Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Going live. Welcome back to the House of Environment Committee. Are going to be hearing from John Groveland from BNRC S-three 25, which has changed names, an act relating to regional planning and Act two fifty tier jurisdiction, although not exclusively that. We invited John here to give us some background and history of how we got to where we got to. So welcome, John, and thank you for taking the challenge on this afternoon.

[John Groveman (VNRC)]: I really appreciate the opportunity. For the record, my name is John Groveman. I'm the water program and policy director for the Vermont Natural Resources Council. And so yes, as the chair said, you know, as you begin your review of S-three 25, I thought it would be good to start with a review of kind of how we got here. Like how did we get to Act 181 that S-three 25 is amending? Talk a little bit about, very little, really brief. I know you heard it like at the beginning of the session when you have the different programs come in and talk about what they do. You get a primer on Act two fifty, but I wanted to in particular just quickly run through how Act two fifty jurisdiction works now, how some of the process works because it's come up as relevant to some of the new jurisdiction that is being implemented in Act 181 and altered in S-three 25. And then at the very end, you know, obviously, we worked on this bill in the Senate. We listened to the concerns that have been raised about Act 181. And so I just want to speak to some of the things that we've heard. And you'll hear from many other people who will have perspectives on all of this, but including the land use review board, which is great. And I know they're coming in tomorrow, but I could give you a head start and give you some indication about like what some of the concerns that we're hearing, I'm sure you're hearing and, you know, how we're thinking about what we've heard. But before I launch into it, just as a reminder, I just want to do this just as listen to me, keep in mind kind of, you know, the background I have that informs what I'm going to say about Act two fifty and Act 181 and how it's being implemented is I've worked on Act two fifty for a long time for thirty years. Was the Vermont, I was the active 50 land use attorney for the agency of natural resources for five years from 1995 to 2000. I represented at that point, the way it worked was I represented not only A and R but VTrans. I represented housing and community development, mostly historic preservation. Sometimes, well, mostly those three agencies in Act two fifty. I've been to every district commission around the state multiple times during that period of time. Was also, I handled appeals when permits to get appealed and those appeals went at that point to the environmental board. So I've seen Act two fifty from the governmental perspective up close was involved with how is it working, know, being part of the process. State agencies are integral to the Act two fifty process. And then I had the privilege during the Trump administration of being the chair of the Natural Resources Board. I got to administer the program. And it's definitely my career is the thing I'm most proud of having that opportunity to do. It was super hard thing to do. Active 50 is hard. So I know that. I sat in the chair's office. I heard complaints about Active 50. I heard people who love Active 50. I saw the challenges with how the program runs. And then at VNRC, I've been involved representing VNRC and our members in Act two fifty proceedings. From the citizens perspective, I've been a participant in Act two fifty in front of district commissions and on appeals. I'm involved with these legislative efforts to get us to where we are today. I certainly don't know everything, but I definitely, that perspective helps give me an upfront kind of view of these issues that informs how I'm going to talk about it today. So, I guess I'd like to start with just kind of level set about some really key parts of how Act two fifty works today that I think are relevant to the debate that you're going to hear about AC-one 181 and S-three 25. So I'll start with what you've all heard many times, but I think it's worth saying that FACT two fifty was adopted in 1970. It was a response in Vermont to concerns about development that was spurred largely by the construction of the interstate really changed Vermont and how accessible Vermont was to especially Austin area and New York. There were concerns really about working lands about rapid development on farmland and in forest land that wouldn't be checked. Was there was not a lot of zoning in Vermont at the time. Remember there were major environmental laws were just being passed at the same time. Clean Water Act I think is 1972. So like wastewater discharges, know, there's no storm water regulations. There was really no, like there were no federal regulations that were meaningful of any kind. So the leaders in Vermont said, you know, we need something in our state to address the demographic changes we're seeing from the interstate and concerns about the impacts on the land. And that was where Act two fifty started. Really relevant to what you're going to hear is a lot about Act 50 jurisdiction. When does Act two fifty apply? Right now, in the original Act two fifty, it applies based on the size of a project and whether you're in a town that has zoning and subdivision regulations or you're in a town that does not have zoning and subdivision regulations. So for example, for commercial and industrial development, if you're in a town with zoning and subdivision regulations, the project has to be on 10 acres or more in order to require an Act two fifty permit. If you're in a town without zoning and subdivision regulations, that same project only has to be on a parcel of one acre or more. So the theory there, and this is carried over in Act 181, is you want to, as I'll talk about a little bit, you want to encourage towns to have planning and zoning. So towns could either have planning and zoning and have less active 50 in their towns or if they choose not to have planning and zoning or they just don't feel that they have the resources to administer a zoning program they could have more active 50. And so that's why you see like in smaller communities like a small like general store on like one acre and as you all know it doesn't take much you know to trigger an acre of land to build something that goes through Act two fifty. Like you've seen a bunch of dollar stores go through Act two fifty in smaller towns where if you have a dollar