Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk; Member)]: What?

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Alright. Welcome back to the House Environment Committee. We are gonna continue our conversation about s three '25, and welcome Peter Gregory from Two Rivers Adequoechee Regional Commission. Thanks for joining us.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: My pleasure. Good morning. Again, my name is Peter Gregory, Executive Director of the Two Rivers Otakveci Regional Commission, one of 11 in the state. I served my board of directors in 30 towns, mostly with Northern Windsor and Orange Counties, two in Addison County and actually one town in Rutland County. Act 181 was really important for a variety of reasons, one of which was to ensure that the regional planning efforts around state, regional plan development that have been going on for over fifty years, was done in a more consistent manner. Some regions were using point data to designate land use areas. The names of land use areas varied quite a bit around the state. So Act 181 made it clear that we are to all use the same standards for our future land use areas, as well as the statutes described what those land use areas should be about and how designed. So for the first time, I think, really, in the fifty plus years we've been doing regional plans, by the end of this calendar year, all 11 regional planning commissions will have adopted plans that use the same language and have land use areas that have been created using the same statutory construct. So while we work closely with our communities in looking at their plans to develop our land use areas, we are appropriately constrained by statutes on what those land use areas shall be.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: And you, Peter, what is a but you said they were using point data. Did I

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: hear that correctly? I think some of the regions over the years, instead of having polygons to describe a village area, you know, lines in and out, they would say, you know, Oshkosh or this is Green Bay, instead of, you know, this is the community. Our regional plan in Two Rivers was last adopted in February '5. So very recently, although they have a life of eight years, we tend to update them more frequently given the fact that so many things on the ground change. So it's a pretty recent plan, but right after adoption, we started in on the land use and housing chapters, the big chapters that are facing change with this iteration with 01/1981. We had subregional meetings around our region talking about planning in general. Planning one, if you wouldn't mind me saying that, just helping the general public understand what planning was. Unfortunately, those weren't well attended, despite as much outreach as we could in advertising those, but they were important to have nonetheless. Then we met town by town, each of our 30 towns. We met with planning commissions, invited select board members, conservation commission chairs, local legislators, my board of directors for that town. We met with each of the towns at least once, many of them multiple times. I think our outreach effort was probably triple or quadruple what it's ever been, simply to explain again what we do, what our role at one hundred eighty one is, but also to field questions on how it might relate to other aspects of one hundred eighty one that are the responsibility of the Land Use Review Board. Collectively, the Regional Planning Commission have probably had over 500 or 600 meetings statewide. Thousands of Vermonters were part of those meetings. We've been on television, we've been on radio. It has not been an insignificant effort talking about what we do. And our regional plan development, for some it seems completely new. But as I've been at Two Rivers since 1989, I've probably been through the development of six or seven different regional plans over that time. The process has been largely the same, and in many cases, our plan has not changed all that much. The names have changed in the land use areas. I would say generally our village areas have expanded to help towns meet their housing targets. A majority, 51% of the housing target, we are building into the new village area, which means 49% will continue to be built in the rural areas as it always has been. We've also tried to avoid areas that are dangerous, floodways, floodplains. So in some cases, we have some new areas in a few cases where to meet housing targets, we are identifying new areas that are appropriate for more dense development, especially housing. They're safe areas, and it helps them meet their housing targets. When we met with our towns, some of our towns said, We'd actually like you to put in more conservation land than you've depicted on your draft maps. Other towns have said, could you tweak the village area a little bit for this area? Because planning is future directed, so we're looking at expanding in the future. This is where we want to grow. So it's not just a future it's not just an existing land use map. It's a future one. So there are some expansion areas. So I think that is what we heard, and that is what we have done. We're about ready to go to hearing. The other major change was in our rural areas. We always had a forest based conservation area, which had the forest blocks and the habitat connectors. That came into being with laws passed, I think, in 2017. So they've been in a couple iterations of our plans. That area has actually decreased in size, and that is because the statute requires three rural areas: conservation, ag forestry, and rural general. So that is a big change, but the most restrictive is actually decreasing within our region.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Usually the statute requires three areas. Truly unused map areas, I guess we put them in 181. Were they previously required?

