 our meeting to order and welcome Mr. Cochran. Thank you. The lights better in here for sure. Good morning. My name is Chris Cochran. I work for the Department of Housing and Community Development. Last time I was last week we talked a little bit about the framework for the state land use planning in the state. I also talked about the state designation programs and incentive programs to build stronger communities in downtown. My division provides the tools, training, grants, and incentives to keep our communities strong and healthy, particularly our traditional centers. Today I'm here to talk about this concept of enhanced designation, a designation that will overlay some changes in jurisdiction. We can make the state designation programs and Act 50 more effective, and do I think a better job supporting our land use, compact centers surrounded by rural lands. Chris, did you? We have this submitted to us. So does everybody know the Act 50 creation story? Have you gotten that? I can do it quickly. Yeah, the interstate highways were built. This is a picture of Brookfield, Vermont. When I drive in the interstate, you see those kind of stone walls caught in median. Well, this is what it looked like in Brookfield before the interstate went through with by connecting Vermont to the interstate highway system. Big metropolitan areas like Boston and New York City had access to the state. We had a lot of what they saw here. They liked our outdoors, our landscape, the recreational opportunities, and there was a boom in population, a boom in the second home growth, and this is the result. Do you know who this guy's name is? Yep. I'm Dave Davis. Ironically, maybe, I don't know. He was a Republican governor, and the southern part of the state was going crazy because the second home development was happening really nearly, and local communities didn't have the zoning and bylaw protections to manage growth and plan for development in a way that was effective. So he and a Republican General Assembly felt a lot of pressure to do something about it, and to help these municipalities who just weren't prepared for this kind of population growth and types of development, the southern part of the state were seeing. They created a commission called the Give Commission. They did a bunch of conversations with people, and what they heard was people really liked our traditional settlement pattern of compact areas around of our rural lands. What they were very concerned about was sprawl and kind of the stripping out of the areas between our traditional centers. They wanted to do something about this. They wanted to help the municipalities get ahead of the development challenges. So the recommendation was, and this was adopted in 1970, was Act 250. Ten criteria, you know, projects have to meet all the criteria. They apply. If they don't meet the criteria, they're not going to get a permit to construct. We've talked a little bit about Act 250 jurisdiction. This is not all the jurisdictional criteria for Act 250, but this is just kind of a high level, but it basically aims to get the bigger level projects. So projects that impact more than 10 acres, more than 10 units, depending on if the community has subdivision regulations or not, the thresholds are lowered. Well, this is good, and we heard testimony over the summer that Act 250 does a pretty good job for, you know, improving or mitigating the impacts of larger scale development. It misses a whole big chunk of development because the way it's jurisdiction is set. And this is a little bit of the point I want to make today about enhanced designation. Municipalities now, most of them, review all development. So their jurisdiction is complete, whereas Act 250 is just catching a small percentage of very large development. This is a picture of communities with zoning in 1974. It may be a little hard to read, but you'll see, I guess, the point is that there's not a lot of infilled areas. And then this next slide, we'll see kind of how far we have come. And this slide on the far right is communities with zoning and subdivision regulations or unified subdivision regulations. So in these communities, Act 250 jurisdiction is much, much higher. The point of these slides is, you know, a lot's changed in 50 years, and our communities and state level permitting has improved significantly. And this is just a quick reminder about in the 1990s, late 1990s, 1998, the downtown program was created. We're celebrating our 20th anniversary this year. It took a different approach to supporting our land use values rather than a regulatory scheme. It was more of an incentive base. You know, how do we provide you money and tools and resources to help you rebuild their downtown? So many of our downtowns were struggling. In 20 years, we've come a long way. Designations came in different times for different purposes. The first was the downtown designation. There's 23 of them. They are principally our large communities like Montpelier, St. John'sbury, Bennington, Springfield. Then came the village centers, which is a much, much smaller area. And if you recall from my presentation last time, they're, you know, really, really tiny areas that we designate. Newtown centers came after that. We look at these as kind of our core designations, the middle part of the egg yoke, if you will. And then subsequently, additional designations were created because the health of the neighborhoods and the areas around them and how well they integrate and link together is an important component of our kind of settlement pattern in our community vitality. One was focused on improving neighborhoods, the quality of our housing in and around our neighborhoods and providing development incentives and regulatory incentives to improve them. The