Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Welcome to the committee of conference hosted by the House Environment Committee of S three twenty five. I think since it's a new configuration of members, we should just introduce ourselves. Why don't we start?

[Rep. Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: Representative Labor. Larry Labor. Representative quality and success district one. Sorry. That's right.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: Seth Longworth from the Bennington Senate District.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: Anne Watson with the Washington Senate District.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Rutland District)]: Terry Williams of Rutland District.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Ela Chapin, I represent Small Player and Middlesex. Amy Sheldon. I represent Middlebury our legislative council.

[Ela Chapin (Legislative Counsel)]: Ela Chapin. I'm so legislative council. I think what I'll do

[Unidentified House member]: is we have a side

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: by side, I think just high level, go through big changes, and then come back and talk about the issues that folks are drawn to. The very beginning is the repeal. So I think important to remember, the bill started in the senate with civic date extensions, became primarily a vehicle for repealing the road rule in tier three. It's the focus of it. Some other things have been added, but, that's kinda why we're here. So let's keep that in mind as we go through. Next thing was that the senate in in extending the dates, we actually brought those dates back in. And I'll ask representative labor and representative Chapin to help me out some. But, essentially, what we did was in looking at that, since your dates extended to the extension of road rule on tier three, we felt like we got a lot of feedback on tiers and a reluctance around tiers broadly that it made sense to bring the housing exemptions into a year after the regional planning projects moved or regional planning maps would be updated to give towns a chance who want to opt in to one a and one b to do that. Thank you. That's helpful. We did remove one of the housing amendments that was made on the floor of the Senate, in large part because it was focused on towns without zoning and subdivision bylaws. And those towns are not eligible, actually, for 1A or 1B. And it doesn't actually seem fair to me, given feedback we were getting about surprising communities with major changes to land use, to keep that one in. Which page? I'm

[Rep. Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: not sure exactly. Sorry, I

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: was just sticking up high level dates. That's Okay. I'm just going through. Sure. So then you get to the tier three rulemaking, which, of course, is removed, so that's the same. And then also, in response to significant input we received, we have done two big things. One is creating a public engagement plan process for moving forward to talk with Vermonters about how to address some of the issues that the road rule and tier three were trying to address. I would say that Ela did a lot of work on that section of the bill. And then also, we created a joint oversight committee to some folks don't like the word oversight, but we have a number of standing oversight committees. Legislative council looked at the structure of those and broadly formed this one around that, and then we we refined it. I know you have some thoughts on that, so we'll hear those after. And the concept really is about better communication between the legislature and the Land Use Review Board and also the Agency of Natural Resources. You may have heard some

[Sen. Terry Williams (Rutland District)]: of the floor debate yesterday,

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: though permitting, maybe some of the ways things happen. My vision for this committee, this legislative oversight committee, is that it will be able to address more in real time some of the issues that come up and also just, like I said, be a conduit for communication. There's boundaries around it. The number of meetings are limited, I think, to eight six. We went from eight to six. And it sunsets so that a future legislature can decide if it's an effective use of time and money. We have kept the intent and changed a bit of the details around the Land Use Review Board reports that were coming back to us. And the energy compliance parts of it are brought in because they were in another bill. 1840? Yeah. So you are familiar with We were less familiar with them. But there they are. Yeah, that's a lot of that. And then, yeah, the rest were what I would deem technical cleanup language from the transition that we are going through with regional planning primarily. That I speak to another report back on a review of the So another piece of the housing exemptions for me is having a pause or just the reporting back so that we can find out what kind of housing is being built and where and for whom. And is it really getting at this need that we have for housing? Is it meeting the needs of Vermonters? So that's another reason for the dates coming in. But the report is actually due in 2027. So a future legislature will have time to decide if the housing exemptions are actually helping to address gap in housing that they need. And we also were asked to line up the environmental justice, rearrange the way that they were doing their work, and give them some date extension. That's the summary of Olivia.