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: I think the statutes did require but not as specific. Conservation areas, things like that. I mean, each region called them little bit differently. Some regions had a lot of conservation, some were elected to do so. But with a statutory description of what those areas shall contain, each of the regions, I think, are are are are kinda doing what they're supposed to do. What does that general mean? It's it's the area of rural land generally closest to the built up areas, and usually regional commissions have policies that allow a little bit more denser rural development. In my regional plan, in my board's regional plan, principal retail is still excluded from those areas. That's still only appropriate in the village areas, but, more dense housing development and mixed use in the rural general is enabled under statute rather than in, like, the the forest, you know, conservation areas. Three twenty five, it's a bill that VAPTA, our State Association of Regional Planning Commission supports. We support the changes in definitions and process as it relates to the regional planning commissions. We actually came forward with those changes and worked with the Senate Natural Resources on those definitions. All the regional planning commissions support that. Some RPCs were more active in the minutiae of the definitions and how they interrelate with downtown designation names. It can get confusing. There are others in my ranks of RPC directors that might be able to answer specific questions on that, but we do support three twenty five. And as amended? We have not met as a group since those amendments on the floor happened. That was just, I think, last week. We're meeting tomorrow. We'll be talking about some of the amendments that came from what came out of Senate Natural Resources. Yeah. That's going in some different directions, certainly those amendments, but we will be talking about those. We also support the LERB's request for more time and working on rulemaking and guidelines for tier two and three. Again, it's not our process at all. It's not the regional planning commission process, but based on what we've heard, the delay is warranted. And I don't consider that a failure at all. I consider that as success, that they recognize that what they're hearing requires more debate and discussion. I think it'll help us in our regional planning as well. I think the transparency and discussion is healthy. So the delay that the LERB came forward with, we support. We also support the governor's request to extend the interim exemptions. They've been working, as Chair Watson indicated on Federal Reserve Bank graphic, in Fairly in our region, we've seen some housing developments occur because of those exemptions. So I think that's a positive. Fairleigh is one of the towns in my region that is likely to have already hit its housing targets.

[Rob North (Member)]: They've been

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: aggressively working as a town government with the private sector, and that's what it takes for any success, whether it's commercial development or not. Having the town government not be just a spectator, but a participant in those efforts. So we're we're very proud of what they've done fairly. So I think the bottom line in in our estimation of my personal opinion is 03/25 improves things for RPCs, for Vermonters, and for the LERB and their efforts. I think it's worthy of of strong consideration by this committee. I recognize that there are many tweaks that could happen to further clarify. And if you want any of us back for any of those specific conversations, we'd be happy to help.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Thank you. Can you tell me how can you describe for the committee how your town plans inform your future land use map? Very good question. In

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: our 2 Rivers region, we have, through our town plan approval process over the last fifteen, twenty years, helped to make sure the regional plan and the local plan aligns in a general way from a land use perspective. So there aren't the conflicts there may have been fifteen, twenty years ago. We know our towns well. Our staff are in our communities many times working with town planning commissions and select boards and updating the plans. So we know what their needs are, what their planning is. We're not always in lockstep, but generally we're compatible with what we do. So we look at their plans. We look at capital budgeting and other aspects of municipal government and then work with the community to draw our lines. And then we we went to these communities with our draft maps, and we got suggestions from some to refine them in small amounts. But generally, I would say 98% of the suggestions from the communities on our draft apps were incorporated by our staff and then are now going out to more formal public hearings.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: What happens when there is disagreement? What does that look like? Have you had any?

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: Absolutely. There are some towns in our region that are just overly concerned about the LERB process as it relates to what we're doing and they're having difficulty in seeing the difference between the two. And then there are other towns where we've had some conflicts about us being a little bit more anti sprawl based on the statutes. We feel we're following what is required of us and we might have a town or two that would like to have things a lot more wide open than I think law permits and our regional plan. Wow. And we are a regional planning agency. We're not just an entity that staples 30 land use elements together and says, Here's our regional plan. We follow the rules, and generally, we're pretty in lockstep. Occasionally not.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: And do you know how many of your towns are one acre towns?

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: I might have six or seven that don't have a zoning subdivision, yeah.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: You opine on why that is?

