Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Alright. Good morning, and welcome to this joint meeting of the House Environment Committee and the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee. It's our first joint meeting of the session. I would like to take a moment to ask folks to introduce themselves, and we will start around the legislative table here with our newest member.

[Representative Michael Hoyt]: Hi, everyone. I'm Mike Hoyt. I represent Hartford, farmer,

[Representative Larry Labor]: Alfred, and Richard Morris.

[Representative Kristi Morris]: Christi Morris, I represent Springfield and that includes North Springfield.

[Representative Sarah "Sarita" Austin]: Yep, I'm Sarita Austin, I represent Colchester 19, which is the Mallets Bay section, and I'm also on the Colchester Planning Commission.

[Representative Kate Logan]: Kate Logan, I represent Burlington, Old North End, and Downtown Burlington.

[Senator Terry Williams]: Terry Williams, representing Rutland District.

[Speaker 0]: Dan Watson, I am representing the Washington senate districts, and I'm chair of the, senate natural resources and energy committee. I'm Amy Sheldon. I represent Middlebury, and I chair the house environment committee.

[Representative Larry Labor]: And I'm Larry Labor.

[Representative Larry Labor]: I represent Orleans Essex, District 1.

[V. P. Gill]: Larry Satcowitz, representative from Randolph, also representing Braintree, Brookfield, Granville, and Roxbury.

[Representative Ela Chapin]: Ela Chapin, I represent Eastmont, Pellier, and Middlesex.

[Representative Michael Tagliavia]: Mike Tagliavia. I represent Orange One, which is Corinth, Orange, Washington, and Versa. Representative Rob North representing Northwest Addison County, the Good River Gens area, and I'm a Act two fifty alternate commissioner in Aztecan.

[Representative Chris Pritchard]: Chris Pritchard, I represent Rutland Bennington, which is Middletown Springs. I'll let Rupert, and share Wells with Patty McCoyt.

[Speaker 0]: And I just want to acknowledge we're missing a couple of senators because they are actually at the committee on administrative rules, which is running over a little bit. They're not advocating their role. Let's go around the room and start with yeah.

[V. P. Gill]: Since Futures finished back in 2017 where I've also been involved with a few FACT two fifty cases of civil engineer.

[Representative Kate Logan]: I'm the chair of the planning commission in Danville and then also work for Vermont's hurricane environment.

[Representative Michael Hoyt]: Good morning, Jamie Findell, the new vice president for Vermont with Vermont Audubon. Hi, Tucker here with the Vermont Association of Realtors.

[Representative Kate Logan]: Megan Sullivan, Vice President of Government Affairs for the Vermont Chamber of Commerce. Ruth. Hi everyone, I'm Senator Ruth Hardy. Represent the Addison District. Our staff. Susan Newman, Senate Natural Resources. Pat Martin, and Madison Ryder.

[Speaker 0]: Great. Thank you. And we'll introduce the presenters from the Land Use Review Board in in just a minute. I I guess thank you all for being here. It's great to see a lot of familiar faces. It's been a journey, and, we're now you know, we are welcoming the Land Use Review Board here to get updates on, Act 181 and the many tasks we have given them. I think you've all been on board for about a year now. Right? And, I know you've been incredibly busy, and we look forward to hearing more about how it's going now. And so I think with that, maybe I'll let you introduce yourselves, and we'll go right into the testimony.

[Representative Kate Logan]: So I'm Janet Hurley, the chair of the Land Use Review Board.

