Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Good afternoon. Welcome to the House Environment Committee. This afternoon, we're going to be looking at, an amendment to h nine forty one, a act relating to municipal regulation of agriculture with our starting off with our legislative counselors who have been working on this issue. Welcome.

[Bradley Schumann (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Morning. Bradley Schumann, office of legislative counsel.

[Ellen Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Good afternoon. Ellen Chittenden. I

[Bradley Schumann (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: am from the past. That's why I said good morning. Today, we'll be talking about the an amendment a draft amendment to the house municipal regulation of agriculture bill, house bill number nine four one. So this bill purports to prohibit municipalities, from regulating agro farming activity if two primarily speaking, if two criteria are met.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Actually, can I just interrupt for a second just to level set and how we got here? I actually asked legislative council to try their very best to draft something that would actually address a court case that causes us all to be here, which has been affectionately known as the duckweed. So that's that's where this comes from, this draft bill. So excuse me.

[Steve Collier (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Go ahead.

[Bradley Schumann (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you. And so in drafting this bill, the the issue in the Taft Street decision was that a farming activity on a point a 0.51 acre parcel in Essex was farming in a way that the city didn't want but was subject to the required agricultural practices, so they're regulated by the agency of agriculture instead. So the city had trouble regulating that activity until they went to the supreme court. So what this bill does is tries to manage the potentially unintended consequences of the Tap Street Supreme Court decision while also giving municipalities some way to regulate activity with certain restrictions. So here are those restrictions. So this bill amends section forty four thirteen. A bylaw under this chapter shall not regulate farming that, and there's two criteria. The first criteria is what we're familiar with in this statute. It meets the minimum threshold criteria of the required agricultural practices rule and is therefore required to comply with the required agricultural practices rule and takes place on a parcel of land that is one acre or larger. So what this would have the effect is if you have a parcel of land in a municipality there's other exceptions that we'll go over in a moment that are later on. But what this has the effect of is if you have a parcel of land of less than one acre in a municipality, a municipality may regulate that acreage by bylaw, even if it is subject to the required agricultural practices. So that is that is the change from our understanding of current law. And that would, in this instance, would give a municipality like the city of Essex the ability to regulate farming activity that was taking place on a parcel of land that is point zero 0.51 acres.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Member, Clerk)]: Half acre.

[Bradley Schumann (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Half an acre.

[Steve Collier (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: It was

[Graham Unangst-Rufenacht (Rural Vermont)]: half an acre. Okay.

[Bradley Schumann (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: More words, the better. Sorry. By the word. I'm sorry. This this Friday afternoon. We've all had a long week. And so this bill also prohibits municipality from construction of farm from from regulating the construction of a farm structure as defined in the required agricultural practices rule. It does not touch the the accepted silvicultural practices section. We're on to the next page. It does not touch the exemption for forestry operations, and it adds to additional exemptions. So municipalities may not regulate by bylaw the cultivation or use or other use of land for growing plants or food for personal use, donation, or sale, including orchard crops, viticultural crops, and maple sap and for maple sap. Or it also prohibits municipalities from regulating the raising, feeding, or management of a poultry flock of not more than 15 birds, excluding roosters, for personal use, donation, or sale. And so those are all of the kind of restrictions on what a municipality may not regulate, things that don't fit into these enumerated restrictions a municipality may regulate by bylaw. There's some additional definitions as we move down. We've clarified the definition of farm structure to unify it with the required agricultural practices rule. The definition of farm structure that's in statute is approximately similar to the definition of farm structure that is in the required agricultural practices rule. The statute refers to required agricultural practices rule when when identifying what a farm structure is. So we thought unifying those definitions would be a good idea, to create consistency in our framework. I will note, and this is in current statute as well as in required agriculture practices and in this bill as well, but a farm structure is not a dwelling for human habitation, so we're not talking about on farm housing for farm workers. So that is excluded from this exemption. So municipality may regulate that by law. We've added definitions of farming. We actually didn't add the definition of farming. We just pulled it out and made it clear that farming has the same meaning as 10 BSA six thousand one twenty two. Food means articles or agricultural commodities for human or animal consumption. Poultry has the same meaning as six b s a fourteen fifty nine four. And then this amendment, the second piece of this amendment is it strikes out the provisions in the original bill or not the original. The bill as passed, as introduced in forty four twelve, if you recall that section, but that was the section where it said it gave certain conditions about what a municipality can and cannot regulate. This bill, instead of kind of trying to design that by statute, it just puts the restrictions on municipalities and kind of limits what the restrictions on municipalities what municipalities may not regulate and puts that in there. And then in that realm that we've left over for municipalities to regulate, they they can regulate as they see fit.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Does this omit the tier one a?

[Bradley Schumann (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This omits the tier one a, so we're not referring to the tier structure anymore in this bill. Questions? And and, actually, Ellen, do you have anything that you'd like to add before we ask questions?

[Ellen Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. I think reading all of the four prongs together, you see what municipalities are not allowed to regulate and what they are allowed to regulate. So there is this acreage threshold that's been added, but there are also protections added for the growing of food that isn't farming, as well as your backyard flocks of chickens or other poultry.

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia (Member)]: Representative Tagliavia. This is going to include livestock, sheep, goats, cattle, things like that. There's an ex they're not expressly expressly included here. Correct?

[Ellen Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So so right. So under the definition of farming, there are specific triggers related to the the raising of livestock. If someone has livestock that meets that definition and is on more than one acre of land, the municipality cannot regulate them. They're being regulated by the RAPs. If they're not, municipality does have the ability to have some regulation with the exception of poultry.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Representative North and and then Austin.

[Rob North (Member)]: I do have a question on a sentence that exempts

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia (Member)]: the chicken popper. I

[Ellen Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: just wanted to add the definition, by the way, in thousand in '6 VSA fourteen fifty nine is definition of poultry is any domesticated bird. So it's more than just chicken.

[Rob North (Member)]: Yeah. Sorry. I said that a minute ago.

[Steve Collier (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Means too. So okay.

[Rob North (Member)]: Okay. So just to that sense, the the raising, feeding, or management of poultry flock not more than 15 birds, comma, excluding roosters, comma, does the excluding roosters apply to the number of birds, the 15 birds, or to the poultry flock? In other words, are you allowed to have roosters in your poultry flock, or do you just not count the roosters as you're counting up 15 birds?

[Ellen Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The lead in language on this sentence is what the town is not allowed to regulate. So they're not allowed to regulate a flock of not more than 15 birds. So under that, they can't regulate that. But that excludes roosters, meaning that they the town can regulate roosters.

