Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Hi, great. Welcome to Center for Natural Resources and Energy, and it is Tuesday, March 17. Happy St. Patrick's Day. We are going to be looking at a different bill that came out of Senate Economic Development as three twenty eight, which has some overlapping, what one might call overlapping jurisdiction. And so we have legislative council with us here, Mr. Yasky, to tell us back. And we might have some Well, we'll see where these meetings are in terms of thoughts on that. There's potential that we could offer them and we don't have to offer a discussion. Okay. Are you ready? Yep. Can I ask the Office of Legislative Council? So I'm here on S328. It was voted out of Senate Economic Development on Friday.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It is draft 3.1. This bit, just the Senate Power Fellowship Bill. And Sections seven, eight, and nine, I drafted. The rest, Cameron Wood drafted. So, on page 10 of draft 3.1, Section seven starts amending a municipal zoning statute. I am just realizing now that we said we start at 10:30 and we're like one minute ahead of that. Can we take like what, I'm just noticing that we have a couple members ask, do you mind, let's take, before we really get into it, let's take just a couple minute break, just give people Okay, this is Natural Resources Energy coming back from a quick break. We are looking at 03/28 and section seven eighty nine. Okay. Perfect.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: And I'm going to turn it back over to you. Go ahead. So S328, graph 3.1, section seven starts on page 10. This is amending 24 BSA 4,412, Municipal Zoning Provisions. There are three changes in this section, three different topics.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: First on page 10, in subdivision 1B, this is about manufactured housing. Currently in state statute, no bylaw is allowed to exclude mobile homes modular housing or pre fabricated housing from a municipality. This is expanding that so that it also includes specifically manufactured housing, and they cannot exclude them from any district that allows year round residents development, except upon the same terms and conditions as conventional housing is excluded. So now in any residential zoning district, mobile homes, modular housing, manufactured housing, pre fabricated housing shall be allowed, but the town can apply the same standards that they apply to other types of housing. Yes or no?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: So just to be very clear, what it really translates to is that the source of figuring out the historic district, didn't have, they can maintain everything that they've done. The only thing they can't, it's just excluded for the fact that it's manufacturing. Correct. Okay. Yes.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's making me wonder about the definitions of these things. So I would have thought that a manufactured house might also be prefabricated housing, but it is not a distinct thing or There are definitions of interstate into this chapter. Okay. The Economic Development Committee has worked a lot on this topic. I have not. Okay. They wanted to be very clear that it does include manufactured housing. Okay. Fair enough. The absence of definitions seems okay to me. Exactly, that's how we feel about it. Seems redundant, it's all right. This language is also in Wolf House's manufactured housing. Okay. The section seven. Subdivision D. Okay. All right, next, in Subdivision D, there are two changes being made, they're on page 11. In any district that allows year round development, residential development, duplexes shall be a permitted use with conventional standards that are not or restrictive to those required for single family. When this was included in the statute, was as allowed. When land a use is allowed, the municipality may apply a conditional use review of required permit. Permitted generally does not need a permit. If I recall, the language is It's confusing to it, or it's backwards from how I normally think about it. Like allowed is more restrictive than permitted. Yes. Yes. Is it permitted?

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Yes. Yes. Right.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And so, no conditional use review for duplexes. No conditional use review, right. Okay. Yes. Ma'am.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: With that?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: To this day, you said

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: that single family. Yes. Okay.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Has to go through the same review as single family members. Yes. Okay. Further down on page 11, starting on line six. In any district that's served by municipal sewer and water infrastructure that allows residential development, Multi unit dwellings with four or fewer units shall be in permanent use on the same size, lot, and the same family dwelling. When this was passed initially, a caveat was added, which is now being struck. Unless that district specifically requires multi unit structures to have more than four dwelling units. And so what this allowed is that in residential zoning districts where there's the area's surface, sewer, and water, municipality has to allow multi unit dwellings with up to 40 units, unless they allow larger unit dwellings. So an example would be in those areas, the municipality requires a multi unit dwelling to have five or more units. They don't have to allow, currently under law, multi unit dwellings of three or four units. And finally, it was changed. Yes. Why is multiunit? Why does it have a dash? Looks so weird. Multiunit? I don't know.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: The unit?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Multiunit. Multi it's usually multi dash unit. Line seven. It does not have a dash. It does not have a It is the defined term in the statute. Does not have a hyphen. Here it is. So weird. It looks weird to me. At first, I was