store here in Montpelier, it's a 10 acre town, it probably wouldn't even go through Act two fifty, right? So that's how the jurisdiction was set up. But Act two fifty doesn't apply only to commercial industrial development. It also applies through residential development. And I won't get into the rules around residential housing units because they're really complicated. And they are changed in Act 181 significantly. But just to give you a sense of it, same thing. If you're in a town without zoning and subdivision regulations, a five lot subdivision would trigger Act two fifty. But if you're in a town with zoning and subdivision, you need a 10 lot subdivision to trigger Act two fifty. And so if you want to avoid Act two fifty in a town with zoning and subdivision, you build a nine lot subdivision. And I would I think there are probably a number. The Land Use Review Board folks could tell you of nine lot subdivisions out there. People want to avoid Act two fifty. And maybe there are a number of four lot subdivisions, it's the same principle, right? If you want best Act two fifty, adopt zoning and subdivision. The criteria. So that's jurisdiction, which is altered significantly in Act 181, which I'll get to. But then there's the Act two fifty criteria. And the criteria in ACTIV-fifty are really fascinating criteria. They really range all the way from like four natural resource issues: air pollution, water pollution, necessary wildlife habitat, rare natural areas, threatened endangered species, to community impacts. That's kind of, I always lump them together. They're kind of either like natural resources or community impacts. The community impacts are traffic, aesthetics, and really interesting criteria is like recognizing that development also costs money to serve, right? So like if you're building in a community, large or small, there are criteria to address what are the cost of services? Know, If you're going to build a large new commercial project, are you going to need to put traffic lights there? Are you going to need more police services? Are you going need more fire services? If you're going to build a large residential development, are we going to need to make sure that we can get emergency services up that road? Schools, right now, as you well know, at a time where school populations are lower, but there were times throughout the now sixty years of Act two fifty where a school population wasn't that low. So what if you're adding lots of students to a school, you have to hire new teachers, you have to build new facilities, etcetera, etcetera. So that's a really interesting part of Act two fifty. So it's the community impacts and there's the natural resources impacts. And then the last part of Act 50 I just want to mention is, so how does it work? How does it get administered? So, Act 181 doesn't really change how Act 50 is administered. So there are nine district commissions throughout the state. Roughly track the counties, not exactly obviously given the numbers, but the idea was let's have permits issued like in the communities or near the communities where the project is. The district commissioners have to be from that community. They're appointed by the governor for terms. They are essentially volunteers. It's an incredible system that we still have today. It's classic Vermont, right? We've actually talked over the last eight years as we've been talking about updates to Act two fifty. Does that make sense? Because district commissioners get a 50 per day per diem. That's what they get per meeting. They don't get paid, bless you, for the work. It's like prep work. You look at an Active 50 application and there's going to be a lot in there. They don't get paid for reading that stuff and they don't get paid for meeting with They get paid for like an official meeting when they meet. And I think that the idea, and I do think this is a good thing about Act two fifty, although we've all worried about the equity issues, it keeps things kind of local decision making by people in your communities. These And are people who aren't lifers, they have terms and they're not in it for the money. They're in it for community service because they care. And when I was chair of the Natural Resources Board, one of the more interesting parts of the job was you know, there would be people up and they either didn't want to serve anymore or the governor wanted to make a change and you'd get like a list of names of like people, and then you kind of go through them, you call them up. And a lot of people were like, no, you. Dollars 50 per meeting. But some people did want to serve, but finding good people to serve as in the legislature, you know, is a challenge. But it keeps it local. It keeps it, I think, real. So like if you do need to get an active 50 permit, that's the process that is in front of you. Active 50 fees, because this has come up and I'll loop back to it at the end when I talk about concerns that have been raised. Act two fifty fees are 6.65 per $1,000 of construction costs for the first $15,000,000 of a project. For the first $15,000,000 Most projects in Vermont, I would hazard to guess, do not cross that threshold. What was that again, John? $0.65 per $1,000 of construction costs for the first $15,000,000 of the project. So, I did a little math. I thought your project was because I'll come back to this because of their concerns about smaller projects that might trigger Act two fifty jurisdiction under the sort of new jurisdictional rules that will change the jurisdictional rules that I just described about the cost of the fee. Like for a $500,000 project, it would be about a little more than $3,300 would be the permit fee. And I did check my math with my wife, who is a finance person and much better at math than I am, but maybe I still got it wrong because famously lawyers are very bad at math. But I just wanted to give you an idea of what how it works. There are provisions in the rules for like waiving fees and reducing fees. They're fairly limited. I know that there have been concerns about fees. I certainly think that Land Use Review Board by rule could adjust fees. It's something that comes up a lot and have provisions for further reducing fees and other criteria. There is already a process for reducing fees under certain circumstances, but I just wanted to note kind of how it works now and that the law does contemplate how to calculate fees and when they could be reduced. And finally, Act two fifty has two categories. If you need an Act two fifty permit, you have to go to one of the district commissions. Your project is either going to be categorized