[Rob North (Member)]: Okay. So the excluding roosters applies to the poultry flock, not to the number of birds. Right.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: No. But towns can regulate? The towns can it's intended excuse me. Yeah. No. No. You're right. Intended to be that the town can

[Steve Collier (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: regulate Can regulate the situation. Yes.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: That's Maybe clarification. So which would it I guess it it could be more clear if

[Ellen Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it was up on the on line seven instead to the rating. The raising of a poultry flock excluding roosters of not more than 15?

[Rob North (Member)]: That would make it to me. Because I when I read it, I was just like, oh, you can count the birds. You can have 14 roosters and one chicken, and that counts as 15 birds.

[Steve Collier (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Right. So they have a streak.

[Rob North (Member)]: My other question was also, so the very last couple of sentences of the amendment on page three, lines two and three, striking out section three of the original bill. So the entirety of section three is struck. There was quite a bit in

[Josh Stanford (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: there that's striking

[Steve Collier (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: out the whole.

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia (Member)]: Thank you.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Member, Clerk)]: Representative Austin? Yeah. Just the one acre, is there any limit to livestock on one acre?

[Bradley Schumann (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I answer that. So you mean on one acre or more? So that would be

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Member, Clerk)]: One acre. Can you have, like, five cows on one acre? I know what the wraps are. And I make poll checking, so I'm thinking, you know, neighbors, neighbors, neighborhood, then an acre with five, like, And cows or

[Bradley Schumann (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that's a good question. And so the required agricultural practices regulates farming activity, and it sets certain criteria for for breaching that farming activity. And that activity

[Ellen Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: In the rule, there is a list of how many per type of livestock would trigger the RAP rule.

[Bradley Schumann (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But that that provision has on you have to be raising that livestock on more than four acres. And so and what I wanted to just pull up really quick because I have it here is there is what without amending the wraps, without amending of the required agricultural practices, the agency of agriculture doesn't necessarily have an easy way to regulate farming activity that is between one and four acres. So some of the regulations that they proposed in changing or some of the changes in the wraps that they proposed in the senate version of this would give them more authority to regulate the raising, feeding, and management of livestock on between one and four acres. What's currently in the wraps, though, is, I believe, a provision that if the livestock is causing a problem, with better wording, other livestock types, combinations, or numbers designated by the agriculture the secretary of agriculture based on based upon or resulting from the impacts of water quality consistent with this rule, that would still require four acres. No. That would not require foresters. Okay. Okay. So the agency of agriculture just confirmed that if that livestock so under current RAP's rules, if the secretary of agriculture determined that that livestock is causing a problem to water quality, which is what the RAPs are really about Mhmm. Then the agency of agriculture could step in and regulate that farming activity. But as the RAPs as they currently are, it mainly focuses on the income that you're generating from farming to become regulated or the landmass that you're using.

[Ellen Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And under this amendment, if they're not regulated by the wraps, the Chinese livestock, the municipality would have some authority to regulate that.

[Bradley Schumann (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. And that and that's exactly right. You know? So if there is if they are not subject to the wraps and they are between one and four acres, the municipality is free to regulate that activity. But if they were then to become subject to the the required agriculture activities, then that would change.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Member, Clerk)]: So can the municipality limit the number of livestock, let's say, on one acre? Yes. Yes. Yeah.

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia (Member)]: Thank you. So, Joe, we do. Do we have any idea how many small operations from the physical are operating currently in Vermont that are not in some sort of litigation or conflict with their neighbors, municipality in the state, that this is going to affect because they're smaller than an acre but larger than a half acre?

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: I think maybe some of the

[Rob North (Member)]: witnesses other witnesses could actually have.

[Bradley Schumann (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't believe we have data on the number of farms that are less than one acre. And the Secretary of Agriculture could certainly speak to that a little bit more, but they're not regulated, oftentimes are not regulated by the agency of agriculture. So it's hard to get a count.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Any other questions for legislative council? I need you to say again, Bradley, what you just said about

[Steve Collier (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: the the

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: towns could regulate up to four acres. Where is that?

[Bradley Schumann (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So, and that's a good question because this bill incorporates provisions of the required agricultural practices rule.

[Graham Unangst-Rufenacht (Rural Vermont)]: Excuse me.

[Bradley Schumann (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And so if you have farming activity that is not subject to the required agricultural practices rule, a town is free to regulate that farming activity. And so this bill sets two criteria to prohibit municipality from regulating farming activity, being subject to the required agriculture practices rule and being on a parcel that is one acre or larger. And so if you are farming activity that is not subject to the required agricultural practices rule, then a municipality could be free to regulate you. And so I can give you an example. So if you had a five acre plot of land and you had two cows on that plot of land that was not causing a problem of water, that and you were not making any money off of that land, I don't see a way that you would be subject to the required agriculture practice because you're not you don't have you're not you don't reach the threshold criteria in that rule of a certain number of animals on a certain acreage or tilling, growing crops on a certain amount of acreage or making a certain amount of farm income or filing a ten forty f, with your federal tax returns about claiming farm in farm income. Those would be ways that you would get to be subject to the required agricultural practices rule, and that is now half of what this bill or or what the requirement is to be exempt from municipal regulation.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: And then, therefore, you're saying the town could regulate it?

[Bradley Schumann (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The town could regulate it if they're not subject to the required agricultural practice rule, and that's actually the law now. I mean, I I should I take that back because the supreme court has changed our understanding of the law. So I would say pre Tap Street, pre duckweed case, that would be our understanding of what the law was is that towns are free to regulate activity that is not subject to the required agriculture practices.

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia (Member)]: Thank you. More questions for us?

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: There will be, so I hope you can stay around.

[Graham Unangst-Rufenacht (Rural Vermont)]: Yeah. Perfect.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: We have one right now, Ela. Representative Chapin.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: Thanks. Yeah. I just love to clarify my understanding that this this change would mean that this bill would allow zoning sort of unfettered zoning regulation on much of homesteading where people have either more than 15 birds need to have male birds other livestock as long as they're under the $2,000 income and don't otherwise trigger the REPS. I missed the What was the intro to your question? My understanding is that much of homesteading When I think of homesteading, I think of beyond just growing some vegetables and up to 15 chickens. I think of potentially growing other livestock, dairy, more than 15 chickens, maybe some male chickens if I'm raising my own, creating my own eggs and and but if I'm under the income threshold and I don't otherwise trigger the wraps. I'd be subject to any kind of zoning in any town. There is a provision that the towns cannot regulate cultivation of? So my garden might not be, but any livestock that's beyond that have keen hens or keen female birds.