[Unidentified House member]: I guess I'll just add that we had a

[Sen. Terry Williams (Rutland District)]: couple

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: floor amendments in this. Accessory on farm business is at the very beginning. It's at the very beginning. Okay, And an amendment to the smart growth principles. Great. Yeah. So, super. Thank you.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: That is super helpful, especially as we go back to talk to the Senate about the changes that were made. So that's great. Did you have a next step in mind? I'd love to hear

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: back from you. Know So you've had time with

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: having looked at the side by side quite a bit, I have some suggestions. I have some thoughts to to share, and I've legislative council to put them together in a draft so I do have something that we could look at, that would outline some of the things that I, would love to propose to counter change, I suppose. Would now be the appropriate time to do that?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Yes. Okay. Unless

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: others have things you'd like to share.

[Ela Chapin (Legislative Counsel)]: I just wanted to flag quickly the two floor amendments that were in the House version are on page three and then 26, in the House's column.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Side by side, I first thought didn't have numbers because they're hidden. I'm gonna mark

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: hidden by the staples. They're there. They are. How's that? Okay. So

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: I'm going

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: to attempt to walk through some of this. I may have some other questions later, but for now, I would love to use this to look at some possibilities. So, this is drafted as, I suppose, further change proposals, instances of amendment. So the first one is in section nine, which is about the plan for engaged. Thinking about- I did hear some feedback about what does- I think the House version uses the word being neutral on policy and political issues and neutral facilitation. I thought that that could use a little bit more specificity, like what are we talking about. So I think And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think what we I think it's probably hopefully clear here that we're not presupposing outcomes or taking positions. Whoever's running this shouldn't be presposing outcomes or taking positions politically. So hopefully, that is clear enough on that. And then, again, instead of saying neutral, saying nonpartisan. We're just trying to stay away from

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: the politics of it. We're

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: staying out of that. So that's at least how I was reading that and suggesting that. Then further down, under by the way, on the side by side, I'm on page 10. But further down, it says the risks of losing working lands, both agriculture and forest land. I think this is great. I love that this is included in here. But I would also add, in addition to wanting to know about the these are kinds of lands that are at risk, these are at high risk, these are at low risk. I actually wanna know what are the drivers of that loss or that potential loss. And so I would love to be able to dig a little bit deeper and to get under the first layer, so to speak, to try to understand those causes. So I've added and the causes for those risks. So that I am hoping is a friendly amendment there. And then further, equitable number two, it says equitable, efficient, effective regulatory or nonregulatory tools to protect these working lands and critical natural resources. I I also thought you know, I was thinking about how people, especially in in rural Vermont, are stewards of the land and want to steward the land, and how sometimes to that end, there are barriers, and there's reasons that that becomes really hard. And so I added barriers to land stewardship. So just thinking about what gets in the way for people when they are trying to do their best to steward their land. So that's another change. Again, by the way, I'm offering all of this in the spirit of if you don't like it, happy to talk about it. And it's also easier to strike than add. So that's second instance of amendment. Third one, kind of cruising. Faster. Okay. So, the next The third instance of amendment here I've got is in relation to the oversight committee. So, think this is Oh, that's on page 11. So, there we are. Okay. Feel like this is my own fault. At some at

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: one point, I I did say,

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: like, oh, yeah. Too spontaneous.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: I've come to understand that it

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: should be the same for the house and the senate.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: Want you

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: to show up. No. That's fair. That's fair.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Agree. I just wanna say that it was offered. It's in acknowledgment of the fact that there are 30 senators asked to do the same amount of study work broadly as the house. It was not to be through as a slight I am. Happy to have you there. I just want you to show up. Yep. That's because I know you're busier than we are. I do. Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: It's helpful.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: In any case, so it moves from two members of the Senate to three, and that working backwards means that there's gotta be six members in total. And then therefore, also the fourth instance of amendment is that the quorum now is four instead of three. So, there's a set of changes associated with that. Own that one. And then fifth.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Fifth instance of amendment. Oh, okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: One of the Oh, this is in the duties part of this. Again, this may actually be captured in the language that you have, but one of the things that I A theme that seemed to come up was about the interpretation of the statute. And so, you know, maybe that is implied in in the implementation of statutes, but I thought it would be just as well to to call it out as that the oversight committee would also potentially be involved in helping to interpret the statutes, like what did we mean when we said these things. So calls that out specifically. Sixth So it

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: says regarding campaign decision and interpretation. Yes. Yes.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: Okay. Probably better have interpretation or notation.

