Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: For a minute there, I was ready to go dance. It's all right.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Okay.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Welcome. Thank you. And if you'd like to introduce yourself, we're live streaming and we'll then be interested in hearing your perspective on this bill.

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: Okay. Well, I'm Cher Feitelberg. I grew up in South Burlington. I moved there when I was 14 years old and have continued to live in South Burlington for a good deal of my life. The place I live right now is Stonehenge North, which is a condominium townhouse development just off of Spear Street, which is very interesting because when I was a child, teenager, that's where we used to play back there. You could explore the woods and run along Potash Brook, and now, of course, it's changed. And I am the citizen coming in who is the person who's really worried about HOAs and the town regulating whether or not I can grow food. And so I'm representing the idea that to grow food is a Vermont right. Similarly inspired in some ways by the, what is it called, the right to dry that was enacted in 2009, where at one point it was highly regulated that we couldn't put towels over our balconies to dry the towels as we came out We of the couldn't hang lines. It was a very interesting dynamic. So I'm here before you to ask you to really consider supporting the bill that Martin has written up. I am an idealist right through and through my soul. And so I'm really hoping that this conversation will actually inspire what I heard. It was a privilege to come in early and have it run late because I'm a naturalist at heart and I come from an ecosystem base. And so I've been thinking about all of you a lot today about how do you take what I'm asking, which by itself is like the peanut inside the shell, but then it's when you go to take it out, you're going to break apart other systems around it that I don't have any idea how that ripple effect is gonna affect other work that you've done or other laws that are on the books. So is that enough of an introduction? And so now do you want me to talk more in-depth about the vision? Yeah, I think so.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Whatever you came prepared to say, we're happy to hear it.

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: I came prepared to be flexible. And then the rebound isn't helping, because my understanding is you don't have the packet that I sent to Martin, which was my initial proposal, which is a drafting idea of if there is a law that supports Vermont citizens' right to grow food, and the way that Vermont is developing its properties and encouraging housing development, how do you then regulate it with good old Vermont common sense? And I believe very strongly that this law can go into effect the right for every Vermonter to grow food because we especially have the resources in Vermont to make that happen. We have the UVM Extension Service. We have people who are treasures like Charlie Nardozzi. Everywhere you look, there are people that have worked very deeply in gardening and creating diverse ecosystems and biodiversity in and around developments. And so I am really aware of the connection. I'm going to try to really stay on point. So I'm going to use myself as an example. I live in a lovely townhouse development, and we are regulated by very, very strict high bar laws or proclamation, I don't know what you call them, guidelines for making any changes to our declaration or bylaws. And in fact, in doing research about this, town, HOAs often set the bar higher for changes than you folks in the legislature and the actual law. So I'm trying to condense stuff. Several years ago, my neighbors and I, and we lost the picture on Google Map, began to talk about the capacity for growing food in Stonehenge North and Stonehenge South, which is completely separate. And we sat out on our lawns very casually, but with intent, looking at the property and thinking about whether or not, because we had water spigots right outside our front door, whether we could extend this space from the foundation out towards the main walkway that connects all four units for gardens. Or because of the way Stonehenge is developed, on the other side of that walkway is open land. And through a real collaborative process, we came to the conclusion that extending from the foundation was not desirable because we were looking for true consensus, because families spilled out onto that little piece of land. And this is the way the ecosystem works. It was partially due to the fact that the fire marshals in South Burlington had us all move our grills to the far side of that walkway to protect the townhouses from fires. So what it did was that changed how people use the property. And so we decided together, no, we would not want to do anything from the foundation out immediately, but we would want to put in either small individual spots, plots, or a community plot for the townhouses right there. And that would be enhanced or made more possible by the spigots that were out the front door, and by the fact that we had worked really collaboratively to kind of get to this place. So as the story goes on, we found out that we just really can't do that. We're lucky we have 18 plots in the center of Stonehenge North that are up for grabs each summer for people who want to have bigger gardens. Our vision was that the outdoor garden was more of an intensive garden really aimed at salads, low growing robust plants that didn't, and here's the spider web in the ecosystem, disturb to an unsightly extent the curbside value. That is what makes everybody freak out in The United States about having a garden in your front yard. If you go to Europe, having a food garden in your front yard or visible from the street from any angle is very acceptable, and they're pretty, and they're nice, and they've been there for so long nobody thinks of them. So we're talking about changing a lot of things, including culture. So basically, some of the reasons that I'm passionate about getting something like this passed is that while I think of it as a privilege to have those 18 plots in the center, they don't address some very significant issues. Who lives in a townhouse today continues to unfold as our culture and as our economy changes. The folks that can use the plots in the center of the property are much more physically able residents. Anybody that has any kind of mobility or balancing issues or any strength issues are less likely and unlikely to use the plots because the plots are in the center, the water sources here, it's quite a generous piece of property. You have to drag your hose. If you are 88 years old and not in really good health, but you're on a limited social security and a very limited pension, you're not going to drag your hose all the way over there. And the truth of the matter is that we've been fortunate that we've always been able to meet what people have requested and sometimes not even fill those spots, usually just one or might be empty. So out the door gardening allows people with those kinds of issues to grow food very conveniently and safely. Safety is an issue too, because when you are gardening, many of us enjoy hitting that alarm at about 05:30 in the morning during the summer and getting out to your garden at 06:00. It's tough to say this, but that's not safe anymore in South Burlington. To be in the center there where nobody would hear you if you were disrupted by somebody passing through that might have ill feelings, it's just not safe. The same is on the more sunset side. You just really wouldn't want to be there if there's nobody else out there. Some people are okay with it. I personally just have a greater awareness of that. I think I covered

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: a certain topic. Just a question.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Quick, to give us some context, how many residents have at Stonehenge North?

