Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Now back to the wood products manufacturing report and recommendations. We had some conversation this morning about that, and we asked L. L. Chittenden would stop and help us with some of the questions that came up. And Representative Burtt, I know you had one, so why don't

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: we start with you? Yeah, my question is if we were to change where it says development is proposed to occur on a parcel tract of land is devoted to log property activity, only those portions of the parcel, dot dot. We change that to when development is proposed to occur on a parcel or tract of land and take out that is devoted to logging and forestry activity. So if it was boarded when development is proposed to occur on parcel or tract of land, only those portions of the parcel of that tract of land that support development or mitigation areas necessary for the development. Five of 10, they say so on and so forth. How would that change? How would that potentially change things? So no longer having it be devoted to just attractive land that if we had to just say attract or parcel attractive land, that to me, if we have a piece of land that David brought up last time, think those say 90% open, 10% forested, is that even if you had or forestry on the 10 acres, is that land devoted to logging or forestry? It's only 10% forested, 90% of the land, regardless of what's happening in the rest of the land. My question is, I was just wondering if we were able to simplify it to removing the part of that devoted flag or even further into, I wouldn't necessarily change this, but we're trying to make this line with the agricultural sector that says devoted to agriculture. Why can't it just be a piece of land? And then if you're looking to put a development on it, that

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: focus for the Act two fifty would be the part of the

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: land that's devoted to the development. So why can't we just do that?

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Don't take out the office legislative

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: council. You could do that. However, I wouldn't draft it that way because what you are proposing is a significant departure from how Act two fifty works. And if you are interested in doing that, I would I would write it differently, because I think we would need to amend other parts of the statute. If I'm understanding, you're saying for any other thing besides farming or forestry, just in general, two fifty jurisdiction by default would just attach to the portion around the development, not the whole parcel?

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Such yeah.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. So you could do that. That is a policy choice. That I wouldn't I would put it here or draft it this way. I would I would we would need to reorganize a full a few other statutes. So if you're interested in doing that, you can. There's act two fifty pace law from, I think it's from '80 from the eighties. So not long after act two fifty was, established that says it attaches to the whole parcel. And that is in the rule currently also in addition to other parts of the definition of development. And so, in '2 I think it's 2006, this carve out was made for agriculture, and then now you're proposing it for forestry, and it's it's specifically linked to these, agriculture as a as a recognized long time exemption of act two fifty. And so, I think that is a way that you could go, but I would wanna redraft it if that's where you're gonna go.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So it has I mean, not to put words in your mouth, but larger implications? Yes. So we can perhaps pursue further what those implications would be. But I think for the time being, let's just put a pin in it and say, okay, larger implications than might otherwise appear to the Yeah, okay. Go ahead, Representative Nelson. Yeah.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Firewood operation.

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: I I

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: so you have a log landing, and you're working a big wood lot. Maybe it's a multi year project. Is it legit for someone to set up their processor right there on the land and and make firewood at the end of the day or on a rainy day when they can't be pulling logs and they've got their logs stacked up right there? Can they process firewood and deliver out of there, or do they need to go through active 50 for that? It's a two part question. Is that fair

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: enough? Yeah.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: What is the processing that goes into firewood? I'm not sure I know.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Is it just They they they got a rig that cuts it. It could be a one. It's mobile. Mhmm.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: That's not permanent or fixed to us.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. And, you know, when they they put a log on, an ugly log, those are pretty long, Jed will take it to the they put an ugly log on and they cut it into twelve, sixteen, 30 inch wood, whatever, and it drops onto it and gets hammered and splits into four pieces, goes in a conveyor and loads into a little dump truck for our pickup or trailer or whatever to be looked trucked off-site. It it tech in tech technicality is leaving as a finished product, but actually the finished products when it gets turned into ash in the wood stove, but it's you know, so, you know, these are the types of things. And and my second part of that question is, would that be allowable use in tier three?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I'm gonna let Ledge Council answer your question. I will say that unless I'm confused, your questions don't relate to the draft of the bill. Well, yeah. Maybe they do. Maybe they do.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The first question I think does. So currently firewood producers are including the definition of wood product manufacturer. So they are not exempt under forestry. They are part of the the classification for wood products manufacturers.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So they have to sneak their processor on their land.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Do you want to should

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I Certainly, yes.