[Rep. Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: It says

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Open to open. Okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: We keep going. Sixth. Was as I understand, it was a floor amendment to add to the Smart Principles. Thank you. The Smart Growth Principles. Somebody just catch up. Trying to navigate both documents at the same time. Okay. '26. So there was an amendment to serves to strengthen agriculture and forest industries. And then the amendment was to including homesteading small scale agriculture and forestry, supporting housing while minimizing conflicts, etcetera. I am fine with all of that. I think the thing that I was having just some dissonance about and supporting housing, but this bullet point was about ag and forestry, and so I just needed that to relate back to ag and forestry, not like and housing, sort of separately, as a standalone thing. I needed it to

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: connect. So lowering health care costs.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: Figured something else. Yeah. So I'm suggesting that we add and supporting on farm and farm worker housing. So that's possibility there. Seventh, I think of this as a technical amendment because in the Community Investment Board's report, which was on our side by side is on page 30, we're just missing a verb, like an action. So, under number in section 20, under number one, summary of the community investment program's activities. And then it says including designations, steps, or other actions. I was like, designations and steps are not actions. Just clarifying, it's which municipalities received designation or new step. Hopefully that is not a particularly big deal.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Eighth is

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: okay, this is also in the report. This is in the report on municipal appeals report. And your new number five, I think it's great. I love that this exists in general. I think this will be really important data. And to add to that, would love to I think adding the number of units, that was just a technical addition, as well as where the units were constructed. But I I wanted to add the reason this got my attention was, the type of units. So with these exemptions, like, we what are we creating with this? Are we creating more vacation rentals, or are we creating more affordable housing? Or what are we doing? I think that type of information the information about the types would be helpful. Danny, I'll tell you.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: No. You could interpret the word types differently.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Okay.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: It can be like

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: you can

[Ela Chapin (Legislative Counsel)]: Rice has also been there, I'll just say, because I think the House committee did talk about this. But I do think having both of those pieces of information would help.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: Types of housing could be

[Unidentified House member]: Number of bedrooms.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: Be more.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: Post and beam or don't mean to be We want to make clear what we're actually talking about. The way we're trying to get at is building housing that is used for affordable housing, long term rental, short term rental, that's what we're trying to get at. So we need to say that to make sure that that's what we're the way it gets translated. Maybe it will I

[Unidentified House member]: like saying what we mean.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Is there a more specific way? We could ask for that data, affordable,

[Unidentified House member]: short term rental.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Long term rental. So the number of affordable market rate. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Market rate. Mhmm.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Rutland District)]: Okay.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: Long term rental. I can think of those five.

[Unidentified House member]: Oh, we also wanna know if it's single family or multi.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Oh, yep.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: Yeah. Maybe.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: Yep.

[Unidentified House member]: Okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Rutland District)]: So I'm I'm more concerned with any part of the Senate that we sent to you that you believe it, if we can go over those and

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: just touch on them. Well, let's keep Yeah. Keep going. Okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: Thank you. Okay. So the ninth instance of amendment is, I think, part that might be of interest to folks. I understand that there was this other amendment about accessory on farm businesses. This one's on page three. Yes, so going backwards a little bit.