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: 77, so 18. Only

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: 18 spots,

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: right?

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: But only 18 spots. So then the next group that I really, really want to attend to is Stonehenge used to be, and I'm going to throw it in this way so that we all are really aware, even of what these folks were talking about, how the development of Vermont is changing. So Stonehenge North used to be a place where you invested in your very first property. You were young, you were single, or you were a young couple, and this was how you were gonna build your credit towards owning a home. And the minute, if you were a couple, you had a child, by the time that child was walking, you were looking at buying, a smaller ranch or something like that so your family could expand. The economy has changed and people are staying there, and people also stay there because, okay, they really love South Burlington schools, but primarily the economy has changed. So if you're a young couple and you are living paycheck to paycheck, which is happening in Stonehenge today, and you have children under the age of five, you know that as a couple, all of your energy every single day is focused on how you manage getting out the door to your own jobs on time so your bosses are satisfied and you get your children comfortably settled into their childcare. And then on the reverse side of coming home, you've coordinated with your partner how you get home, pick up your child, do dinner, baths, homework, whatever's happening, and get them into bed. Somewhere in there, if you are really struggling and you want to grow food, there's a huge difference between a garden out your door and trying to get one of you or everyone down to the center of the property. So it becomes prohibitive. Is that listed?

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: It's shared. When you first were presented, you talked about bylaws. Were they municipal bylaws or covenants of the HOA?

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: They're covenants of the HOA. So that was, well, I wanna be careful. This is a very big issue for me. And I love it. I've learned a lot.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: With Martin, you kept referring to.

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: LaLonde. Yes, yes. So I approached him. I want to tell you, I feel like a kid in a candy store. I'm a retired elementary school teacher, and I always had fourth grade in one configuration or another. So you spend your half of your year almost teaching about Vermont, but I'm really passionate about civics. So I feel like I'm living my dream today. I'm living everything I ever taught my kids, like you do it, and Vermont is in my opinion, the best place in the world to do it, because I can call Martin and call him Martin, and Martin can sit and formulate an idea, and then bang, I'm really here with how you move it forward. It's lucky.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Revival specifics.

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: Well, I do, sir.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Representative Nelson. Thanks, chair. Chair, you rebel.

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: I what?

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: You're a rebel.

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: Yes. South Dakota used to be rebels. Yeah.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: There you go. You know, the thing that people on the field grow food so they can eat, are you allowed to grow in raised beds or or in tubs or whatnot outside your door? No. And and would that I grow all I I'm on clay. Mhmm. I live in Durfee, and I got clay. I mean, great location, terrible soil, but we grow everything in raised beds.

[Billy Coster, Director of Planning & Policy, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources]: Right.

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: And we're on sand because we're in the Lake Champlain Valley. And so

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Well, you're not on clay, which a lot of it is, but you're on good soils there.

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: So part of what I proposed to Martin was being sure that the language include the ability to plan. Basically, if I'm thinking intensive gardening, I'm thinking square foot gardens. So in the ground square foot gardens, raised beds. The other one that's really important is elevated beds. So anybody that's using a walker or a wheelchair is able to grow their own food. And the last one is container gardening. And there's no reason in today's world not to be able to do that with curbside value in mind. And there is a person in Stonehenge South, and this is how I found out they're even, they're differently structured or strict than Stonehenge North. They've been told flat out, He has the most gorgeous container gardens that are flower gardens right in front of his home. Not one of those containers is being used for food because they cannot grow food. Period.

[Billy Coster, Director of Planning & Policy, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources]: Flowers are okay.

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: Right in, but flowers are okay.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: But not food.

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: But not food.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Let your letters scroll long enough to go find out when it's a flower.

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: But that's what's exciting to me about being in Vermont, because again, our resource base for really understanding the difference between, okay, if you're going to grow it up front and you're going to meet everybody's needs collaboratively and build a consensus, you can have bush cherry tomatoes so that when you're driving around the development, you're really just looking at a bush with orange spots, or you can have vining cherry tomatoes, which other people that don't even live in your little cluster or whatever will not be able to swallow because they don't have that, whatever it is, spirit of food gardens looking as beautiful as perennials.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Do the homes in your neighborhood have a backdoor? Is there a backyard or do they have

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: So a back against one we're buildings of four units in most cases. Have a few buildings of three events. As far as I know, all the water is in the front. But that doesn't mean that all the units are Stonehenge Drive facing. So that's some of it, some of what would happen in any development. Yes, there are back doors. But again, if you're thinking, how are you getting water there? I would like the language to reflect within reasonable distance of your outdoor spigot. Otherwise, you're back to the same problem as what happens in the center gardens where somebody might be dragging a hose around the side of the property, which then can open you to legalities if somebody falls and trips over your hose. Say you get a leak, you spring a leak and it seeps into their downstairs.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It sounded like despite your collective goodwill and best intentions having a change to the covenant or whatever it is that the governing documents was too big a hurdle for you to cross. And can you just say anything about that? Are you familiar with, are you on the board or?