others was the growth center. These last designations are not as active as some of our others. Village centers, we get five new, usually every time the board meets. So it's a very active program. Say that last thing again. You get five new. Village centers. Every time the board meets. Yeah. Which is how? It varies. We scheduled, this is the Downtown Development Board, scheduled to meet monthly. If we don't have anything on the agenda, we don't meet. But we typically meet between six and eight times a year. Thirty a year. We're going to run up. You're going to have every, I don't know, have one. We're getting close. I think we're, yeah, we're at 157 now. Village is designated. This Richard Amore, the staff person, does a great job doing community outreach and they're really actively taking advantage of the program and kind of not this committee's jurisdiction, but I know you like talking about other people's jurisdiction. The tax credits that support these building improvements, really it's the growth in the Village Center program that's kind of driving a lot of our demand. And that's the interest that the Village Centers have to get those tax credits? That's really their only benefit at this point. The others are more planning and regulatory focus. You know, I can give you a whole list of kind of the requirements and benefits. I think I did in fact give it a few last time. You know, what you need to do and care of here's what you get for it. This is some work that was done in Essex. I'm looking at our Vermont's permit scheme. It was an audit of kind of the process that what a housing development needs to do to get a permit. I think there's opportunities to make it better. I think you've heard testimony so far that, you know, our land use planning at the local level has improved. Our state level regulations have significantly improved. Our federal regulations have improved. I think what hasn't changed in 50 years is the way Act 250 recognizes these other improvements. So because of the, you know, the jurisdictional trigger based on impacts, you know, 10 acres or 10 units, a project in Berkshire, Vermont gets the same treatment that a project would in Burlington. Even though Burlington has, you know, significantly a high level of staff, sophisticated regulations, both communities are treated differently. So I think there is an opportunity to recognize kind of this local capacity and without kind of harming our environment in any significant way. Before you move on to this slide, help us understand the arrows connecting different permits. And what is this slide really showing us? We have seen it, all right, I don't know, we've seen it a couple times. I didn't generate the slide. But what it's showing is the process, the permits that you need to get a housing development permitted in Essex. So the local permits that's needed, the processes and loops if somebody appeals, the state level permits that are required, and then the Act 250 permits that are required. And it also shows what happens if appeals happen at any stage of the game. And you'll see there's a lot of feedback loops. You know, if you get your local permit and your state permit, and there's concerns or Act 250 modifies your permit in some way, you have to go back to square one and start with your existing local permit again and get that modified and amended. So I think the black lines are saying those are areas that cross over, one permit might meet the criteria. So you have these A&R permits that all go to waste disposal, for example, so that even though your Act 250 approval is based, it's not a new permit, it's using, it's based on a permit. It's a presumption, right. Right, and the red lines are the appeals. So what happens if someone appeals that particular permit, where does it go? So obviously like all those A&R permits, they get appealed to the Vermont Maritime Court. So you see this red column, but it's all the same state. And I didn't draw it. And I don't know, I mean we got it first from Ernie Palmerlow. And so I don't know the actual genesis of it, but it would be interesting to see. I would. Charlie Baker's shop, St. John's County Regional Planning Commission, I think is the one he developed it, but they may have done it in concert with Ernie. Seeing a no nod in the audience, but we'll find that out. Representative Dolan. Is this permitting flowchart the same regardless if you're in the Desingdon downtown? You anticipate my next question? Yeah, I'll get there, I promise. But great question. In fact, the next slide. So we, a number of years ago, a group called Smart Growth Vermont worked on the Roe Center provisions, and they got a provision that were Act 250 jurisdiction recognized location. And this is a lot of the conversation that you guys have been having, that the location is a better determinant of impact than 10 units and 10 acres. The name has changed at the time. What now, this provision is called, is called priority housing projects. It adjusts Act 250 jurisdiction in the designated centers. So downtown's, new town centers, neighborhood development areas, and gross centers. It does not affect village centers because they're too small and just don't have the capacity. What it says is because we have a need for housing, and this this is for certain qualified mixed use or mixed income housing projects. If you have one of these projects in one of these located areas where we said we'd like to grow, you do not have to get an Act 250 permit or amendment to build housing, affordable housing in a downtown area. It's a little different for these other designations. If you meet the standards, if you are building qualified mixed use or mixed income project within a new town center, neighborhood development area, or gross center, you