[Speaker 0]: I'm Brooke Dengeldine, a member

[V. P. Gill]: of the Land Use Review Board. I'm VP Gill, executive director of the Land Use Review Board. Welcome and thank you for giving us this opportunity to testify in front of you on Act two fifty and the implementation of Act 181. Of as an overview of what we're going go through here today, I'm going to give you just a quick background on Act 50, make sure everybody's level set. I've known we do this at the beginning of the year most times, and you all have gotten pretty steeped in Act two fifty, but just want level set and then give a couple updates about what's been happening besides the ACT 181 implementation pieces that have been ongoing as well with the program. And then I'll hand it over to Janet. She'll talk about the ACT 181 implementation. We'll get into the weeds on all of that and get further into that with our most recent report on the appeals. And Brooke will take that on. We'll have plenty of time for questions as well. So with that, what is Act two fifty? It's a permitting system for the state of Vermont. It ensures that development is done, a comprehensive review of development occurs before a public is permitted. It requires review of two sub criteria for multiple potential impacts, natural resources, historic agriculture transportation, government services, making sure all those things are in line if the project is approved. When does it apply? Well, it depends on the jurisdiction. So there's a number of different factors there depending on the size, the type, the location of that proposed project. So it could be based on the number of lots, as you can see there 10 or six. It could be based on the size of the acreage of that person where they're intending to put the project, one acre or 10 acres. Variability there is depending on whether the municipality has zoning and subdivision bylaws. So if you have those in place, then you're a little more relaxed in terms of the jurisdictional trigger for that area. It's also another jurisdictional trigger is based on the number of units for housing units for a project. And then there's certain other jurisdictional figures. We won't go into the details of those today, but there is a list of those as well. A couple important exemptions to note there. Is not commercial developments for farming. Those are exempt logging and forestry below 2,500 feet elevation. And then as you are probably aware, the interim housing exemptions that went into effect. It's another large area of exemptions from Act two fifty for those projects in those certain location based and type based projects. So how is it how is the organization structured throughout the state? We have these nine different districts as you can see on the map there. It's all governed by this newly appointed as of January 1 last year Land Use Street View Board, two members of which we have with us today. We have a variety of expertise on that board, is really exciting, planners, legal, natural resources, engineering, comprising that group to oversee the program, which is really exciting. These are working members that are fully engaged in 181 implementation as well as the oversight of the program as a whole. What makes all this run from the permitting side? Well, it's our district commissions. That's where you have when applicants come in for the approval of their projects, they come into the district commissions for that review. These are appointed individuals throughout the state, and they're based on their particular regions. They're the ones that are reviewing and issuing those land use permits with the assistance and very importantly of our staff, the district coordinators, the technicians that are helping with that permitting process move through in a smooth manner. The district commission's coordinators, excuse me, are also responsible for determining jurisdiction. So on that previous slide, a project needs an Act two fifty permit or it does not. Here's kind of the structure of our organization. As you can see, we've got four board members on the top along with the chair and then the nine different district commissions. We have kind of three branches or categories within our organization. We've got general counsel on the side. We've got two staff attorneys, one of which was brought through from the legislature's appropriation recently, and that's been very helpful. We just recently were able to hire that individual. So that's really great for program. We've got two enforcement compliance officers and a legal services specialist. Next branch there is the executive director, that's my role. I oversee the state coordinator and the 10 district coordinators and interface, as you can see on the dash line directly with the commissioners. The next division or branch there is business director making sure that the wheels stay on the bus in lots of operational and administrative capacities for our program. And that includes the technicians who are helping with the issuance of the permits. So a couple numbers here, I apologize, we don't have the annual report out yet that'll be coming to you all very soon. But we do have a couple of numbers kind of on a five year basis, running average from last year. You can see we issue about 300 to 400 permits every year. Only about 5% of those go through a major process, meaning that there's a hearing held by the Commission for that review. About 0.2% of those are denials, so very small number that are denied. And then in terms of permitting decisions that are appealed each year, it's between 13%, so a pretty small number there depending on the range. And the year, five to 10 per year. We also do issue quite a large number of two seventy plus or minus jurisdictional payments, again determining whether a permit is needed or not needed for our program. So a couple of important updates. This a slide I've been itching to get through to let you know kind of what's been happening besides the 181 matters. We've been continuing on our digitalization project. So making sure that boxes, I'm talking about five thirty some odd boxes of files, paper files, tens of thousands of documents within that, that are being scanned and being more publicly available to project engineers, to applicants, to the public general to see what's happening or has happened in terms of the permitting pieces for that project. So that's really exciting. It really just is making everything more accessible both internally for our staff as well and most importantly externally for the public. We've expanded some of our permitting capacity thanks to the previously ARPA funded roving district coordinators and those have been created and approved by the legislature as permanent positions and we were able to slot one of the existing ARPA coordinators into that role more permanently. So thank you all that support and effort last year. And then we were just recently able to hire another one. So we have two of those up and running. One is in training, but going pretty well there and excited about that additional capacity and ability to provide just more continuity of services, think, is what really is helpful there with those two positions.

[Speaker 0]: Are you going to speak to the ARPA funded?