as a minor or a major. And it's a decision made by the district commission, and a major project gets a public hearing, and they take and usually the criteria is I mean, I think it's not like hard and fast criteria, but honestly, like, this is part of why it's good that the district commissioners are from the community. If you know there's going to be community interest, right? If you know there's a project that's going to raise concerns, that'll probably be a major. If you evaluate the application and there are a lot of issues, whether they're the natural resources issues or the community impact issues, you're probably going to characterize it as a major because minor projects don't get a hearing. They just go on public notice. Somebody could ask for a hearing, if they don't, they go through just like notice and comment. It's usually the state agencies that comment. Really are made, you know, because neighbors just aren't that interested. Community is not that interested. Minors, this is all from the Land Use Review Board statistics. It's in the report that they issue every year, you can look at it. An average of ninety days to get through a minor. This shocked me and I actually called the LERB and because when I was the chair, I think it was like 80% of projects from minors. Now the reports see 95% of projects are going through as minors. So, a very small percentage. So, even if that is like 85% or 90%, clearly the Land Use Review Board and the Act two fifty program has made a concerted effort to have more minors because they go through faster and this kind of just work with the Act two fifty program and the state agencies to get through. So I just want to level set because you're going to hear about, I think as you review S-three 25, about people concerned about going through Act two fifty, about some of the new jurisdictional triggers and the rules that are being developed, but I think it's just important how much is it going to cost, but I just think it's important to level set. This is the process, this is how it's working now, I can tell you as chair there is immense pressure to make the process go faster and to make it work better. That's appropriate like good government. I've worked in government for the nonprofit sector my whole career. I believe in good government and I think that's why you're seeing the number of minors as they are and kind of this always improvement process to try to get people through the process as fast as you can. That doesn't mean that, you know, if you could have a major and it could be issues, but those are the statistics. Those are what the numbers are telling us. So, that's the background. The other piece of background that I want to talk about is how do we get from Act two fifty worked in 1970 really up significantly until Act 181 was passed? Because it just didn't happen overnight. It was really a long process that began with as Act two fifty was approaching the fiftieth anniversary, which was 2020, it was coincided with, you know, there was, I think, a healthy introspection about, this is a program, like some people love Act 50, some people don't like Act two fifty. But I think overall the conventional wisdom was that Act two fifty did help Vermont, especially like it did effectively address a lot of the concerns about the interstate and development and having a program to sort of direct development and minimize impacts and allow for the community to have input. But a lot of change between 1970 and 2020. As I said, we didn't have all the environmental programs we just have at the federal level. Many more towns had zoning and planning that they did in 1970. There are more towns with more sophisticated planning and zoning programs than they had in 1970 when Act 50 was enacted, and the problems in society are different. So we have had this housing crisis or the shortage of housing, like it's been evident for some time. And I think around 2020, people really started to feel it. Obviously the pandemic had set in and that ended up setting off I think another chain reaction of impacts like once we kind of got through the pandemic. So the housing issue was hitting Vermont and the whole country, which is not just a Vermont thing, differently than it was not only in 1970, but in the years following that. And then I think the environmental stressors are different too. Climate change, you know, no one was talking about climate change in 1970. The amount of studies and work that have gone in, and you heard about them, you hear about them in your committee, people studying the impacts of climate change, the increased flooding that we're having, the loss of biodiversity, the loss of habitat, the loss of forest health. So, the Agency of Natural Resources, UVM, other academic institutions have been studying and tracking these issues, and ACTIVE50 wasn't designed to address them. So around in 2020, well it happened really in 2017, the legislature created a commission to study like how do we update this law? How do we recognize we have different problems? How do we recognize that the legal landscape has changed? You know, Act two fifty is always difficult to change in the legislature. So the consensus was, well, we need a commission. And a commission was formed. It was called the Commission on Act two fifty the next fifty years it was formed in 2017 it was comprised of six legislators three senators three house members you might know the chair of that the co chair of that commission was someone named Amy Sheldon who's the co chair of that commission. I forget who your Senate counterpart was, but there was a Senate co chair as well. And there were advisors to the Commission, there were business groups, environmental groups, there were municipal officials, there was a scientist from UVM and state agencies, the Agency of Natural Resources, the Agency of Agriculture, VTrans, and the Agency of Commerce and Community Development. And that commission met over two years. They all, in addition to having their own meetings, they had I think at least a half dozen public meetings throughout the state from Burlington down to Manchester, and in between more than 400 Vermonters came out to those meetings that were run by a facilitator that was hired by the Commission that was money appropriated to hire a facilitator. Legislative Council staffed the Commission and staffed those meetings as well in terms of tracking things and taking notes. And as a result of all of that work in 2019, the Commission issued a final report that made a number recommendations to updating and modernizing Act two fifty, recognizing the changes that I had discussed.