[Bradley Schumann (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And and if I may? Yeah. I I think the important thing to to point out is that if you're not subject to the required agricultural practices, so you don't have the requisite number of land mass, the number of animals, you're not causing a problem with water quality, and you're not making farm income. So if you're not already subject to the required agricultural practices rule, that that is the law today. And and so municipalities are free to regulate farming activity that's

[Graham Unangst-Rufenacht (Rural Vermont)]: not

[Bradley Schumann (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: subject to the required agricultural practices rule. And, actually, just to make it complicated, the law today, because of the Supreme Court case, is that municipalities can regulate you regardless whether you're subject to the acquired agriculture practice as well.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: Yeah. Thanks for reminding me about the fact that much of that homesteading already falls outside of the exemptions.

[Ellen Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And this is the municipal zoning chapter, so a town has to adopt zoning in order for them

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: to use these regulations. Thank

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Member, Clerk)]: you.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Further questions for legislative council? No, thank you.

[Graham Unangst-Rufenacht (Rural Vermont)]: Thank you.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: You can stay with us.

[Steve Collier (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, we will. Thank you.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Alright, Steve Collier.

[Steve Collier (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: By the way, was it morning or afternoon that we have spent Evening. Evening.

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia (Member)]: Oh, wow.

[Steve Collier (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Welcome back. Yeah. Good afternoon. You want me to start? Steve Collier from the Agency of Agriculture. So, again, really appreciate all of your efforts on this on this issue. You know, we, as I think I told you before, we reached an agreement with the League of Cities and Towns to propose a certain standard and they agreed that they would do the same and we're sticking into that standard until we unless and until we can come to a different consensus and we did that just because we felt it was very important to restore the exemption. So officially, we're not changing our stance on that, but as we also said, we really want the language to get across the finish line because it's really important to address this. And from our perspective, the amendment that you're proposing is much closer to what we proposed initially. The real difference in what we proposed initially was that someone who has livestock needs at least an acre of land. And then we also built in the growing food protections and the protection for the small, we called it a small backyard poultry flock. So this language that you're proposing goes much closer to what we propose. So that's from our perspective is obviously beneficial. The one pretty important difference though that I see is that what you what this language proposes is that one acre would apply to all farms, not just to livestock. That's pretty big difference from our perspective because we really think livestock is where it's important to have enough land base to manage your nutrients and your waste. And so there's two pieces to that. One is that right now this language would create a disconnect between the accessory on farm business and farming because the way that accessory on farm businesses are defined is that they are subject to the RAPs. So this would create a statutory addition to the RAP. So right now with this language, technically you could be an accessory on farm business, but not be exempt from zoning. I don't think anybody wants that disconnect. And so what what we would propose if you're thinking about aligning everything is on your new language where you say one acre be clear that that one acre pertains to raising or managing or feeding livestock and then amending the definition of accessory on farm business to be clear that you have to be subject to the required agricultural practices and be exempt from municipal zoning. So those two things would would make it so I think it would be to not have the synchronicity between farming zoning and accessory on farm business, think would really put some folks in a bind trying to figure out how to how to interpret that. I did I drafted some language really quickly. If you wanna see it, I brought some copies, but they would and it's it's not in your fancy numbered letterhead because I don't want it to look like it comes from legislative council. I think that's it. Thanks. The copy for me. I do in that stack. There's yeah. There we

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: go.

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia (Member)]: Yeah. That's alright.

[Steve Collier (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: So I'm sorry it's not aligned, but there's really only three changes. The first one is in the middle of page one where you see D1 A2, starts provided that any activity, right in the middle of the page. So that would amend the current language that you have about one acre saying provided that any activity involving the raising, feeding or management of live stock in this next bit is unwieldy as livestock is defined in the required agricultural practices rule just because I didn't want to add the definition of livestock below because I was in a hurry, but it really probably would be better to also define livestock. But it's important because livestock in the RAPs includes birds. So it's because of the differentiation of poultry. I think it's important that it's clear that livestock also includes poultry in this context. I think the cleaner way to do it would just be to define livestock below, but I just threw it in here quickly like this. But essentially that would do what you're thinking about doing is requiring the one acre parcel, but it would limit that to livestock. And the other reason I think that's important is that farms are not just one parcel, they're usually many parcels. And so a farm may be, it could be, especially I'm thinking small produce operations, they might have four three quarter acre parcels and they might actually grow a lot of produce on that and that might be all the land that somebody who's starting can afford to do. If those are all, all of those could be all of those parcels together can be a farm, but if you have the one acre requirement, those people might not be farming, even though they're making, even though they're having the sales and even though they have an accessory on farm business, or a farm might have 10 acres and then a separate three quarter acre parcel, And if you have this one acre parcel requirement without limiting it to livestock, you might be saying that three quarter acre parcel, which happens to be just perfect for a farm stand because it's on a busy road and it was with an accessory on farm business. You could not only sell your own products, but other farms products, you might be taking that out of the farm analysis. So I think it's another reason to consider limiting it to livestock alone, but the other changes are on pages at the bottom of page three, and this is moving into the accessory arm. In section 44, twelve, eleven is where you define accessory arm farm business and near the bottom of the page, there's a definition of farm under double I two, and in the middle of that the underline is very light. I'm sorry about that, but in the middle of that it says and exempt from miss municipal zoning pursuant to section four thousand four thirteen D1A of this chapter. That would just mean that if a farm is going to be able to be an accessory on farm business, it would need to both meet the RAP rules and be exempt from zoning, would tie back to your one acre requirement. Does that make sense? Is that just trying to align the definitions because I think they should be aligned whatever you decide to do. And then the same change is made at the bottom of page four under B2 where it starts the farm meets the threshold criteria. And again, there's light underline at the end of that sentence where it says and is exempt from municipal zoning pursuant to that same section. So there are there are other tweaks that I might suggest, but at this this late in the I mean, I think this is the more important issue to focus on right now. And we do expect the Senate version, which is more along the lines of what we proposed with the one acre for livestock. We think that you'll be also getting that in the second half of the session. So there's certainly more time we believe to be discussing these issues. But that was sort of our immediate feedback. Do from our perspective, this is moving in a good direction. We don't think it should be tied to tier one, although we understand why the league thinks it should, but we want all farms to be treated the same throughout the state, but we also recognize that when you're raising livestock, you need sufficient land to be able to do that.

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia (Member)]: Thank you. Members have questions? Representative Austin?

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Member, Clerk)]: Just to clarify, I'm not familiar with the wraps that much. I'm assuming that there's a ratio between how much how much livestock you can have on one acre.