[Ela Chapin (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. All the other ones are in order, but this one This one was not. Yes.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: About this accessory on for business piece, I am very sympathetic. And I'd actually hoped to have some conversation over the summer about this specifically. But here we are. We have this potential change here. As with so many floor amendments, I think it's often the case where there's often more work that could be done to look at that. And it is kind of a thorny topic. Again, as I understand it, there is another report due back to the legislature about accessory on farm businesses, which I think is due back November, which is delightfully soon. And I say that because that means that we might have some fodder for legislation next year. But I'm interested in keeping the spirit of this and wanting to preserve the kinds of activities that I think we want to allow to happen, but be reasonable about or I guess I would say be conscious of the fact that any time you're making an exemption, that abuse could happen. And so I guess I think of the situation where I've heard from a lot of farms that are like, this would be helpful to me. And that's like, okay, I wanna help you. But I think about the situations where you have what's really a hotel, but they don't want to go through Act two fifty. And so they or you see what I'm saying. They just also have some like a goat or something. You know what I mean? And then as a result, don't have to get an Act two fifty permit. But I want to honor farms that are farms and are trying to do this. Anyway, And that's the spirit in which I'm offering this. And so it starts with a sunset, that this language would stay in place until 07/01/2027. And open about that. That, in my mind, having a sunset just means that forces the conversation to happen next year. And that's, I would say, is a welcome conversation. But open to suggestions about that. Then that you don't need, a permit. Okay, if less than one acre of land is altered, and the types of events include concerts, farm stays with fewer than five dwelling units, and then to qualify this exemption of the business cannot have noise greater than 70 decibels at property boundaries and continue past ten p. M. And then just to finish out this language here, for the purposes of the subsection, to feature agriculture practices or qualifying products means host farms' agricultural practices or its qualifying products are a substantial component of any event that the business hosts. And this language came from a bill that was already in process in 2024. I believe

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: it was H-one 128.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: That language was a little bit different, but that's where this language comes from. And again, it's a place to start. I did look up 70 decibels, that that is roughly that's like the of a washing machine, just for reference. And just thinking about A washing machine. That's a good question. I don't know.

[Ela Chapin (Legislative Counsel)]: Or I think it might

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: have also said a dishwasher. Take that for what it's worth. Everybody's washing machines are different.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Rutland District)]: Can you summarize your you're gonna add you wanna add this?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: That's my proposal. Detail Yeah. For

[Sen. Terry Williams (Rutland District)]: the same amount of time with Samsung.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: Yeah. Well, and thinking about this as a place to start, putting some guardrails around the exemption. Especially

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: if you're going to make

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: an exemption, let's make it not annoying to the neighbors with noise particularly. But open to discussion on this and, again, anticipating that we would need to have more conversation next year. Like I said, would welcome that. So again, this is a place to start.

[Unidentified House member]: Happy to have more thoughts,

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: disagreement. Thank you. Yes. Hopefully, this is a thing I like to do. Great. Okay, so I guess I have a couple of questions on that. Spent a fair amount of time with acres physically altered on a different section. Oh, Okay. And I guess, Ellen, I need you to remind me what this so is this the actual movement of dirt? Yes. Total of acre? Yes. And you and the five dwelling units would interpret this statute if it's an exemption?

[Ela Chapin (Legislative Counsel)]: There could be enforcement challenges to it that would be brought to the Land Use Review Board. These changes are being only made to the Act two fifty statute, not the municipal zoning statute. So there will be a distinction between the requirements for those two things. So it would be the Land Use Review Board in response to complaints that may occur. But a landowner would need to interpret this in order to move forward without getting a permit. So, they also could ask the board or the district coordinator for a JO based on this.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: Also, reading this language, not yours but the way

[Unidentified House member]: it passed, talks about the construction of improvements, it never actually talks about whether you can actually do the uses. Well that's because the general jurisdictional triggers of Act two fifty are tied to construction.

[Ela Chapin (Legislative Counsel)]: And events themselves may not trigger Act two fifty. The things that trigger Act two fifty generally are construction.