[Speaker 0]: And I pulled my notebook out recently, it's three ring binder. It's about this thick. Tons of information.

[John Groveman (VNRC)]: It was an impressive effort. And if you haven't read the report, I would really recommend it. I'm happy to send it to you. I, you know, have it right on my desktop because I was doing this. I don't always have it on my desktop but it's got incredible information in there. Really thorough. One of the alleged counsels who worked on it is someone named Aaron Aller who is like he was in his last years as legislative counsel and I think it was Ellen's like one of her first she was at the beginning of her time as a legislative counsel. And Aaron not only had he been legislative counsel for years, he had worked at the Environmental Board. He'd worked at the Agency of Natural Resources. He'd worked at the Public Utility Commission, which was then called actually, he worked at the Public Service Department. And he was a brilliant, brilliant lawyer and person. And the details in that report are really impressive. There are almost 19 appendices with incredible research and information. And the reason I'm going out of my way to say this is that the conclusions and recommendations in the report were not just based, they were not casually made. They were based on the meetings of that group, the expert staffing that it had, the advisors and the over 400 Vermonters that informed the process. And some of the issues that were raised in that effort were things that Act 181, as you will see, ultimately is trying to address. But there were certainly recommendations about having a tiered jurisdictional process, like recognizing that there is more towns with zoning and planning and we need more housing and could we have a tiered process that active 50 jurisdictions not just based on the size of the project but location based jurisdiction. So that's the first time where that comes into play. Forest fragmentation, forest health, habitat was a big issue flagged by the Commission because it was a big issue flagged by the Agency of Natural Resources. In 2015, and I can send you this report as well, and I just think it's important to like go back to some of this background. This is the government. This was not an advocacy group. It wasn't UVM. Was actually Forest Parks and Recreation issued a report in 2015 that said we're seeing forest fragmentation. We're seeing scattered residential development that's harming forest health, that one misplaced house, misplaced road and subdivision that's small could have an outsized effect on forest health and habitat, And it documented the science behind this, what the impacts are, how it's sort of intersecting with climate change to exacerbate those problems. And then it also says, well, what should Vermont do about it? What are some of the policy changes that we could implement to address these issues? And one change was have an Act two fifty criteria that addressed forest health and fragmentation. So we didn't have that until ACT-one 181, and I'll get to that ACT-one 100 It's one of the things ACT-one 181 does. And how do we address the fact that some of these smaller projects can have this impact on forest health and habitat that we're not reaching because going back to where I started, Act two fifty is based on the size of a project, not the location of the project. So you could have a nine lot subdivision in a town with planning and zoning and a long road to serve it and really do it in a location that will have really negative ecological impacts. Unintended, you know. Not saying that anyone intended it, but you don't know, right? If you don't, if you're not stunning forest fragmentation, forest health, and habitat, you wouldn't know. And the same in a town without zoning. It could be a four lot subdivision that is designed to avoid Act two fifty. Could have those same impacts. That's all in that report. The report also recognized that climate change didn't exist and Act two fifty really wasn't set up to deal with climate change. And importantly, and I think this is one of the most important parts of ACT 181, it recognized that ACT two fifty was not as effective and efficient as it was designed to be because there was a planning component in Act two fifty that was never implemented. So what do I mean by that? So when Act two fifty was enacted in 1970, it had the jurisdictional limits, it had the criteria, but then it said, You know what? We're going to implement this law, and we're going to have this permit process, but we ultimately need to have a land use plan and what are called a capability and development plan. We need to understand where the critical natural resources are, and we need to understand what are these environmental limits of developing in certain areas. And once we have that capability and development plan, and that land use plan, we should use it to maybe look at Act two fifty and look at how it's serving us or maybe other environmental protection programs or community protection programs to see do we have the right programs to deal with where these critical natural resources are? What is the ability of the land to sustain a certain size development? Never got implemented. That's a whole other story, which will this is where I'll cut myself off short, but you could Google ACT 200 capability and development plan in the late 80s. Were attempts at it. I think under Governor Kuhnen was the last administration that really took a run at it. And you know, there were a lot of, it just never really got off the ground for a variety of reasons. And, you know, I think there were some of the, at the time, some of the concerns, and now we're seeing now that we're trying to implement this tiered approach in ACT-one 101. Where I'm going to link these things up is that I think one of the things that ACT-one 181 does that's the most important is it basically brings in this concept of a land use plan and the capability and development plan, but it does it through the way ACT-two 100 was set up was it was top down. It wasn't going to involve all the process of regional planning commissions working with local towns and town planning commissions and select boards, and then developing a plan, then having it kind of go up the chain, get input from state agencies, ultimately be approved by a state land use board. It was going to be kind of created from the top, people kind of doing their own data, putting together maps, and just kind of putting it out there. And I think one of the things that was tried to do with 01/1981 was to build it from the bottom up to create a robust planning process to implement the intent of the capability and development plan, but recognizing that we need this robust process. We need to engage reminders, we need to engage communities, but also obviously needs to be based on data and science, right, and information and kind of merge the two things together. I think that's kind of where we've gotten into with ACTR-one 101. So I'll get back to that. I just wanted to make a point that that was a really important conclusion of that commission on the future of Act two fifty, and it recognized this gap in Act two fifty that had existed really from its inception. So report comes out, it's interesting, sparks a lot of conversation, some legislative ideas, we get the pandemic. Pandemic hits. And all of a sudden we're all on Zoom, we're all virtual, hard to do legislative work, right, during that time. Hard to do complicated legislative work. We were all just trying to survive. We're all trying to pass budgets. We were all just trying to get out of our house sometimes and not get sick. So there was a little bit of a delay in what happened next. But the commission report was out there and it did get some discussion, but the pandemic slowed things down. But in 2023, the legislature passed Act 47, which basically took the commission's report and went to the Natural Resources Board, which was the predecessor to the Land Use Review Board, and said, All right, we want you to look at that report. We want you to have a stakeholder process, and we want you to really drill in. We want you to actually recommend legislation to bring to life some of those recommendations in the Commission report. So we had another process that was run by the Natural Resources Board. They hired a facilitator. There was stakeholders that was again, business groups, environmental groups, local planners, regional planners, consultants for businesses that go through Act two fifty, housing developers. A pretty wide array of groups, state agencies supported the effort, A and R in particular. And that was the report that basically created the framework for ACT 181. And like I said, it really builds off of the Commission report for the future of Act two fifty. And the key, not surprisingly, now it's getting redundant, what were the key recommendations of that report? We should go to location based jurisdiction. We should get away from just the size of the project. We should have a robust planning process to figure out where we want to grow and where we really should have dense housing development. But to deal with forest fragmentation and other critical resource issues, we should have a tier that's protecting the most critical natural resources we have. That's kind of a nod to the capability and development plan. Let's find out where those resources are, and if we're not protecting them, we should protect them in the name of climate resilience and the loss of biodiversity that seeing. And there was some other sort of like process oriented recommendations, but the key recommendations that basically became ACC 181 are in that stakeholder report, and it is the Tier one, it is a tier three, having a tier two. That report did recommend bringing back a tool that was used for over twenty years previously called the Road Rule, which I'm sure you've heard a lot about, and you're going to hear a lot more about. And the reason that it recommended that was because there was agreement. So all the stakeholders that I mentioned from business groups, environmental groups, to consultants for private applicants, and the Natural Resources Board itself recommended that we have the Tier one, we have Tier three, and we bring back the road rule because there was an acknowledgment that even with tier three, there could be long roads unintentionally going into sensitive habitat areas that could affect habitat and forest health and other critical natural resources that maybe wouldn't qualify as Tier three. And the road rule was effective at that when it was in effect from about 1980 to early 2000s. I actually have done research on this, and I can't pin the exact dates down, but it's somewhere in that time period, like 1980, early 80s to early 2000s.

