: through the rule making process. Yes, yeah. There are Act 50 rules.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: There are

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: the Act two fifty rules. Yeah.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Do you wanna go?

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah, I mean, there questions about that?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Well, this gets to the question that came up earlier. You pointed to bullet number four as not a solution necessarily, but addressing that question of overlap and of I'm not sure what term how you described it, John, but Reciprocity. Reciprocity. Yeah, are there other questions about that? One of

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: the things I might mention, it's just kinda, again, this is like a limited dataset of 14, roughly two a year wood products manufacturing permits that have that have occurred since 2018. But we were looking at, you know, the process, what were the issues again, what were the other ancillary permits that came into play. And we did observe that there was a So in terms of timeframe, one of the things that emerged was, I think it was one hundred and thirty days in house time average. From the time the first part of an application arrived, which sometimes the commissions and staff are waiting for something else to arrive, like the check-in the mail or the signature page. So we measured from you know, the the the day the thing first landed through our electronic application portal system to the time the decision was issued. The average was a hundred and thirty days. We did throw out an outlier. There was one that the commission was waiting for several years for a stormwater permit that unfortunately had been issued but not filed with commission. So we so we sort of set that one aside. It was an average of hundred and thirty days. And for a pretty significant percentage of them, I could tell you. There was a number of them that the commission waited on average, I think it was eighty nine or ninety days for receipt of other ancillary permits. Yeah. 43%. So six of the 14, the commission had everything it needed, but had to wait for receipt of those other permits before the act two fifty permit process could be concluded in that decision issued. So I was just kind of interesting considering that interplay.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And those permits were coming from, like, ANR or for DRBs or whatever?

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Just state permits. Yeah. So the specific a permits were from a and r air pollution. There were two. Two of the 14 projects involved multi sector general permit, which is a stormwater permit for industrial sites. Stormwater discharge, which is not necessarily specific to industrial, it's treatment of runoff from impervious hard surfaces. And then stormwater construction, erosion control permits. There were two of those. There was participation from other local and state agencies noted that's captured in the report as well, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation and Ag. So, yeah, there's a lot of data here. I I don't wanna mire you in it. I'm just trying to find that balance and welcome any conversation.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I was gonna ask first whether, how much of

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: an impact you

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: thought number four there would have? I'm thinking, are these 10 recommendations in any particular order? Like, let's make sure if we do nothing else that we do number one. Yes. Which seemed like

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: And number one is 95%. They're They're not And Yeah. But they're not They're

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: not in the order of prioritization. And number four could have a significant impact because, you know, as I just mentioned, the district commission in forty three percent of the of the applications was waiting ninety nine days for receipt of those other permits. And if that time you know, if the act two fifty permit can be issued conditional upon receipt of those permits or there's some other timeline, then that that could be not insignificant.

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: And these

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: these Act two fifty rules, do they need to go through the LCAR process? Otherwise, not a legislative task.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Correct. These aren't. But there are some ones that we'll get to in a moment. Yeah.

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: Everything else

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And and to be fair to a and r, here's some of their timeline to get you the get the applicant to permit to get to you is because they're waiting for information maybe from the applicant.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Sure. Yeah. It's just

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Sometimes you're waiting for information. Yeah.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: It's all a process and

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Which is why the previous, these first three could help in that regard. Better coordination between the applicant and affected agencies in programs.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Sort of strategic timing of approaching the permit process. Do

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: you want to move?

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah, think are we sort of any other questions about the rulemaking that will it'll come through ICAR, LCAR?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Do do you have an

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: idea of the time frame?

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Well, I think we're generally planning to start that later this year.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah, but we're still mired in rulemaking for 8C and for tier three, and we're still very busy with the 11 regional plans. And then we're also going to start taking in tier 1A applications this year.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I just wondered if there's ever sort of jurisdictional confusion or discussions between the PUC and NIH review board over I can imagine in this sort of area, if say, Ridegate wanted to build some sort of facility to make the product, to make energy, for example. Where would Act two fifty permitting I just know from the PVC, from cell phone towers, don't need it. Encumbrance, they don't need an Act two fifty permit. I wondered in this same field where would products are being used in such thing, if there was vertical integration there?

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Being used for energy production.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Exactly. When the PUC jurisdiction stops in Accu 50 permitting.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: I don't think they don't overlap.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, think it is distinct between

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: the two.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: So an energy plant, an energy producing plant would be PUC.

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: But if it's the manufacturer of those wood products for that, that's what I would have to be

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: that would

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: be set that would be separate, and that

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: would be within the active duty

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: context depending on the jurisdictional triggers, of course.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah. Representative Burtt.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. You mentioned the minor and major permits that are is that is that kind of across the board within Act two fifty that it's, like, triggers for whether it's a minor

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: or Yeah. And

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: just I mean, just a brief description of what are the differences you mentioned, the hearing, is that the primary difference? Are there other things?