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: So, yeah, so for all transparency, so this little rebel started the Land Stewardship Committee whose sole purpose is to try to move Stonehenge from a financially managed property to a land stewardship managed property. And so we're looking at how would you bring this very monoculture environment back into biodiversity as an urban setting? That's a mouthful, but really fun.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: We understand that.

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: Yes, I know, I'm so excited to be here with this group because now I'm gonna be energized to go out and stay the course. And then because that was so important to me, I did run for board and was elected based on several principles, that being one of the big ones that I'm trying to help guide our community towards. And right now, currently, we have been fortunate enough to acquire the help of Fortino Acosta, who's an award winning landscape designer and lecturer at UVM. And he has eight students this spring, who are finishing a project in Morrisville, who will then come to Stonehenge North and develop a vision for what that urban biodiversity renewal could look like over five or seven years of investment.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Yeah, was just going to say I have to leave for an appointment. I don't think we're at a point where we're going be voting on this today, but we've talked about this prior to your testimony. And I think I can't speak for my committee mates, but I think in general, the spirit of our committee is that we absolutely support this. And I totally think that this policy makes sense, whether or not it is possible to change the policy in your particular housing development. It sounds like housing developments have the authority to make these restrictions. That must be true in many other places around our state. It feels like we would be doing a great service to the people of Vermont to be able to say, just like in whatever it was 2009, you can hang your laundry on your patio. You also can grow a garden in your yard. And I totally believe that should be that should be a basic common sense human right. And I hope we I hope we can get there for you this term.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: I mean, it's for regulars. Thank you, Michelle.

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: And I really, my learning curve has been like this, and you all probably know much more thoroughly than I do. The place where we intersect is at the Common Interest Ownership Act, and that it's from the legislature. And that is where the foundational, that's the foundational law that developers use to develop the declarations and bylaws that they have to have in place in order to sell properties. The challenge with that is the developer is creating those from from my perspective, the developer is creating those based on an entirely different perspective. How am I marketing and selling these units and making people feel good about the fact that the land is owned commonly, where the homeowner perspective is, where is my agency over the land that I'm paying taxes on? And it's interesting. I mean, when I was 40, I was four in my forties, early forties when I bought my property, what I wanted from that property is entirely different than what I want from an artist turned 70 in October. And so my own development plays into the passion of really trying to create some kind of bill out of the legislature that protects those kinds of changes and somehow reigns in the developers. Once the developers have the declaration and the bylaw and the rules, the rules are easier to change depending on how people are feeling. And you all know that people are on boards for different reasons and find different energy for why they, how they carry themselves on a board. To try to create a super majority, which is 80% according to my research, and I know from taking a stand in my own neighborhood, is difficult because human behavior is challenging. 80%

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: of the board members that vote. 80%

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: of homeowners would have to vote to say that out the door gardens, a new use for the common element called out the door gardens is

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: public. So I can understand why that might seem insurmountable. Coming back to the, as you said, sort of the founding document, the section of statute that controls these common interest ownership would be the easier approach despite despite, as we know, how challenging it is to change any law. I think let's get one more question, then we should probably thank you for coming and move on because I know others are hoping to testify too. Representative O'Brien?

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Yeah. Just quickly, could you share with this committee the language that prohibits growing your food? Because I can imagine as a rebel, must be like, I'm going grow nasturtiums. It's a flower, but I'm to eat, just in violation of the HHI, I'm going to eat the blossoms. And it seems like it's so absurd that I'd love to see the language that says, you can grow flowers,

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: but you can't grow food.