[Speaker 0]: 2004, I think.

[John Groveman (VNRC)]: Is that what you, yeah, that sounds right. Was why the And road rule wasn't just plucked out of thin air. It was a lot of discussion of it in the stakeholder group. And there was a lot of knowledge about how it worked previously. It was repealed. People always ask me, why was it repealed? Don't remember exactly why, to be honest with you. Maybe you could have someone to testify who's older than me who remembers that. But I do know, worked at VNRC in 2004, around the time what the chair is saying that the road rule was repealed. And there was a lot of land use changes at the time going on. Was, I don't know if you remember there used to be what they called a 10 acre loophole, where you could build on a lot 10 acres or more and not get septic approval, not get wastewater approval, and that was a big deal change and a lot of the same reaction that I think we're hearing now, that was a big deal. People were running around, some people unhappy about that. That was like you're taking away a right that I have to bill without government review. The government was saying like listen, we have failing septic systems, this is not a tenable situation in the twenty first century to not having basic review of wastewater systems. That 10 acre loophole closed, and I do remember some talk that, well, that was a big change that certainly could obviate the need for maybe like a road rule or something like that. There was also one of the early real revisions to Title 24, Chapter 117, which are our zoning and planning laws. We've done, I think, two revamps since then, you know, but I think that was one of the earlier real rewrites of Title 24. So there was a lot of land use changes, and I don't recall a lot of specific debate about the road rule, honestly, but people can certainly have a better memory on that than me.

[Speaker 0]: Think Was there, how much public input?

[John Groveman (VNRC)]: Was Sorry, this

[Speaker 0]: did you fall in? Yeah, go ahead.

[John Groveman (VNRC)]: That's leading up to ACC one hundred eighty one or the It was a lot, like I said, like the commission on active fifty heard from over 400 Vermonters, and did intensive outreach effort. The stakeholder group, I mean, went through the legislature, it was passed. Those meetings were not, they were basically, like I said, we lost time in the pandemic. So I think the feeling was like, take those recommendations that were made through all that public process and a big investment, right? Like they paid the Legg Council for all those paid legislators to come and they

[Speaker 0]: We didn't have it. We did no. We we had a bill between then.

[John Groveman (VNRC)]: You had a bill between then? I missed that one.

[Speaker 0]: Resulted in the need. Yeah. It made it clear we needed more. Got stakeholder process.

