Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: We're live.

[Speaker 1]: Alright. Welcome back to the House Environment Committee. We are gonna have a committee discussion on s three twenty five, an act relating to regional planning and acting in the tier jurisdiction. Members, we've been on at least a two week journey of pretty intense testimony and exploration of Act 181. What's going well and what is in the bucket of needs improvement. And I think just to kind of, I guess, level set, I would start with the reality that road rule and tier three are certainly not going in the direction that we expected or hoped they would go. We've heard, I think, very sincere input from people about how it was proposed and the effects it would have on their land. In conjunction with that, and hopefully your inboxes have been shifting some too, people are, I think, really coming to the table with ideas and suggestions for, you know, if we could put this aside, then maybe we could have a refresh a little bit like what we just heard from the last witness. So I've been doing a lot of thinking over the weekend, and I'm sure you all have too. I would just put out there that I think it's time for us to I feel like maybe the tier concept, even broadly, is dividing us, so I want to rethink maybe even that very fundamental thing. But certainly, we don't need our shared interest in protecting our environment to divide Vermont, particularly at this moment. So I guess I'll start by saying that I I'm looking at repealing the road rule and the tier three and revisiting how we structure that in a path that goes forward. Just start the conversation there.

[Speaker 2]: Representative White? Thanks. Yeah. Looking over this bill, I mean, I

[Speaker 3]: think some of the things I I hear what you're saying. Mean, this seems very divisive given we all have a shared interest in affecting our environment. But, you know, I would support repealing the road rule in two to three, getting the lure of the other deadlines that they need once those two are out put out of the picture. That's important. Particularly, like, this tier two report seems like it takes on an entirely different sort of significance if there's no tier three. And it may be they certainly need to extend the deadline. There may be some scope

[Speaker 2]: we wanna look at in actual board as well or some other study. Mean, part

[Speaker 3]: of it seems to be that we do wanna find a way to make sure we protect our most critical habitats and, like, how can we do that? And it's not through sort of an active 50 tier way. What do we do? And whether that's we ask someone to look into that or not if the answers aren't there. You know, I think that would be a good idea. The other thing I'd like us to look at it, because I just don't know much about it with the remorse, the senate floorman. Like, what was behind that? Because it seems like it would actually allow building in areas where maybe we don't want building or could be dangerous too. So I wonder I just like to take a look at that as well. So, I mean, those are sort of where I'm coming from and see what we can do in that in Bill. Thank you.

[Speaker 1]: Senator North?

[Speaker 4]: Yes. Thank you. I agree with a lot of what Mike's here. And I don't want to rebut what Kate said earlier, but in fact, I want to support what she said earlier. I think maybe there was a little bit of a misinterpretation of what I was trying to say. I was really trying to make the point that I think Act two fifty is too weak to protect the natural resources that we need to protect because the only barrier it provides really is a financial one. That's the primary barrier. You can knock that over with enough money. So I don't think it's necessarily the right tool to protect the things that are really critical. If someone's really critical, it would be like a permanent boundary. I mean, just can't More like the like the term. I hadn't heard that one before. The media based permitting, water, etcetera. Media based permitting, where it's it's black and white. So, it's a yes or no. It's not a Watts kind of water issue over here. So, I think maybe you were misunderstanding what was I trying fully agree there's things we need to protect. And I also fully agree, and coming from the perspective that we have heard, I think, overwhelmingly from the property owners and people who own the land on which those critical resources exist, because they want to be part of identifying even the questions like what needs to be protected and how do we do it rather than just here's the map, here's what we're going to do, now you know about it, so now deal with it. They got brought in way after the fact and they just need to be brought in earlier, which I think is your point. I'm in agreement with, I think, what's been said here, is repeal, start over, involve the broader community on really how to go about saving these things.

[Speaker 1]: Although I think you do bring up a good point. We've had and had have plenty of great I mean, lots of opportunities, and we've we've certainly gotten folks engaged now.