do not have to get an Act 250 permit so long as you can satisfy the existing conditions that Act 250 issued with that project. And the reason for this was that a lot of the Act 250 conditions, I guess for example, would conserve land for agricultural purposes within a new town center. These areas have sewer and infrastructure, and you know, is that the best use of that resource? You know, can we get more value out of these existing areas where we want to grow? Can we build on that land? Can we modify these permit conditions? If this is the right place, this is where the state says they want to see housing and development to occur. Can we open up these conditions and let the project go forward? So it's been particularly effective. It's supported almost 600 housing units in these designated centers. We did a study a couple years ago and talked to all the people who've got these permits and asked them for, you know, how much time do you think you saved in fees? And they have a pretty good idea of what the fees are because of the fee schedule, and we asked them how long do they think they saved in permitting time. While the fees are not super significant, what developers really valued was the, you know, the ability to get into construction more quickly. You know, what gets cold in Vermont we know and construction season, if you have to build a winter, significantly adds to the cost of construction 10 to 15 percent, sometimes more. What they also really liked was there was no risk of appeal. Developing in a center, there's a lot of people you have to make happy because you have a lot more concentrated users and intense uses. So the fact that this provision allowed development to occur without the risk of an Act 250 appeal was the major benefit. Appeals and is, I think, the cost of appeals, and you can get information on this, you know, it typically just gets rolled into the cost of the development. And usually the person who wants to buy that house or rent that apartment has to pay these costs. So we took testimony from Vermont Healthy Conservation Board. How many of these units would be also counted in their housing that they reported to us? Same. Right, because most of these things have to meet affordability criteria. And so VHCB would have been involved in a lot of these things. Representative Smith. Yeah, no, I was just trying to understand the permit and process and, you know, priority housing projects. It appears that there's no permit or amendment to permit, but in order to get that that site to begin with, that they have to go through a permit and process, or we just talking about renovation of existing buildings or renovation of an existing site. Yeah, so, so, you know, Act 250, once Act 250 curation attaches, it's forever, it doesn't change. And a little bit of the genesis was that you can have a parcel right next door with no Act 250 permit and kind of build the same project without having to get an Act 250 permit, given these priority housing project provisions. So that's why we wanted to allow people to amend the conditions. You still have to get all your local permits and you have to get all your state permits. So projects are pretty well permitted. What you don't have to do is go through the Act 250 process. The size of the number of units for priority housing projects is scaled to the size of the community, recognizing the local capacity and ability to regulate these developments. So for communities over, I think 10,000 in population, so these are our largest communities. I think they're seven or eight of them. There's no unit cap. If they want 200 units of housing and they've done the planning and development and sort of support their goals, they do not need to get an Act 250 permit, whereas traditional jurisdiction would have been triggered at 10. It scales on down to smaller areas based on their population. I need you to have information on that. Yeah, we have a couple representative elements. I'm just interested. This is a fascinating and important information and terrific to provide that designated downtown that support. I know that designated villages have the same interest for housing and concentrated development in their designated areas. And yet you breezed over that point. Can you go back a bit and just describe what are the barriers for villages to try to accomplish the same objectives if we were to expand this priority housing for smaller communities, smaller rural areas? Good question. I'm surprised you're asking. So a lot of what we're trying to recognize in priority housing projects and the enhanced designation concept that I'm going to talk to you more about is communities with solid regulations and the capacity to regulate and the capacity with water and wastewater systems to support our compact development. We should recognize this in our permitting framework. And that's the biggest barrier in our smaller communities that they don't have staff. They have a part-time zoning administrator. They do not have water or wastewater systems to build out in the dense development pattern that we'd like to see. And those are those are the primary kind of barriers to why we're mostly we're looking essentially at our larger communities with existing staff and regulatory capacity. There is a path for villages in our enhanced designation proposal, but it sets out expectations of staffing wastewater, bylaws, etc. I think communities in your jurisdiction could meet it because you have some wastewater capacity locally. You do have pretty good staff. And again these are going to be voluntary programs that the community needs to decide if they want to take these steps. It comes with requirements. You know, you don't get dessert without eating your vegetables. So we have the bill and we can share that later. Representative. How are these designations either created or expanded in very small towns and maybe no more than a gas station or post office at their center? How are they created? The way the process works is a person from my team, a gentleman named Richard Amore, has a community meeting. They usually talk with us left board and local planning commission. They talk about the benefits of the designation. There's usually some interest in fixing up a couple of buildings in the town. We have a statutory requirement of a definition of what the village is. They walk the village area and they say, you know, this is your core commercial village area. This is what we would recommend, including within the area, and this is what would be out. I understand the villages being something inside a town. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. The town that has the governance, not the village. Well, it's going to vary because you do have villages that are independent of towns. But I guess it's not the whole community. We're just designating a small, tiny little piece of the community. The commercial core, the traditional center, where your post office, your church, your store, your gas station, kind of those buildings are. We're not doing the whole community. That application has usually helped put together by a regional planning commission. Then they come to the Vermont downtown board. The board reviews it and approves their designation. Once they're designated, then they're eligible for tax credits and technical assistance from my team. The downtown development board, and the board's comprised of a lot of state agency heads, municipal representatives, the NRC and the Preservation Trust of Vermont have a representative. I think in some of my earlier slides, there's a graphic that should have all the people who sat on the board. Representative Forgates. The no permit is no activity permit. If you've got a mixed use, such as Wilson Block and Swing, does that, that's not just housing. That's housing and commercial or whatever. So that's not exempt from. Well, it's, it really depends on the project. We're kind of getting to the next slide. So to determine if jurisdiction is necessary, if you're going to go through activity, you have to get a review from an original coordinator or district coordinator. And so they use these definitions for mental illness under occupied. Definitions for mixed use to determine if the project qualifies for a special jurisdiction. I don't know what happened with the Wilson Block. Yeah, and I'm just thinking how big a deal is this, if it's only for housing, because like in our designated downtown, there's not a space for just housing to occur. I'm kind of getting at some of my other slides, you know, about, you know, the environmental impact in these centers. Let's let Chris keep going and see where we go. But this is the process for modifying existing permits, active activity permits within centers for those three communities. This is page one of the flowchart. There's two pages in the flowchart. And my point in all this is we, we can make this work better. I think we have a good opportunity here to make development easier within these centers. But while still protecting our environment, and what kind of gets me to, what is the mantra of realtors? Location, location, location, location. And this is really kind of where I think the administration and many other folks would like to see Act 250 consider location as part of jurisdiction, because the impacts vary significantly depending on where you are. This is just me being silly. I always have to have an animal slide. Administrations and other advocates are interested in a balanced approach for jurisdiction, where where jurisdiction is lowered within areas where we like to grow and increased in areas with critical resource values. So it is a balanced approach to jurisdictional challenges. And the fundamental question is, you know, Act 250, where would we like them to review a project? Or would we like to review them in a rural area where there are important natural resources? Or would we like them to do more review in a downtown area where, you know, it's covered with impervious surface. And they're just not the significant natural resource impacts there, because they just don't exist. As one is critical human habitat area, the others has potential to impact the environment. And to me this question, it's a simple one to answer. If Act 250 with limited staff time and resources, I would much rather they review rural development and rural housing development like this. I think that's where the protections are needed and we don't need the same level of protection within these centers. And as everybody knows, if you haven't heard, you know, Act 250 doesn't catch a lot of these projects. And so we're getting a lot of this rural sprawl that does fragmentate, fragment our forest and habitat areas. And the reason this is happening is because it's cheaper and easier to develop in these areas. So we need to figure out how to make it easier to develop within the areas we'd like to grow and perhaps a little harder in areas outside where we don't want to see environmental impacts. This is some data from Bennington. There you are. Bennington has a growth center and every five years they have to report to the downtown board kind of how things go and how's your designation working. The goal of the growth center designation is to direct as much development as possible. I think more than 50 percent of the development within the growth center and discouraged development outside these areas. So this is data from Bennington. Whose goal is that? It's the goal of the program and ultimately it's the community's goal because they come to us