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: Yeah, we don't have that, particularly that language explicit that way in Stonehenge North. And there are little, well, I'll call them flicks in the rules, which are separate from the bylaws of the declaration that appeared on the surface to make this reasonable. But when you are trying to build a consensus in a community, you don't need very many people to unravel other people's efforts because you're talking about a volunteer board that doesn't have any legal or just any legal background for being able to understand where the boundaries between the Vermont I always get it wrong the Vermont Interest Ownership Act, the declaration and the bylaws, where those boundaries are and the rules. And so it's not always that cooler heads prevail. And sometimes because that 80%, it just it takes so much effort to get a little tiny inconsequential change comfortable for everyone. You have a lot of people who don't live there year round. We have a lot of people who are not tech savvy and everything's going into the computer. It's just a lot. So there's only one thing, and I thought a lot about saying this. I think I might be in love with you calling me a rebel. I thought a lot about saying this. I'm really hoping that this is a win win, I believe, for Vermont. I also believe it's a win win for governor Scott to sign it into action because what more? I mean, our character, our historic character is about self sufficiency and resiliency and independence and then community minded action, right? And as this representative was saying, Michelle was saying, you know, there's nothing more basic than food and people are panicking. They're watching their inability to put the food that they would want or used to or feel are healthy on their table. So I'm imploring you and I know you're busy, but I'm gonna do it anyway, to see whether or not you could get this bill to align with the 2026 growing season. And I'm gonna say why, and I've thought a lot about this. So please note my smile and my sense of humor and stick with me. I think that we're headed for food challenges in The United States this summer. We're deporting our agricultural workforce. And we can even barely begin to think about who's gonna be working our dairy farms and picking our apples. I believe because of Vermont's history of resiliency and independence, we have the capacity to act to make sure that from this legislative body, there is a proactive common sense response to people's ability to grow food. Very quietly during COVID, there were little messages that came out from the state about encouraging people to grow gardens. It wasn't changing anything legally, but it was there and it was just the quietest little It wasn't like it was put out on the table for everybody to look at. But I do really enjoy my neighbors. I am hearing stories. I am 70. My budget, I plant for this time in my life. And I am shocked that I've gone from being able to buy a week's worth of food. I'm very committed to certain organic foods so that I maintain healthy lifestyle. I've gone from a $100.120 a week for the food that I need for a week to three fifty dollars in the last two months. I cannot get out of the store sometimes for less than $80 if I've bought some chicken and maybe hamburger, if that's part of my grocery list for that day. So I'm imploring you because I don't want that to be the issue that what's going on nationally to be the issue for this, because that's not how it started for me. But I do believe that many, many people are like deer in the headlights and what they're not in order to just stay balanced with the amount of change and the energy of crisis in the area, in the air, they're not connecting the dots about what is going to come when we have to start tilling soil on this country. And I think we can do something to have calm and that spirit of Vermont from Vermont. She's got her feet on the ground. Okay? So that's it.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Good. Thank you, Cher. And and I have no doubt that you will take your this rebel energy and not leave it here in this room, but expand it to other other rooms in the building. Thank you for coming in.

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: Okay. Thank you. Here are

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: my radishes and lettuce will be

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: planted in April, even up

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: at Derby if I have to shovel my race down.

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: See? So people are already sitting with their catalogs and ordering their seed. All right, so I'm going to take back the rebel thing and just say, I'm a good Vermonter, having the tradition of what it means to be a really good Vermonter. All right.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you very much.

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: And is someone going to let me know what the next steps are as you look at this?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay,

[Cher Feitelberg, South Burlington resident (Stonehenge North HOA board member)]: I'm happy to come by anytime and revel in this amazing experience, being part of her with us all.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: All right. Oliver, I see you on the screen, and you can hear us all right?

[Oliver Pierson, Director of Forests, VT Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation]: Yes, I can hear you, Can you hear me okay?

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: Yep. Loud and clear. And Billy

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Custer is joining us in person. And I don't know whether either of you wants to have screen sharing as we set that up.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: I think

[Billy Coster, Director of Planning & Policy, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources]: Oliver was gonna more or less run it, if that's okay with you, Oliver.

[Oliver Pierson, Director of Forests, VT Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation]: Yeah. That sounds good. I I will, in a minute here, request permission to share my screen to walk through the some some statutory language edits. Now, hopefully, I have that privilege already, or that can be given. I see a green share button, so maybe I'm good to go.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: You'd be good to go, yeah. And then while you're doing that, I'll just point out to the committee that what's going to appear on the screen is also on our committee page. So we're hearing now from Agency of Natural Resources on the proposed language that the Land Use Review Board shared with us last week, implementing some of the recommendations from the wood products manufacturers report. And you'll remember that the board came in, had draft language on recommendation one, nine, and 10. They had already done number one that was preparing a fact sheet. So we were left with nine and ten. So I don't think that ANR is addressing number one here at all. I think it's mostly nine and ten. With that, Bill, if you want

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: to Sure. Good

[Billy Coster, Director of Planning & Policy, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources]: afternoon, for record. My name is Billy Coster. I'm the director of planning and policy for the Vermont Agency Natural Resources. I'm here to support Oliver today as a subject matter expert in Act two fifty. One of my roles in the agency is to manage the agency's Office of Planning that represents ANR and our three departments in proceedings for Act two fifty district commissions as well as the Public Utility Commission. So when Act two fifty applications are filed, we have a statutory obligation to provide district commissions evidence and recommendations as to whether those projects meet the environmental criteria. So we work with forest and parks, fish and wildlife and others to do that work. So while FPR is leading the policy conversation here, I'm here to help answer questions about how this stuff might work in practice.

