Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: We're live.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Almost check. Good afternoon.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: We're here with the House General and Housing Committee, and it is April. And we're gonna start with some testimony on S-two 38 and act relating to housing and common interest communities. So our first witness is Chuck Lacey, who's a member of the Jericho Housing Committee. And Chuck, would you like to join us? And we will introduce ourselves for you since it's your first time here. So Debbie, would you like to kick us off?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I'm representative of Debbie Dolgin. I represent St. John's Ray, Concord, and Columbia.

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: Hi, I'm

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Tom Charlton.

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: I represent Athens, Doctor. Krasnow, Windsor. Joe Parsons, Newbury, Topsland, and Girard.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Leonora Dodge, Essex Town, and City Of Essex Junction. Emilie Krasnow, South Burlington.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: In Erie Powers, I represent Rutland City District 6.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: And we have someone online. Gayle, if you're available to pop on and say hello if not that's okay too.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Gayle Pezzo, Colchester District 20.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Hope you feel better and Chuck if you want to introduce yourself and take it away for us.

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: Chuck Lacey, I lived in Jericho for going on forty years, farm in Jericho among other things and about half a dozen locations. Sold my cows about ten years ago. I'm on the housing committee, I've always been interested in housing. I'd say over the last forty years I've watched Jericho turn from being a town where regular people could come and live and build families into what is now an exclusive town, which is effectively a gated town. And I'd like to speak first to a couple of features of this bill, and then with permission, I'd like to speak more generally about how all this fits into the exclusionary practices

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: in Jericho,

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: we've lost almost 40% of students in last twenty years. We have twice as many people in their 60s than in their 30s. In Chinook County, it's fiftyfifty. So we have created quite a different place with our policies. We have the lowest percentage of children eligible for lunch benefits in our schools, the Jericho schools. And last year, the average cost of a new house in Jericho was $963,000 And this is due to a combination of exclusionary practices, both public zoning and private zoning, which is what HOAs are. And then also I believe that our regional planning approach has supported and provided language that Jericho then used to justify this approach. But first I'll speak specifically about HOAs in Jericho. In my experience, it's very Jericho centric, so you have to decide whether what I'm saying applies to other places. And I started out looking at deeds in the town hall, and I just got to learning how to do it and have looked at most of the deeds in Jericho. There's about 2,000 dwellings in Jericho, and more than a quarter of them have restrictive covenants, over 500 homes have restrictive covenants banning anything other than single family homes. They ban and mandate fairly large lots. They ban mobile homes, duplexes, multi family housing, any kind of subdivision, infill.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Can you tell us that figure one more time, how many?

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: 500 of Jericho's 2,000 dwellings have these, and they are concentrated where the regional planning is expected more piling to come, and does not take that into account, refuses to take that into account on the maps that they've drawn. So if you were to look where the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission is expecting infill housing, that area is largely controlled by HOA. Most of Jericho, and I'll show you the map a little later, most of Jericho is reserved for people with money, and there's a fairly small area where housing for people with regular incomes is expected, although it is dominated for a variety of reasons why housing is very difficult there. So typically,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I might just ask, is this equal? These are HOAs of single family dwellings that you're talking about? Right. Okay.

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: Most HOAs, or the HOAs in Jurhaly, that I've read about, are initiated by the builder. And typically these are developments, they used to be more than nine houses, but in the last era they've been nine house developments. And the builder is trying to assure the person who buys the first lot that the person who buys the ninth lot is going to be compatible in terms of design, class, lifestyle. Once the last house is sold,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: the HOA has to revert to

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: the homeowners. In almost all the cases, the homeowners have the right to amend the HOAs, but they don't. And I think it's because they're just really not aware of what's in there, but also the neighborhood is so uniform, they can't imagine anything different.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Can I just,

[Samantha [Last Name Unknown] (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: I don't know if I'm still chairing?

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: You are. But, I just want to highlight for the committee and for folks online that I'm really grateful that you're bringing this perspective in because I think mostly when I lived in an HOA for twenty one years, but it's a condominium association. So, this is a really helpful perspective to hear about from a single family home HOA perspective. So I appreciate

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: you sharing this perspective.