and say we want to do this. 50 to 50 is the goal. It's the target. Most 50 percent of... I think it's... Jacob, is that right? I'm sorry. Majority. Yes, 51 percent. Can you repeat that? Sorry. The goal of the growth center program is to concentrate development within the growth center and the statute says the majority of growth should occur within these centers. Bennington came in with their data and I think it was 80 percent of all new growth in that last five-year period happened within their growth center. So it does work. Communities can do this if we give them the right path and the tools to achieve this outcome. By the point of this slide we got permit data from them as part of that process and this compares active 50 jurisdiction within Bennington versus local permit jurisdiction. And the point here is, I think one we all know, but we all I think the hammer is that active 50 only catches a small slice of development within Bennington whereas local jurisdiction reduce all permit development or all development and there's a huge benefit to that if we're trying to tackle things like climate change and forest fragmentation because we're looking at everything that's being developed not just a small subset. This is town-wide and then I see I have two people with questions but one rewind the percent in Bennington of development that's happening in their downtown. Within their growth center, 80 percent. Growth center, 80 percent. Okay, great. I've represented Bates and then McCullough. So my question real quickly is where did our punt and lock fall under? Was it the active 50 or is it just the local? I don't know. If Putnam had to get back to you know they're still trying to get you know their their financing sets they may not have gone through the permitting process yet. That's odd. One other thing then where would I go to find out really what's happening with that project because I hear one thing from the state and I hear one thing locally and neither one of them are are matching up. Someone's lying to me that's the bottom line. I hope nobody's lying to you. I would tell they are. Yeah, I would talk to there's the guy from the RPC down there. Bill Coleman? Yeah. Yeah, I think he probably is the most current information or or the developer from Browderboro. Where's he? Boston. Yeah, I think that is the best source. Not the state. You could get information from the state but I think I don't know where they are in the permit process so I would start with them. Okay. Thank you. We got some testimony last week that some of the various towns have such rigorous DRV and town plans that actually just doesn't really get involved or need to get involved and yet I'm making the ascitation that in this case and in my own town of Wilson which also has a growth center where the majority of the development takes place there and we do have rigorous town planning that one can't say which is what I sort of thought I understood you to say but so disabuse me of this idea. One should not be just assuming because all this planning is going on that Act 250 isn't needed in that community because I see projects in our community that slip through below just below the 250 threshold. Yeah, they're you know they need the the death by thousand paper cuts that the town requires and yet they're poor planning. So it'd be hard to really comment on that without the some more facts about the specific project you're talking about. No, and I don't want a specific project. I want just the 10,000 foot view of how Act 250 could better work with town with really good zoning and planning and not to dismiss the need for Act 250. Right, so we're getting you're getting to my next point. Okay, you guys are really awesome here making my presentation for me. So that's what we're trying to talk about. I can hold my water. And so we're talking about enhanced designation where we're Act 250's jurisdiction recognizes all the good local planning at the local level and we ask communities to upgrade their bylaws to a state level or state concerns environmental protections are addressed at the local level. So in the wake of propolis storm Irene we learned a lot about flooding. In my last presentation I talked about how a lot of our downtowns and village centers our traditional cells our areas are at risk because they were built on water because that's where the power and transportation was. What enhanced designation proposes is river corridor protections upstream and downstream of our centers and allowing infill to occur within these centers. Say that again? So what enhanced designation proposes is town level adoption of river corridor bylaws. The river corridor standards say you know you shouldn't develop in these areas you know where for years a high flood risk but it allows infill development within a settled area because they're typically rivers are armored they're stable they're not moving anywhere there's just not a not a high risk of flood. We'd much rather see the development occur there than happen out in the rural areas or we'd much rather see you know developing in certain areas of the river corridor actually increases the risk of flooding and harm and potential to the settled area so let's concentrate the development in these areas and a scourge development outside these areas. When you say infill developments you're not talking about filling land you're talking about in between things that already exist. Right so you've got two buildings they're both kind of set back from the river at the same amount. They're set back from what? The river or river corridor at the same amount. Stopping development between those two buildings when you already have any system set back isn't going to make the community any safer. We're not talking about filling the site