[Unidentified House member]: If

[Sen. Terry Williams (Rutland District)]: somebody wanted to build a farm stand on their farm to sell their produce, Do we need to put parameters in there for what size building could be built?

[Ela Chapin (Legislative Counsel)]: No, so actually that farm stamps are already exempt from Act two fifty under the first part of the language, which is what is being called T1.

[Unidentified House member]: So I've been thinking about this for a while since the floor amendment passed, and I've had a lot of conversations. I think that there's a lot of agreement that the way it stands as passed on the floor of the House isn't really a definition. Like there's a lack of a solid definition, which creates potentially some, well, creates statutory ambiguity around this events exemption. But I've also experienced having talked to a lot of people in this room and beyond this room over the last three weeks about ideas. I've had a lot of different ideas, some of mine, some of other people's around how to put some guardrails on events. And again, we're just talking about constructing a building for events that I think just leave me feeling like a lot of this language is challenging. This is probably why for twelve years we've been trying to address this and we're still struggling with how to draw lines around what what kinds of events, facilities should be exempt from Act two fifty and which shouldn't. And I think that this is challenging. I think that I like some of the language. I think some of this language from H1 28 that isn't necessarily a threshold like one acre or 70 decibels, I think makes sense to add. I'm not sure actually how much it actually helps with the definition, but I think it gets a little bit at least at our legislative intent. I struggle with the one acre. I struggled with event scale. I talked about numbers of events per year, things that people have been bringing up for a decade or more. I did hear a lot of positive feedback about pushing the the effective date back a year and giving some time for municipalities to make sure their ordinances are in order to get at some of these parameters in a more local way, as opposed to trying to do it through the exemption. And I guess I'll just share that I think that there's a lot of support for that path, as opposed to us trying in the last days of the legislative session to articulate what is an on farm event. I don't love that we did this through a floor amendment because of the statutory ambiguity, but I also am excited that we're making maybe another step in this direction for farms. And I think that it's I wish we could have done more of this work earlier. And for various reasons, there's been other big priorities. So I guess I just wanna say, I think I like the idea of putting some parameters on this and maybe either doing a sunset or pushing the data out. But right now I'm sort of settling on what's largely, I don't think the one acre or the, I don't know, I feel less concerned about noise and time, particularly the one acre, I think feels like an arbitrary thing that's going to be really limiting on farms. We could get into whether it includes parking or not, but that's the problem.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Rutland District)]: Any rulemaking requirement, which agency is responsible for the movement?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Well, I guess I'm going to step back a second. I appreciate the question, but I'll say we didn't take any testimony on this. So I Yeah, I'm not sure. But for me, I'm uncomfortable with it because my head is not in it. I've had years in this body where my head was fully into this conversation. I was looking forward to having the professional end user review board come back with recommendations to it. So I think, yes, we need to honor the change that was made, but we also need to make sure we do it with I think we need to be careful. And then as far as who does rulemaking for well, for for an exemption, there would be no rulemaking. Like, there's no rulemaking. Rulemaking is one avenue that could have been in the report back to us in November 15 that could address the nuance of this, which is real. That's why and I'll say it's been an evolving conversation, and things have gotten I think, it's improved, but it is still outstanding.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: I think about Bennington getting built, and the neighbors, it's at two in the morning at cocktails, and that all I had to do was, I don't know, so it's one club and qualify, came from the garden. I think it's a little scary for, even for a short duration of what could happen and I'm really, like everybody in this room, I'm really sympathetic and true on foreign businesses. I'm for but not completely, frankly, the way this is written, you can drive a bulldozer through it. You can do anything you want and just with a little tiny bit of pretending the cat selling connection, agriculture can be entirely second business that's unpermitted and poses a lot on neighbors. So I think just pushing back the effective date doesn't work for me, but I think we need to give it some definition and if it ends up that the board after doing its work comes back with a recommendation, I believe it's whatever we can look at that. But I think in the short run, you've to put some progress on it. It's going to be some people could really regret that we did this for them.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: So sorry, you're suggesting push back the implementation date and try and refine the language further.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: Yeah, to at least try to refine the language and it really, I think since it happened with the Florida Method, I don't feel guilty of not doing it, doing something quickly, just bring it down some to some scale that has some relationship to true unforum accessory business. So I don't know how to do it quickly. I think what you can talk about is something that I would say, but it's important. I