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: And some of the language is kind of comical. They'll start out by saying, in order to preserve the rural character. And then later on, they'll ban chickens and all that sort of thing. In most cases the homeowners can amend the HOAs. HOAs are legitimate ways for a group of homeowners to manage water, septic, the road, the common land. There's nothing inappropriate about HOAs. They frequently have ten year

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: terms Jericho that are

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: renewed automatically after ten years. So they're really just if the homeowner just kind of take a passive approach, which is what I might do if I wasn't aware of what was in the HOAs, or if I couldn't imagine anything different than single family homes. They kind of get renewed in perpetuity. So my recommendation is that, and I think the discussion about HOAs and ADUs is much too narrow. This is private zoning over large areas of the areas in Jericho that are designated for housing. It's private zoning. I think that it is wrong Basically, HOAs should not have private zoning that is more restrictive than the underlying public zoning, and that's what's happening. And the town itself is complicit. I mean, the town has you have an HOA that is specifically that is in part designed to prevent the town from meeting its housing objectives, but the town is taking care of the road. I mean, it's a full you know, kind of a full participant in what's going on. The second thing in this bill, and again, I'm hoping to talk about other things, but speaking specifically to this bill, was the notion that you want to have automatic, approval for triplexes and fourplexes in places where there's water and sewer. On a space, kind of not a bad thing, but much too limiting. In Jericho, we have numerous developments, five under construction right now, nine home developments, that in the development have between twenty seven and forty five bedrooms permitted. Wow. So it's absurd that we're saying we're going to permit 40 bedrooms of luxury homes in a cluster, but we're going to ban apartments because they don't have sewer, water and sewer. If you have water and sewer for nine five bedroom homes, you have water and sewer for 22 bedroom apartments. It's part of a pattern of co opting environmental concerns for basically an exclusionary view on housing. And one of the things that I think is really important is that if we continue to believe that rural housing is single family homes, and that somehow anything but a single family home is an affront to rural life, we are saying that rural life is reserved for people with money. And that is the case in Jericho. We have to recognize the fact that housing costs have changed, family structures have changed, financing has changed, and that unless we recognize that multifamily housing is a legitimate part of rural housing, we are in effect reserving rural areas. This is what's happening in Jericho. We are reserving rural areas for the welfare. So I think that your tilt should say that triplexes and fourplexes and multifamily housing generally should be welcome in rural areas. And if I may, I want to speak a little bit to the results in Jericho for last year. These are our zoning districts, and this is the percentage of the land in each zoning district. So we have 6% of Jericho. 6% in areas that are designated for growth. Jericho Corners is and and most of these were built out when there was half acre and one acre zone. So infill means, even when when you don't have an HOA, infill means I want you to build a second house in your front yard or your backyard, which involves the desire to do it, the ability to go finance it, the ability to find an architect and go through the permitting and to build a house. It just simply does not happen, particularly as the town grows in wealth. Like their front yard and their backyard, and they have the wealth to keep it. Jericho Corners is largely built out, and over two thirds of the septic systems are more than 30 years old. Riverside is where, all the town's efforts are focused in terms of adding housing. The HOAs are concentrated in the one acre and the three acre zones, which is the next ring out. And 70% of Jericho is 10 acres zoning. There's no need for an HOA out there, because anything more than a duplex is banned. The town will protect you from unsavory people with regular incomes. So you can develop a tenant or a lot in Jericho, and be assured that if another house comes in, it's gonna be built by another wealthy person. So there's no need for an HOA out there.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Chuck, I just wanted to Two things. We want to make sure we have time for Samantha, but have you ever been invited to testify in the environment committee, does the zoning jurisdiction? No? Okay. Maybe we could try to get you in there. Yeah. So, committee, while we're housing, we don't have land use zoning in our jurisdiction, but have the HOA discussions. So, it would be great if at some point if you could testify in their committee, I think that they would be really helpful. I am sorry.

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: So, thank you. I'll move quickly then.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: No, yeah, thank you.

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: You know, is a cluster of eight condos, this is a row of eight condos, and they're banned in 86% of Jericho.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Because of the HOA CCNRs?

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: No, because of some of it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But that zoning would be invalid under Act 181, because Act 181 says that anywhere residential is allowed, a single family housing should be

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: 28, the adjustments we're making

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to Act 181. The Home Act. The Home Act. Oh, I thought it I mean, I believe you, I'm just saying I think it's illegal. Now, the Home Act says that if you allow single family houses, you gotta allow duplexes. Right.