[Oliver Pierson, Director of Forests, VT Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation]: Great. And my name's Oliver Pearson. I'm the director for forest within the Vermont Department of Forest Parks and Recreation. I'm actually on leave today up in the Northeast Kingdom, but doing my best to stay current on this. So I'll begin with some background and then get into some of the specific points we want to make. So I think, Chair, as you just alluded, on January 16, the Land Use Review Board published a memo on their website containing Wood Products Manufacturers Report statutory language recommendations. This memo was also provided to this committee on February 5. It was provided to our department as well and the Agency of Natural Resource. And this memo builds on recommendations in the Act 181 Wood Products Manufacturers Report submitted to the legislature in June 2025. And I'll start by saying that ANR appreciates the Legacy Review Board's efforts towards strengthening statute by aligning language pertaining to forestry with that pertaining to agriculture and facilitating appropriate review for development without imposing undue burden on logging and forestry. So just going back a little bit, ANR, and specifically the Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation, was charged in Act 181 to consult with the Land Use Review Board on this report. The Land Use Review Board was in the lead. And this report was developed based on significant effort from the Land Use Review Board and FPR staff during the course of 2025, significant public consultations, stakeholder committee meetings, permit analysis and structured interview with permits, permit holders and applicants. That represented a real significant body of work, and I'm pleased that this committee is interested in pursuing some of the recommendations from this report. As mentioned, key recommendations number nine and number 10 from the report involve a number of statutory reform ideas really aimed at achieving the legislative mandate in Act 181 of addressing the Act two fifty permitting process to better support wood products manufacturers and their role in forest economy. And as you all recall, FPR visited with you on January 22 to discuss FPR's perspectives on the legislative reform recommendations in the report prior to the memo being released. And I'll briefly just remind you that ANR's key reform priorities were around sort of better aligning the Act two fifty permit requirements related to forestry and logging with existing language that exists now for the Agriculture Center, and specifically agricultural exemptions from Act two fifty permit jurisdiction. And during that testimony, in regards to recommendation nine in the report, was to extend benefits to logging and forestry that are similar to those conferred to farming, We shared with you that this is a key recommendation that both the Leadership Report and FPR support that's in the report, and we feel that any action related to this recommendation must also address Act two fifty amendment, permit amendment jurisdiction, permit conditions that in some cases impede forestry operations and or conflict with Department approved forest management plans. And we provided some examples of that in our hearing, in our testimony back in January. And then sort of the other key recommendation, recommendation 10, was reinstating the exemption for log and pulp concentration yards. And it's great to see that they proposed statutory change that draws from the report language in recommendation 10 is moving forward in the memo that the Land Use Review Board put forward. And we view that this is a simple process reinstating an exemption for log and pulp concentration errors as it existed prior to 2022. And then before we get into our specific recommendations, I'll just briefly mention that our third priority recommendation that FPR presented to this committee back in January was that the Stony Brook determination process should be triggered automatically rather than simply offered as a potential path to an applicant. The memo with statutory reform language proposed by the Land Industry Review Board is silent on this issue, but I am pleased that the Land Industry Review Board will make the availability of the Stony Brook determination process known to Wood Products Manufacturers applicants via the new fact sheet and supplemental guidance that are mentioned in Recommendation one that Chair Gurfee already mentioned. So with that brief introduction, I'll get into our specific recommended edits to the statutory reform language that the Landis Review Board has put forth. We feel that these edits are consistent with previous FPR formal comments on the Wood Products Manufacturers Report and consistent with the stated goal for this whole effort in Act 181. And so at this point, I'll share my screen and sort of walk the committee through these edits. I would just also let the committee know that I do have a hard stop at four p. M. So hopefully we can conclude any necessary business on this during that time. So Chair, I think you mentioned that this memo has been submitted to the committee. And so what what I'll briefly do is is walk through the different statutory reform recommendations the Landis Review Board put forth and then hide some suggested edits or changes to that language that that ANR is is suggesting. And so, you know, the first one was a change to 10 VSA 6,001, subsection three, which is which is a definition section. And I think you've already seen the memo, so I don't need to spend a lot of time on on what the LERB, Leadership Report put forward in in their memo. I'll move to our suggested edits, which are in red ink. Hopefully, Chair, this approach is working for you. If the screen is too small to read or anything in the room, please let me know. Essentially what ANR wanted to do is provide some edits to the language in this recommendation in this recommended text as follows. One, we as you'll hear from me next, we didn't feel that the terms logging and forestry merit new definitions, hence the recommended edit to strike the text here at the top of the page as defined in subsection. And then we felt that it was important to be clear that the portions of the personal tract that support the development or mitigation areas necessary for the development to comply with another chapter related to Act two fifty shall be subject to regulation under this chapter. It was in conversations with our colleagues in the Fish and Wildlife Department who reminded us that there are some active 50 permits, arguably 100 acre plot, where development is occurring on 10 acres of that plot. Then to mitigate or offset that development, there's some permit conditions that could pertain to how forests are managed for the remaining balance of the, in this example, 90 acres. And so specifically citing that those mitigation areas should be jurisdictional is the goal of that added language there. Continuing through this paragraph to the next sentence, it starts with permits issued. We added some similar text there. Permits issued under this chapter shall not impose conditions in other portions of the parcel that are attractive land do not support the development or necessary mitigation areas and they restrict or conflict with logging or forestry activities, including the implementation of the AMPs or the acceptable management practices that protect water quality jobs in Vermont water quality and logging jobs in Vermont, excuse me. And I can answer questions in a second about why we added that sentence there, but it's essentially ensuring that there's no permit conditions that prevent the implementation of AMPs, which are, you know, a very important part of of protecting water quality for unlawky jobs in Vermont, as mentioned. And then finally, we added some text at the end of this, clause that essentially, you know, says that any of the parcel that's not being used to produce excuse me, any portion of the parcel that's being used to produce wood products for a wood products manufactured and looked at elsewhere on the tract shall not constitute land that supports this development unless it is also used for some other purpose that supports the development, including necessary mitigation areas. So the point of this is to limit the Act two fifty jurisdiction to portions of the partial excuse me, portions of the parcel it's a tongue twister, that are essentially necessary to meet sort of the legislative intent of Act two fifty and therefore limited jurisdiction there. So this is sort of one of the various edits we're proposing. This is probably the most substantive. So, sure, I can either stop there and take questions or we can continue.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, let's just pause for questions. Is the last sentence in red here that's underlined that you've added in this paragraph that specifically say wood products manufacturers, is this sort of a belts and suspenders sentence, or is it is it necessary because this is not covered elsewhere?