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: like, what

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: is that

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: word? It's probably correct.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: It's just an ahi.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Want to change the pronunciation of it. That's exactly you're

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: See if Senator Ruth has issue

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Copy that important to the existing statute. That's perfectly fine. Okay, thank you. Okay. All right. On page 11, section eight is amending the definition section of the Municipal and Regional Planning Chapter. So this is 4303. To go with the changes when this passed initially, think, the Home Act that we're just discussing around density requirements and zoning, this concept of the area served by municipal sewer and water infrastructure was created. When it was created, people will see in this statute,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: are

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: two options for how a municipality defines these areas. The second way that they are defined, which starts on page 12 and into page 13, is not being amended, but it allows the municipality to find the area in their zoning or ordinance based on the caveats that are provided. This other way it is defined is sort of much more direct, and it is adding here to that part of the definition a distance requirement. So an area surviving to the water, it's where infrastructure means an area where residential connections and expansions are available to a parcel or a portion of a parcel within 2,000 feet of municipal water and direct and indirect discharge wastewater systems, and not prohibited by some other constraints on the system. There have been questions that have come up with the planners and towns about how far away, this, how large these areas near the wastewater and water systems are. So this is attempting to say, if it is within 2,000 feet of those systems, that is where the areas are and will require this extra density to be part of the zoning. So this used to say, I would have been struck out here, my recollection is something about a quarter of a mile. As originally proposed by the sponsor, they were discussing a quarter of a mile. This is an option that was presented last week by the planners. Okay. Yes, go ahead.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: So just to make sure I understand this, sorry, Paul 01/1981 was put together passage for committees. There was a it wasn't like there were some parts of municipal sewer systems that were treated differently. Those within an area like a one b area or a designated center. And does this mean that if it's, like, running along an access order and means to get to a different person or that the whole that the whole thing can have kind of swooped away up? So I guess I'm remembering that there was some discussion about still maintaining the denser and trying to contain the dense utilization in areas that were designated for final purpose. And is this how is this changing that, if at all?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This was not added in 01/1981. This was added in the whole batch to please stop. What you are describing, I think, is captured in the second half of this definition, where the municipality is left to define two themselves and adjust the service area based on a list of things that are constraints they don't want to include. This is the first part of the the first option. If they don't define it in a zoning by law or a ordinance, what their service area is, this is what they have, what areas of municipality have to affect their development requirements. And now it is, so there, I've heard that there were questions about, well, how large of an area are we talking about? How close does it have to be to the discharge systems that have available connections? This is proposing that that be within 2,000 feet of those systems. I don't think there was any testimony if that is, if 2015 reflects anything specifically. I think, Patricia. I think you heard from testimony from the discussion last week that this was chosen because it looks like a rule. I like that. There we go. That's the rush. Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: Well, we'll our support. Yes. Excellent. Okay.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So we should talk more about that. Okay, thank you. And then the last change, or the last section that I was involved in is section nine that starts on page 13. And it is amending 24 BSA fifteen oh three, which is the designation of Downtown Village Center in Sewardual, we're looking out at Friday also. But we took it out, apparently. You took out some of the language. You meant different parts of fifteen thousand eight and three than this section. Should language, should these speak to be in the same bill? May. Arguably, fair enough. I don't know that the department proposed this change to review. They did propose this change to Senate Act Office Development. So what's it then? So, it is about new town centers. So may recall that as part of the designations get you incentives and benefits and so towns want these things. And so on the bottom of page 14 and on page 15, step two of the Downtown and Village Center designation has this requirement that a center reaches step two if a portion of the center is listed or eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. They're adding unless recognized by the program as a pre existing designated New Center. There are four existing Newtown centers and none of them are old enough to qualify for the National Register of Aorticlosis. There's a specific age to put it. I think it's thirty years, it might be 50. But there's an age requirement. And so this program is just getting underway and new town centers are currently cut out of it because they're