[Speaker 4]: Yes. We have. They're here now.

[Speaker 0]: How to

[Speaker 1]: keep them engaged. Yeah. Yeah. For those watching at home, we want you to stay engaged as we move this conversation and process forward. Oh, Ty.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, I guess I'm particularly feeling it today. We've been just saying that stuff out loud. There's a big loss over the last two year process, and how hard it is to start over with some of that. And yet, it feels so clear to me that that is an important next step, is to really start over with these pieces around protecting forest fragmentation and critical natural resources. I'm really appreciative. Particularly, I'll just say, I think our testimony over the last two weeks has been so thoughtful, well researched, considerate, and constructive. Nobody came in here and just said, These are all problems. Everybody also said, Here are ideas. And I just want to be grateful. And I think a lot of us feel that way. I won't speak for the committee, but there's a lot of heads nodding. So I just want to say those things out loud. I am regretful that the process wasn't clear, that we wanted to get narrow on what are the critical natural resources. And that had been done. We did get, there are three critical natural resources that are not well protected currently with our regulatory system. And that's useful. I'm sorry that it wasn't What I'm regretful about is not that part. It's that it wasn't clear that we wanted And some people have said it was. We've gotten mixed messages on this, I think, the committee. But when I read the bill over the weekend

[Speaker 1]: oh, I didn't take the

[Speaker 0]: whole bill. When I read the sections about tier three and that piece, it's not clear to me that we may have intended, or now we certainly wish we had, been explicit about asking to look at all the tools in the toolbox, not just Act two fifty as the mechanism, but what are the regulatory, voluntary, and incentive tools that we should be looking at now that we're narrowing in? So I guess as we move forward, I'm really hopeful that we could start there and acknowledge that, especially with the equity issues that are arising at the end of this two year process or in the middle of this multi year process, when you've got such equity issues and those are in effect, I think it's really important to be looking particularly at voluntary and incentive tools in addition to any regulatory tools. So I'm both mourning that we have to start over in some ways, but also excited that we do actually have new information from the last two years that I think we can be starting from a different place than two years ago.

[Speaker 1]: Representative Logan.

[Speaker 5]: Yeah. I appreciate both both of your remarks. Yeah. No. I I'm grateful that we've had really helpful testimony. Been very productive, especially in a moment where there's just a lot of, like, political and emotional tension. So I'm excited about learning from the process that has happened so far and then refocusing ourselves

[Speaker 1]: on

[Speaker 5]: surfacing our real goals and what a better path towards getting to those goals might be. I also think it's helpful for us to look back like, might be helpful for us to look back at act 181 together a little bit. Because I think it's interesting when you look at 181, and of course, remember these conversations really clearly, but when you look back at elements of a regional plan, for example, M 181, it was supposed to include forest blocks, habitat connectors, recreation. So something has been lost in translation. The process was not well designed or, yeah, or designed at all. I'm not entirely sure. So the somehow integrating this understanding that we develop over this forthcoming process about what is critical for us to protect seems like it does need to be part of our overall planning process for commute at the community level even. It seems to me like that. I I would be interested in having that conversation about, okay. How can we bring this conversation back to the community level again?

[Speaker 1]: So that's great, Ela. Just update folks. Ela's in the room. Tomorrow, we're gonna spend time with her on 03:25, but also on the sections of one eighty nine that are relevant to the conversation. So if you spend time with your copy tonight and think about which sections you want to review with the whole committee, that would be really helpful. And, yes, I mean, I think one thing that's so interesting to me is that we're in I feel like we're in the midst of a it's a sea change in how we've done planning, at the same time where we have an urgency around the housing. And I think that's where a lot of the urgency came from. We are also gonna hear later in the week a updated, testimony on the forest fragmentation report, which started a lot of these conversations. It came in 2015. And part one of the things that spun out of that was this inclusion of forest, blocks and habitat connectors in town planning. And hearing how that's going and getting, I know a lot of towns have struggled with that. And so I wonder I do wonder how that's going and how well it's been integrated into the regional plans because the towns haven't all probably been able to do that work yet either. Anyway, we finish. Yeah. Thanks. Representative Austin.