[Steve Collier (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: There that's a great question. And there is the way that farm is defined under the RAPs is you either have to have four contiguous acres. That means you could have separate parcels too, but you need at least one parcel that's four contiguous acres with a specified number of animals. So that's one way, of whether you're commercially farming. If you have four horses on five acres, you're a farm. And that's, there's a lot of reasons for that, but that's how it's defined. However, if you are commercially farming on less than four acres or on more than four acres without that number of animals, you can also be a farm and commercially farming means you've got $2,000 on average in product sales or you're filing a schedule F. So that's why there is no currently under the current law, there's no minimum acreage requirement if you are commercially farming. If it's just about the animals and the numbers, that's already there. But if you're selling products, know, that's how that's how the ducks fell into this. You call them duck weed. I call them the dopey ducks. So they they they fell into this because they were on a half an acre. And it was from our perspective, they they should have fallen under it, and the supreme court misunderstood the rules. But that's we're here because of that issue. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Someone's in the dentist office. Mhmm.

[Steve Collier (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Sorry.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Is this Samantha Cheatham?

[Samantha Sheehan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Josh is gonna join me if that's okay.

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia (Member)]: Who's that? Oh, they were working their way up.

[Steve Collier (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: It's with nature there. What? Oh.

[Josh Stanford (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: For the record, Josh Stanford, Vermont League of Cities and Towns.

[Samantha Sheehan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: And Samantha Sheehan, also with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns.

[Josh Stanford (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Here to thanks for inviting us in to talk about this amendment. I think you 'll probably understand our position hasn't changed and we don't support this amendment. We'd like to show you why and talk about what some of the questions you were just asking in the big picture, why we don't think wraps are the right way to regulate to you to to try to incorporate land use zoning and municipalities because of the varying answers of yes or no you get. Current circumstances and situations in the state that are not being addressed by the wraps as a way to manage farms in the conflicts that that currently exist beyond the Taps Corner one acre scenario. We do agree that this one acre would solve the Taft Corners problem, but there's other problems, and the wraps aren't the right way to address this.

[Samantha Sheehan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: And, again, our goal is to protect the right to farm and make sure that there is an ability for farms to exist everywhere, but that where they exist in close proximity to other properties, other residences, other types of commercial uses, that there'd be a reasonable amount of regulation that prevents the type of conflicts that brought the Taft case to the Supreme Court, but that causes other types environmental justice and neighborly impacts on other neighboring properties. As we testified last Was

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: that last week that we were talking

[Samantha Sheehan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: about? I have no idea. The last time you saw us, as we testified to, we propose, allowing municipalities to regulate farms in Act two fifty exempt areas. So after the state makes an area of municipality Act two fifty exempt, then municipal zoning could apply. And we oppose or were unable after a lot of meeting and conversation and negotiation, are unable to support using the wraps as a threshold to determine municipal zoning authority, primarily because it does not consider the wraps were not made to regulate some of the issues that are important to us and to our municipal members, such as setback, fencing, pending, parking, ingress and egress of traffic and vehicles in and out of a farm and onto municipal roads, screening, lighting, and other common zoning issues and common points of conflict between incompatible land uses that are next door to each other. Also, by referring to the RAPs as the definition for commercial farm and using that as the trigger point for whether or not a municipality may regulate a property means that a property owner could be doing any agricultural activity. And if they make $2,000 in sales, not income, $2,000 in sales per year, then they could be regulated or they could not be regulated by the municipality. They would qualify for the RAPs. And they could also make no sales in a year. And if they file a schedule f, they would be a commercial farm subject to the wraps and exempt from any municipal regulation. And then lastly, the agency, we agree that it has been the common understanding and the common interpretation of municipal zoning administrators that prior to the TAF decision, if you were doing agricultural activity that was subject to the RAPs, the municipality could not regulate you. You did not need a permit for a farm structure. You were not required to follow municipal land or municipal animal ordinance that applied to non farm properties. And those were not enforced by the municipality. And we know that in these situations in particular where you have either and small acreage and a high stock of livestock, the agency has failed to address really serious issues because of the limitations of the reps. And we have an example to talk about shortly. But representative Austin asked, I think, a really important question. I want to be really clear about what the amendment you're considering would do. And part of this confusion and sort of lack of clarity or the ability of a property owner to move in or out of the RAPs in one year to the next year is another reason I could have added that on the previous slide. That's another reason we don't think the way to determine whether or not municipal regulation applies or is exempt is through the RAPs because so you asked if someone had five cows on one acre in Colchester. Could the town of Colchester regulate them? With this amendment, the answer is no. Because it's one acre or larger, then they would be exempt from zoning. However, if they had four cows on the same property, then the answer is yes. Because four five cows is in is the trigger for the rest, and one acre is in the amendment. If they had four cows on a 100 acres, which I think is would be a great place to have four cows, then the municipality could regulate them. If they had one cow on one acre and made 200 in sales, 2,000 in sales annually, no. One cow on one acre with no income at all, but they filed a Schedule F, then the answer is no. The municipality cannot regulate them. They would qualify for the to be regulated by the required agricultural practices. And before the TAF decision, this was basically true, but the acreage threshold was different. So that's what that's what you're changing. You're actually lowering the acreage threshold. So this amendment would do two things. It would create a right to grow food and to have 15 hens but not roosters, which we support. We totally support the right to grow food for everyone, whether you're selling or sharing or trading or just enjoying the food that you grow at home. And it would generally diminish the regulatory authority that municipalities had prior to the task decision by lowering the acreage to one. So these are the reasons we prefer the approach we testified to previously, which is to allow municipal authority that is limited and appropriate, does not ban farming, and only applies in Act two fifty exempt areas where other types of land uses are also Act two fifty exempt. And Josh is gonna sort of talk about a a situation we have right now where local zoning is being enforced. This would get thrown out if the if this law passed.

[Josh Stanford (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: If this amendment passed and this law passed as it's being put forward in both part in both bodies, really, would undo this court case that's happening right now because the RAPs haven't been able to regulate this. It's a 4.7 acre farm with hundreds of pigs right in the village. It's been over the news for years. There's been lots of concerns and allegations. It's surrounded by elderly senior housing, other municipal buildings, and it's a pretty contentious case going on right now. And finally, since the Supreme Court case, the town is undertaking zoning violations and trying to bring justice to their surrounding neighbors who have been demanding it for years. Also, it's in the middle of the village. This is before tier one B is approved. This is currently exempt from Act two fifty under an interim rules up to 75 units of housing. It has water, it has sewer, the village has its own electric department, and this is right in the dead center of it. And we really think that these are the type of situations, the only type of situations, the only locations in Vermont, less than 2% of the area that we want any authority to do this. And we want the authority to do this because there's people living closely and someone needs to manage that conflict without Act two fifty rules in place. It's really important. This is right along the banks of the Willoughby and Barton River. It's next to the school. It's next to the a major employer. And as I said, affordable senior and family housing. And it's finally being resolved by the zoning administrator. This this farm has not violated any wraps. My understanding is it's been visited a couple times because the wraps weren't designed to do what municipalities do with land use regulation and the competing interests in conflict.