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: not old enough to qualify.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So you said there's only three or four of them? Okay. And the same tree just made on page three as well. It reaches step three, again, if a portion of the center is listed or eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places unless recognized by the program as a pre existing designated capacity. Okay. You're okay, Liz.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: We'll move you talk. Okay.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Great. Okay. Yes. Go ahead. There's another hyphen that's saying my brain. It's pretty existing. Anyway, how many options are out of stock? Are they? I'm so old school, I guess. But my question is, the Newtown Center, that is actual defined thing, somewhere outside of all, yes. Okay. And that this is saying, so when we redid the designation program, there used to be five designations. Yeah. Now there's only two. And so they combined three of the designated areas into one. Okay. They combined downtown village centers and new town centers into one thing. Okay. New town centers are unlike those two things because they

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: are in fact new. New, they're not old.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They're not historic. Yes.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Okay, so this is trying to just reconcile that. I think. Okay.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, follow the question to that. If I recall, there were designations that were going away, that this new town center is one of them. Well, they're all going away. Yes. Okay. So this is, So we had these areas that were designated. Downtowns, village centers, and new town centers all look different, but we put them all in the same category now. And those towns that have those areas are now vying to become eligible for the benefits and incentives under this program. And we sort of smashed these programs together, and one thing that we're not specifically acknowledged is that we made a require, you all made a requirement that it has to be eligible for the historic registered, but new town centers are by definition not. I'm just wondering about when the Newtown Centre designation goes away. It's gone, essentially. So, language will become ineffectual or is it the intent that it would always be eligible? Does that question make sense? This is a very awkward thing legally, because you are transferring an existing program into a new program. Wondering if I'm just in terms of, don't have strong feelings about this, but just thinking about if the intent is that if it was designated as a town center moving forward, it should be. Just wondering about the tents here just in terms of like, unless it had been recognized or as opposed to like, it has to be recognized now as a new town center if that designation has gone away. Does that make sense? I don't think so. Oh, okay. I don't think so. If you don't think so, then I trust your truth. I mean, years from now, after this awkward transition period, this mid language might not be needed, but the rollout is going to take years to transition. Fair enough. So somebody in like 2035 might be looking back and saying, You need to clean that. Yes. So we're far enough away from that at this point that it doesn't I'm fine with me so. Okay. Yes. Okay. Great, thank you. That's it. Okay. Great. Thank you so much. Okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: So we are going to now hear from Anne Scallard from the Leader of C, who has comments on one of these sections at least. Thank you. Welcome. Can I ask this a question or comment first? I'm sorry. I was just looking at the appropriations and there's 5,000,000 for BHIPS. Is there, do they make any changes to BHIPS? I don't know.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: You don't know? I don't. Okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Not your Is it some other draft that does be him? Yeah. It's Cameron. Yeah. We are working on the section by section right now. It should be out soon, if it's not So there will be a document at this point, but I don't know. Okay. So I thought I'd involve with the rest of the Okay. Thank you. It doesn't look like it. Yeah. Didn't look like it to me, but all right. Thank you. Okay, thank you. All right, welcome. Thank you so much. To

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: the record, Katie Gallagher with the Vermont Natural Resources Council. I sent over some language this morning. It's on the website, but I apologize, my ruch, I left out key detail, which is the section that we're talking about, and that is section eight of S-three 28. This, as you just heard from Ellen, is where the committee, Senate and Development was trying to clarify where water and sewer service was considered available. I wanna note that the NRC helped to draft the Home Act, work on the Home Act, and we really strongly support that underlying goal of supporting more homes, in particular multifamily homes in areas with existing infrastructure. We do have some concerns with this proposal, both of defining a specific distance, just because it can be difficult. And I'll talk about some of those reasons why, and in particular, the expansion to 2,000 feet. I also just wanted to note, as Alan mentioned, there was testimony to Senate Economic Development last week from some Vermont planners. They have much more kind of grounded views on how this impacts municipalities on the ground. So if you would like more testimony, would recommend reaching out to them. They provided the committee with a couple of different options. The one that ended up getting to this 2,000 foot recommendation, they were recommending some specific distances to try to meet the committee's intent. The max that they had recommended was 1,300 feet to get to the original language of a quarter mile, which is still pretty extensive. They also noted that with those extensions, I think their language was that there would be concerns from municipalities and DEC and the higher numbers creating unrealistic expectations for potential of connecting to water and sewer lines. So just want to note that the planners did provide this.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: They also noted concerns with this language. They're hanging up with me. So I'm gonna behind that. Yeah.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: So just to quickly run through some of the concerns that we were thinking about, 2,000 feet in particular, but even a quarter mile doesn't really reflect what a general connection and service area looks like on the ground. For most municipal codes, that number is generally closer to like 150 to 150 feet, sometimes a little bit more than that, but 1,000, 2,000 is significantly higher. So the impact of that could be creating a kind of disconnect between what we are writing in statute and potentially signaling on the ground that infrastructure is available when it is not. The risk of unintended consequences. So to step back a second and talk about what this would mean in terms of those FOMC provisions, this would mainly be related to the density provisions that the home act put forward. So that would be allowing for five homes per acre or four unit buildings or quadplexes. So we're not talking about huge density, but this is still a significant increase from what a