[John Groveman (VNRC)]: Yeah. Well, there you go. I missed that one. But there was a lot of and that's kind of my point. My point is, and I just want to just tell how this unfolded that this was not created yesterday and it was not created in the dark of night and it was not created in a back room. There was lots of discussion and studies and facilitators and consultants and legislative time and reports on outreach that went into this. That's why I say go back and read that commission report because that's the one that's really thoughtfully done. The Act 47 report, I think it's called the Act 50 stakeholder report, which then in 2024, and this is when Act 181 passed, that was basically used as a template, but it was really based on the foundation that was built on the commission on Act two fifty, the first fifty years, which was an immense and really significant effort. So I think there was a lot of process. Then we get So in 2024, we get to act 181. And so, yeah, we had the template, but we had a robust debate there and lots of public process. And I don't know how much testimony you took a lot of testimony. The Senate took a lot of testimony and we went to the very end of the session if I recall going back and forth making really complicated changes to that four jurisdiction going to trying to get away from just the size of the project not where it's located, not if it's in an area with planning and zoning where if we have a good planning process, there was an agreement that you could have exemptions for Act two fifty for housing projects, even an exempt area for commercial industrial development. But we needed to do both things. We needed to protect these critical natural resources. They're identified, at least by the government going all the way back to 2015 and a lot of testimony and research on climate change and some of the impacts on natural resources. I don't like it. You're going to hear some people maybe come in and say it was like a grand bargain or a quid pro quo. I don't remember it that way, and I've never viewed it that way. I viewed it as Vermont recognizing that we needed to update this law. That's one of the, I mean, whatever you think about Act two fifty, it is one of, in the nation, it's looked to as a premier land use planning program. It needed some updating. Thoughtfully, over two different studies over eight years, we developed a template for how to update this law, recognizing that we need more housing, but we also need to protect resources that were unprotected. And I want to stress, and this came up when we debated ACT 181, and it's coming up again that the Tier one and the housing is not just for large municipalities, for cities. If you're a small town and you have planning and zoning and you have water and sewer or soils that could support development, you could qualify as a tier 1B, which would mean that you could build up to 50 units of housing within that area and not go through Act two fifty. And those areas are, this gets back to the Act 200 and the capability and development plan, it's the bottom up planning. It's the RPCs working with the towns, mapping out these areas, small towns and large towns, and then yes you have to go to the land use review board. There's criteria that you have to meet to be a tier one B area, be a tier one A area, And the land use review board, it's the last quality control, making sure that the criteria are met. They're going through that process now. They have looked at, I think half of the regional plans and these maps that have to go. But I do think there's opportunities for all types of communities, big and small, but that is the planning process. And then the tier three process is sort of the capability and development plan of it. Okay, where do we have these criticalness natural resources that we need to protect, where we need to make sure that the land is capable of absorbing the impacts of certain types of development? And that's being done through this tier three rulemaking process. It is its own planning process in its own way, and it's just being implemented. The status of it is, the timelines in Act 180 they were too aggressive. It was well intentioned because we wanted to get all this going and we wanted to get it implemented. But even before the session started, I could tell you that VNRC, working with business groups, working with realtor groups, we agreed with them that we needed more time to get Tier three right. We needed more time to define how the road rule was going to work. This was always intended in Act 181. As you know, it's hard to write legislation with tremendous specificity on these complicated issues. The intent was to create a professional land use review board and that they would work through a process with stakeholders, with the public, and look at tier three and the data, and create maps for jurisdiction, look at the road rule, and what is the fair way to tailor that rule so you're getting at the development that could cause a concern about habitat fragmentation or ecological impacts, and not being overly broad. And we needed more time to do both of those things because they were more complicated I think than we thought and just time. Just didn't, know, everyone's very busy and it just takes time to do that. So even going into the session, we VNRC, and I think it was, like I said, it was a coalition, like business groups as well. We agreed that there should be a bill to extend these timelines for the road rule, for tier three, the business groups and we didn't disagree because we also support housing said, Well, we have these interim exemptions, as I'm sure you know, for Active 50 until we can develop the Tier one maps. So people are like, Well, could we extend those because it's taking a little bit longer? You get through Tier one, VNRC supported that and supports that. And we also believe that the intent of ACT 181 with regard to the road rule in Tier three was really to have a review that gets at the natural resources impact. So we think it was in the law that the Land Use Review Board could basically, whatever the final rule was about when Tier three jurisdiction is triggered, that if you triggered active 50 jurisdiction under Tier three, you should only have to have a review under some criteria. You shouldn't have to go through all the 10 criteria that were really focused on natural resource impacts, and the LERB Validious Review Board didn't feel it had that authority. We supported there's a provision in S-three 25 that clarifies that the LERB in implementing Tier three and the road rule can create a program where only a subset of ACTI50 criteria are applied, not all of the ACTI50 criteria. We think that's fair, and it's in the spirit of trying to really right size this so we get at these issues of critical natural resources without unduly pulling people into the process where there really isn't a reason to. And the reason, one of the reasons I talked about the process at the beginning and the thesis, I wanted to just kind of lay out the facts that like the process doesn't have to be a torturous process. You can have a minor application, you get through a process in ninety days, and one of the real benefits of having these natural resource issues be reviewed if you're in a critical natural resource area, or if you have a very long road that is going into a sensitive area is you get the state expertise. What happens when you trigger Act two fifty is you get the wildlife biologists, you get the people that testified before me looking at the application. Basically, being able to assist landowners is the way I look at it to say, I mean, I don't know. Like, I don't, I, I wouldn't be able to identify like a habitat pinch point that if I put a house there, I could risk real damage to wildlife being able to survive in that area because they'll no longer use it. It's not like there's like a X marks the spot, you know, but they could come in and say the goal isn't to prohibit development, development isn't prohibited in tier three, it's not going to be prohibited by the road rule, it's to make sure you don't have unintended impacts and assist people in doing what I think people want to do, which is to use their land in a way that doesn't have these impacts on the capability of the land to basically support the development, that doesn't have long term impacts on ecological health that I don't think any Vermonter wants to have. So that's the intent of it. And the last thing I'll say before I have time to just kind of speak to some of the concerns that we've heard is that, so the road rule, you know, is really in flux and having more time is really going to help. Last week, the Land Use Review Board came out with new guidance on the road rule. They just today said there's a thirty day comment period on the guidance. The guidance now is if you you'd have to have a 2,000 foot road serving three or more lots with three houses on each lot to trigger the road rule right now. So I could say that again if it would help. 2,000 foot road which is a really long road, which I don't we're doing research, and hopefully we can come in and testify as you when you really drill in to some of these issues. But we're looking into how many of these long roads there even are in Vermont. But you'd have to have if you could build basically three lots and three houses on your property, it won't let you keep the road under 2,000 feet in total. And an 800 foot road under the proposal, and it's just proposed, people are commenting on it, would have to be four lots and four houses are being served. So that's kind of where this is trending. We're trying to right size this, narrow the criteria that you'd have to meet, be really responsible about like the development that could cause these concerns. And that is the intent. Then if you do, you know, the goal with the road roll is to avoid it. Like if you could avoid a 2,000 foot road and then to please, that's the best outcome. You just, you have a shorter road and you have less impacts. So anyway, just want to put that out there. You can go on the Land Use Report website, you can see the guidance, they're in tomorrow, you could ask them about it. But I wanted to make that point because as you kind of launch into this conversation. And actually, last thing I want to say before I talk about some of the concerns we've heard is that there are some other provisions of S-three 25 that involve Tier one changes that I don't really want to talk about right now. Katie Gallagher, who's behind me, our VNRC's expert on this. And Katie is our director of sustainable communities. And you'll hear from the regional planning commissions on these issues and others. But so that is part of S-three 25 and what is in the bill. So I just wanted to note that, but I don't I'd rather not get into the I'm not the best person to get into the details of all of that. Before I I mean, I'm There are questions before I do. If you think it would be helpful, I did make notes. I have been following the debate in the Senate, like you said, and the debate that's happening out in Vermont. I could address some of the concerns that we've heard and what our response is to them if you think it would be helpful. But happy to answer questions if anybody