[V. P. Gill]: Yes, and so those two positions, good question there. So they were originally ARPA funded. Last year, they were approved for both part general fund funding and part ARPA funded. We wanted to make sure that we were using to the maximum extent that ARPA funds, those ARPA funds. And this year, we really appreciate support from the legislature to continue those through our general fund appropriations. The next thing here is we've got a new application that's coming online that's going to launch January 15. We've given notice to current applicants as well as prospective applicants about that change. And really what we focused in on with that change was to make those applications, make it so that the applications that are coming into our program are more complete, more straightforward for our members to be able to review. Hopefully the idea there is to help projects move more smoothly and quickly. It is a comprehensive law, it is a comprehensive review and so those applications are comprehensive and we're trying to make them as comprehensive on the front end so that things can move more smoothly on the back end. And again, that's launching January 15. The last is we continue to work on our ARPA funded projects. We are working through making those go as quickly as all the other program pieces. We've issued over 100, actually I think we've just hit the 100 mark for ARPA permitted projects. We've been reviewing 500 to 600 plus or minus various projects that are coming in through the ARPA funded stream and reviewing those with our other agency partners and determining which ones, as I'm kind of narrowing that funnel, which ones are actually needing an 50 permit. And so it's actually a pretty small number of those that are actually needing action 50 permit, and we've been very diligent in terms of reaching out to folks and letting them know what our services are in terms of determining those jurisdictional opinions, and then moving them through the permitting process as quickly as we can.

[Speaker 0]: What What kind of projects are those if they're not housing? That your those other

[V. P. Gill]: Yeah. There's I mean, there are some that support housing indirectly. So there's municipal infrastructure projects. There's three acre stormwater projects, that's a large area of the ones that have been permitted through F-two 50 processes as well. And then as you can see there, there's 16 of them that were related to housing developments.

[Speaker 0]: So on that front, so as I understand it, the ARPA money needs to be spent by the end of this year. I don't know if you can comment on projects that may need an Act two fifty review. Are they on track so that hopefully that work can get done? Is that a priority for you all?

[V. P. Gill]: Yes, it certainly is. And that really goes to what I was saying in terms of our initial outreach. We have repeatedly provided outreach to folks to let them know that one, they can request jurisdictional opinion from our program to determine whether they need an X-fifty permit or not. And then once we determine if it does need one, that we're there for them and that they can come in and we can help through the application process. So it certainly has been a priority.

[Speaker 0]: Great. Thank you, Khorshi. Oh, Go ahead.

[Senator Terry Williams]: So it used to be that a jurisdictional opinion had been requested. Is that still the case or do you just Does every case get a jail?

[V. P. Gill]: Yeah, so typically anyone can request a jurisdictional opinion. There was Act some 47 provisions that required an Act two fifty jurisdictional opinion to be issued or sought. But the interim housing exemptions for the most part, I think there's one little piece of PHP that still remains for jurisdictional opinion that are required. But for the most part, no, it's the option of the permittee or applicant, whether they want one or not.

[Senator Terry Williams]: And how would you consider your makeup? Are you a quasi government agency? How are you funded? Once the ARPA money's gone, how's that fund stream gonna come to you?

[V. P. Gill]: Yeah, our funding is both general fund and special fund. Special fund is our Act two fifty permit fund, and that's a much smaller portion of our overall funding stream.

[Senator Terry Williams]: Thank you.

[V. P. Gill]: Any other questions on this aspect of the presentation before I hand it over to Janet for Act 181 implementation of what you're all most itching to hear about?

[Speaker 0]: Representative Austin. Can speak to the appeal process in

[Representative Sarah "Sarita" Austin]: terms of the process and maybe some changes that are being made possibly? Yes

[V. P. Gill]: definitely, so we'll go to Janet first on overall ACT-one 181 and we'll switch it over to Brooke who has been leading the board member on to get studies to make.

[Representative Michael Hoyt]: So with that, I will squeeze.

