Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: I've lived on camera. Good afternoon. Welcome to the House Environment Committee. We are back considering an amendment to s three twenty five from representative Dobrebench.

[Rep. Dobrebench (Sponsor of S.325 amendment)]: So I I listened to what you all had to say yesterday. I actually thought what I had presented about the sentence of with the last sentence being added about, the municipality having that last say. I listened to what you guys said, and it really resonated with me, the concerns around it. And I thought that it would make sense to pull that out and change the date back to 2030 like it was because I heard the concerns about the date and just present what came out of the Senate back to you. And to say that the Senate did do work around vetting this amendment and it passed on therefore. And I'd like to just I hope that you would reconsider it as it was out of the Senate. And that's all I really wanted to do today. Here are your concerns about I heard your concerns about the municipality. I heard your concerns about the date and your other concerns with it. But those are the two things that I knew I could change that made it more complex than it was when you got it from the center.

[Speaker 0]: Okay, thank you for that. Do members have questions? I'm seeing any. Representative Tagliavia?

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Tagliavia (Member)]: I believe a question came up was the number of municipalities that may not find this advantageous. There was a question about them. Do you have any numbers?

[Rep. Dobrebench (Sponsor of S.325 amendment)]: I don't. I'm talking to a few other house members. I can there were some that told me I've probably about 10 or 12 that would take advantage of I didn't hear any or that this would be advantageous for. I didn't hear you say that it would be it wouldn't be advantageous to do this. But I in the hours that we've had from yesterday to today, it's not a lot of time to really dig into all that. The data I got about this, when I presented 60 towns that don't have zoning, that's from the Vermont Zoning Atlas. It doesn't talk about the towns that don't have bylaws either. I'm sure there are more of them because you already have to have both to do the thing. So I you know, unfortunately, I just don't that's a the hard the bylaws are a harder number for me to dig into, but I just didn't have the time to do anything other than talk to a few representatives on both sides of the aisle to kinda get their take on you know, from those I knew who had times that might not have Zoom.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: I just say that my concerns that we that are still the same from when we considered those coming up in the senate. All the all the same rules that were, you know, potentially, you know, allowing some very substantial developments to happen in some very small communities with with almost or very very little or no no oversight, and it just seems not a good not to be a good policy choice to put that on communities, and they'd have no no real say in what kind of well, this would this would happen or not. This seems really, really problematic and getting back to the point of this is exactly why we have Act two fifty is to have some oversight of of these kinds of bigger projects in places that could really use the help overseeing development in their in their communities.

[Rep. Dobrebench (Sponsor of S.325 amendment)]: May I ask a question? When you guys discussed this after it came from the senate, I know you heard from senator Benson testimony from other than committee discussion. Did you take any testimony on that particular section?

[Speaker 0]: We took well, the agency review board came in and said they did not think it was a good idea for environmental justice reasons.

[Rep. Dobrebench (Sponsor of S.325 amendment)]: But did you do any more did you really dig? Because you're asking me questions about towns that may or may not. Did you guys talk to any other towns and see how it would impact them?

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. So we had a single focus, if you remember, of this bill, which was addressing road rule in tier three. And that's where the bulk of our time, which was also really limited, was spent. So I think that actually is kind of one of our points is that we haven't had time to take testimony on this. We haven't had time to look at maps or to ask even the eight or 10 towns who might qualify. How would this play out for you all? I think that could happen. It could happen you know, you could introduce a bill next year and have that happen.

[Rep. Dobrebench (Sponsor of S.325 amendment)]: And then the only reason I asked is because on the floor after I presented, a member of this committee had made it sound like you guys actually did the work to dig into this topic when really you just had a committee discussion and heard from the presenter without taking further testimony on it other than land review to say they didn't like it. So I I just was trying to understand if there was more work done than I understood, and it just sounds like it was what it was when I was here yesterday. So I think it was unfortunate that yesterday, it was portrayed that this committee did more work to vet this piece.

[Speaker 0]: You know, there were a lot of inaccuracies on the floor yesterday. So

[Rep. Dobrebench (Sponsor of S.325 amendment)]: Just throwing that out there. So I really thank you for your time. I just wanna, you know, say that I heard you, and I tried to change it in a way that maybe would make you more amicable for you.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Alright. Representative Chapin. I just

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: wanna mention that we did keep it in the bill through all of the testimony that we heard. So we did have two weeks of testimony from people like the league, let's build homes, a number of folks we did not hear from individual municipalities. But I just wanted to say we did get testimony on the entire bill, including this language, and it was either it was only called out by a couple of people who testified. So I just

[Speaker 0]: Okay. And

[Rep. Dobrebench (Sponsor of S.325 amendment)]: and we all know we do our best to listen to as much as we can, but worship our own worlds.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: Yeah. Testimony on this paragraph from municipals. Okay.

[Rep. Dobrebench (Sponsor of S.325 amendment)]: Thank you. I appreciate that.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Tagliavia (Member)]: Representative Tagliavia. I just wanted to add a little bit to this. I talked to senator Benson after he testified because there's considerable back and forth about oversight. And he made a list of additional permitting outside of Act two fifty. I want to just go over some of them. Federal permit, it was section four zero four of the Clean Water Act that needed to be considered. Vermont ANR permits air quality source water construction and operations for water system specific permit, wastewater systems and portable water supply permit, indirect discharge permit, underground storage tank permits.

[Speaker 0]: These are all things they've applied for?

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Tagliavia (Member)]: No. These are the things that would need to

[Speaker 0]: be That could potentially be required.