[Speaker 6]: I agree that we really should settle for, and I'm curious about some of the regulatory tools that he was suggesting are either in place or need to be developed for ATF rate. I'm just going to say, I thought about this a lot, maybe because I was an EMT. And with climate change and long roads, I'm concerned about accessing homes at the end of long roads that, with climate change might be getting wiped out two or three times during due to rain events. And I just wanna make sure that Vermonters are not responsible for repair and destruction. I don't know how you can connect it to climate change. I'm still trying to figure out how you can say this is because of climate change that we've been having these or, you know, this weather event. You know, we spent a billion dollars, over a billion dollars, repairing towns. You know, people were talking about building in a wetland, coastal wetland. It's really concerning to me. And I guess I feel like if people want to do that, that's their option. But I just really don't want the managers to have to continue to pay for repair kind of ill advised or ill, knock that out, any kind of climate change. Because I think that's what's happening and that concerns me.

[Speaker 1]: So I think there's also some buckets that I'm hoping that folks will be paying attention to, which is, so for me, that questions like that, I don't know if it's formed yet, but might go into the tier two report or whatever we name that and how we augment it to help us keep and keep track. Like, I mean, I'm I'm looking I'm interested in how many long private roads already are there, and do we know how much they've cost during the recent flooding? Right. Some towns, I think, are keeping track. Representative Tagliavia? I want to try to concentrate on some of the positives.

[Speaker 7]: Number one, I have been trying to get people involved, civically involved, going to planning commission meetings, select board meetings for years now. It's been a slow process. This has put that process on steroids. So I'm very happy that there are a

[Speaker 2]: lot of people who are

[Speaker 7]: paying attention. So for me, that's a positive. Exhibited to York, I have two towns, or well, four, but Washington, the town of Washington, is straddled by two branches. Break down 110, trying to find a way for the town of Washington to be able to expand, to be able to have some sort of a real, a downtown or a center without having that risk. We've got two churches. We've got a school that's supposed to be an evacuation center that needed to be evacuated during the December 2023, I think it was 2023 rains, because the river was rising so much. So there's a lot to think about, and allowing somebody, finding ways to not allow, to encourage growth away from the rivers when they used to be a source of revenue and they're not an opener. They're crippling the town. I'm all for it. In East Corinth, same thing. One side of road, historically,

[Speaker 6]: where brokers occurred, I have no problem helping people with that or building something. It's just from this point on.

[Speaker 7]: Don't think I don't

[Speaker 0]: think don't think that's that's where people

[Speaker 2]: have the ideas,

[Speaker 7]: but with East Corinth, on one side of the road going through East Corinth, you've got topography to deal with. It's almost, you know, vertical, steep slope. On the other side, you've got the river. The East Corinth store, I would love for the East Corinth store to stay in business and find a new location so that every time there's a flood, everybody doesn't have to come out and help sandbag to keep the place from being damaged. But it's a fixture in the town, and to try to make it go away without having a place for it to relocate close, to me, I think, be a harm to the town. So having people engage the way they are. Sometimes debate is let's call it vigorous, but at least we're still having it and I'm thankful for it.

[Speaker 1]: I was just loading the outlets because when people talk about their towns, I wanna be able to I was looking up Washington. I wasn't not paying attention to setting up. No. That's fine.

[Speaker 5]: Alright. Others?

[Speaker 1]: Representative Pritchard.