[Janet Hurley]: So, and maybe go right on to that. So the board has been busy. We have accomplished some of our Act 181 charges. The first being we submitted a wood products manufacturers report to legislature early in the summer. We will be discussing that with other committees of jurisdiction tomorrow. So, Kirsten Sultan and I will also be presenting on that tomorrow. The appeals report we submitted this fall, Brooke will talk to you about that. And we've begun the regional plan review process. So, before we were able to take in any of those applications, we had to develop guidelines. We developed guidelines and adopted them in September and then very shortly thereafter started taking in the pre applications. So the draft plans and we've done that for three RPCs so far. The tier one, a application guidance was developed and we adopted that a few weeks ago. And as soon as any municipality is ready to apply after their regional plan has been approved, we'll start taking in those as well. So, here's the ACT 181 implementation timeline and the first three are they're sort of grayed out a little bit because we have already come to you and asked for extensions on the tier two report and the tier three rule submission to LCAR. Those were to be due to you in February and we are hoping to extend that out to September 30. The extension would not affect the implementation or the effective date of the tier three. We are also finding that it's very probable that we will not meet meet that June 15 deadline for the Criterion 8C. So I think we will be asking you formally for an extension to September 30 for that as well. And that also goes into effect December 31. So that would also not affect the effective date of the Criterion 8C. We are working on road construction jurisdiction guidance. That new trigger would go into effect in July, And we hope to have the guidance before that. Act 181 compliant regional plans, as you know, must be adopted by all 11 regional planning commissions by the end of this year. As I said, we've looked at three pre applications. We expect to continue those through the year and the final applications will start coming to us this spring as well. There will be times during the year where we will be looking at six plans at once. So there's a lot of work to do in that sphere. Criterion HC, as I said, and tier three, we'll be continuing to work on this year. Effective date is December 31. Sort of tangentially, the EJ law requires as we are a covered agency under the EJ law, covered. So we must produce a community engagement plan that offers meaningful participation to EJ populations as well as all of our volunteers. And that's something that will be due 07/01/2027. Just the interim housing exemptions that Pete mentioned, those will expire as the Act 181 tiers will be coming into play after this year. Act 181 implementation report then will be due to the legislature early in 2029. So, as I said, we will be discussing the wood products manufacturers report. We made some recommendations for some statutory changes, but mostly the report focuses on areas where we can do better to put out information and provide services to applicants to ease the permitting burden on wood products manufacturers. So through this year, as I pointed out, we will be inundated with plans and we will be reviewing them. We are reviewing them for compliance with state statute and we are also reviewing the tier 1B requests that will be coming in with those plans. Tier 1B being those areas where projects with up to 50 units of housing could be exempt from Ag two fifty. So we are asking, those plans reflect the statutory goals and the required elements of regional plans as set out in title 24? Do the FLU maps in particular reflect the FLU areas, the future land use areas as described in statute? So there are now 10 areas that are going to be used by all 11 regional planning commissions across the state, and it will be consistent. And we are looking to be sure that those facts as presented to us reflect the statutory descriptions of each of those and the purposes of each of those areas. The downtown and village centers will be eligible then for the state designation program, the community investment program benefits, as well the neighborhoods. The neighborhood benefits will be conferred upon the planned growth areas and the village areas that are depicted in those future land use maps. So, and you will also be asking, do the proposed tier one B areas meet the statutory criteria for getting those housing exemptions. So title 10 establishes some criteria that those municipalities must have in order to get that tier one designation, or it's not a designation that status. So we are in the process, as I said, of taking any pre applications very soon. We'll probably take our first final application. The pre application is a more informal review and comment article. It's basically, I'm seeing it as a conversation and we want to front load as much comment as we can on those draft regional plans before the regional planning commissions go through that adoption process. We don't want to have to say no to plan after it's gone through that process and been adopted. So we're working really hard to get as much comment in front load yet before the regional planning commissions go through the adoption process. And then once adopted, those regional planning commissions will come back to the LERB with an application for a final determination. And that will be a quasi judicial process that the board conducts. We will hold a hearing and we will make findings and conclusions as to whether that plan meets the various statutory criteria and elemental requirements. Once that affirmative determination is made, the state designations are conferred for neighborhoods and centers on the village areas. I'm sorry, the centers will be conferred on the downtown and village centers and the village areas and plant growth areas will get the neighborhood designation. We will also determine whether the proposed tier 1B areas will get that status concurrently with the determination on the plan.

[Senator Terry Williams]: Senator? I have a constituent who bought I think Pullman is a two acre town. All that's kind of gone away now, but they purchased land with intention of building they had to capacity, you know, perk and everything. So the design is done. Are they grandfathered?

[Janet Hurley]: So to build a house? Yes. I don't think that that would trigger Act two fifteen. Okay. It's it does

[V. P. Gill]: Only if it was part of an existing subdivision or something like that. But I mean, that's a good point when if you get constituency requests about Act two fifteen jurisdiction, That map actually that I showed earlier comes from our website and on our contact us page you can get the districts and the district coordinator that's assigned to each and that's a great resource for you all to send your constituents if they've got questions about. Sure. Yeah. Do you need an action printing permit or not?