[Sen. Terry Williams (Rutland District)]: wanna keep it in, but I want parameters. Okay.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: Yeah, I'm okay with that. We can help some, we're having a great sleep.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Well, this is why we're here. I don't know what the prime numbers would be. I think, Ellen, the way the existing statute was, how was it limiting on farm business? So

[Ela Chapin (Legislative Counsel)]: currently in statute, if you look at the language that's at the bottom of page four into page five, there's three sentences in the exemption under act.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: The impasse version of the bill?

[Ela Chapin (Legislative Counsel)]: No. Yeah. So for active 50 purposes, there is an exemption and that exemption is three different sentences to address three categories of accessory ad farm business. There are two categories, but for purposes of the exemption, they've been broken into three. So I've put them into their own subdivision so it's easier to see. So T1, this is an exemption for the construction of improvement for the sale or the storage or sale of farm products and the other enumerated products, which are baked goods and merchandise. And so this is sort of classically a farm stand. Those historically have already been exempt under Act two fifty because they're also part of the definition of farming. Storage and sales are part of the definition of farming. The second sentence is the value added step. And so accessory on farm businesses also include a business for the preparation or processing of the qualifying products. But this has a further requirement, which is that provided that more than 50% of the total annual sales of the prepared or qualifying product come from product produced on the farm where the business is located. And so this is another aspect that was discussed quite a bit about it requires at least 50% come from the products from that farm itself. And the unit there has been debated before. It's currently in statute annual sales, although other dollar numbers or weight have been considered previously. And then the third sentence says that currently there is no exemption for the events category of accessory on farm business. And as I mentioned, some of them are already not under Act two fifty jurisdiction because holding an event itself does not necessarily trigger Act two fifty. It's when there's construction that triggers it. So construction of improvements for an event, for an accessory out of our business, currently may trigger an Act two fifty permit.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Rutland District)]: So every municipality could have a different if they had an ordinance, they would have to set up

[Ela Chapin (Legislative Counsel)]: So currently, is a separate statute for municipal zoning related to accessory on farm business treatment. It currently says that a business that qualifies as an accessory on farm business, the municipality can't zone out. They have to allow them. They do have site plan review authority, which is just the basic traffic signage, lighting, screening, but they can't prohibit in their other zoning, etcetera, or mascuses.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Towns that don't have any zoning would have no? No say, currently, yeah.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: Are there actually 50 if they were applying for something like a building to do weddings or have concerts, the district commission would look at things like, then they would look at things like noise and frequency and some of those things that others would be, But under this, there's just nothing.

[Ela Chapin (Legislative Counsel)]: There would be no review. Yes. There may be some at the talent level, not in the acting 50 pretzels because it wouldn't be there. And not if it meets a definition of accessory of our business, it

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: would just be limited to those site things that you just listed.

[Ela Chapin (Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. And so site plan review is only a limited number of things. It does not cover noise.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: But at the visible level?

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Correct.

[Unidentified House member]: So that's a reason to leave these two parameters in the exemption that do address noise. You talk about what scale construction would trigger an F250 permit?

[Ela Chapin (Legislative Counsel)]: Sure. So there are 10 jurisdictional triggers under F250 or 11. Hang on, how we move forward. But the classic ones are for commercial or industrial purposes in a one acre town, a town without zoning, construction on a parcel that is more than one acre. In a 10 acre town, a town with zoning, it's construction for the commercial or industrial purpose on a parcel that is 10 or more acres. And so that is the default currently. And here we are talking about farms. So farms under Act two Farming under 2,500 feet in elevation is exempt from Act two fifty. And there are provisions in statute that identify that if a commercial development is going to happen on a site otherwise used for farming purposes, Act two fifty attaches only to the portion of the parcel for that development. But the whole parcel size is what triggers Act two fifty in those circumstances. And so it would be about if there was construction happening on a parcel more than one acre or more than 10 acres.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Just a large part of why we're in this conversation. Those farms are, by definition, usually one or 10 acres.