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: lot of small towns have.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: So this could result in products that are qualifying for higher density, like a quadplex by being within 2,000 feet of the infrastructure. And they don't actually have to connect, they can still just out rely on their own sewer. This might not be determined a problem by the legislature, in terms of the actual impact of density, but wanna know, and I'll talk about it a little bit more later on that, I think it might, the concern that I have is a little bit more related to municipal trust and expectations rather than the actual impact of that density. Zoning preemption, so this does have the effect of overriding local zoning in some cases, And for some towns that could be zoning districts that are intentionally planned for lower density. Just as an example, some towns might have a sewer and or a waterline that's going up a road, they allow for higher density on one side of the road. The other side of the road has steeper slopes or other certain conditions that have led them to limit density. So there could be legitimate reasons why they are choosing to have lower density. I'm not sure if I say it later on, so I'm gonna say it here. One thing that is important to note in the discussion around the home act, we wanted to say that if a town decides that they don't wanna have any new housing along this infrastructure, they wanna conserve that area, they are allowed to do that. What they are more limited in their ability to do is to say, we are gonna allow for connections to single family homes, but not multifamily homes. So if you're allowing for single family connections, you have to allow for up to four units. This is good in terms of pulling back on lower density sprawl. It does create challenges for towns because you are essentially saying that we can't build single family homes in an area. And if anybody's talked to their towns about municipal zoning, telling an area of a town that they can't build a single family home could be a very contentious issue. So it's just, it's potentially setting up a lot of tension in our towns that might be unnecessary. The third point I have here is just pressure on constrained systems. So again, having these fixed distances without taking into consideration why a town might have planned for certain density in one side of the road or one area, not another. A lot of towns might have a certain length of infrastructure in the ground to connect to either a certain project or development like ski resort or certain nodes of development without the intent

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: of connecting that to be all the way through. So again, just creating some potential tensions. I

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: think it's important to note that we are currently in the middle of funding AC-one 101, where we're asking towns to do the work of identifying planned growth areas within regional planning commissions. And so this is potentially, I think with setting a pretty expansive distance like this, kind of that message of, we want you to plan for growth areas, but actually we don't trust you. And in this case, we're gonna override it. So setting a more, a distance, if that's the way that the committee legislature chooses to go, that's more reasonable in terms of what people generally think of in terms of connection areas would help to pull back from them. And then finally, just we did hear in the committee discussions and some economic development, the idea that the 2,000 foot number was specifically related to the road rule. We understand the interest in wanting to align the Home Act and Act 181, and I think that's a worthy goal, but I

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: think the road rule in particular and what this Home Act provision is trying

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: to do are pretty fundamentally different purposes, where the road rule is trying to limit force fragmentation. The density provisions are trying to encourage density where we have infrastructure and sort of capacity. And so I don't really think that that lines up as well as what's intended. I also just wanted to note that most areas with water and sewer service are going to fall in tier one areas where the rule doesn't apply anyway. So

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: there's kind of

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: a mismatch there. And just, again, if the road rule is modified or appealed in the future, then we're kind of left with this number that already is kind of ill fitting and don't really have much of a rationale. So I have included three different options to consider in language.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Oh, I misspelled you. Is that one more or more? Excuse me. I'll more. Check that one.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: The first one is, and I just noted, most states don't include a specific distance, so