[Senator Terry Williams]: Okay. Thank you. Representative

[Representative Larry Labor]: Norris. Thank you, madam chair. Janet, in in the process of approving the RPC plans, is one of the success criteria that you're using the achievement of building the number of housing units that we need in total across Vermont?

[Janet Hurley]: So the statute says that the village centers, downtown centers, planned growth areas and village areas must accommodate the regional housing targets that regional plan also has to put forth and then municipalize. So that's part of what the regional planning commissions are presenting to us, that those four future land use areas, downtown and village centers, planned growth areas, village areas can accommodate housing targets, yes.

[Representative Larry Labor]: Specific to each area. Are you considering whether or not that totals up to the total number of housing units we

[Representative Michael Hoyt]: need across Vermont? Is that the right It

[Janet Hurley]: would be a region by region determination. Yeah. So this slide just shows a still shot of our map viewer, and it shows a little bit of data from both Chittenden and Northwest regions. So that is a depiction of the proposed future land use map from those two areas. And we set up this viewer so that the digital map data can be overlaid with various other natural resource and historic and various other data that we can use to assess whether those map boundaries reflect the descriptions in statute.

[V. P. Gill]: And I'll just add too really quickly, ability to set this up and make this a seamless process, there was a lot of hard work that went into making that happen. But it also came from our digital request in terms of appropriation funding last year from legislature and we

[Janet Hurley]: appreciate Right, thank you very much for that because it would be hard to do without this digital tool. So let's move on. Are there any questions about regional plan?

[Speaker 0]: Representative Logan.

[Janet Hurley]: Oh, Can you just describe what we're looking at a little bit, please? Yeah, so you are looking at the Northwest, almost the Northwest corner of the state. There's a little bit of Chittenden County there, Grand Isle County and Franklin County. And what you're seeing is the different colors represent the different future land use map areas as proposed by the Northwest Regional Planning Commission and Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission for the towns that are there. Think we're seeing Colchester, or we're just seeing Milton and No, but I mean down here. So from Chittenden County, we're seeing Milton, and then above that you'll see St. Albans, and the pink is the village area, planned growth area categories, and the darker sort of burgundy reddish are the downtown centers, village centers. I can't see the colors very well here. And then the yellow and the greens are the rural categories. And I can't really see any, there's some orange in Milton, I think, and that's enterprise area. And then there are also transition areas, wait, no, the orange is transition, right? And it's lavender enterprise. Yeah, it's enterprise, yeah. So those are some of the future land use map categories that have been depicted so far.

[V. P. Gill]: And what's the difference between the two different sheets of green?

[Janet Hurley]: One is basically the rural agriculture and forestry, the lighter green, and the darker green is the rural conservation.

[Senator Terry Williams]: Thank you.

[Janet Hurley]: And then the yellow is rural general.

[V. P. Gill]: There'll be a test later on all those

[Senator Terry Williams]: colors. If

[V. P. Gill]: you want a cheat sheet, just go to that live link there on the bottom of your materials and you can play around. It's got the labels so they can show the different colors.

[Speaker 0]: All right. Representative North.

[Janet Hurley]: Oh, go ahead. One

[Representative Rob North]: more question on the RPC plan approval process. Do you foresee any issues in the fact that the tier three rule submission, the tier two area report, the rule submission, that all that's being delayed, and yet the planning commissions are required to get their plans in by the end of the year. Do you see any squashing of timeline that's causing trouble for them to get their plans approved?

[Janet Hurley]: No, because the only tier that's affected by this map are the tier one A and B. And those, the decisions about those boundaries are being proposed from the municipality to the regional planning.

[Representative Rob North]: Okay, so it's going the other direction actually.

[Janet Hurley]: And then we have to make sure that what they want reflects statute. So we're not saying you must draw your lines here on those. They are bringing those forth and we're just assessing them for conformance with statute. So hopefully everybody's informed enough that what they present to us in that final plan review, we affirm the statutory restrictions for those areas.

[Representative Rob North]: So push out of these submission of report dates is not gonna adversely

[Janet Hurley]: affect the No, because those are on tier, so the tier two report, so other than the tier one A and B, which will go into effect as soon as we make any final determinations this year, and those will probably start as soon as April, May. And so region by region, I expect that Northwest Regional Planning Commission is going to come to us at the March with their final plan. They're going to be the first ones we think. And so we have a certain amount of time to review that and issue that affirmative determination. And then, so those pink areas will be conferred. Some of them will be, if the town opted in to tier one B, those areas will be conferred the housing exemptions right away, as soon as we make that determination. And so this will start happening across the state. And so the tier one A will be the first tier to go into effect. Until tier three goes into effect on December 31, it really isn't a tier two yet. Until the tier ones are in place and the tier three is in place, that's what defines tier two. So, in the interim, the jurisdictional triggers are as they have been, except that the road rule will come into play in the middle of the year. So, the ask to put the dates out on the tier two report isn't going to affect decisions made at the local level because the boundaries of tier two are sort of based on those local level decisions and tier three, which doesn't come into effect until December 31.