[Billy Coster, Director of Planning & Policy, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources]: Do you want me to speak to that, Oliver?

[Oliver Pierson, Director of Forests, VT Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation]: Sure, go ahead.

[Billy Coster, Director of Planning & Policy, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources]: So there's a similar clause in the ag exemption already in Act two fifty. And correct me if I'm wrong, Oliver, but this is intended to be clear that if there's a jurisdictional development on a property that uses wood products as a raw material, and you're harvesting that wood from that parcel, the harvesting of that wood is not jurisdictional to Act two fifty. So unless you own a large parcel, operate a mill or some sort of facility that has an Act two fifty permit, but you're not encumbered elsewhere if you're feeding wood into that development.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay, good, thank you. I brought this up earlier and maybe in committee and definitely offline and talking with Ledge Council. And I just wanna mention it here that if you scroll up, Oliver, to the very bottom of the first page where the sentence begins. So this is the proposed new language when development is proposed to occur on a track of land that's devoted to logging and forestry activity and noting that this is language that exists. It's parallel to the language that exists in the previous section for agriculture that And it's the devoted to that expression that I just wanted to double check on. And be sure that there isn't and we talked about this with the board too. And you know, the the board is proposing a language. The board is pointing out the same language that's exists for ag, and we understand what it means. Everybody's clear on it. But since it's not the way we would normally talk in regular discourse. At some point, wanna be sure a court doesn't come in and say, well, actually, no. We're interpreting things differently. We know that courts sometimes do that. If for example, and we use this example the other day, you have a 100 acres, 90 acres are not forested for one reason or another. And the 10 acres are, and you're interested in logging those 10 acres, is it clear that that parcel is devoted to logging and forestry? Because if it's not, then none of the rest of this apply, it seems to me. So that's I I realized that you've gone on then and you're addressing you're we're only talking about, you know, the mitigation areas or supporting development areas. But I just want to be sure that we're not like right off the bat, excluding a parcel like the one I just described. And if if you have any thoughts or reactions to that, but again, the the board's reaction is, yeah. We, you know, we think it's okay to leave this as is. So if I'm the only one objecting at this point, then that's fine too. But I just wanna ask our witnesses if they have any reaction to that. Think, I'll take

[Billy Coster, Director of Planning & Policy, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources]: this to for Oliver. I think this was a concern that Forest Parks and Recreation did raise for the same reasons you're articulating. I think we felt that since this was the proposal that there's been this long standing exemption for agriculture that seems to have worked that uses this language that we were comfortable with their recommendation. But certainly, if this is something that the committee feels like could be refined further, we'd be open to that conversation. I think as we go further down, there is another provision that explicitly says forestry and logging below 2,500 feet is exempt from Act two fifty. So that is kind of the bell suspenders for this one.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: So if it's like, what if we did I'm wondering what's like normally when we're not talking about a parcel track of land that is developed to log in or forestry or agriculture. So if it's just that when developers proposed to occur on a parcel of track land, only those that we're cut out the part about logging, only those portions of the parcel of tract land that support the development or mitigation areas, areas necessary for development shall be subject to the regulation. What is normally the case if we're not doing forestry or agriculture?