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah, that's the primary difference. It's often whether somebody asks for a hearing.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah, occasionally, commission will set a hearing in motion on its own, but often it's because there's another participant or a party or some question or issue that for which the commission establishes that process to hear from the parties and decide the matter. The the one difference is that a minor permit process can't be appealed under current statute. Only the major cissions can be appealed. So that's quite important.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Are you the priority? The decision. Correct.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. President Woodson.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Thank you, Chairman.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: This is sort of a theoretical question, but it is important to know. You know, like everyone in this room, I'm clearly an advocate for working lands as our committee is about covers about 83% of the land covers either forest or agriculture. There's a very clear distinction. The federal USDA has been funding and supporting agricultural enterprises for decades to with regard to water quality and other critical supports. The forest forestry has not been the recipient. Vermont because we have seen our capacity to process and manufacture wood products managed by about 98% in my lifetime, And that's another complicated crisis. But until a year ago when this committee supported an FPR, supported the My Force Future strategic roadmap, supported among that implementation committee. Some supports for climate resiliency and water quality for hardening of other log landings or stream crossing, that sort of thing. So that's a step in the right direction. But you should know how dire the barriers are, and it's not the Act two fifty process, but there are these ancillary water quality storm water retention that have been a serious and these are critical needs. I'm not I don't have the solution, but for a start up like in Fletcher, Vermont, if they had known what the end cost and it would have built a mill and others. So could you, in your processing, if you think there's recommendations that you might have to reduce some of these barriers? You know, federal grants aren't aren't expanding generally for anything right now, so it's hard to look for them. But that's a big factor in why the forestry and wood products are in crisis now in Vermont. So you have any input?

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: I mean, think that goes back to these first three again, and having really affirmative sort of assistance and coordination between applicants and our program and ANR. Do you think, Kirsten, that would

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Oh, I think it will all help. I do think the group heard some of that kind of feedback around this sector and and other industrial sites that it's it's the sum total of everything that that can be a lot.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I'm gonna say, why don't we let me take a quick time check here. Does anybody, like, need to rush out in the next two minutes? Okay, I don't want to keep people long into lunch and you as well. But maybe if we could just briefly walk through these last

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: three, and

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: then with the understanding that we'll ask you back in Yes. Or

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: Great. Sure.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: When when you have time. Yeah. And we and we know you're busy, as you just said.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: I'm happy to come back anytime. First or item number eight is advocacy for ombudsperson, permit specialist, someone to really provide general handholding. And this came up partly in the context of that there's essentially no longer permit specialists as a live body to provide that kind of direct support and assistance to the public in you know, across the state. There's this permit navigator tool, which is a great tool. You can access it online. But there's not They're taking it taking it down. But there's a permit specialists are no longer there. So we you know, everyone reckon I think there was recognition for the value of that as a service to support, particularly, applicants. And I saw that when I was still working as a coordinator. So that's the second item number nine has to do with basically tweaking the language and the legislation to align it with how it is worded for agriculture. Forestry logging and agriculture below 2,500 feet is not subject to Act two fifty jurisdiction. And there is some specific language in the legislation that recognizes that if a piece of property is in farming use, that the portions of the track being used for farming are not regulated by Act two fifty, and stakeholders wanted to see a sort of a parallel language for logging forestry. So we're we we have something 99% of the way ready to make available when that is of interest. Oh.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Not to interrupt. Sure. I support your recommendation number 9100%. That is critical. The lack of value really ripples fear.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: You're close to having draft language. Is that

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yes. What you're Brooke Dingledean and myself have worked with our general counsel, and we have some language that's almost at the finish line.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: we wanna make sure that this doesn't invalidate existing Act two fifty restrictions on tree cutting or preclude the district commissions from imposing restrictions that might be deemed needed to conform with some of the activity criteria, like a no cut zone along a stream buffer, or maybe there's some aesthetic buffering. We want to make sure that it's carefully worded to make sure that it doesn't run afoul of the act two fifty obligations. But we have something that we think we hope that, you know, when people see it, they would be pleased with it. But and then the last item has to do with a discovery that basically, when these benefits for the sector were put into the statute in so it was 2021 concerning hours of operation, the relaxed one to one prime ag mitigation. There was a definition put into the statute at that time for what is a wood products manufacturer. And I think it was done to allow those benefits to apply to this sort of broad range of all this stuff is wood products manufacturing and the and that if you if you're that definition, then you get these benefits. So what happened was it it captured, basically, log yards. And there had been, prior to that, a a very long standing interpretation and application that log yards, whether they be on the property being logged or or perhaps elsewhere as a as a, you know, a log staging area, sorting log yard, that those were part of logging. And there had been a declaratory ruling that I think is one of the exhibits that we located and and rec you know, we we would suggest that that definition be modified to eliminate that wording so that the statute doesn't sort of capture those as manufacturing facilities, basically, as a commercial activity. They wouldn't they wouldn't need to restore looking to restore that status that had predated the more recent legislation.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So this is the distinction between forestry operations and everything else?

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: With products manufacturing. Yeah. Correct. Yeah.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: But I think it was probably inadvertent that that occurred.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It would be a fairly straightforward statutory text.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: Yes. Picking out some words in a paragraph.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yep. Okay, good. Well, sounds like then, yes, let's maybe give you whatever additional time you need to That's it.

[Pete Gill (Executive Director, Land Use Review Board)]: I was just gonna suggest maybe if I make sure to interrupt, but thinking that it might make sense once we have some language to give to you all, you can mull this over as well as some of that language and such. And then we'd be happy to come back and talk that through.

[Janet Hurley (Chair, Land Use Review Board)]: When we come back in February, Kirsten, do you think that we have anything on this that we could bring with us to present as well? On the industrial language? Yeah. When we come back for reporting on recommendation with USBs, maybe we would have more

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: to report on these issues. Sure. We'd be happy to give an update then.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: That would be a great idea.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Just mindful of the legislative calendar and that we're on a hard deadline to move anything fairly early in the calendar year. So I think we can talk more about that timing, but it might make sense for us to continue having a discussion knowing what we now know. Thank you. And then we can check-in with you when you've got more that you'd like to add. All right, thank you. And thanks everybody for staying a little bit late.

[Kirsten Sultan (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, we are done for the day committee and back with our usual Tuesday morning schedule on the floor. Then Tuesday's a little bit different. Think