[Samantha Sheehan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Yeah. So as Josh said, the red area is currently active 50 exempt. It also generally reflects what would be eligible for 1B exemption in the village of Orleans, which is inside the municipality of Barton. And the blue splotch you can see there is the 4.47 acre mostly pig farm that is in question. So we don't just wanna tell you what we oppose in your language. We wanna tell you what we support, which is a right to grow food for all property owners, so plants and fowl, some number of fowl, preventing any municipal ban on farming anywhere, even in tier one a and tier one b. We think that farming should be an allowed use of land in every situation, although in one a and one b, which is projected to be 2% of the state land area, that some municipal regulation would apply. And we support outside of tier one a and tier one b and 98% of the land area, including in at least 109 municipalities that have not adopted zoning or subdivision by law, that all farming be totally exempt from municipal regulation. So that's what we're asking for as a solution to deal with conflicts like we see in the Taft case and in Barton. There's others that have been in the news in Wyndham County and Charlotte was a goat farm, I think. Anyway, these are conflicts that have happened for a long time in Vermont communities and that we would like to prevent in the future as we make these areas even more dense and more dynamic through other land use decisions that really the state has decided. The state chose in Act 181 to require the village or means to upzone quite dramatically in the Home Act, and then in Act 181 made that same area Act two fifty exempt. And there happened to be this problematic farm right in the center of that. This is an example of a tier one A map that we can see from Rutland. Rutland was the first RPC to complete their Act 181 planning process that uses the future land use areas defined in state law and applies them to the regional plan. So this map is currently before the LERB for approval. We expect Pittsburgh to be eligible for tier one b and to request tier one b. So you can see it's a pretty I think if I remember correctly, I think Pittsburgh is is 40 square miles. It's a really large municipality. That purple splotch is where the state police academy is located, if you've ever been there. And then the pink, like, kind of square doughnut. If I move my mouse, you can see it. Right? So this is the area that would be tier one b eligible. So you can see sort of in the context, they have permanent zoning and bylaw. They have municipal water and sewer. They have a plan for growth in this area. And it's suited for for more density and for for more housing. And, again, generally, this area currently is Act two fifty exempt. And by another set of state preemptions in state law against municipal zoning is already zoned, and you are allowed to build 20 units per acre of housing here. I feel like I have one more thing from your discussion to address, but oh, I did. So another reason we're really not satisfied with using one acre to determine whether or not the municipal regulation applies or it would really be 0.99 acres, then municipal zoning and regulation can apply, is because when we are talking about livestock and not plants, it doesn't say what shape the one acre is. It could be an isosceles triangle. It could be what they call a dog ear lot that has a really narrow frontage, goes back, and then gets wide. Those are really common types of subdivisions that we see in these old downtown areas. It could be one acre oddly shaped that has multiple structures or units of housing on it and very little green space or area to manage the livestock in a reasonable way. So these are the type of considerations that municipal regulation does understand, consider, and use in its decision making about how far a setback should be. There are downtowns in Vermont where you can build to the drip edge. Your property line and your setback is the drip edge. Could you or should you be farming with less than twenty fifteen feet between structures? So this is the type of detail as well as nuance that can be considered in municipal regulation and can be applied by the appropriate municipal body that is just not considered in the RAPs. And one acre is a pretty small area. If it's oddly shaped, if the soil is poor, and if it has a number of large existing structures already on it.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Thanks for your testimony. I guess I need you to walk me through how the limited, criteria or things you could regulate under the as passed, the House Ag Committee, is gonna address the conflicts that have come up.

[Samantha Sheehan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Sure. Well, if you remember, we actually wanna use the language in forty four thirteen, which is slightly different, not the language in the as passed, which is if I remember correctly, it was traffic, egress and ingress, striping, parking, fire code, and something else that I'm forgetting.

[Rob North (Member)]: Fencing of livestock.

[Samantha Sheehan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Oh, right. Yeah. Fence fencing of livestock that is adjacent to a road. So that's what's in the as passed. The forty four thirteen framework is the one that we prefer, and it is broader, but it's also tested by the courts as well as by many years, many decades of real application at the municipal level. And so that would have been a longer list that would include sighting, setback, lighting, screening, yards, parking, traffic, signage, and some other things that I'm forgetting. So we refer the forty four thirteen language. This is what's used right now for hospitals, for solid waste, So transfer stations, dumps. So you can't prevent a municipality cannot prevent

[Josh Stanford (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Emergency shelter. Yeah.

[Samantha Sheehan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Emergency shelters, churches, hospitals. So in the case of if you think of wherever you go to drop off your trash and your recycling, the municipality cannot prevent the use of the property for that purpose, but they can require screening from the road so that when you drive by, you're not looking at, you know, piles of refrigerators and dumpsters full of couches or whatever happens to be there. So that's that's the solution that we prefer. The language in the as past is much closer to what we've been asking for, and it would help with some of those issues. So in the case of the village of Orleans, they could require fencing. It's

[Josh Stanford (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: tough. Yeah. Because it's it's restricted to tier one a. So Right. You know, our original language was all of tier one. Tier one b is still quite restrictive. You know, as Representative Satcowitz and I witnessed at our planning commission and and site board meeting just two nights ago where we were reviewing the area with the RPC and and and looking at where had sewer and water and sidewalks. That's where you can have one b eligibility. Sorry, though. I just

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: really wanna go back to how would this how would these limited, items address the Barton issue or the Essex issue?

[Rob North (Member)]: How how would that give the I would

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: the tools they need?

[Josh Stanford (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Yeah. I mean,

[Samantha Sheehan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Fencing I and setback in both of those would have been would have gone a really long way if the municipality could require so if if the property owner involved in the situation in Essex had had the same number of ducks and was cultivate cultivating less cannabis as just a private property owner, like as a homesteader, not as a commercial enterprise, then the municipality could have required fencing and setbacks just as they do for other property owners in that same residential zoning district.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: You still would have had sound and smell and everything else that went

[Josh Stanford (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: It's it's being regulated to the extent they can, like other property owners in close proximity that have conflicts. It would still guarantee the right to farm. It would just try to manage it where the wraps aren't designed to do that.