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: I'm talking about an eight plex.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: An eight That's right, okay.

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: So we're talking about a set of condos. We're saying for sort of trumped up environmental reasons, which make no sense, we're gonna ban clusters of smaller homes in favor of enormous single family homes. We have a development right now that's just being completed, nine homes, average of 3,500 square feet with an HOA banning anything other than single family homes, and with an average cost of $1,100,000, which is exactly responsive to both the public and the private zoning in Jericho. So here are the results, last year we built 14 houses, average cost $9.63, none of them built in the targeted area.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: That's bad.

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: And we had two ADUs. This one had the benefit of a $50,000

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Do you have these charts like in a digital platform? Oh you do? Oh this was just for

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm old school. Our

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: could you actually put that in

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: front of your body so that the viewers at home can see it better because our camera's in front of you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Oh, there

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: we go.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The other

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: thing that happens is, and I apologize for dwelling on the zoning, is that if you begin with the point of view that a large single family home and a large lot is sort of a birthright, and is what's normal.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Then

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: when you change the zoning or have some kind of incentive to have something other than single family homes, it comes with an entitlement to then tell people how to live. So in this area they redid the zoning to make you know more you know, but this is banned because it's too wide. If you want to build a house in this area that's zoned to allow regular income people with regular incomes, you have to go through a list of architectural features and pick out enough of them to earn points to get a permit.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: So what are some of those features?

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: How big your windows are, and how many they are, and how far apart are your doors, where your downspout is, whether you can add a bay window and you get an extra point. No house can be wider than 40 feet, a fourplex no fourplex can be wider than 40 feet. So on the Jericho Housing Committee, Planning Commission, Development Review Board, and Select Board, there is only one person who lives in a house that meets the new architectural standards in the area that has been rezoned for people to support housing for people with regular incomes.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I really appreciate, this is really informative, have to make time for Samantha as well, but two, a couple of things. I would love to hear your thoughts. You mentioned, so as it pertains to the bill that we're working on about, this was a really helpful perspective. Again, I have a perspective from living in a condominium for twenty one years with an HOA, but to have the perspective of I grew up in Charlotte, so very similar to Jericho in many aspects.

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: I know the crowd numbers.

[Samantha [Last Name Unknown] (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: Oh. Alright.

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: Well. Would have been in jury for many years.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Oh, yes. So, I grew up in a similar community. And so, I think we would love to hear some more on the ADU stuff. That's really helpful. But I would love to use I'm not the chair. This is my real chair. I was just filling in. The chair's influence, and maybe mine, to get you also in front of the environment committee to talk about zoning and how people This is really important that I think people need to hear about. Well, it's Chittenden County, it's still rural exclusion. And where I grew up too, not having, being able to have apartments in Charlotte, right? We have some, but I'm just saying it's typically seen as the single family large McMansion.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Chuck, you so much? You're gonna cut him off? I have to cut you off just because we need to allow time

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: to He didn't make make me the bad guy.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So, I'm gonna be the bad guy, and just because we think you ought to testify before another committee doesn't mean it wasn't worthwhile testifying here, thank you.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: No, and I want written, if you have things

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: to Can I just make one point?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Yeah, of course.

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: I don't see ADUs as ultimately having any really moving the needle.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, we've heard that,

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: yeah. Okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, we know the limitations with ADUs.

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: Okay, all right.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. And can you please write us, we can have more information, we can have you back.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Great, thank you, Chuck, I appreciate it. I'm Marc Mihaly, by the way. Appreciate your testimony. Thank you. Samantha. Not that I wanna tell you you stand between us and lunch.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Oh, seriously, we look forward to your time.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Oh, Samantha, I should tell you that some elements of this really belong in environment three twenty eight belong in environment, and so, not that you shouldn't tell us, but sections seven, eight, nine generally are going to go over there, one way or another.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Well, that's what she's saying.