but you can build that building in a way that it's protected from a flood and that's what we're talking about. Low line areas but that's a lot different than having a village that has this kind of density in those areas. Yeah well we don't have a lot of villages with that that's kind of a vision of Vermont that quite is we're not quite here but the example in Rochester you know off the stream in Northfield you know they lost buildings they created a park you know there's opportunities to do that. I'm given right now I'd much rather see a development happen in a center versus a development in a flood plain that somehow makes it increases the risk to not only the community downstream but all the communities downstream so let's be a little bit more strategic in how we support development. It looks like this I mean maybe this isn't real but it's just you know but it looks like the center was in the flood plain and a lot of our communities are I mean most of our communities were set up with power source close by and that was the river. But there's a lot we can do upstream you know a lot of times you know farmers build berms you know to protect their their ag crops from flooding their on flood plains you know are there opportunities to work with the local farmers to say you know in the event of a flood can you know we remove this berm and compensate you for storing this flood water that is going to protect you know our settled areas. Representative Dolan's old program did a lot of investments to restore flood plains so we minimized or attenuated the flood risk to these areas so there there is an approach it just it's not going to be quick but enhanced designation gets communities thinking about them climate change is real it's going to happen we need to get communities to start thinking about this and making changes and what enhanced designation does is provide an incentive and framework to encourage these kind of thoughts but they're not these are 50 hundred year conversations for how we change and adapt. Just to put a fine point on it your proposal isn't to increase infill in those river corridors in our villages it's to flood proof existing methods and increase infill outside of those now it's it's to do it's to flood proof existing historic buildings the river corridor procedure allows basically you know mapping of the river corridor area they're just kind of broadly cast right now what we're proposing is is some kind of analysis to say you know you know where isn't where is the safety area and allowing infill to occur in those areas so some infill would be allowed it's not just the river corridor it's consistent with you know the river corridor procedure they're not closer to the river but no but with filling in okay and so i've heard you say your proposal includes townwide river corridor zoning and you're talking about we need to do something upstream what about the forest forested areas that are really the insurance policy for all of this the proposal looks at like it's a balanced jurisdiction within centers and increasing jurisdiction outside centers i think you're going to get testimony from billy costar at the end of the week i see the two is as paired about how to protect these areas from development from fragmentation okay but your proposal doesn't have anything it's it's in the administration's bill i'm here to just talk about the enhanced designation component but i absolutely agree that they are linked um you know i want to i've again a balanced approach to reduce jurisdiction in centers where we'd like to grow and increase jurisdiction in areas with important natural resource values i'm not the expert in natural resources so i'm gonna let a and r talk to you more about that um but a little bit you know these little tags in the bottom are kind of linked to the act to 50 criteria and kind of not directly but you know enhanced designation would release sources um i can get to this just a few more slides um i promise um brings resources to protect our historic buildings you know aesthetics is an important component historic reservations important component of act 250 review um you will improve erosion control because again all projects um are going to be subject to a higher level of local erosion control bylaws whereas act 250 would only catch a view and bring them up to these high standards um it'll support kind of some of the goals we want with complete streets because the communities are going to be required to have you know capital development plans to figure out how we can get more bikes and buses and bike lanes in in our settled areas um again capital planning is required we want to make sure the community has the water and wastewater resources just importantly development within these areas um but it's also important to note that these these projects still need to get in our you know they still need to get local connection permits they still need to get um on the permits what we're just talking about is is um jurisdiction adjustments for act 250 here's a good example of kind of some of the benefits of local jurisdiction versus um state jurisdiction or state level act 250 jurisdiction i'm not picking on berry but this is a project that was built in east berry it was a dollar general store and i'm not picking on dollar general this is just this was a building built kind of on a rule road the local zoning allowed it um it's kind of minimally improved it is a box with a light and a parking lot um it met the local standards it was built this is the dollar general in near town um bennington same business um but the local guidelines the design review standards within the designated center ended up with a better product now a little bit about important natural resources within centers this is one