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: I think there is, for lack of a better chance

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I'm sorry, but for the record,

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: can I'm you just introduce a member of the Landry Street View Board, and I wish Kirsten Sultan were here because she's our former coordinator who implemented and did quite a bit of work in this arena. However, my understanding is that, so when you have development that is triggered for a processing plant or whatever, it has to be just collection on the lane. There has to be like something done, like a building being erected or something like that. There is what I would refer to as sort of like a de minimis exception kind of thing for the horrible sawmills that are on-site, are processing in the actual location that the logging is going on. And then there is another in the definition, I think it's in either Title 10 or Title 12, that discusses sawmill processing that is not on site where the actual logs are being cut and harvested. And that has a number, like a volume temporal limitation. So that smaller, you can do what you are proposing because this vertical sawmill, like you said, it gets moved from place to place and it's for smaller, it's complicated for smaller jobs of linacitulation because these mechanisms create very large sound noise. And so the notion I think was a balance that we can allow this because it's not forever and it's limited time. So we don't need to worry about the aesthetic impacts on the neighbors because so what, it's for two weeks of summer or something like that. I just wanted to make sure that that's understood, there are those provisions to try to accommodate that kind of activity. Thank

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: you. Did you want to answer the other part of the

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: question before we go on? So

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: can you, I don't think I fully understood what you were asking about tier In

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: tier three.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We have so it's not fully defined yet. So I'll say that, but go ahead.

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So in in tier three, there's exemptions for forestry and agriculture in tier three. And the question, which had nothing to do with this bill, was about agricultural buildings in tier three, sugar house barn, accessory on farm structures, and realize that's separate. My question is, for someone to set up a site for wood firewood manufacturing, you know, and know, and they set up more of a permanent site where they're bringing wood off-site going to there. That would, by definition, trip nineteen fifty because it's more of a permanent site.

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah, the line of demarcation, again, is for, I believe, the Land Use Review Board. We have a separation where you get into a commercial venture. Commercial is regulated by Act two fifty. So the question really becomes, at what point does this activity go beyond what is meant for the exemption of these certain activities that are related to forestry, but some forestry activities, processing and creation of wood products, that can be commercial once it goes beyond that layer. There

[Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: is a limited number of cord, I guess.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Jed, am I right? That was yeah, go ahead, Jed. For the record, Jed, but it's the idea that it's called the Palm Mountain. With regard to I'm gonna back up and we'll get to this moment. Yeah. But the notion act two fifty is triggered by default, and you've both used two different terms. A firewood processor, most all of them come on wheels. It is doing what is typically on a landing, it's what's called a slasher saw and loader, and that will take a whole tree, make saw logs, make firewood logs, make pulp logs, and then load chip wood into another pile, it's soils. Richard asked about a mobile firewood processor, which also may not have it's on wheels, and it is taking product being skidded or forwarded to the landing, processed into the firewood. It is not developed. There is no concrete slab or pad needs to be that might trigger development to some foundation. So I I don't see any violation. Does the same thing in a less sophisticated way than a slasher loader, which is a typical logging tool, where that's basic processing of the language. Let's see what Nelson.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I wanted to just be careful that we don't go too far down too many rabbit holes, just given the amount of time that we have here. And just circle back to remind everybody that there are basically two things that came out of the LERB that were recommendations. And we're trying to craft language that that would enact those two recommendations and would be acceptable to the LERV, ideally, and would be acceptable to other stakeholders, ideally, and that will therefore be enacted, signed into law. So it's just these two things right now that we are concerned about. One of them is pretty straightforward, I think, removing from the definition of wood products manufacturers log and pulp concentration yards. And that's accomplished in the draft that we looked at from Ellen. I think the L. R. B. Supports that, ANR supports it. They simply frost out log and bulk concentration yards. Check. That recommendation, I think, we're good with. So then what we're left with is the other recommendation, which was number nine, just if you're remembering. That was the one to try and line up logging in forestry with giving them the same treatment that agriculture gets. So this is where it gets a little more nuanced. And when ANR came in, they had all the red ink that we saw on that report yesterday was basically their recommendations for some changes to the board's language. And part of what's nuanced here, and this is a question I think that representative O'Brien asked this morning, I'll let you ask the question rather than me rephrase it, but is just getting at what's actually the distinction. Ellen, And your insight here will be helpful, I think, the subtle distinction between language A from the LERD and language B from ANR. But John, do you wanna-