[Samantha [Last Name Unknown] (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: Okay, I'm going make a strong argument that that is Title 24 material and relates to the jurisdictions of the committee and the prior work of your election bills last year. And we'll see if that works. VLCTA supports S-three 28. We're happy to see it pass with strong endorsement from the Senate. And it does a couple of things that relate to municipal authority and programs at the town level to support housing. I plan today to testify on two things that we would like you to add to the bill. One, you should be very familiar with. The other, we did discuss with Senate Natural. There was agreement and understanding. I think it's safe to say amongst the senators at that time. I'm not sure if Senator Watson flagged it or I'm sorry, I don't even know who introduced the bill to this meeting. I'm not sure if he flagged it or he was. Okay. They just sort of ran out of time, but it was agreeable to that committee at the time when we discussed it. So first thing So S-three 28 makes two Title 24 changes. So Title 24 is where the authority of all municipalities to adopt a municipal plan, adopt zoning, and adopt bylaw exists, as well as where all of the state preemptions, what we call a state preemption on municipal bylaw, also exists in Title 24. So this says in municipality, if there is water and sewer, there must be ADUs allowed. If the municipality allows the year round development of single family housing, they must also allow a duplex. If the municipality is served by water and sewer and meets other requirements, they cannot require more than one and a half parking spots per unit of housing. So most of those preemptions that relate to housing were created in 2023 in the Home Act, and the municipalities have been working through becoming compliant and making the necessary updates. In your housing bill last year, the one that was the final vehicle of CHIP, you had the language that I have on the screen. So this comes from an early draft by Cameron, and it was in your bill as passed. This would allow every time the state law changes what is in one of those Title 24 preemptions, so the municipality must comply with it in their local regulation. And even if they don't, it is still the law and it's still permittable. We should think that there should not be a hearing required. So right now, in order to change bylaw, and I have links and resources to this vote in law. Last year? It got pulled out in the Senate.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, because I remember passing that. You did, you did. Okay.

[Samantha [Last Name Unknown] (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: We would like it to be able to be adopted by an action of the legislative body.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, yeah.

[Samantha [Last Name Unknown] (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: But right now, this bill will make a small change to the existing Home Act preemptions. One of them is that if there is a fire district, that counts as served by. So Josh isn't here. He's on the Randolph Planning Commission, so I'll pick on them. They would have to reopen their zoning because they have a fire district and they have municipal water and sewer. It's possible that where they adopted the Home Act expansions will have to be expanded because of overlap with the fire district. So if that's true, then they will have to have their Citizen Volunteer Planning Commission hold meetings to draft the bylaw changes. They'll have to hear that at the select board member. There will have to be at least one fifteen day notice public hearing, I'm sure they gave a comment period, and then the adoption can

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: This was picked the language that you think should go in 03/28?

[Samantha [Last Name Unknown] (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: Yes.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And it got pulled out in the Senate out of our housing bill last year. Correct. Okay. Yep.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: S-one hundred twenty seven.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah? Yep.