thing that act 250 aims to protect um we envision um bylaws protecting these things that they're located within these centers but we did some analysis with biofinder and there's there's not a lot of habitat area within these centers there's not a lot of big risks to the environment because these areas are largely built out mostly paved and covered with buildings um here's a picture of mont pilier this is from biofinder um there's some important resources our natural resources within the river corridor again we would protect these areas um you know um this important riparian areas that they provide um for for critters moving up and down through the community um would be protected those the little the red polygons or i honestly couldn't tell you what i think it was a there's a muscle in there that's being flagged and it are a rare threatened endangered muscle but don't quote me on that somehow the green is and i'm colorblind so i'm even really in an even worse spot here but yes on the right side so let me just say we looked and we didn't find a lot of rare threatened endangered blobs showing up in our designated center so we should wait to hear from billy on this uh yeah talk about downtown and natural resources um i think his focus is um gonna be on unique resource value areas um but you know i'd be happy to give you additional information kind of when we look through um we sat down with fish and wildlife to look at natural resources within these centers um we didn't find a lot but we asked them to give another look to make sure um we weren't nothing would be impacted again if they were identified if there is a rare threatened endangered species or something important is identified we would have bylaws that the community would adopt to protect them to avoid and mitigate harm to these areas um but there's not any important headwaters or streams in a not a lot of mass production areas that we could find within our designated centers could represent the color yeah um i want to go back to to the example of the dollar general um built outside of the community and again to that happened because it met the town's requirement likely because it was underneath the acreage requirements for the development right and and so yesterday we heard about tyranny of the tyranny of small decisions um and without the oversight of that to 50 um the criteria 9L was never could never be considering here and if it had come under the jurisdiction it likely would have failed you know the commercial sprawl it could have i mean we don't know how how the we can't say that with certainty it's it so i just say likely we don't know who would want the same game either um for it with certainty but i'm just i'm just bringing this out yeah i'll help us all understand that maybe we need a a a better combination of active 50 oversight with our community would you would you and that's a little bit of what we're talking about yeah you know we're all trying to do the same thing can we get the communities you know active 50s goal is to support our compact settlements the state designation program's goal is to support compact settlements we're doing a good job but right now it's more expensive to develop and therefore a lot of reasons um if we can ask communities to raise their standards um can we make it easier to develop there by changing jurisdiction within these centers so they don't have to get an active 50 permit again we have a lot of other permits that look at these projects from the state level and from the local level um i think we're feeling pretty confident that the environment will be protected and this is a better way to support our land use goals but i wanted to the last thing as far as you know 9L you know active 50 often says you know all of our projects are high percentage of projects are approved so it's hard to say whether 9L would um say no it may modify that project but it it may not actually say no so that's the one thing i wanted to mention there thank you Dolan and then Odie and then you have to let Chris finish just a quick observation just to follow representative McCulloch comment what those two examples told me is once again um when you focus this kind of enhanced designation solely on our medium to larger communities where they have the you know the the designated downtown areas for example with the the various criteria you can make an impactful outcome but here in that Eastbury example it illustrated to me once again that rural communities are suffering from the similar potential outcomes of fragmentation of sprawl of non concentrated development in where you have the services dilemma and i only flagged that because it's again paramount to evaluating how we can provide that same support for our rural communities jurisdiction is the key to everything you know who's reviewed but but they may not necessarily have the the the resources or the infrastructure such as wastewater and wastewater to follow the but still suffer from the same potential outcomes and i flagged that because it's absolutely critical that we provide that same kind of incentives for our rural communities representative Odie i'd like to ask where have you seen communities with standards that would prevent the dollar general where it is um any of our gross standard communities are going to have pretty high bylaw standards but don't support that okay so if that those are those standards then how do they get shared with the communities where that it's a conversation with the regional planning commissions i think they provide a lot of the local services to help communities update their bylaws we have a project right now we're working on with vermont housing conservation board and the realtors and a rp to kind of get housing-friendly bylaws in communities so