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: I know it's mostly coming from confusion in that. I mean, we heard agriculture, if there's that, our model of the 100 acres with the 10 acres of development, that if there's a trigger for an Act two fifty permit that because it's agriculture, it immediately Stony Brook's triggered essentially, whereas on the forest and logging side, it wasn't, you had to request it.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, there's a provision specifically in statute for farming.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: And so this is going to align them so in the future, that parcel devoted to logging and forestry, if it had that 10 acres of development, Stony Brook would immediately come into play. I mean, it would be an option for the person. You wouldn't have to request it.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I'm not going to use Stony Brook.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Okay.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Because I think it is causing confusion.

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: This this concept. Sure. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: The

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: concept that the active duty jurisdiction shall only attach to the partial on that parcel for the portion that is devoted to development, not the portions that are being used for an exemption an exempt use. That is what would be in this language to mirror the farming language.

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Putting it in statute

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Agricultural and forest and logging have traditionally been exempt. If this was neither of those, just 100 acres, but 10 acres is being developed, there's no stone and crook or none of those exemption ever.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The activity jurisdiction would attach to the whole parcel. Yes.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So so we are maybe, like, out of just lack of familiarity and, you know, a little bit of knowledge goes a long way using the word Stony Brook, perhaps not precisely. We understand that it's sort of we've heard that it's sort of similar, but what you're proposing is what what we're all proposing is not like we're gonna do something with Stony Brook. In fact, we had that was part of the fact sheet that we asked them to develop, but it's similar. So can you explain how it's similar and how it's different?

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. I can get back to you. I can get back to you on that question. If you want to stop here.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Can we ask the board member? Okay. Yeah.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: All right,

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: so to begin with, two fifty, to answer the question that you were talking about, should we just jettison devote it to lobbying and more street? Well, would change how Active fifty works, the most essential basis. And that is, I'm in a 10 acre town, I'm gonna have a neighborhood lot, and I I wanna get all the commercial help. It attaches to the entire lot or to attractive land. So And Stony Brook, what happened was there was some development on a tract and they were like, Hey, we don't wanna have to come back for an Act two fifty permit to go do logging on the rest of our land. That's basically of it. It was like, we don't wanna have to come back to Act two fifty, so we wanna go online without subdividing our property. Because we don't have to go through that household, how should we have the government to do something that we should have the right to do? So what we're also talking about now is the reverse. And here's something that I do want to be understood and that is, so that tract of land was my tract of land and I subjected it to Act two fifty jurisdiction because I wanted to do a commercial development. Now I decided I wanna do farming. That's how Stony Brook came about. Now, there's the reverse situation where I haven't done anything with my land and now I wanna go to two fifty and say, Hey, I don't want you to have jurisdiction over this whole area because I wanna go do logging on that and I shouldn't need a permit for it. And in fact, they can just go do logging on that and not even come to Act two fifty and even talk to us if that's what they're doing. But if they also now want to, they've been logging and now they wanna do a development and I don't wanna use a 10 acre portion of it, it's like the opposite or the reverse of study work, it's happening in a different world, that's all. And and it happens so infrequently, that's the other thing. Spending a lot of time on the Stony Brook or the reverse Stony Brook thing, and it happens like a handful of times in almost fifty years, literally, to my knowledge. So it is an important thing, I think, for not just farming, for logging. Logging's a little bit different because it's moving around. It's not in a place like a farm stays in a place. And that's one of the challenges that we had. But we literally tried to just be identical in the actual language. But there were a couple of alterations like the AMPs. Well, have the same kinds of regulations that they're supposed to be following as well. So that's kind of the backdrop to all of this. Now, in terms of the language changes, my position that I will be discussing with the board tomorrow, I think Kirsten Sultan, who's also working on this, who is a district coordinator, has some concerns, but we don't necessarily need these definitions, but what needs to be clear is that we are not creating another exemption. Farming and logging and forestry have exemptions. And the question I think from the chair the other day of ANR was, is this felts and suspenders or are we creating some new exemption here with this one sentence? And I'm forgetting where it is exactly in the thing, but it's such a confusing sense. I don't even understand what it means in the A and R activities well. Something about like, if there's commercial activity and we are producing firewood or something on the property, we wanna be able to sell that firewood to the development and not have that as part of the development, I'm not clear on what they were trying to accomplish, but I believe that the world will not be in favor of creating yet another exemption, certainly with that language, because I don't even understand what it means, but logging and forestry are exempt, but that doesn't mean that if you then become a commercial venture, even though it happens to involve forest products, that you are commercially now turning into furniture or whatever you're doing, that is not something that I believe the board would be in favor of creating or expanding that exemption, because that's the line of demarcation between forestry logging versus then turning those products, isn't the right word, those raw materials into perfect products, if that makes sense.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representing pretty.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: So what you're saying is you got 100 acres, want a log, want and to develop 10, get a subdivision.