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: I think that was a good question. I think it varies. Think that we've had one town want to adopt subdivision to enable them to make their own decisions and to keep the regional planning commission out of Act two fifty. That may be the same town that was more interested in a wide open scheme. I think others are concerned about the cost and the effort to administer bylaws. They can't find volunteers for any office, it seems. I mean, the number of unopposed select board members is just amazing. Maybe that means they're doing a wonderful job, but maybe not. So the cost, lack of volunteers to put a new zoning board of adjustment together or development review board. Then some I have said they like the protection of Act two fifty. They may not say it publicly, but our bylaw is terrible, it's old. We don't want to do subdivision. We don't want to lose the professionalism of Act two fifty to control things, to manage things. So it varies.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Great. Thank you. Do others have questions? Representative Pritchard and then Austin.

[Christopher "Chris" Pritchard (Member)]: Yeah. So I asked her a question earlier to Ellen, and she kind of sounds like she pointed it maybe in your direction. So I'd like to know if maybe you can you know, answer this for me. In some of the verbiage in in this bill, there's there's a part in there that says the municipality has identified and planned for the maintenance of significant natural communities. Can you tell me what that means?

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: I would like to be able to point to someone too, because I don't really know. I can't answer that. I'm not sure. I don't know if that's

[Christopher "Chris" Pritchard (Member)]: yep. I'm not sure. Perhaps maybe senator Watson, since she's it's her bill, maybe she can answer it. I just I'd like to get clarification on

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: Was that in January or in '3 No. That's it. Is it

[Christopher "Chris" Pritchard (Member)]: page page 10.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk; Member)]: I mean,

[Christopher "Chris" Pritchard (Member)]: line one.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: Yeah. That's in the original one eighty one. Yeah.

[Christopher "Chris" Pritchard (Member)]: Yeah. The only thing that was changed was the rail was dropped. Yeah. I'd just like to know

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk; Member)]: what

[Christopher "Chris" Pritchard (Member)]: Maintenance. Yeah.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk; Member)]: That's a good question. Sorry.

[Rob North (Member)]: Have now we have a bathroom.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Break it down. Representative Austin.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk; Member)]: Do you think it would make sense to pound like, close for that are just beginning their, you know, renewal of their town plan to pope to be able to postpone it until all this kind of gets settled? Do you think there's gonna be any kind of conflict or changes we're gonna have to update anyway?

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: I I think planning at the regional and local level is iterative. So it's never static and nor should it be. Mhmm. I think there's a provision in 03/25, which indicates any regional plan or local plan that expires between now and the December automatically is extended until such time the regional plan is approved by the LERB. You know, we have probably a dozen areas or communities that have 1B potential, but maybe only six has decided to go forward at this time and be in our regional plan with this iteration. The others are gonna come forward, I think, over time, and especially after interim exemptions expire. So our regional plan will be amended at that point.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk; Member)]: Yeah. I'm just looking at policies and actions. They're gonna be current after this process. Like you said, I guess we can go back and revise it.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: Right. I mean, local and regional plans have an eight year life, but we recommend towns constantly look at them and especially their utility facility element, which relates to their capital budgeting and energy. Exactly. It's eight year to me is, It was done to lessen the burden on all of us, but to me it doesn't seem as useful given the changing landscape.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Often does to reverse update their regional plan?

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: It seems like every four years, three to four years, we'll add a new element or health or the forest based, habitat connectors and forest resources in 2017 was new. Economic development was before that, flood resilience element. That's always some issue that is something that affects our communities and our people. Housing. Housing, absolutely. Our housing element is changing dramatically.

[Rob North (Member)]: North. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Peter, for your testimony. Interesting. I was very excited to hear that Fairleigh hit its housing targets. That's pretty exciting. Can you give us a little more detail on how did they do that? Clearly, you said it requires engaged leadership. Good thing. But beyond that, how did they the RPC? What what what did they do with the town level? Did fire up in the RPC? Was it Act two fifty jurisdiction or not? You know, those things.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: I I think it was the exemption of Act two fifty that was the the main push behind that. Two Rivers, like all regional planning commissions, is actively involved in economic development efforts related to brownfields assessment and remediation, so we were able to bring tens of thousands of dollars to the table for each one of that developer's projects to help lessen the cost.

