A draft report issued this month by the Vermont Natural Resources Board outlines necessary updates to the state’s environmental zoning law. The Vermont Natural Resources Council promoted and the Natural Resources Board hosted a virtual public meeting to review the recommendations.
Legislation passed by the Vermont Legislature required the Natural Resources Board to issue a report to House and Senate committees on “Necessary Updates to the Act 250 Program.”
Act 250 is Vermont’s environmental zoning law adopted in 1970. Calls for revision have been growing as the state faces climate change and housing shortages. University of Pennsylvania Land Use and Planning professor Tom Daniels, who was born and raised in Vermont, explained the intent of the law and what it has led to.
“The vision behind Act 250 was not to stop development, but to create development that would be compact and would be surrounded by open lands. And certainly the quality of development has improved as a result of Act 250 and the quality of the planning in Vermont has certainly improved over the last 50 years. But some new issues have come up which have been extremely challenging to the state. The first is a lack of affordable housing which also reflects a significant increase in housing prices over the last five years or so and also an acute shortage of housing supply.”
The report includes recommendations that Act 250 jurisdiction be broken into four tiers — or community designations. Tier 1 would regulate cities, towns and villages. Tier 2 covers the remainder of the state and Tier 3 triggers automatic Act 250 jurisdiction in environmentally sensitive areas.
The Environmental Mediation Center worked with the Natural Resources Board to draft the report. Director Matt Strassberg said the steering committee felt that the recommendations would evenly regulate development across the state.
“We want to encourage development in compact village areas and we want to further protect some natural resource areas. We can encourage development in the prime growth area – the Tier 1 – by exempting all development in 1A and at the same time we can further protect areas where growth is less appropriate such as Tier 2 and Tier 3 those natural resource areas.”
During public comment Middlebury College Assistant Professor of Political Science in International politics and economics Gary Winslet said recommendations could be good, but aren’t strong enough to encourage housing growth.
“My concern is that what is in Tier 1 still allows local communities to block a lot of development and, you know, that’s a problem. I think that there are certainly some areas that need environmental protection. There’s no question about that. But there’s also places where development is appropriate and we need it. And yet people still want to use all kinds of environmental objections to building new housing where we need it. So my concern is just that there’s not enough teeth and oomph to actually get a lot of new development in those 1A And 1B places.”
Public comments will be included in the final report, which will be submitted to legislative committees on December 31st.