[Samantha [Last Name Unknown] (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: Okay. So I'm actually I really enjoyed Chuck's testimony, and I want to repeat something that he said, which is that if we call single family housing rural housing, then we are reserving rural Vermont for the wealthy. We know what it costs to build a single family home. It's over 700,000. It's been nearly that since before 2020. We know what it costs to buy land in these areas. We know the complexity of getting separate permits to build your road, to ditch it, to drill your potable water source, to design and build your septic tank, and then potentially under Act 181, also go through a complete Act two fifty permit review for a single unit of housing in world. That is what makes the opportunity of Act two fifty relief so precious for communities that are working really hard to meet their housing targets. And to do that by legalizing all types of housing or as many types of housing needs made sense for that community and their particular market needs and market gaps. So I want to really, in the simplest way possible, take you back to the last three years of work in this building for addressing regulatory changes in housing to remove the barriers to building new homes. So in 2023, the Home Access, Act. This carried all of these preunctions that said if a municipality has these things, it has to allow a higher level of density of housing. Nearly all municipalities have gone through the local planning processes and work with the state and regional resources to become compliant with those. So in areas where we have sidewalks, where we have walkable neighborhoods, where we have existing public infrastructure, including water and sewer, and where there has always been the opportunity to build housing, municipalities must have up zoned already to allow five units of housing per half acre, to allow duplexes wherever you allow one home to be built, to lower their parking minimums, and to do all these changes. So regardless of whether the municipality goes forward in the future to become So that was in 2023. In 2024, the legislature passed Act 21, which did two big things. Upfront, it created temporary exemptions in these same areas. It used the same concepts of a public infrastructure and existing housing development as the basis for a current Act two fifty exemptions that are in line now. The second thing it did is it also used those same concepts, the concepts of existing density, existing multiuse districts, and existing public infrastructure to say if the municipality has these things, it can go through this whole other separate bureaucratic process to receive permanent Act two fifty relief. Pause there. So those are the two things that the law did. What I'm asking you to do in this bill to add and also Accent and Natural Resources to add. So in Section eight of S-three 28, it makes small changes to the definition of served by municipal water and sewer. That definition only exists in Title 24. So Title 10 is where Act two fifty lives. Title 24 is where municipal zoning and bylaw lives. Title 24 says municipalities have to meet all these new rules that support housing because of the HOME Act. Title X was changed to say, in these same basic areas that meet these same conceptual characteristics, Act two fifty will be relieved. The problem is the served by water and sewer definition does not exist in Title 10. So it exists as a concept that applies to the temporary exemptions and to the future tier one eligibility, and it's up to the LERB to test that, to say the municipality is or is not served by. Whereas what Title 24 does is say, this is exactly what it means. If these things are true, you have to allow duplexes and four units per half acre. So I use the example of Kultney Village. This is what they're asking for a Tier 1B exemption for. So this is the old village, the deep purple colors. This is mostly or entirely served by public municipal water and sewer. These pink spheres, these are their planned growth areas, which POLTENA asks also to be tier one and to be actively exempt for up to 50 units of housing. They have gone through robust local processes that I do not think reflect Jericho's that you heard about today that make it possible to build a density there. They call in their local zoning, this is served by municipal water and sewer. It's zoned up for this level of density. We want Tier 1A status for it to build up to 50 units. But the truth is not all of these privately held parcels are hooked up right now. So Pulten is saying, we have the capacity of the plant. We have the desire to extend the service line. We're just calling this the area that is served by our public service for the purpose of housing and for Act 50 relief. The LERB had gone back to them in the review process of the regional plan and said, That's not true. That's not exactly true.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Because they're not connected.

[Samantha [Last Name Unknown] (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: Because they're not connected.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: So, basically,

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: you're saying there's a very light, whitish, lighter pink line extending. Are you

[Samantha [Last Name Unknown] (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: That's a state highway.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Okay. Yeah. Is there a water line along the state highway, but just not along, not with individual jutting out? Is that the problem I according to the

[Samantha [Last Name Unknown] (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: don't know, but I think, because this is an enterprise district, I think there's a line out here. That makes sense to me. But not all of these exist, not all of its existing development is currently served by the Supreme

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: And so do I have it right that you just said that the LERB interpreted the language as saying, Nope, they're not served.

[Samantha [Last Name Unknown] (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: Yeah, the Lurb interpreted this as served by water and sewer.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm trying to get to the But not the light pink.

[Samantha [Last Name Unknown] (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: So this is the language and text. So this, I pulled, copy, and pasted from Act one eighty one of twenty twenty four, but it's as it changes Title X. Title X BSA 6,033. That's where Act two fifty lives. It's where Act 181 that creates one B and one A all lives in this section of the law. So it says Tier 1B area status under this section. The LERB before this, this is what the LERB does. So the RPC must demonstrate to the LERB that's the board, the LERB that the municipality, so Hultney, in its proposed Tier 1B area meets the following requirements, and there's seven of them. Number five is, has water supplied, wastewater infrastructure, or soils that can accommodate a community system? What I'm asking you to do is to say, for all these housing preemptions in Title 24 where we use this definition, which is changed by the bill you're considering today, the definition in Title 24 for served by water and sewer should also be used everywhere in Title 10 that we're discussing the municipal regulation.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So you're proposing, not that it's going to be us, but you are proposing that Section eight of the bill, which currently says the following definitions apply, areas served 42, areas served by municipality, etcetera, you think that all of that should also be imported into Article 10.

[Samantha [Last Name Unknown] (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: Correct. It's just a cross reference, so this should say Yeah. And it's used, I pulled it for one It should say as defined in As defined in Title 24.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Are you going to be telling to the environment committee?