[Rep. Michael "Mike" Tagliavia (Member)]: Sure. I just wanted to make it clear that it's just with an exemption from an Act two fifty permit. That doesn't mean you fire up the bulldozers that are waiting for the checkered flag and just go for it. There are still things, regulations, permitting rules that still need to be complied with?

[Speaker 0]: Yes. There are. But there isn't any engagement with the community and those impacts. It

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: did sound like engagement was important to you.

[Rep. Dobrebench (Sponsor of S.325 amendment)]: That's why I had the municipality piece in yesterday for that purpose. But then that got beat up because it's not gonna be fair to developers. Right? So I come back, and I I wanna say, like, here we are saying that the community has no input. I try and provide something that gives community input, but then that's not fair to vote for developers. Right? Like, well, that's a tough one.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: I mean, how why won't community weigh much heavier than the developed?

[Rep. Dobrebench (Sponsor of S.325 amendment)]: I'm I was so I brought that in yesterday because there was a concern told to me by members of the committee that without zoning and bylaws, there's a concern that things can get squeaked through that the community wouldn't want. So by giving the municipality the last vote on it, you're bringing the municipality in to be able to make a decision for themselves and bring them into the conversation. But on the flip side, if a developer is like, well, I hope tomorrow, Rep. Satcowitz had said, tomorrow there's a new Slack board and they pull that, right? So Catch 22. You're you're worried about one and the other. Well, which means more to you because that's the battle that this that anything is going to take up in the state. So it's tough because I presented something that I thought actually addressed your concerns to an extent yesterday, that was the main reason to me that it got beat up and turned down. I know there's other issues with it too, your things that you guys think there are other issues with as well. Here I am saying, then I'm going to take that off the table because I don't want that to be a limiter. And now the thing I put on the table to help communities have a voice is gonna hurt developers, but then I take it away and now the community has no voice. I mean, I don't know what you're looking for.

[Speaker 0]: I'm not sure what you're referring to, that it would hurt developers.

[Rep. Dobrebench (Sponsor of S.325 amendment)]: To what Rob said yesterday. Or me if you can have pause. Yeah.

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: I can respond. Yes. You're right. I brought up the concern that if I was a developer, I would have a lot of uncertainty

[Speaker 0]: and that

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: this provision wouldn't necessarily be helpful. And I think that's true, and and I think, yes, so withdrawing that part of it didn't make sense, I appreciate the effort. I really do. I guess I would bring this back to a conversation that we've had a bunch in this committee lately, which is that when we start to tinker with something, especially like Act two fifty and these kinds of amendments, we run into problems that start to get complicated, and we and this isn't the right form of, I guess, right moment, really, to be taking on these kinds of issues, which do get complicated quickly. And I, for one, would be open to the idea of some other way for communities to weigh in on whether they want this kind of development or not. I think that makes a lot of sense. But I think figuring out how to do that in a way that makes sense is actually not easy to do, and we would have to really do quite a bit of work to that happen. So I'm sympathetic to the kind of process that you'd like to see happen. I just feel like we would need a lot more time to actually come up with something which was robust and did justice to the idea.

[Speaker 0]: And actually, I'll add that I have said out loud a lot, even anyway, there are these 105 or nine towns that don't have both. We know that. I'm very intrigued by what that is. And I've asked people, like, can we get an intern to look into, like, call these 109 towns? And we might get 109 different answers. But I'm pretty intrigued fifty years later. Why have they chosen not to pursue zoning and subdivision bylaws? Because it's actually not that hard. A majority of towns have done it. And I think that's a bigger question that this body could look into.

[Rep. Dobrebench (Sponsor of S.325 amendment)]: On that topic, I think your question might be thrown back, why do you want this? Right? That'd be interesting too. Why for them to understand why really understand why the state feels that they should.

[Speaker 0]: We're seeing we're seeing across the state landowners appealing housing projects. They're telling us they don't they don't want that. And we're making an assumption, many of us, this building that that's what all these towns want, and I don't wanna make that assumption for them. I feel like the fifty years they've had to do development review or stand up or have a higher threshold for triggering act two fifty, that's saying something to us. And before we make changes, we should be sure we know what they're saying. That's how I feel. I feel like I feel oddly like I get accused of not defending rural Vermont, but I feel like defending this is defending rural Vermont.

[Rep. Dobrebench (Sponsor of S.325 amendment)]: I don't want you to take that. That's what I was saying. I was just trying to play that conversation with the communities because that that might be a question they ask back. Right? That's that's all

[Rep. Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: was trying

[Speaker 0]: to And I think that conversation will be really interesting when it happens. But it hasn't happened.

[Rep. Dobrebench (Sponsor of S.325 amendment)]: Fifty years. Thank

[Rep. Rob North (Member)]: you.

[Speaker 0]: You have something to say?

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Member)]: No. Was probably need to stop now or

[Speaker 0]: Oh, we need to do it now. Yeah.

[Rep. Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: We can Yeah. Make a comment. I represent several towns that do not have mining commissions and zoning. They depend upon three and or five member select boards to help answer the questions of a developer and of the townspeople where appropriate housing could be placed. Many of them don't even have community centers. Holland doesn't have a community center. Leamington doesn't have a Morgan doesn't have a community center, and that's just three of the 12. I would say don't diminish the power and the wisdom of your select boards that are appointed by the talent of top media. They have governed for a long time and know the needs of the community. Certainly, a 50 story, 50 unit building is not gonna be placed in one of those towns. You'd be lucky if you got a 10 unit. That's all I'm saying. There's a practicality here.

[Speaker 0]: Alright. Any other discussion? All those opposed to the second Dobervich amendment, raise your hand. Seven. All those favor. Two, three. All right, off we go to the floor. Thank you all.