[Billy Coster, Director of Planning & Policy, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources]: Is it the whole tract is automatically under Act two fifty? The whole tract is jurisdictional unless the landowner or applicant goes through what's referred to as the Stony Brook analysis, which allows you to limit jurisdiction to just the portion that directly supports the jurisdictional development. And that is an option for any forest landowner to go through. They're going through Act two fifty. So that would narrow jurisdiction altogether. I think what's suggested here is that the whole parcel could stay in under Act two fifty jurisdiction, but the only time that restrictions could only apply to activities that support the development, not things that happen outside of it. And that's the way the law is intended to work. I think this is like just trying to be overly explicit for things like agriculture and forestry that can't limit those activities, even though you're regulating some other activity on the same property.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: So, you're saying that normally, regardless of whether agriculture or forestry is taking place on the property, normally when there is a proposed development on land that only the area that the development is taking place in will fall under Act two fifty

[Billy Coster, Director of Planning & Policy, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources]: and plus the mitigation area. The whole property would be in Act two fifty jurisdiction. But in theory, the Act two fifty permit for that development should only apply to the development itself for kind of any mitigation area necessary. It's this concept of nexus that you can't unduly put restrictions on someone's property that aren't necessary to comply with the criteria or offset the impacts of the development. Candidly, it happens sometimes that Act two fifty permits are more pervasive that maybe a neighbor asks for and a landowner agrees to restrictions that are broader than what is at the very minimum necessary to meet those criteria. So I think this is trying to be really explicit that in situations where agriculture and forestry are taking place, that that practice is not appropriate.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Good, thank you. And thank you for answering or reacting to my question. I'm honestly inclined to just leave it if we've got agreement between two different folks who are weighing in here of two different perspectives, I'm not gonna complicate things further, I think. But representative Lipsky.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Yeah, Billy, I I think the chairman's example sort of flipped the script for the last few weeks, we've used the term 90 of those 100 acres will remain in active management, forestry, and 10 acres are being removed for developmental purposes. And the last example was 90 acres will be, know, come under jurisdiction back in '50, but not just 10 acres that are actually forested. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And it actually was a concern that we heard from stakeholders.

[Billy Coster, Director of Planning & Policy, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources]: Again, I think it's a valid concern, and that language devoted to seems pretty archaic. So I think if you all are and I know all of our employees, if you all are interested in exploring that further, we're certainly open to it. I think we didn't have a great solution necessarily in mind, given that the LERB felt like this was appropriate. So we could work with them a little bit more to see if we can come up with something that's mutually agreeable.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: All right. Well, why don't we move on?

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Take a moment.

[Oliver Pierson, Director of Forests, VT Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation]: Great. Yeah. Thanks, Chair. So the next set of reforms that the Land Use Review Board put forward were to add definitions for logging and forestry in Section 10 BSA 6,001 of statute. I know you've had some discussions about this, so I'll move on to sort of our reaction to that. We don't really support the creation of new definitions for logging and forestry in VSA 6,001. There is a definition that already exists in both Title X and Title XII for forestry operations. Logging and forestry today are not defined terms in statute in Vermont, and the LERD proposed definitions are somewhat inconsistent with the existing statutory definition for forestry operations, and the risks are they being limiting or causing confusion as we try to govern this sector. I know we try to stay as consistent as possible with the the Act report, 01/1981, the products manufacturers report, and the report itself did not propose introducing definitions for these two terms, and therefore we didn't vet those ideas with stakeholders in the same manner that the other 10 recommendations that do form the basis for the report were vetted. So I have some more specific concerns about these two definitions, are up on the screen here and in the document that we shared with you. I can go through them, Chair Durfee, but I think that the key point is, you know, these definitions, really, you know, I think at the end of the day, we don't feel that introducing new definitions for these terms that define an activity that is within FPR's jurisdiction, existing jurisdiction to regulate, encourage and promote, etcetera, under Title X is you know, is advisable at this point, and as I said, could create some confusion. We do think it would be fine to refer, if that's needed within the Activities context, the existing definition of forestry operations. It's in 10 BSA 5,401. That would provide consistency and avoid any unintended consequences. And then certain aspects of the definition around logging were sort of there's some specific concerns about those. But I'll stop there unless anyone has any any follow-up questions they wanna ask on this point.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative Burke.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Oliver, one of the things that I think was, I saw when it was included in the definition of logging, having the log and pulp concentration yards in there, One of the ideas was to make sure that they weren't gonna come under Act two fifty. Is there

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: looks like the language that

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: we have proposed here isn't really addressing those. That's the long yards.

[Oliver Pierson, Director of Forests, VT Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation]: If I scroll down to the next point, you know, it's we're actually trying to remove logging pulp concentration yards from the definition of wood products manufacturer. That's that's one of the key recommendations recommendations we we made made when we visited you in January. Prior to 2022, the definition of wood products manufacturer did, did not include log and pulp concentration yards. That, that was added in, in 2022, and we think that was an oversight. And, And the clear recommendation from the report was to remove log and pulp concentration yards from that definition. Representative Berg, I think hopefully that answers your question about our intent here by removing I'll just sculpt it down again, by removing log and pulse concentration nodes, which you can see here in the text. It's in strike through from the definition of wood products manufacturer. Reduces or removes some of the activity jurisdiction over those sites. Does that that answer your question, representative?

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yeah. Yeah. That does. Yes.

[Billy Coster, Director of Planning & Policy, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources]: Thanks. So

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: the the definition there when it was created inadvert so it was created in legislation four or five years ago, and it inadvertently, I think we can say, included log in bulk concentration. It it wasn't as though it was like, it didn't previously say anywhere in statute that logging or forestry did include log concentration errors. It was the statute was silent on that. So this, I think, just striking the language gets us where we need to be, I would I would think. So representative Lipsky.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Thank you. I I concur. I very much support the language under logging. My question, it came up in a discussion. You used the word fertilization, and it just came up in committee discussion. And I was thinking that perhaps liming, if you were seeding and mulching adjacent to screen crossing, you needed to amend the soil. When else would fertilization be used in a forestry operation?