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: we would be kind of an outlier, as a note.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: So the first one is trying to tie us to the regional future land use area. So even if we decided to go with a quarter mile, even 2,000 feet, whatever the distance, if you want to include a distance, but tying it more specifically to those areas, not to work growth, to acknowledge that the town, they're already doing this work. I think that would be a better approach. I know that there was a concern from the committee that those areas aren't implemented yet. And so there could be a sunset provision or something like that that is added in to make sure that this goes into effect before the future land use areas are all in place. So I added some recommendations for that. So until the end of interim housing exemptions, for example, at 2030, you get in language, I recommended either going down to 300 feet to just be kind of, even though it's a high number still, but a more kind of reasonable expectation of what that service area would be, or connecting it to, as I said,

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: systems, sorry, Rudan? A quarter.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: A quarter mile of the road with invert systems that are identified for growth in a regionally approved municipal plan for an existing infrastructure service area. And just to know that not all towns have a service area that's already defined. So there's a little bit of a challenge, we meeting where we can find these areas? I'm not even sure that even at each municipal plant, they really

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: can find those areas. Well, I would just say that just try again, the whole construct of the point of

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: view on is those four areas and get them in really encouraging housing in those areas that have been identified for that purpose. We know there's what we want. So the first one makes no sense to me. We just simply go into those areas because that's the whole that that is the construct. In this otherwise, you undermines that potential undermining thought strike, which isn't even out of the gate yet. Oh, no. No. And it's they're all gonna be identified by the end of the year or a couple of months after, and, you know, frankly, like, the the language, whether it a quarter mile with the right distances, I don't know. But at least if it's contained within those areas, for the whole thing we've been doing for the last five years has been to do to do that. And this this is, like, all of sudden, into a mess. So I I think we've really achieved what they're trying to achieve for the whole construct. Trying to achieve the first.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Option one? Option one?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can I don't know what her existence is, by the way, but

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Did you have more to

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: say about option three? So option three, yeah, I'm not sure I have an option two, but option three was just limiting that distance to be more realistic. So I used number 300 here. That could still result in impact, for example, of where somebody has a long line that's trying to meet a specific development, for example, but then you'd still be kind of allowing, if they didn't have a predefined service area of economic density all along that distance. That kind of add on that I included at the end here is trying to address that situation. So it says that the presence of a municipal sewer water line alone shall not establish that an area is planned for additional residential density unless that area is identified for growth, again, through an adopted municipal planner infrastructure service area.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: That might not cover all towns, but could be helpful in some way. But I do agree

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: with Senator Bongartz that I think that the most, the solution that makes the most amount of sense is just tying it to those areas

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: that were already developing for the towns to say that this is where they want growth.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: Yeah, I think I think we tried not to, we tried not to interfere with the balance making decisions as much as we had. So so much just so. And then again, that in this area is functional sense to me.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: I'm trying to make sure that I understand the things that you're suggesting. So this piece of the idea about maybe the add on, is that specific to option three or is that something that you could, it seems almost redundant if you tried to add it to option one.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Yes, I think it would have made most sense with my option two that I lost. Oh, okay. Option three, yes. Okay. So I don't think it would be necessary if you went with option one.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay, and then under your options one, it sounds like you, there's another choice that you're sort of offering in here that it's sunset.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Or that there's a sunset prior to the full implementation of the future land use areas, so that there's some kind of provision ala the interim housing exemptions. And then once we're certain that the implementation of the future land use mapping and areas have gone into place, then it kicks in. It's dependent on areas that are mapped as stuff on village, subterranean, or village areas.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Okay. Yes, go ahead. Just

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: that whole problem we're trying to solve here, it's obvious.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: I think to me, it's mostly about local zoning and wanting to be sure that we're not creating unintended consequences of creating density in areas where towns have done the work and decided that

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: it doesn't make sense to have that density in a certain area.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: So for example, in my town at Waterbury, we have water and sewer going up Route 100. On the other side of the road, we have density up above Blush Hill, different road immediately, and actually

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: this one, really, we're gonna be

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: loose with this example here, but they are relatively steep slopes, there's water issues. We do allow for, well, it's mixed use development, but single family homes in the area that's immediately adjacent on that side of Route 100. It's a little strip of land, but it would not really be a place that could accommodate without some major impacts,