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Well, no, I don't think that you need to. Doing this like reverse Stony Brook kind of notion would allow you to segment and draw a line without actually subdividing. Okay, So that, maybe you don't wanna do that because down the road you have three little kids and you might wanna subdivide your property equally for them or something of that nature. It's an important tool. It's useful because Act two fifty does in fact apply to the entire lot or tract planning. But I would be concerned about turning that into every, or in fact, two fifty permit. That would be beyond, I think, what we could certainly deal with in terms of implementation without having this in the future to plan for.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So can I also just reiterate? So I have not actually read the Stony Brook decision. I have read the summary of it. And so I think it is actually specific to amendments. And so the language in the draft is a is going after two separate issues to work together. So you have the issue about when someone is initially applying for a permit and sort of segmenting just around the development. And then for those who already have a permit and as as Brooke mentioned, want to do an exempt activity, needing an amendment to their existing permit. And so that's why there's multiple sections within this about that.

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: It's just so you're right on, there's actually, this is Okay. There's actually case law that says, wouldn't it be absurd to allow it as an amendment and not allow it in the first instance? And that is in our guidance document

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative Brian, do you want to follow-up?

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Just a couple of things. So, Stony Brook then was, it was like a cell phone tower on a silo or something. Is that what I understood?

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't think so, but

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: That happened first. This is why I was confused. And then they wanted to farm. And so they thought they needed permitting, but actually it was exempt so they could just go ahead and do it. Well, they didn't have to make an amendment.

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah, it's a little complicated, but just stay with the simplest notion that I already knew about.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: I have some more questions on Act two fifty, Why you did

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: don't you go ahead? Okay, so thinking about If they relate to

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: They do. Yeah. I'm thinking, this case, the reverse Stony Brook, we have the 100 acres, we actually put in a saw mill, it's development, we move land, we move dirt around, so it gets the permitting. But the whole 100 acres is under Act two fifty jurisdiction. Is that right? That's what we heard yesterday. I mean, as far as that parcel is in the whole thing. So what happens with something like current use? If you're not in current use, does Act two fifty have any effect on that if they want to sign up for current use with that track? It doesn't.

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Not that I'm aware of. I can get you a positive answer on that. I don't think that they interact.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Succession, anything on that? If you want to sell it or pass it on to your kids, does it matter with that two fifty?

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: They write the permits for the land.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: They do, okay. And what about de development? If at some point sawmill isn't working out, so you want to essentially tear it down and revert that property to a parcel that's just devoted to forestry and logging. Is that an amendment?

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: There's no undoing activity presently, though I am aware that that is a topic of interest that I think the board would be willing to undertake some examination of in the future. Lots of our board members have lots of ideas about trying to streamline our permitting process, but right now we're so busy with the tasks of 101 that I'll have to wait.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And permits don't contemplate decommissioning necessarily. The permit remains on the land. If there is a material change to the use of the land, it may need an amendment to the permit. Someone else asked me this question today and I haven't looked to see if there has been a permit amendment that would reflect no longer being used as commercial. I don't know if that has happened. I haven't looked.

