Vermont's Land Use and Development Act

As, you know, you're probably aware, Vermont specifically has, um, pretty, uh, stringent environmental protections when it comes to development, uh, and things like that.

And so, you know, a portion of my time is spent looking at- permit applications that are submitted to various permitting, uh, agencies through, say, Act 250 or Act 248 or stream alterations where somebody wants to put a new road in, uh, or replace a bridge, a town wants to put a new culvert in, or there's some kind of development that's close to, you know, the shoreline of a lake.

Um, fisheries biologists in Vermont get sent copies of those permit applications, and we review them, um, on a scale that, you know, uh, gives us the ability to sort of determine whether they have any real potential impact to the habitat, uh, you know, that that area's providing to the aquatic community of, um, you know, of whatever lake or pond or river or stream it is.

So e- essentially what we're trying to do is keep, um, you know, development from impacting the habitat value or the water quality of a stream environment or a lakeshore or something like that from building too close or not, uh, implementing the proper measurements during construction to prevent things like silt or sedimentation runoff into a brook or a stream, for instance.

Caller, you're on the air with Andy Klein.

There's a general agreement that the appeal process in Act 250 discourages housing development.

Where do you stand on changing the appeal period? And also, where do you stand on the vehicle inspections? We're one of only nine states that requires vehicle inspections.

isn't it time to get rid of them?

So one is making sure infrastructure funding is accessible to all communities.

Two, right now we've taken a lot of steps to amend Act 250 jurisdiction, right, to remove it from cities, towns, and villages that opt in.

That's important to be able to build more quickly.

The biggest challenge facing developers, you probably hear as well, is like, it's the red tape.

That delays the process that is money ultimately and makes homes either very challenging to build or extremely unaffordable at the end once they come online.

So continuing to advance Act 250 reform, make sure that the reforms that were implemented or promulgated, if you will, over the last year or so are implemented.

The next is that's one piece of the regulatory hurdle.

But the other piece is the zoning codes that we have across Vermont.

So why did 181 make it harder from what you're talking about?

Basically, most places in Vermont under act 181 would have to go through act 250 even for residential housing act 250 was never made for residential housing it was also taking a lot of land that people bought believing it was developable and have been paying high taxes on highest and best use, it was being taxed as developable.

And under the maps of 181, much of that land was zoned no development at all.

And the land that could be developed, much of it was gonna have to go through Act 250.

Act 250 adds a massive amount of cost to any project.

And so now we're trying to build affordable homes.

And now on the average home, we're gonna add 50, 100, $150,000 to the cost of that.

There are some regional development corporations that are still moving forward with some very, very restrictive plans.

Um, so I have a question for, um, the interviewees about land reform.

Um, so would they be in favor of getting rid of Act 250 entirely?

Getting rid of Act 250 entirely.

We'll tell- A lot of talk about reform and streamlining, but would you get, be rid- would you be in favor of getting rid of it entirely? Adam?

I don't think I would support getting rid of it entirely.

I think that it, it came out of an im- important part of Vermont's history, um, when we had, you know, large issues with our environment.

But I do think that we need to make it a lot easier to build, um, in the state, and by cutting the red tape and the bureaucracy around Act 250, I think is a, is a big priority.

Alexander?