[V. P. Gill]: And then on top of that, the extension request that we're asking is for the submission to ICAR, LCAR, sorry, LCAR on that. And so the effective dates in statute, we're not asking for those to change or move out. Right.

[Janet Hurley]: Other stuff, ready? Okay, so tier 1A. So in addition to the Regional Planning Commission applications, as soon as we affirm the regional plan, municipalities will then have the option to come in and apply for tier 1A status for those same areas that were eligible for tier 1B status. So the centers, the planned growth areas and the village areas. So we have adopted guidelines for those applications as required. They were due to be adopted by January 1. And we anticipate we will start receiving those end of spring. As soon as certain regional planning commissions have gotten their approval, there are some towns that are going to apply. So it's a similar process to what happens with the retail plans. There will be a pre application phase where we're trying to get as much comment and review to them, the applicants, the municipalities as possible before they come in with their final plan that we would then issue a determination of compliance on and that would confer the Act two fifty exemption for the entire area that was proposed to your money. So that is happening. Any questions on tier 1A?

[Speaker 0]: I'm wondering, FLUA, future land use.

[Janet Hurley]: Sorry, what do you guys

[Speaker 0]: Area. Okay.

[Janet Hurley]: Oh,

[Speaker 0]: it's in the second bullet. FLUA maps.

[Janet Hurley]: Tier one area. It's just area.

[Senator Terry Williams]: Okay.

[Janet Hurley]: Thank you. Yeah.

[V. P. Gill]: Sorry, sometimes we've used FLU and that map, but we've got area, I guess.

[Janet Hurley]: And actually, it was probably a bad choice of words to use the word areas after tier 1A just because of overuse of the word area. So I would say status, we try to say tier one a status. I'll change that slide for the next presentation that we use. Yeah, do you have a question?

[Speaker 0]: No, just wanted to know what that Okay,

[Janet Hurley]: thank you. Okay, any tier one questions? Okay, next slide, Pete. So we are working on the tier three rulemaking. Oh, I should point out, Sarah Hadd is the board lead on the tier 1A work. So if people have questions on tier 1A, Sarah is the one to direct that to. Alex Weinhagen is the lead on the tier three work. Gone, he's worked very hard with a stakeholder group to go through at least two iterations of a draft rule. There's been a lot of public feedback and he has responded to that with continuing revisions and he's working on refinement, but basically what the stakeholders and Alex have been focused on are areas that include significant natural communities, headwater stream areas, and habitat connectors with road intersections. So I think his primary focus right now is how to map those habitat connectors with what's most important to map to protect those habitat connectors. And we are hoping to continue the public engagement process on this through May and finalize a rule in the summer. As we said, we are requesting an extension on this because the current deadline was February 15, I think. That was just not enough time to get the public input and basically some of the GIS work that needed to get done. So we really think the public engagement is critical, especially on this one, and we need that extension for that. As I said, it doesn't affect the effective date of tier three. Any tier three questions?

[Representative Michael Hoyt]: Over here.

[Speaker 0]: Oh, yeah, representative.

[V. P. Gill]: Yeah, thank you. So looking at the regional map, I'm assuming that the maps you have, it looks like two RPCs have submitted. My question is Three,

[Janet Hurley]: but yeah.

[V. P. Gill]: Okay, the rural conservation areas, are presently conserved lands or tier three?

[Janet Hurley]: They have nothing to do with tier three. Tier three is completely separate from the rural conservation or the rural ag forestry categories on the future land we staff. What we're looking to focus on for tier three after stakeholder engagement and public engagement are these three categories of natural resources that are considered critical by the working group, basically, significant natural communities, headwater scheme areas, habitat connectors that have road intersections. So it's not related to the future land use maps. It's a separate exercise.

[V. P. Gill]: Yeah, so are these lands already conserved? That's correct.

[Janet Hurley]: On the future land use.