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Oh, and I'm sorry, I should also just say that there are certain Act two fifty permits that do end and on for example, once the remediation of the land has been accomplished, once that is certified by our district coordinators, then Act two fifty jurisdiction lifts. But there's some permits that written as finite permits knowing that there would be an end date and an obligation to restore the land by a certain date.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So I know that Representative Lipsky had a question. I just want to go back to you. You mentioned the felts and suspenders comment I made yesterday. And I think that what I was alluding to was on page two, for those of you who have pulled this up, and halfway down the page, it's red ink. And the sentence the sentence reads, any portion of the parcel or the tract that is used to produce wood products for a wood products manufacturer located elsewhere on the tract shall not constitute land as forest development. And then there's unless unless it's used for some other purpose as forest development. I and I now am not sure what this means because produce wood products where wood products manufactured located elsewhere is confusing. I think when I read it at first, I was thinking this is produced wood products, it's logging. So porous products maybe is what was meant there. But maybe I'm wrong about that. It says wood products. But I was envisioning, and this is why I thought it might be sort of just additional supportive that if you if you have a wood products manufacturer, it could be a permanent, I suppose, kiln for firewood, or it could be a mill. But somewhere else, on the land you've got forestry, we just should say, sort of reinforcing, saying again, no, you're not gonna have to get another permit or amend a permit or get a permit in the first place for the logging part of it. I don't know whether I'm interpreting this correctly, but that's why I said it at the time.

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah, and is Brooke Engelprenant again. This is the sentence that gives me harsh burn. This is my personal opinion. We are planning on talking about this at our meetings for our other land use street people. But the reason why this language bothers me is that it either is meaningless or it creates an exemption that is not clearly being spelled out. What I mean by it's either meaningless, by saying any portion of the parcel of a tract that is used to produce wood products or a wood products manufacturer located elsewhere on the tract shall not constitute land that supports the development. So the development that they're talking about presumably is, if I want to build an apartment building on this land, and so I want this 10 acres over here to be my development, and I might need 11 acres because I might need some buffering around something. So we decide if in a Stony Brook or reverse Stony Brook situation, we're to draw that line based on what the representations are and what the district coordinator understands the project is and what portion of the land supports that development. So if there is a driveway into that building, that's land that supports the development. That may sound silly, but that's what we're talking about. So I do not understand why some wood products manufacturing activity elsewhere on the land which would be its own development, not having to do with the apartment building that I want to build. If what you're saying is we're gonna produce firewood that's gonna be used at the apartment building in the furnace, well, that wouldn't have anything to do with, that's just a commercial transaction. So I don't understand, it's either part of the development or it's not part of the development, and just re saying the same thing doesn't do anything. That's why I was trying to understand what it was that they were trying to address, and that's my concern, that it's either just muddies the waters and does nothing, or it's creating some kind of exemption for wood products manufacturing that is not contemplated by anybody that I've understood.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: No, I mean, certainly the recommendations aren't suggesting an exemption for wood products manufacturing.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Oh yeah.

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: Yeah, I'm just very confused by this.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay, good. Thank you for bringing it up and clarifying. I'm going

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: to turn it over

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: to Jed. I do just want to say just that while I think we all appreciate the, And it's good to know that over the course of fifty years, there have been more than a handful of situations. But we're in a time, and I think this is why language in Act 81 was there in the first place, where it's gotten so challenging for this industry to do anything, and we're losing people from the industry right and left. Every little thing makes a difference.

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: And if you would just allow me just to further say, but Larry was very, very concerned about our farms, our wood product manufacturing folks, and we want to do everything in our power to be able to support that. I We also want to do it in a predictable way, so that people are not left scratching their heads and trying to figure out the direction to go in. We're taking out the changes that ANR has proposed. I don't have any particular concerns about eliminating the definitions so long as that aspect of when it becomes commercial that still needs to be addressed in the Thank you. And that's my personal opinion. We'll get back to you after

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: your time. Yeah, I understand, yeah. Representative Lipsky.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Thank you, Chairman. My first question was, I don't know what boots and suspenders or belts

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: and suspenders. That's a state house term. Right?