[Rob North (Member)]: Those are prompt field communication.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: Yes. Yep, absolutely. Some of that was EPA money, and some of that was money that you all appropriated at the state level to the Agency of Commerce. Those funds have been critical. Also, the town was willing to apply for a community development block grant, and then some granted to the applicant. There are a lot of different things that come together to make these projects go government, private sector, regional government.

[Rob North (Member)]: I think geographically, was it within the village center area, the downtown area, or was it out in more rural federal?

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: No, it was in the village center. In the village center.

[Rob North (Member)]: Yeah. How many units?

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: He's in a number of buildings. Maybe in total when complete, 40 or 50 or 60 units. Units. Yeah. I mean, for a small village like that, that's significant, and they're going in locations right downtown in burned out blocks that have been vacant for years. So what we do here in this room and what we do in the field is slow and tedious, but you just keep making progress and these changes make a difference. They really do.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: How did you allocate your housing targets in your

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: region? It was a statewide target. Then there was broken down by region, number of towns. And then each region was able to finesse it a little bit per town based on their own values. I think it wasn't strictly population. We upped it if a community infrastructure or if they had a lot of transportation assets, maybe a little less if they were a little isolated, even if they had the population. And again, as it was sold to us and to the towns, it was a guideline. It was a goal. And there are so many things beyond the capacity of the legislature, the regional planning commissions, the local government to make this happen. We can't control tariffs or the cost of labor or the availability of labor, or materials cost. All of those things to me have a much bigger impact than any regulatory by far. Availability of land. Oh yeah, yeah. It's

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk; Member)]: I may ask one question. You may. You and Fairley, did you use the CHIPS program? And if you did or

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: We did not.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk; Member)]: You did not.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: No. It has not been used yet in our region.

[Rob North (Member)]: Has it

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: been? No. I don't think so. The league is now just doing a lot of education of regional commission staff as well as town officials on its potential.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Further questions about regional planning process

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk; Member)]: for Peter.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: Thank you very much.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Thank you for joining us.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: Good to see you. So

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: members, we did hear back from our chairing committee. They looked at the chloride bill. They took a little bit of testimony on it, and they, find it favorable. Although they didn't do a straw poll, but they're they didn't have any concern about it.

[Rob North (Member)]: So we're gonna stick with our vote on that today.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk; Member)]: Can you vote this morning?

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yeah. It's been on the

[Rob North (Member)]: agenda for since last week.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk; Member)]: Well, yeah, the inter The clerk is looking she's ready. So just what draft is this?

[Rob North (Member)]: Think the senate. It's as passed the senate. So

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: This is

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk; Member)]: passed by the senate. As passed by the senate.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yes. Just to know what it just said. So let's open. Two eighteen, an act relating to reducing chloride contamination state wise. Is there a motion to approve s two eighteen? Representative labor moves to approve S218 as best as run. Sorry, Satcowitz. Looking left, thinking right.

[Christopher "Chris" Pritchard (Member)]: Thinking rates are paying me. At all.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Ended by representative Chapin. Is there further discussion?

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk; Member)]: K.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I I'll I'll seeing none. Oh. Just making sure that I'm getting eye contact from folks. Will the clerk please commence to call the roll?

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk; Member)]: Yep. Rep Austin, yes. Rep Chapin? Yes. Rep Hoyt?

[Michael Hoyt (Member)]: Yes. Rep Labor?

[Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: Yep.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk; Member)]: Rep Logan? Yes. Rep Morris?

[Kristi Morris (Member)]: Yes.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk; Member)]: Rep Miller? No. I No. Rep Pritchard? No.

[Christopher "Chris" Pritchard (Member)]: Rep Sakowitz? Yes. Rep Tagliavia? No. And rep Sheldon?

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yes.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk; Member)]: K.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Two to three. Represented us. Did you say that? I didn't hear it. I thought I said it.

[Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk; Member)]: Yep. That was very quiet. I didn't hear it.

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Alright, folks. With that, we will adjourn. Oh, two so 02:00, we have Ellen. Is that true? Coming back in for to finish the walk through,

[Rob North (Member)]: of s 03:25.

[Peter Gregory (Executive Director, Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission)]: And

[Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: with that, we will