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: developments as in black glasses.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: So Aurizona has gone through the steps to determine that this area doesn't make sense. Another example could be if we want a water barrier to extend our water and sewer up to water barrier center to create a new node of growth, We wanna make sure that our capacity is reserved for those areas that we plan and not to then have to have up to quadplexes or five units per acre all along Route 100 and the areas that the

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: town has specifically said for years and years that we

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: don't want sprawling development along that Route 100 corridor.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Thank you, that's helpful. Am also thinking about, one of the things I'm finding compelling here as well is just the practicality of like, people end up having a service line that is that long or does that just become considered a build out of water and sewer? How do we talk about that differently? So, I'm also, I think, especially with your explanation just now, I think it's starting to congeal for me that it's kind of this question of, you know, maybe 2,000 feet unrealistic as that may be, maybe find some area that is a part of the future land use maps as designated as one of these, you know, planned growth area, village center, So, but if it's not one of those areas that, you know, in a way, well, I'm appreciating what you're saying about wanting to save capacity for those planned growth areas, anticipating that that may, it could use up capacity. So, some Jack?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: Just to say and make a different way, 181 in particular, we really tried to make it regional and local working together, coming together of what those areas are. And this is now instead the state the very restrictive problem as telling the towns what they have to do. And I've been to just that. And I think the towns, it's gonna it could actually have the reverse impact of you not extending the planet there because you know you're gonna get what you don't want. That's all you have to do. And actually, makes all sense in the world for extended out there to create that set of work that would make sense. But and I I'm not sure we have proven the to be telling how it's what they have to be looked at. So that's that's that's it. But I think if it's within so I can come together with the technical developments within the areas that the towns and the regions have worked together to the same situation.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Yes. Will

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: be. That makes sense. But this all was.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Be. I think that's an important point that in a moment where we're trying to encourage our accounts to either expand or invest in new water and sewer infrastructure for housing density, When the state is deciding to preempt political zoning, I think we need to

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: be really careful and clear about why and how we're doing that, because even with the Home Act, we saw that

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: it can have the effect of making community members really both even lose trust in their own thing process, state is gonna come in and tell them what they can or can't do, but it's also gonna make

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: them wary about making significant investments that we really need them to be supportive of. And we've lost systems and or have them significantly delayed because

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: of that. And we were very supportive, I still am supportive of the home aggravations and want to make sure they are working correctly.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: But I think, again, the 2,000 feet and quarter mile is just so beyond what the expectation was for a town as they are working to implement the home act,

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: which was already the state coming in and telling them what to do. If now we're saying actually, you have

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: to go even beyond that, it's dealt. I do also just wanna flag the committee. Did, I get to check-in very briefly with the chair of the Senate Economic Development. And she said she was not speaking for the committee, but that she was open to amendments to this you chose to. Okay, that's what I was going to ask. Are we thinking about today, committee amendment to this potentially? I think that is the contemplation at this Okay. But would love to take a little bit more testimony on this as an idea before we decide to, if we're going to do an amendment and whatnot. So, and yes, do we have, we don't have, is that your call? Is that shit? We do not have another end. Is this on the floor? I think it's been- Oh, it's still going Oh, it's going fine. So, I think it will probably, like, also go to appropriations. Yeah, there are groups. Yeah. So,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: yes. Maybe if we just talk a little bit more among ourselves and community because, obviously, we've had some involvement with this and we might have some I have no idea how might affect communities and register, but, like, a people in contact system. Mhmm.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Sir. Great. Anything else to senator Beck's thoughts

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Member)]: at this point? No. I'm I'm trying to understand that. Not as good as that. Okay, yeah.

[Sen. Scott Beck (Clerk)]: Okay.

[Sen. Anne Watson (Chair)]: Great. Thank you very much. So my thoughts at this point are to have the other folks in, if we can get them tomorrow to chat about this. Because I think if we are going to do an amendment, we need to figure that out relatively quickly. So we'll see how that conversation goes and then go from there. But otherwise, I think that is it for today. Yeah, I am. Great. And so just to preview tomorrow, have a few things on the schedule that have been put off. We're going hear about another bill, three twenty three, which is miscellaneous ag bill tomorrow. We have limited time in the morning for the rest of this week. We'll try to use the buses. All right, that's it for now. So, that, we will adjourn.