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: It's a state house term.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: That's what mean. So that expression is used around in these parts to talk about language and statute that is redundant, intentionally.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: It's not nothing to do with boots. Bells. Well, thank you. That now I get that they can be redundant. So thank you for that clarification. And what was added by, we called ANR, but I only heard from FPR, so whoever's responsible for this. In the end, the final paragraph, that no permit or permits amendments required for logging enforcement below 2,500 will not conflict with any permit conditions pursuant to this chapter. Permits shall include a statement that logging, activity and force activities consistent with this subdivision and below the elevation of 25 on the feet are exempt from I like that final paragraph, but to counsel Daniel Dine's question about this other red ink, I find that rather confusing and distracting as well. I just don't know what that relates to.

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

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: I question maybe a statement regarding your question, but I'm reading it as similar to what you're saying about bringing firewood to be burned in an apartment development or something like that, where this is speaking directly to, more to like bringing logs out of the woods that would then be used to buy the sawmill to create boards. It's making it very clear that this isn't a part of the sawmill operation. So it shouldn't be looped into the development parcel. The logs are coming from the woods that are then being sawed into boards, being abundant and clear, that's in my reading, this isn't a part of the operation of the development. They're distinct or they should be considered distinct. I don't know how you, I'm not I'm not an but that's what I'm kind of reading is, let's make sure it's clear that just because the woods is supplying wood products to the wood product manufacturer, that that's not gonna be considered, a householder. Constitute land that supports the development.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think that's a great summary. I think we definitely want to be sure that that doesn't somehow get caught up and that that would still be land that you can go and log without a permit. And it doesn't make the difference that development is a good product manufacturer as opposed to you doing something else. We don't, A, we want to be sure that that's what it says and not something else that is entirely different. And then B, do we need it? Do we absolutely need it? Yes.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Just quickly say that under my name today posted on your website is a draft 2.1 of this bill because you did decide to take out the fact sheetguidance piece because they have already completed that. So that is the only change because I think that was a clear decision. So other than that, what's in draft 2.1 is the rest of the text as proposed.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. Good. Yeah. And it's it's sounding like and I recognize, again, you're only one board member, but that other than this section that Representative Burtt just reread, that the board's likely to be comfortable with the other changes that ANR had included, including removing the definitions of logging and forestry?

[Brooke Engelprenant (Member, Land Use Review Board)]: My recommendation, the section you just looked at at the very end, my recommendation is that we accept that change from ANR. I believe Houston and Sultan's position as well. I'm recommending we get rid of the definitions. She wants to make sure if that happens that we are being very clear about line that between two of children that puts you into the commercial arena. Because that's one of the things we're trying to accomplish with the definitions, is to have some clarity on that. But my recommendation to the board would be, we're about 90% there, is what I feel. It's that one sentence I drew your attention to, and my recommendation is we don't need it, because that's how it works anyway. And one of the big challenges with that is the definition of development that goes on for stages and pages, and this is what development is, and Marilyn's got it here, this is what development isn't, and then there's another section sixty, eighty one or 86, and this is when you need a permit, and this is when you don't need a permit. So from my perspective, and I pulled this stuff apart and helped people figure out what's your project and do you need Act two fifty, and if you do, how do you get through it? That's what I did for thirty years. And adding this additional language makes it more complicated, makes yet another argument that you have to think about, talk to your farmer client, just say, what do you think about this? How do I argue that? Or that kind of thing. It just makes it more cumbersome. And that's one of the biggest challenges of activity. It's complicated, it takes time to work through it. So I'm looking for clarity and secrecy. I know, in my opinion, I believe that that's covering, it's not gonna happen under the current regime, but we'll see what the board has to say about my opinion and where they come off, and I'm now responding to you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Well, thank you for stopping by, and let us know if you ever wanna join us again. We're happy to have you. And Ellen, I think we'll digest this and maybe get back to you with some direction for a new draft. And then we'll also look forward to hearing back on Friday after the board has met. And maybe other things will happen in the meantime, too. So thank you. Alright. She's a weapon chair.