[Rep. Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: Presented labor. I can check. I go to interview. Page five, fifth line. I know what the intent is, but the way it's worded, they want to consider changing verbiage. Firearm stays with five cottages or less because we've already had testimony from two parties that have five separate cottages.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: It's So

[Rep. Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: five because the way it's worded right now, the interpretations, my part would be four.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Yes. I agree.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: So we could switch it to five or fewer. Yeah.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: That's what you're saying. Thank

[Unidentified House member]: you. I'd say if we keep the one acre language, I really think we should exclude

[Sen. Terry Williams (Rutland District)]: Can you say that again?

[Unidentified House member]: If we keep the one acre language on page five, one, two, I think it needs to exclude parking. Sometimes parking might just be on the grass, so they're not actually disturbing any soil to make parking. If it's a larger venue for the occasional bus turnaround because they're having school groups, then you're talking about quite a bit of acreage for a bus turnaround. I would just say, I think that that's just such an anomaly from project to project and farm to farm that I would exclude that.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: I know that's a departure from that language.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: I would be interested in the thoughts of others, but I am tentatively Okay with that. But I think it gets to for me, it's coming back to this larger question of we decide on some parameters. Either we're pushing it out, we're having an effective date starting next year, or we are sunsetting it. Either way, we need more conversation. So way, in I think I might actually be going against what my own suggestion is here because let's suppose that we put something into place now. We exclude parking. We don't exclude parking. Let's say we get it wrong. Not that there is such a thing here exactly, but there's something we don't like eventually, or we get feedback that people don't like. There's If a trade off in terms of if it starts now but then it sunsets, then that allows opportunity for something to happen now that maybe couldn't happen before versus if we set it out in the future, then we have time to get feedback on whatever we've got here and have the opportunity to tweak it. And I feel like the theme of what I heard through the larger discourse on this bill and Equity One in general was the need for more discourse. Not just discourse, I'm sorry, the need for more input. And so actually putting it out, having a future effective date rather than a sunset would be more in the spirit of, here's the status quo. Tell us what you think about it. What do you

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: yeah. I mean, in reaching out, hearing from people, to me, given that we're in a committee of conference on a bill that's addressing other significant things, I felt like having it implemented in your later felt like a sense of relief of like, okay, we're honoring this, but we're also giving space for the conversation.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: Think people want to narrow it in the short run, narrow it as well. I

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: don't have the language to narrow it, which is why I wanted the report to come back.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: That's what I'm thinking about.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: And we avoid that if we

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: That that'll work for the default, but that we have LERB report coming in that we we think of.

[Unidentified House member]: Yeah. I just have a question for legislative council. If if we took out the one acre and we left the rest of the language as is, instead of the sunset, we push it out a year. Is it your opinion that we are putting some guardrails on this and limiting, particularly the kinds of examples that Senator Watson brought up of somebody buying land and having a token little agricultural project over here, but really building a wedding venue or a concert venue or a hotel? There some guardrails here for those kinds of situations?

[Ela Chapin (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't have an answer for that.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: It really is

[Ela Chapin (Legislative Counsel)]: policy. I mean,

[Unidentified House member]: Meaning that you don't see an improvement between what was passed on the floor and this version in terms of avoiding that kind of a scenario? I'm not saying that.

[Ela Chapin (Legislative Counsel)]: I have no comment on that. I don't think I can advise you if these are the appropriate or improved parameters.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: I have a separate question. Coming back to the one acre thing, because if you were going to be building larger than one acre, it would trigger out two fifty anyway? No. I guess not

[Unidentified House member]: if it's part parcel. It's part parcel size, not a parcel

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: size. Thank you. Okay. Digesting. And where did this definition number four come from? Definition number four. True to agricultural practices are qualifying from. The PH 128 didn't pass.