[Oliver Pierson, Director of Forests, VT Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation]: Yeah. I think under the AMPs, as as you point out, representative Lipsky, that's part of closeout. It's an option to loggers when they're, as you said, seeding and mulching, sometimes a steep slope is often associated with a stream crossing, permanent or temporary stream crossing, and the fertilizer can be used to help regrow vegetation to stabilize those soils. That's sort of the key elements of it. As you know, Representative Lipsky, fertilization is not something that's used as part of either natural or even selective directed regeneration efforts.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Alright. Thank you. That makes it clear. Thank you. Alright.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So the the in any case, the position the agency's position is we don't need to include definition new definitions here for logging and forestry. We're we're okay with continuing with essentially the status quo without adding these definitions. Correct.

[Billy Coster, Director of Planning & Policy, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources]: Or to or to use refer to correct me if I'm wrong or definitely some existing definition elsewhere in statute that for forestry that could be approved.

[Oliver Pierson, Director of Forests, VT Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation]: Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I know your time is limited, Oliver, so if you wanna press on to the last section.

[Oliver Pierson, Director of Forests, VT Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation]: Sure. Yeah. And I think I think, Billy, I I agree with what you just said. So finally, this is this this third section out of four is saying we agree with the Landis Review Board's proposal to strike log and pulp concentration yards from the definition of wood products manufacturer. That was part of the report's recommendation. So in the last section, the Landis Review Board was proposing to amend 10 BSI 6,081 regarding jurisdiction for permanent amendments over logging and forestry below the elevation of 2,500 feet. And so what we did here was we really tried to make the language proposed we support the concept, but we tried to make the language proposed to really mirror that that's used to govern permit conditions in the agriculture sector. And so to point one here, it's a slight change to say no permanent permit amendment is required for logging and forestry below the elevation of 2,500 feet that will not conflict with any permit condition issued pursuant to this chapter. And that mirrors exactly the language for agriculture. The way that the Land History Report had worded it was a little more expansive, and we felt more comfortable with it being narrowed to the existing language used in agriculture. And then number two was basically saying permits shall include a statement that logging and forestry activities consistent with the subsection and below the elevation of 2,500 feet are exempt from amendment jurisdiction of this subsection. Billy alluded to that earlier. This is really that key reinforcement of the concept that as long as logging and forestry are consistent with the other text of this subsection below 200 feet, they're exempt from amendment jurisdiction under this subsection. So that means that there's as we said earlier, it's still possible there might need to be some mitigation regarding a development that impacts logging and forestry. The logging and forestry itself, as long as they're consistent with the subsection below the elevation, remain exempt. So I'll stop there, Chair. And Bill, you might want to come in if you want to add any clarification to our edits on this last section.

[Billy Coster, Director of Planning & Policy, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources]: Yeah, I think you covered it, Oliver. Really, the intent here is that logging and forestry is allowed unless it runs afoul of a specific existing Act two fifty condition on the property. But beyond that, it should be allowed without any Act two fifty oversight.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So the language that you've struck there, proposed striking, Oliver, at the very bottom, violate any finding, conclusion, term, or condition. So the word condition is the one that's consistent. Is the concern that including finding a conclusion or term in this language might cause? And recognizing that it's not parallel to what's with existing with agriculture, setting that aside, what is the concern?

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: I think part of the concern Go ahead.

[Billy Coster, Director of Planning & Policy, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources]: So the conditions are very specific and say, these are the restrictions that run with the land. They're very clear and intentional. These other references to findings, conclusions, terms, this goes deep into the Act two fifty record, and there's some concern that there might be an inadvertent reference of how much land might be logged or cut for the property. There just may be some incongruity amongst those different portions of an Act two fifty application for some future use for logging. So we just didn't want to see a situation where someone opposed to logging or forestry on a property dug through a 20 old Act two fifty application and said, Oh, you didn't affirmatively say you're going to cut trees on your back 40, so therefore it violates the terms of that application. And since agriculture doesn't include that long list of potential sources, we thought it would be appropriate to take it out. The conditions are really what are controlling, so we thought leaving that in was most critical.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Right. I'm gonna say thank you and just look around the table one more time and see if anybody else has any thoughts. I know you've submitted this to the board. Thank you for their reaction. And I believe the board may be meeting in the next couple of days and hopefully will take a look and and hopefully let us know if they have any reaction in turn. And we will have some further conversation about this tomorrow morning. Thank you for coming in. Thank you.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Great answer. Yeah.

[Oliver Pierson, Director of Forests, VT Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation]: Thanks for the opportunity. We look forward to discussing this with with the board and as needed and with you as needed in the future. So we'll sign off. Thanks again.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So I'm gonna have us just take a thirty second break here. I wanna be sure that we have the letter posted. Yep. We do. Okay. So let's just take a thirty second break.