[Samantha Sheehan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Which which is true in dozens and dozens of municipalities for hundreds of Vermonters and has been for centuries. Like, everywhere wherever Vermonters have ever lived, they have lived there with animals. And prior to the wraps, the municipalities regulated those whether or not it was a commercial enterprise. So right now, they're in most Vermont municipalities, you may have livestock. You may have them as pets. You may have them to cultivate for food. And the municipality may require certain conditions. They may require a permit or not. And there may be conditions on that permit that say if you have you know, your so, for example, the city of Burlington, you're allowed to have chickens, but you have to secure them at night, and a secure coop means also from predators and at large dogs. So if you have a coop and that coop is secure and the chickens are inside of it at night, you're allowed to have chickens in the city of Burlington, and many people do.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Representative Chapin.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: Appreciate all the explanation. I really have a lot of concerns, shared concerns around some of these really problem sites. I'm not sure I agree on that solution, so I have a couple of questions. One of my biggest concerns, having worked with businesses on profitability and viability for fifteen years across the state, I'm aware of how difficult it is to make a living farming. I want to offer you a correction on your slide that talks about income. You said that it could have no income because your expenses are higher than your sales, and that's not true. The word income doesn't mean net income. And even a negative net income is still income. And many of our even largest farms in the state could be making 1 and a half million in sales on their milk and have 1,600,000.0 in expenses. That is a very common occurrence. I just want to be respectful of farm businesses of all kinds of scales and commercial farming that negative profits is a regular occurrence in this sector. So on that note, I would just ask, I understand the concept that we could have, like the zoning can't put you out of farming, but like, how do you manage that when requiring a certain kind of fencing or setback could turn that commercial operation from net positive to net negative? How what are what are gonna be the parameters in place around zoning that that would protect against that?

[Josh Stanford (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: I I think that's a great point. Later on in the bill, there's a report that's called for to, like, come up with model zoning. I think many of the farm groups, we'd agree, like, to have one standard model zoning ordinance would be really great. But we that's what we should be doing this summer. I mean, the reality is the supreme court case is almost ten months old. The Barton case is the only municipality that's adopted zoning to try to correct the problem. The sky's not falling. Municipalities don't wanna jump and regulate farming. We should pause and get this right and do just that with input and create a set of farming and zoning standards that look at this and treat everyone fairly. Again, we're only wanting this to apply in the most dense areas of Vermont where there's water and sewer and sidewalks.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: I love that. And personally, I'd love to see us focus on this working group as bringing everyone to the table and really studying these challenging situations and figuring out how to address this at the municipal level. I think I'd really welcome that conversation. I'm really nervous about putting a lot of what's in the amendment or in the bill into practice yet. I'd be a lot more comfortable focusing on pulling all the right stakeholders together and having a deep conversation about that.

[Samantha Sheehan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: The underlying bill does have a study. Is it that is in there as passed. Yes. And we we wholeheartedly support it. And I'll just remind you again from our testimony, which is is posted and you can refer back to, but we would propose two changes to that. One is to go farther and to actually also explore ways that municipal zoning and bylaw and planning, probably most importantly, could, seek to protect and promote agricultural land uses, not just regulate. And, also, I think it's it's really important that in the stakeholder organizations, there be included citizen planners as well as planners that work for a municipality or RPC and zoning administrators who are really the frontline government official that has these conversations with both with farmers and homeowners and neighbors either seeking to undertake an agricultural practice on their property or who have found a conflict with something happening with a neighbor.

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia (Member)]: So

[Josh Stanford (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: And and to further, you know, that that thought, representative, you know, our approach to trying to deal with that imbalance of how hard it is to make a living farming, but yet it's very we support it. Municipalities from owners value it. The house so far up to saying, well, we're gonna help you by not regulating you as much. It doesn't seem to be stopping the bleeding. Like, maybe we need to regulate in a way through this working group and zoning that areas that do have climax soils, that are zoned, rural agricultural, maybe they get actually incentives, not just a less regulations. Because the regulations don't seem to be bringing the success since municipal zoning hasn't been allowed until ten months ago, sort of, creating these situations you you you you you you know, you talked about. So there really should be a bigger picture to look at the whole challenge and the whole solution and balance the municipal concerns in some very dense areas with the real concerns that farming is highly valued in Vermont and needs to stay and needs more support. And maybe land use planning could also support that, not just regulate.

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: Thank you.

[Samantha Sheehan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Sorry. If I can just say one more thing. In either the language in the bill as passed or in our preferred framework, which would use the forty four thirteen protection, I wanna, like, give you give you an example of, like, what would not apply. Because I understand the concern about the regulatory cost or expense on the farm as a commercial enterprise. And it the type of regulation that would be allowed, again, in either either framework, the one that was worked on by the House Agriculture Committee, or if you use the current list that applies to churches and homeless shelters, it doesn't allow the municipality to regulate things like the materials of a building or siding. Like, I have a board and batten exterior on my home, which I really like. And it's really it it is on my house because it was really expensive to the person who put it there. And in municipal regulation, oftentimes, board and batten and siding is not allowed. You have to shingle. So that's just, like, an example of a type of municipal regulation that would apply to a commercial business that's non farm or to a residential use, but the farm in the same area would be exempted from because it would just be limited to that, like, sightings, setbacks, fencing, parking, lighting, screening, etcetera, that, like, 14 ish types of zoning issues that are listed there.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Thanks for your testimony.

[Samantha Sheehan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Thank you.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Oh, Steve Collier?

[Graham Unangst-Rufenacht (Rural Vermont)]: Yeah. Thanks.

[Steve Collier (Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: If I could just add a quick clarifying point. Just so in case everyone doesn't know, every municipality already can regulate animals that escape the farm. Towns have that authority. They've always had that authority. They continue to have that authority. Two years ago, the the legislature actually increased the penalties for that. So to the extent that we're talking about animals escaping, like from Orleans, towns have the authority to do that. Neighbors can also sue for violations, but towns can issue fines for escaped animals because it's a public safety issue. It's not farming. It's public safety. They can issue fines. They can seize animals. So there's nothing about this zoning discussion. I think that it should get conflated with animals that are running loose because animals that are running loose, we agree, are absolutely within the town's authority. Thank you. Graham. My

[Graham Unangst-Rufenacht (Rural Vermont)]: name is Graham Eunang Strufanuk. I'm the policy director at Royal Vermont. May I use this chair? Yes, sir. This is my daughter, Juniper Batten Yunang Sruthenacht. You're welcome to sit there. Is our in service day. She is joining me as we were not expecting to be called in by testimony, but thank you for inviting and making us welcome. And thank you for your patience.