[Speaker 0]: Let's see if there are questions. Books have questions now. That was a really brief overview. Yeah. Thank you.

[John Groveman (VNRC)]: I appreciate it. I hope it's helpful.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. Representative Morris.

[Rep. Kristi Morris]: So, John, thanks for the presentation. You know, that kinda brings it all together as to where we started from, and now we've got years. Appreciate that a lot. We're hearing that a poor landowner, not a poor landowner, a landowner with a large plot wants to subdivide for offspring or children or whatever, for family. And that there's a big expense for that. What would be the expense for, we don't know if it's in a tier three or tier two, but what permitting expenses would there be for?

[John Groveman (VNRC)]: Well, I mean, first is like we don't I would say it's not clear that jurisdiction will be triggered depending on how tier three is written and how the road rule is finalized and whether the person could avoid Act two fifty by building a shorter road or avoiding the Tier three areas. But if you went through Act two fifty, that's why I mentioned the fee part up there because I've heard the same thing that I live in Marshfield, live in rural Vermont. So I'm hearing this in my community. People have said to me, am I going to have to spend $100,000 or $50,000 to build like a three lot subdivision or a five lot subdivision or whatever. And that's why the fee, like I said, for a project, for a fee perspective, a $500,000 is all project costs. So if you build two or three houses, you could do it. If you did it even with a million dollars, that's $6,000 you know? So it's not $50,000 and it's not $100,000 Would you need to hire, you don't have to hire, if you want to build a road, got to hire an engineer or somebody to build it anyway. Obviously you need wastewater engineers anyway, active 50 or no active 50. I do think that this is where I mentioned that really the goal of tier three in the road rule is dealing with these habitat issues and these ecological issues. You're going to get the input of the state and the really great staff at ANR that will, this is what they do. Like when I was the Act 50 Land Use Attorney, every week, Act two fifty applications go out to all the ANR staff people and they look at them and then they comment. They send the comments in to the land use attorney. Me, would get all these comments. And so if there was a project that was in an area where there was a habitat connector or a critical natural resource that was at issue with tier three or a forest block if it's the road rule, they would come in and they would go to the they would go, I don't know that you have to hire an expert. I would hope you could work with the landowner and say, let's avoid these areas. You know, so that's how I hope it would work. Would a landowner have to hire like a wildlife biologist or an expert to sort of argue with the state experts? I mean, then it can get more costly. But I hope that wouldn't happen, you know? Like I said, the idea is to give better information to the landowner so they can make better decisions. So that's kind of how I see working in the best instance.