[Representative Michael Hoyt]: Just a little bit of clarification to representative Pritchard's question. These lands being already preserved, can you describe what you mean by already preserved on these maps? That's incorrect. You're talking about I've attended a number of planning commission meetings and RPC meetings and rural conservation has come up numerous times. Yeah. People who have no conservation easement whatsoever, who are using their land for either forestry or agriculture or a little bit of both. And they found their land in rural conservation, and they have questions. First answer was, well, that's just a suggestion, which I found very offensive, because I think this is my personal opinion. This is a way to, after it's codified, tell people that in my district and all over rural Vermont, well, since you didn't speak up at one of these Planning Commission meetings, you're out of luck. So one particular constituent had his land for forty years, maintains it, best management practices for forestry and stuff, but he has not put his land into any sort of land trust or conservation, even current use. For the simple fact that it's his and his family's decision to do with their land what they please. So the statement that these are already conserved is not true. I know one of my constituents stepped up and said for the entirety of the time that parcel of land was in existence, it was used for either forestry practice, agriculture, equine uses and everything else. And because he attended the meeting and at first he said the map was not as interactive as it should be, but they corrected it. He would have, if he'd not questioned, he would have had his land in a designation that is definitely not what's on the map. So that's a what I'm what I'm hearing about not tapping the brakes on some of these things going forward is a is a concern of a lot of people, not only in my district, but all over rural Vermont. So I would just wish you would take that into consideration because some of these land use designations are really worrisome to a lot of rural landowners.

[Janet Hurley]: Understood, and that's why this is so important that the regional planning commissions are working with their municipalities and they're getting this, this is trying to be a top, bottom to top on the future land use map. And I mean, it's maybe small consolation, but that future land use map category does not have jurisdictional implications for active duty.

[Speaker 0]: Actually, would just add that.

[Janet Hurley]: So if there was a mistake and that guy's property is not under some sort of conservation protections, He can bring it up and they can fix it, you know, with a map amendment or something.

[Representative Michael Hoyt]: Understood, but with respect to one of the concerns that's coming up with tier three and notification of landowners. If we can send out a tax bill to everybody who owns owes taxes, then we should be sending out some sort of a notification to everybody, even if they're not in tier three. This is affecting everyone. And just because, oh, it's an act 181 and we passed it, therefore it is, is not a good enough explanation to a lot

[V. P. Gill]: of people. That's all I'm saying.

[Speaker 0]: So I wanna add though that folks have been in a regional plan. Their parcels, their property's been covered by a regional plan for a very long time. And in fact, this process is engaging the public more in that planning process. So whatever the previous plan in your constituent's area was, they were in a land use category. They may not have known it. They may not have participated in it. But in some ways, what what what we want to have happen through this is getting people engaged in planning. They were already in some land use category before in their regional plan. It's just now they're working with it, and they're aware of it, and they're engaged. So that's an upside. I I get that we're having frustrations with data or growing pains, and it's gonna be things along the way. But I think it's important to remember this was already going on. And one of the things that is happening for Janet right now is just that there's we've asked them to do a lot, and one of them is to provide consistency and structure to our regional planning processes that didn't exist before and oversight of that. And we hope engagement of people in that so that they're aware of what, you know, they can be involved in the plans for their towns and their properties.

[Janet Hurley]: Right. And and there there continues to be this worry about that conservation category are being tier three, and they don't really have anything to do with each other. So, the tier three, as you see here, is about significant critical resources that have been mapped, and it doesn't have anything to do with the conservation status of property. So this is what probably people should be more concerned about, not whether their land is in that future land use category that doesn't have jurisdictional implications. This is the one that has jurisdictional implications and this is the one that I think people are worried about. And that's why we're asking, that's part of why we're asking for this extension because we do want as much public input on this as possible. We want it to reflect statute which requires that we look at it in terms of equitability across the state. So, yeah. Any more questions about tier three? We're moving on to the next.

[Speaker 0]: Representative Austin? I just want

[Representative Sarah "Sarita" Austin]: to get clarification on this question. Does this mean that a person who is a private landowner who owns and maybe has had any conservation for twenty or thirty years cannot do what they want with their land because of conservation

[Janet Hurley]: category? No. As I said, there are no jurisdictional implications for regulatory measures because of those future land use fat categories in the rural districts. Be clear on that. What they're about are just looking at lands that do have conservation measures on them. If you put that all together throughout the state, then we can say something about how much of our natural lands in the state are conserved and do we need to work on certain other areas of the state that aren't reflected in that. It's a planning tool more than it's a regulatory, it's not a regulatory tool. Do

[Representative Michael Hoyt]: you have an overlay or any input with respect to the lands that are already in current use program?