[Speaker 2]: Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I think we all heard some really great testimony from people that were very passionate. And for me, again, I'm glad to see the direction we're going on just as far as the repeal of two or three the road rule. I mean, I know it's hard for Ela a little bit, but it's the right thing to do, I think. I think one of the things that got lost in this process was an important natural resource. And that's really the culture of this state and the people of this state. And they feel they were bypassed, and they've lost their trust. And I'm hoping by what we've done here, we're gonna restore some of that. I think it was a good process. It was good for everybody. And I hope we really take it a step further and involve these people directly in this process, get their buy in. These people want all the things that I think we do and and that some of the members are very, very passionate about. And and they wanna be felt that they're they're capable of achieving that. They feel that they've proved that through their stewardship in the state over the last two hundred years. And I'm grateful to the committee and that we've it looks like we've gotten to where we need to be for these folks. Thank you. Yeah,

[Speaker 8]: I wanna just say that I really appreciate this discussion really deeply, and I feel like everything I've heard so far from people I've spoken so far that I think I pretty strongly agree with almost everything that I've heard, and that feels great. When we passed 181, it was sort of the culmination, not that this work has ever really done, but in some sense it was the culmination of a pretty long path of lots of people having conversations and negotiations over a really long period of time, stretching back years and years. And one of the deeply satisfying parts of passing that law was being able to put in place things that a lot of people had advocated for for a really long time. What we're talking about right now is letting go of some of that, which while I agree is necessary and the right thing to notice moment, it does make me feel a little bit concerned. At the same time, one of the wonderful things about the conversations I've had with some folks in my community, a lot of the emails that we've gotten, lot of the conversations we've had in this building, is that there is actually a pretty decent consensus around the idea that these are important resources and that we do need to protect them. And we do need to figure out how to make sure that they're gonna still be here in twenty years, fifty years, one hundred years. And so that part of this conversation has been extremely satisfying and has really made me very hopeful that even though we are gonna step back at this moment, that we're still gonna be able to move forward on these things in a different way. And I'm really hoping that we can, before we leave here, find some tangible things that we can do to help ensure that that happens.

[Speaker 0]: Is that up, Chittenden? I just want to, partly for myself and maybe partly for the record, just want to clarify that when we say do end up protecting these critical natural resources that have been identified, I personally don't mean as they were mapped in October. And I think that's important for us to be clear about. That things like how habitat connectors were defined by the lurb, I'm not in control of that. And I come hoping that we'll talk really different to act and look very different and much more prioritized when we go through this next iteration of this process in a very different way, perhaps not even within the same. So I just wanted to acknowledge that all the tech connectors are critically important, I believe, but not the way they were mapped in October, or even the way they've been defined at all by the world.

[Speaker 1]: Senator Morris?

[Speaker 4]: Slightly different approach. We passed out Act 181, spent a lot of time with it, and a lot of discussion, and it got amended and changed, eventually passed out with a three tier system. What we've heard as we stood up the LERB, they were appointed and stood up. We have a professional board now, which was supposed to make things more consistent, increase educational opportunities for the district commissioners, so they were enforcing permits consistently across the state. Those improved housing in tier 1A, 1B opportunities from local municipality and zoning boards and infrastructure. I think, to your point, there was push here to enable housing to happen in specific areas, albeit it was a small area. We talk about trust, and yeah, we lost trust. But I'm not convinced that that trust was predicated on a preliminary release of a map from rules that were yet to be created for tier three. Alex sat here and and said that he they posted the map, and then they took it down because of the lack of trust it was creating. I just have some concerns going forward, and I hope I'm wrong, that as we and I agree with the repeal of the road rule of tier three for this time period. I'm concerned that if we're gonna develop trust for whatever gets recreated for tier threes or our critical natural resource areas, that the LERB, the administration, they have to be part of this, the community has to be part of this, and if we're not gonna be willing to work together, I fear that that trust will not be replaced with future trust. That's my concern. But I agree with the repeal at this point in time.

[Speaker 6]: I just wanna add to what Larry said, or representative, just so I hope before we begin this session, we can set something in motion, something that is going to lead us to however we're going to protect the lands, whatever the ways, know, getting input or coming to us having a conversation. But I would like to not wait nine months.