[Speaker 0]: You would be avoiding them.

[John Groveman (VNRC)]: That's the goal, as I said. That's the goal.

[Speaker 0]: Or the subdivision.

[John Groveman (VNRC)]: Would hope. I mean, like, my advice as a lawyer, if I ever go into private practice, which, you know, could be the last thing I do just just for fun. I would advise my client to work with the state and let's try to make this work. Again, you saw like Jens and Bob Zano and like these are not people, they're not, I think they're trying to give people good information and avoid impacts. And again, I think tier three will be narrow. I think that's the goal is to really protect these critical sort of habitat connectors. We're not there yet, which is why we need more time. The initial version of the maps, I could see, know, people were confused by them and they raised concern, but they were always preliminary. And so you may not be in an area, but if you are, that's how I don't think it should be tremendously costly in that way. Works

[Speaker 0]: right. Representative Austin. So I'm assuming this is an assumption I'm making is that the state would try to work with the landowner if they wanted to build on a forest area or wetlands or something. And at some point, will the state come in and say you can't build there? Or will you always try to work with the landowner to try to find a common agreement as long as the damage, you know, that they could build maybe somewhere else on their land, where they want to build really damage some?

[John Groveman (VNRC)]: I mean, it happens now like with I mean I think you try to work to avoid, like the chair is saying. Like right now under Act two fifty, necessary wildlife habitat is protected and that's deer wintering areas and bear habitat essentially. A lot of deer wintering areas, there are areas where deer to survive the winter they kind of hunker down in like softwood trees. And so right now like there are projects out, plenty of projects out there with the Fish and Wild Department will go out, verify the deer wintering area, delineate it and the quality of it, and then say, could you avoid it? Say this is a really important deer wintering area. If you build here, we're going lose these deer, it won't survive. We're going to lose this population of deer. There is with walleye habitat, you could mitigate. Right now the state would go back and forth. Can you avoid? Can you minimize? And if you can't, there's opportunity to mitigate. Think off-site mitigation is like a four to one ratio. You have to conserve like a deer wintering area off-site in the area that would help the deer that would be displaced essentially. And this is how it would work for forest blocks or any of the other critical resources. I could tell you, having worked with the state, and I'm sure you know by the people who come before you from ANR, they care about the environment, but they want to work with people. They're public servants, they believe in good government. If But it's a really critical natural resources that if people say, no, I'm not going to avoid it, I'm going to try to go right through it, I mean, that does happen. I'm not going to say that doesn't. It's the wicked exception to the rule, but it happens. And if it happens, then costs could go up and then things could get complicated. But that really is the exception. I mean, does happen. As a lawyer, it's interesting when that happens because then you're, like, arguing and people get lawyers and they do the thing. But most people don't want to do that, you know?

[Speaker 0]: So a small percentage.

[John Groveman (VNRC)]: I think so. I mean, should have A and R in and ask them that, but I'm pretty sure that's what they're going to tell you. And that's my experience working with them. One of the things I love most about working in A R was getting to work with those professionals who just really cared about the resource, but about being public servants and trying to solve problems, not create problems.

[Speaker 0]: Do you have other stuff you wanted to share?

[John Groveman (VNRC)]: I think we talked about a lot of the things that we've been hearing. No, I think we really hit out just the questions I think brought out. I think, you've been hearing the same concerns that we've been hearing, and I hope that this just gives you some context. Yeah, you'll hear from lots of other people with different perspectives. You hear from ANR about how this would all work. Hear from the lurb. The lurb's here tomorrow, and they are working hard to get this right. It's not easy. I I'm not going to sit here and say, is it easy? If it was easy, we've done it already. But I think we need to do both these things. We need to make tier one work. We need to protect these critical and natural resources. That's the theme that's run through the studies since 2017. Act 181, it broke the logjam and we were able to update this law that we hadn't really been able to do in a holistic way. So that's the goal.

[Speaker 0]: Did your testimony

[John Groveman (VNRC)]: I didn't. I just wrote it all day today. I will clean it up and I'll submit it. I got to let Katie approve it because I might have written something to her that she might not agree with. She'll approve it, and then I'll get it submitted.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you again. Yeah.

[John Groveman (VNRC)]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: All right. That, we will adjourn for the afternoon.