[Janet Hurley]: Yeah, so the category that is called rural agriculture and forestry, a lot of the current use parcels are ending up in that category based on mapping methodology that the regional planning commissions are used.

[Representative Michael Hoyt]: I understand that they're ending up in there, but that's not Well, I know of one particular piece of land and it's in that designation currently right now in my district, and it's not in current use, but it's in that designation on this map.

[Janet Hurley]: Right. So that designation isn't limited to lands that are in current use. It's being used for lands that are being used for forestry and agricultural purposes. Some of them are in current use. A lot of them are in current use, but not all of them.

[V. P. Gill]: Okay, so

[Janet Hurley]: here's the tier two report. What do we need to do with that report? We are tasked with addressing whether we think there needs to be some statutory changes to address fragmentation of rural and working lands while allowing for development. We must consider whether how location based jurisdiction is working or going to be working in tier two, whether we are adequately protecting primary agricultural soils in tier two, whether criterion 9L is effectively being used to avoid sprawl and strict development in tier two. And then the one aspect of the tier two report that we have not asked for an extension on is the accessory on farm business portion. And so the legislature had asked the board to consider the issue of accessory on farm businesses, and we are doing that and intend to report to the committees of jurisdiction by February 15 on farm businesses. For the rest of the report, we will be going through a public engagement process on a draft before presenting the final to you at the September. And board leads on this are Kirsten Sultan and Sarah Hat. Any questions about tier two and our request for an extension on that?

[Speaker 0]: So, if

[Representative Michael Hoyt]: you extend till September 30, 9L would be supposed to be in effect by when?

[Janet Hurley]: 9L is in effect currently. It's 8C that is not yet.

[V. P. Gill]: The report will be looking at a review of 9L and how that's functioning.

[Janet Hurley]: And so another Act 181 proponent was the road construction jurisdictional trigger. It's a new trigger for view road construction that would come into play for singular roads that are over 800 feet or all roads and driveways in a development that together are more than 2,000 feet long. We are working on drafting guidance around this jurisdictional trigger. Of that end statute, the guidance will be furthering that purpose, they'll focus on furthering that purpose that is established in statute, that is to avoid sprawl and fragmentation in tier two, tier two and three areas, basically.

[Speaker 0]: And a little of the history would help. It existed until about twenty years, I can't remember. Yeah. But had this road rule that

[Janet Hurley]: was in rule, which is

[V. P. Gill]: why we call it that.

[Janet Hurley]: Until about 2020, right? And then it was gone for another twenty something years, and now it's coming back. Until 2005. So, was in effect for twenty five years, then it was out of effect for twenty years, now it's going back in. The board leads on developing this guidance around the tier, I'm sorry, the jurisdictional trigger for roads are Pearson, Salton and Sarah Hat again. Finally, we are working on rulemaking around a new criterion that was intended to prevent habitat fragmentation in the face of sprawl and to protect wildlife travel corridors between larger habitat flocks in the face of climate change. So that is the statute and purpose. Alex, Weinhagen and Kirsten are the board leads on this. They've met with stakeholder group. They are working on drafting a first draft that will then be put for the public and the same process that the tier three is going through this criteria in the process. We haven't officially asked for an extension on this deadline to all car on this one. Currently, it's June. We are going to be sending a memo to you asking for an extension on this to the September 30 date as well.

[Speaker 0]: Are there any questions on this so far? Yeah, Senator Williams,

[Senator Terry Williams]: I'm not sure about this but somebody has already has an act two fifty permit property is about 2,500 feet and they want to and it's the way it was set up was to put it in perpetuity. They wanted to say how how long do you want this to be in effect? They said forever because it's in a it's in a family trust. They want to be able to cut the logs. It's a once in a generation cut, basically. Is that still is that gonna be affected, or is it still gonna be on it?

[Janet Hurley]: It that I don't think anything will change if it's above 2,500 feet. Okay. It would still need an act two fifty permit for it.

[Senator Terry Williams]: So that Act two fifty permit that they have, is that still in effect?

[Janet Hurley]: Yeah. I'd like to take

[Speaker 0]: a five minute bio break, but I really hope folks can limit it to that and that we can reconvene in five minutes.

[Representative Kate Logan]: And then you'll hear from Rutland.

[Speaker 0]: We can stay on track here. Alright. Thanks. We'll go live for five minutes.