[Speaker 1]: Yeah, good segue. That's kind of why we're here. We're going to do our best in the time we have to, I think, clarify the problem we're trying to solve and articulate the

[Speaker 7]: piece of

[Speaker 1]: the past. So I don't know the depths we'll be able to get to in the time we have, but I do think that that's what I would like us to use our energy on that going forward is we're going to hear some more important testimony this week. Not this week's agenda, so many agendas. But in particular, well, with our legislative council, that the fourth fragmentation piece, I think is going to help remind us. One of the things that I've been thinking a lot about is that we have so much time in this committee and so many resources for learning about what's going on. And so I keep imagining maybe it's an abbreviated version, or maybe there's a long version for folks who are really interested. But to maybe an hour long video of I thought John Groman did a great level set at the beginning of this two week on the history of this activity and where we are, and then information on We happened to hear that same day from Fish and Wildlife and B TRANS on corridors and why they're important. Now we're gonna hear about fragmentation. We get to do all of this ongoing education, and making that available more broadly to Vermonters would help people understand what is the problem we're trying to solve. Why why are are we we even talking about this? And I I mean, I still have echoes, I want us to capture from all the great testimony. Ed Stanick was like, people don't even I mean, Act two fifty is so much of a background of Vermont. People are sometimes not even aware of its role in their community. And I think finding a way to make that happen should be also part of what we're doing, is just educating folks. And I do want to noodle on whether tiers are even the right language to be using, because I think it's super important for the one, A and B areas to exist, but they are not exempt areas. They are areas where towns are putting a lot of resources into development review and saying, we're willing to adopt the criteria and and take this over. And so the perception now that there's sort of haves and have nots, certainly not meant to happen and maybe doesn't work with the idea of a tier. The whole state of Vermont right now is covered under Act two fifty, so there isn't a tier, really. The idea was for towns who wanted to get rid of what is redundant permitting to take that on themselves. But not every town we've taken testimony. A lot of towns depend on F two fifty. I think that's actually the beauty of it. And this idea that we're just maturing into now, we never had towns that could do this themselves, and now we do. And so that frees up state resources to support our rural communities in other ways as developments get proposed across the state in towns that don't have it. There's a lot to think about. Happy to have final comments, but I also think we could wind down.

[Speaker 4]: To add to that, it's almost like what we currently call tier one. It's delegated

[Speaker 1]: It's a delegated area. Exactly. We're talking about how do we delegate other things.

[Speaker 4]: The criteria are essentially sort of the same. They have to be. They have to be included in that town zoning. Delegating the town to do it. I mean, more local control is better. Delegating. Absolutely. And then dividing, so dividing up the whole state into different tiers sounded, one other term to use other than kind of classist, or it's very divisive. So I'd I'd be happy to get rid of that too. Just call them delegated areas. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]: And and everybody else at this time, not too big in.

[Speaker 1]: Just Vermont. Yeah.

[Speaker 4]: And then there's maybe additional media protection that's needed for things sort of

[Speaker 2]: focused on. Yeah. I think

[Speaker 4]: there's a path forward. We just gotta

[Speaker 2]: Alright.

[Speaker 1]: With that, we are on for tomorrow at nine. Oh, but you know what? I think there will be an amendment. I don't I'm not sure. But stay tuned on our role in reviewing any potential amendment to two eighteen. Does that mean we might need to come before nine? It might mean that. I sort of doubt it would mean that, because I think you'll have a We'll have a reprise where yeah, and I think we could so judiciary will probably hear it first, same as today. And then maybe let's count on doing it before lunch. Getting it in between nine and twelve. Yeah. And Ellen, can you come any earlier than eleven? Do you know? That'd be great. So I think I don't know. John's going to need a whole hour. So I think we could start illing it a little earlier. And then we'll have time maybe to hear the amendment before. All right, thank you all. With that, we are adjourned

[Speaker 0]: for