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia (Member)]: Good to see you all. So

[Graham Unangst-Rufenacht (Rural Vermont)]: I speak for rural Vermont. I think Caroline has been here, so you're familiar with our organization. She's introduced us. I'd also speak for the larger coalition of agricultural organizations, which has been working in alignment on this issue for many months. I think given we haven't been in this committee much, I want to start from the beginning and state for the record our coalitions and what we believe to be the broader agricultural community's preference for how to respond to the Supreme Court decision ideally. We think the most effective and appropriate thing for the legislature to do is to affirm in statutory language the clear history of legislative intent, the history of statutory language which defines the exemption from municipal regulation as applying to all farms, that this exemption not be limited to issues related to water quality. Any suggested changes to municipal authority over farms could then be studied, such as what it would mean to not be able to functionally prohibit as was asked before. To provide a little insight, in discussing this with our board after it first happened, the shock was not only expressed by the farmers and the farm workers on the board, but also by Sarah Cattell, who is the former chair of the senate committee on agriculture in Vermont. She served well before the REPs were written in the statute and can attest to the long history of how agriculture was statutorily made exempt from municipal regulation, how long the statute has been interpreted and applied this way. To address the supreme court ruling directly, which principally ruled based on statutory interpretation regarding how it referred to the REPs, all you need to do is clarify in statute the municipal exemption that has always been intended by the legislature to apply to all farms. Potential impacts of the digital changes, all those legislative changes we're now discussing are unknown. They have not been given time adequate time to be researched. So that would be our number one option. I just wanna say if I I've also heard folks make sort of light of the situation in Essex. I visited that site, and I think it's worth taking note taking this a little more seriously. This man lost his livelihood when he was clearly following the law as it was intended and had been interpreted for decades. We can feel how we do about the conflict and how it went, but hopefully, we can agree that there shouldn't be room for bias in how someone in their business is treated due to personal conflict. And I'd also like to name that for this entire time, we have only heard a very, very limited number of examples of conflict locations in farms, and we absolutely support developing a statutory mechanism to deal with conflicts and limitations of the RIPs and enforcement. And in fact, we are the only party here to have proposed such a solution. I think it's also been further implied here in discussion that the REPs are distinctly about regulating water quality. And I think for anybody who is familiar with how farms are regulated and what the REPs do, that is just not an appropriate interpretation. And if you wanna invite in Laura DiPietro or somebody else from the agency to explain that, that can be really helpful. So as we've been told this first solution is not politically feasible at this point, we have entered into sincere and earnest negotiations with Agency of Agriculture and VLCT for months to arrive at some relatively common ground. I think, you know, VLCT described some of those negotiations and some of the the commonalities we found. Some of those are represented in the bill coming from house agriculture prior to this proposed amendment. That bill focuses on the areas of greatest concern to VLCT, tier one areas, acknowledging they would also like tier one b to be included, but there's that's where we our just our agreement sort of falls apart. We'd like to see just tier one a, and they'd like to see tier one b. It also limits the type of municipal oversight aspects of farming, the type of municipal oversight to aspects of farming relevant for municipality to have control over as it relates to public safety. And and Samantha explained a number of how that was iterated both in their proposal, which was around, like, the church statute, as I call it, churches, hospitals, etcetera, and then ours, like, specific enumerated abilities talents would have. And it does not make determinations over whether a farm should be regulated by any degree of municipal oversight based on an arbitrary number of acres a farm may or may not be, or whether a town should be able to limit the number of poultry on a farm based on an arbitrary number. So we're concerned that this proposal does not reflect the interests of any of the parties who have been negotiating for many months. It will not resolve the issues that have been discussed or which have surfaced at this time, and it moves substantially from the work that was done in house community agriculture. Ultimately, we're curious to understand, and it was helpful to hear you say, Chair, at the beginning where this draft came from. So we were a little when it came up, were like, well, these are interesting changes. It doesn't seem to align with some of the discussion we've heard. So just to go through our specific concerns, specifically addressing that a farm must be one acre or larger to qualify for the exemption. So as has extensively been discussed, the size of a farm is not directly related to weather or how it impacts the community, the environment, etcetera, or how profitable or productive it is. One acre is not a number or threshold that has any evidence or reasoning associated with it from a perspective of discernible impact or risk. And rather, it creates a new barrier for small farms and less capitalized individuals and businesses to be starting, growing and succeeding. Access to farmland is prohibitively expensive. People have access to the land they have access to. People living in more densely populated areas with access to fewer resources must have equitable access to growing an agricultural business and growing food year round on the land they have access to. This does not meet the desires or concerns of VLCT or the coalition of agricultural organizations. So based on our understanding, VLCT has stated, as have towns themselves and people working in municipal positions at towns who are not speaking for the town when they talk to us, that the towns do not want to have this responsibility to regulate all farms under one acre across the state. They do not feel like they have the capacity or expertise to do so. They only want to have a regulatory authority in particular areas of the state where there is high traffic, high population density, in particular statutory encouragement. This is the act two fifty exempt and the incentives for, high numbers of housing, etcetera, about how development is supposed to happen in these particular areas. So, again, the BLCT has requested tiers one a and one b as those focus areas, whereas our coalition has put, you just tier one a. Not only the towns not want this authority, but they have made it clear that they do not want unconditional authority, which this bill proposes or the amendment proposes. So BLCT has proposed municipalities have a limited type of regulatory authority similar to how hospitals, churches, etcetera are treated. And our coalition has articulated limited municipal authority that we would much refer to this unconditional authority that's in this bill. None of us have advocated for unlimited municipal authority over any scale of farm or area in which farms are active. Providing municipalities unconditional zoning authority over farms less than one acre means that municipalities could choose to entirely disallow farms at their scales in parts of their towns, except as prohibited by the Right to Grow Food Statute. If you were to look in Essex Junction at this moment, farming is prohibited in all areas except for planned agricultural areas where it's only a permitted use, which means you actually have to pay to get a permit and apply to be able to farm in an area nowhere else is farming permitted. So this is not being asked for by the towns or VLCT or a coalition. It results in what we consider unreasonable potential prohibitions on people's right to produce food and the state's food security. As has been said by people who work in municipal town government themselves, they do not have the agricultural expertise. They do not have consistent regulators or regulations. They are far more prone to regulating based on bias versus clear and objective standards. We had a woman come in from Strapper who, speaking for herself but who serves on the select board, who after learning about, she came to testify against basically to say, let's put this back how it used to be. We don't support including tier one a or tier one b. And they ended up voting down their tier one tier one b map when it came up because they said this map was drawn without understanding that we'd be regulating agriculture in these areas. And this person said that they'd seen seven new farms come up in their time in the select board there, that they see different members of members joining the select board all the time, who have different ideas about how people should or shouldn't be regulated or treated. They're just very concerned about how roll over on local town committees could affect how farms are regulated and the consistency or inconsistency of what people are facing. The LCT has also stated they are not only concerned about small farms, I. E. An acre or less. They are specifically concerned about high input and high output farms, in particular in these areas of higher population density and traffic. So this amendment therefore would reduce the proposed authority towns could exert over all sizes and types of farms in the very areas where all parties can agree to limited municipal zoning oversight based on the nature of those areas. Lastly, proposed amendment would also result in some farms far from village centers solely because of their size being subject to municipalities regulations that are extensively meant to address issues within these village centers. I also want to point out there's no grandfathering of farms affected since this ruling in the bill. So farms have essentially been under a new legal landscape since the Supreme Court ruling and some have been affected since this ruling based on the new authorities that have been provided. It's critical for the legislature to provide a grandfathering clause in statute protecting any farm which may have been affected by municipal authority provided by the court ruling between when the court ruled and the passage of this bill. If the intent of the legislature is to address this court ruling has dramatically changed the regulatory landscape for farms, we believe it is only equitable that we ensure that farms that have been affected due to the ruling be provided relief if they have been impacted by towns during the period of time between the ruling and the legislation impending at this time. I want to say, lastly dealing with the problems, like as the LCT said, none of these solutions will necessarily effectively deal with all of the issues that have surfaced over time in these discussions, in particular related to livestock. And I believe Caroline was in here some time in the last week or so presenting to you all specifically our proposal. Our coalition has proposed language which we have offered to this committee and others which would provide the agency of agriculture, food, and markets greater discretion related to a number of animals in a particular parcel based on stocking density and allowing some discretion from the secretary of agriculture to make those decisions. So where they're saying we cannot respond to this issue given how the REPs are written in the current enforcement discretion we have, we want to give them some discretion. We want to create that possibility. That is how we think we can most effectively address all these things. I wanna say that we have recently received some analysis of undeveloped prime ag soils and potential tier one beak areas, but I have not been prepared to on that at this time. We haven't done all of our assessment of it. And I haven't spoken to the poultry element as I I was hoping that Caroline Gordon, who's our legislative director, would go to come and speak to us. She's also a beginning poultry farmer. You can speak to some of the real issues with limiting to 15 and just thinking about it a little more in-depth from an agricultural perspective. For example, if you're incubated chicks or chickens, you actually have a pretty a very small effective business. You might just think about chickens as, like, large, full grown animals living and scooping and breeding eggs or being killed at some point. But there's lots of different ways people can raise chickens. And numbers, and the size of animals might vary. It might not actually be relevant to the impact those animals are having on neighbors or on the land itself.