[Unidentified House member]: It did pass house ag, and then it came to your committee, and parts of it got utilized for act one eighty one, and parts of it did not move.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: Or I'd take all of this and put it into a draft.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: I think I'm proposing that we change this to, instead of a sunset, that it's a future effect date and put it out to starting 07/01/2027. I mean, would rather have this than not, and also including Representative Labour's suggestion about five or fewer.

[Rep. Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. The blurb did send out a pretty comprehensive various sections that they would see improvements made on using their language. They want to have a separate meeting after everybody's had the opportunity to brief, by just a doctor.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: They suggested July 2028. Oh, two years

[Sen. Terry Williams (Rutland District)]: I was in relationship with them doing rule making on this. And I personally Of course. I think I think there's some farm businesses are actually doing this already. So we're we're potentially putting a restriction on what people are doing. And I like sunsets because what do you do if you don't have any complaints? People just do what they do and nobody makes a complaint. The sunset makes you go back and revisit that.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Well, I guess I'm sorry. Some of these things are being litigated now. There's already some conflicts.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: Oh, yeah.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Folks are trying to

[Rep. Larry Labor (Vice Chair)]: So, yeah.

[Unidentified House member]: One of the big reasons that I heard articulated to not do a sunset, but to give it a year is really because we have 60 to 100 municipalities who don't have ordinances now for events. And it gives time for the RPCs or VLCT to support municipalities in preparing for this level of change. Because again, even if we put a one acre limit on this, a one acre can hold quite a big venue.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Rutland District)]: And other act 181, depending on what you use for a parking lot, that could trigger the pervious surface.

[Unidentified House member]: There's other permits that would be needed.

[Ela Chapin (Legislative Counsel)]: Not under Accessibility,

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: not at 101.

[Unidentified House member]: Yeah, you mean storm water or those other things. So I guess I just would say that if think that if we I don't know what I was saying. I guess I'm just trying to say, I think that there's a number of goals that are achieved by putting an effective date out a year that support municipalities, give us time to think a little bit more and get the report.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Rutland District)]: I actually like going to what the LERB said, because you know what you're doing.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Oh, I am.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Rutland District)]: It gets away from the sunset. Gives us time.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: We need to do a little logistics with you. I assume you're going to another committee call. When are you available again? Six. Six tonight. Okay. We may need to reconvene Although, at I will meet tomorrow morning.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: I've

[Sen. Terry Williams (Rutland District)]: got got

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: an. Think we could, so if we can get this concession, if you can. Don't know. We'll be good.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: Yeah, one would probably be safe.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: Because But, I could also I'm sorry. I heard six also.

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: I really can't. You can't. Okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Washington Senate District)]: Good. Feels like we have maybe a direction to I had

[Unidentified House member]: a couple of comments on

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: your other things, but I'm generally supportive of them. It's welcome.

[Sen. Seth Longworth (Bennington Senate District)]: There is some gut sketch a point that we can have in drafts.

[Ela Chapin (Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, so this is a draft. So conference committee reports can take a few different shapes. I drafted this as instances of amendment because it is the shortest version. However, if it would be helpful because the Senate floor will not have seen all of the House's proposal, you could do a strike all. This is based as Senator Watson's proposal was based as accepting the House and then amending it slightly. You have other options too. I also could include more language with each of these amendments if it would be helpful to read. So I think we need

[Rep. Amy Sheldon (Chair, House Environment Committee)]: to stick with this format for now and decide what we're going to agree on first. I guess we need get it tomorrow. Birium, can you help us with that? Great. Thank you. All right. So we're going to adjourn for the afternoon on this conference committee, but I'm kind of waiting to talk about the one we didn't get to. All right.