[Samantha [Last Name Unknown] (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: To be totally honest, Mr. Chair, we have a lot to tell the environment committee on S-three 25. We look forward to doing that. We're happy to include this, but I think this is a really fair vehicle to make this what I think is a technical conforming change. Because the RPCs are the municipal planners. The municipal planning bodies are the municipal planners. This is making changes to the municipal plan and the municipal regulations by force through a Title 24 preemption. We're just asking for a conforming change in the state's section of law that is used to understand the municipal regulation. So what Title X does through Act 181 is it creates a test for the municipality. If the municipality is perfect enough for this density of housing up to 50 units, we will allow it. It should just be using the same definition. That's what we're asking for.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Got it. Yeah. All right. So what you want is a cross reference language in Section eight of the bill that references 10 BSA 6,033 Item five.

[Samantha [Last Name Unknown] (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: Correct, we would like this committee's great idea from last session back in the law, this bill also opens up the preemptions.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Alright, Thank you.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Thank you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Any questions? Did you Yes.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: So we're told that there was also added wording from the committee that in the served by definition put specific language about the size of or distance, the 2,000 feet distance.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, was the bill that came out of committee.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: The bill that popped

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: up But it didn't make out of the Senate. I know that. So what I'm asking is for your input about that, just feedback or insights.

[Samantha [Last Name Unknown] (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: Yes. So I testified to that in Senate Natural and also some municipal planners came in and testified. So here's the example I used there. From here to Willy Wan's Thai food is 2,000 feet. That was what was in the bill when it lacked Senate Econ. What that would have done is said, if the wastewater plant for Montpelier is north of here on Route 2 and the sewer line ends at the front door to the State House, everything between here and Willy Quons is by law served However, it's not. You can see in the context of a community like Montpelier, that's a lot of stuff. That's a lot of potential capacity that the municipality would have really big plans for how it would build the infrastructure to serve that length of the downtown. So there was really broad general agreement that 2,000 feet was way too long. We discussed agreeing to a number of more like 200 or 300 feet. But where the committee ended, which I think is very reasonable, which is what the current definition does, it just has to say it in the regulation. So, Pulton, big ambitions to grow, clearly defined planned growth area, wants Tier 1B relief in that pink map that I showed you. They can call that served by. It's more than 2,000 feet. In a community like Stowe, which is already nearing its capacity of its current existing sewer infrastructure, that would not be possible for them to comply with at their current sewer capacity. And so they can define served by as 10 feet from the end of the line, two parcels maximum, however it makes sense for them to actually execute and enforce in their local regulation.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I guess I'm still a little confused because the rest of the statute, the rest of that section says, of course, taking into consideration all of these limitations that you may be facing as a municipality or within your infrastructure. So I don't get why you would I guess the 2,000 is to give some sort of guidance of it being exempted from Act two fifty, but then if you don't have that and you just have it's up to you because you're the ones who will evaluate your capacity.

[Samantha [Last Name Unknown] (Vermont League of Cities & Towns)]: I'm paraphrasing, but what the municipal planners and water resources folks who had testified on that was, they said, but then it sets up a flywheel. So the served by keeps going out. But remember, this is a negative of a negative equals a positive because it's a Title 24 pre emption of municipal bylaw. So if the law says the pre emption of municipal bylaw requires an upselling on the condition that the municipality is served by water and sewer, and served by means 2,000 feet, then that sets up this flywheel of every time the municipality extends its up zoning, extends its sewer, it's going to keep going out. And that's just not how municipalities capital plan. Well, it's not really how any good government should capital plan.

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: Any

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: other questions for Samantha? Thank you very much. Appreciate your testimony. Thank you. I'm sorry, just for your information, I was in Senate, along with our member I was in the Senate answering questions about July. So, we're breaking for lunch. After lunch at 1PM, please be here at 1PM, we are going to take up markup of three twenty eight and markup of S89 as well. And again, markup just means our instructions to our lawyers for anything that we want them to draft up and put in the bill for us to consider. It's not a vote, it's not It's not It's just what do we want to add or subtract or whatever. Okay? So,

[Chuck Lacey (Witness, Jericho Housing Committee)]: we

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: will reconvene at noon, and at

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: one