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia (Member)]: I

[Graham Unangst-Rufenacht (Rural Vermont)]: think that might be all I have right now.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Thank you for your testimony. I'm not I Caroline just joined, but I don't I don't know that we need a primer on chicken density at this time, but I'm glad you're able to join us. I guess the question I have for everyone is we have no tier one areas right

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia (Member)]: now, and

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: we may or may not get one or 10 or you know? So I'm not I guess I'm I'm struggling with how this is hinged what what your preferred solution is hinged on something that is underway but doesn't exist yet? And I guess that's a question for the league since this is mostly where you're coming down.

[Josh Stanford (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: I guess I'd say two things. It goes to that question of, since none of them are actually in place, tier Bs are gonna be rolling out, tier 1B will be approved soon by the LERB, the first ones, which is a requirement before you become 1A. That's the starting area first, yes. And then 1B has a separate application process. But that's the exact point. It gives time to maybe adopt model zoning before these new areas are actually in effect. The municipalities can then regulate there.

[Samantha Sheehan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: I just want to be so with Act 181, so as Josh said, the 1B affirmation process is really what it is, happens during the regional mapping, which is ongoing now. It started in December and is supposed to conclude December. So in theory, by 01/01/2027, all of the regional maps will be approved and most of the Tier 1B areas will have been both mapped and affirmed by the LERB at that point. And the process for applying for Tier 1A status and going through that approval process before the LERB and the public is separate and conceivably there could be tier 1As. So the first region in line is Rutland and I think conceivably technically legal under the law, it's technically possible that Rutland could have tier 1A approval for the city of Rutland before the end of this session or before the effective date of the miscellaneous ag bill or this bill. So assuming that would be in July or effective upon passage. The other potentially Tier 1A eligible municipalities could come eighteen months after that. The last region in line that would be getting the maps would be getting approved next November or this coming November, December would be Two Rivers. So any tier one a eligible municipalities and then 2 Rivers Region would be going before the LERB the 2027. So that's the timeline under the current law.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Members have questions? Representative Tagliavia.

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia (Member)]: Regarding the one acre, do you have any idea how many of your members would be affected who are smaller than one acre by this one of these amendments here?

[Graham Unangst-Rufenacht (Rural Vermont)]: Graham, policy director of Rural Vermont. We don't have a number. We've brought some people in to testify. We don't have a number. No. I think that's part of the reason, like, when you ask about the study committee, to us, it's a huge we thought the legislature might reconvene after the Supreme Court's decision was made last fall and just correct course. Just be like, we need to set this straight. And if people wanna change this, let's study these things in the study committee. What would the solutions be? Who would they impact? We are clearly now because we've been told there isn't the political will to do that, trying to, like, justify things and reason things without having the time to do really adequate research. Also open it up to other members of the coalition, like Nova Vermont isn't here, Maddie is here, and Caroline, you're also here now. I want to be speaking, you know, the only person for our coalition is probably 13 or 15 agricultural organizations in the coalition.

[Maddie Kempner (NOFA-VT)]: Sure. Go ahead. For the record, Maddie can have false degree of Vermont. I think given the uncertainty and the timeline around the rollout of the tiers and the questions from this committee about whether that's an appropriate framing to use to solve this issue, I would just go back to Graham's original comments that I think likely the preference for our coalition would be passing language that takes us back to clarifying legislative intent for your Supreme Court decision and then form a study committee to address what would be in the league's testimony, they talked about a model zoning ordinance or a zoning bylaw that would adequately address these situations, especially if it pertains to livestock. That doesn't exist, and this bill does not create model zoning in any of the iterations that we've seen.

[Ellen Chittenden (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So a study committee might be a good way to handle that, working on the model ordinance.

[Michael "Mike" Tagliavia (Member)]: Also more

[Ela Chapin (Member)]: that's That here is actually taking it back to me.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Where we are. So I really appreciate everyone coming in on Friday afternoon when there's a winter storm happening. We all are thinking about getting home safely. So to be continued, and I appreciate all of you joining us and providing Thank you. The We're adjourned.