it's many people can provide these services but really the regional planning commissions are kind of in the best position to support municipalities to improve their bylaws the community has to want to make these changes and that's that's the key you know some people are going to see that kind of development i think it's good so it's important to keep that in mind so just a few more slides again you know we do see a lot of wildlife in our centers um arguably we see that because we're losing habitat outside our centers um a and r has a proposal to increase jurisdiction and protections for critical habitat outside these areas but we don't see a lot of this critical habitat within our centers and while we love our farms in vermont um you know things like conserving ag soils within centers doesn't make a whole lot of sense especially when you've got a sewer service area you've made a huge investment so we'd like to make sure that you know we're getting the biggest bang for our buck for our utility investment and finally you know active 50 looks at schools in school capacity um i think it's a big topic in this building a lot of our schools are decreasing in size um so i don't think you know the scale of schools and rapid growth of schools are going to be an issue in most of our designated communities the last slide is the um you know the slide on floods we know another flood's coming it's just a matter of time i think by asking communities to update their bylaws to meet higher environmental standards to meet state goals because their local jurisdiction reviews all projects is the best way we can help communities adapt to a changing climate it does a whole lot more than a criteria change in active 50 wood because active 50 only is going to review a few of the projects the trigger jurisdiction and we're only going to be the larger projects last slide and i think i made it on time um the administration does have a bill and we do have language that supports all this um you know when you're ready i'd be happy to kind of walk you through a lot of the details um and i hear you representable and we do need a solution for rural areas um and i don't have it so we can talk more but um you know more resources are needed there is a capacity gap and until we figure out how to fill it and support them are we going to see the changes that we'd like to see that's all i got thank you for your attention thing i'm concerned about is um is it's important to have space in an urban setting too yeah there's nothing wrong i don't think with having not just parks but no with a few goats in a you know in a small field i just um i would i don't disagree with you i think what the point i'm trying to make there is often there's a nine the criteria 9b says you need to conserve ag soils on site for certain types of development it's a requirement back to 50 um a lot of times when these sites are conserved they're not used for farming purposes and it's essentially you know it's a mode field while there's a benefit to that if there's a if there's a park or something like that if it just sits there vacant because of an active 50 condition i'd much rather see you know a building go in there um but it's not to say we need to completely urbanize our centers and you know tear out all the parks and build buildings there's most of our communities do have large parks and green spaces and areas defined for that and that's kind of some of the things we're thinking about you know the capital plants where working people recreate within the town so all right i got one quick question i understand the regional planning commissions can provide that support to rural communities and they're underfunded under their titles who receive everybody's funded on the statutory formula yeah from the property transfer tax would would enhance funding for them to be able to provide the regional capacity to help rural towns with that help i think you need to talk with them about that um i do think they're interested in receiving additional funding and maybe that's something you could say you know this is what the needs are um what you mentioned this morning uh vhcb's very program uh a ready program i'm sorry um couldn't help a lot of these rural areas as far as grants and technical assistance to get projects going um but everybody who's funded by the property transfer tax is statutorily reduced you know here's your funding including the municipal planning grant program so it's um they're not alone in this challenge all right all right we're going to take five let k get set up thank you so much thank you i hope this helped you ready for your um language okay yeah it's um and a very civilized meeting that is with with snacks provided all right good morning um my name is cape mccarthy um thank you very much for inviting me here to talk also about enhanced designations um this is my first time before this committee this year so um it is nice to see and to meet all of you um i'm the sustainable communities program director at the vermont natural resources council and as you may have heard but i will reiterate we're a statewide environmental organization and we work for um to keep our human and natural communities strong and really this act 250 conversation is about those questions of how do we have a strong environment as well as great places for people to exist and thrive and build the economy so vnrc's been involved in act 250 conversations since before act 250 was created and then more recently as an advisor to the act 47 commission um you heard last week from our executive director brian shoup and he presented you with a high-level overview of some of the main areas we're looking at that we see as opportunities to modernize act 250 and make it work better for everybody so i'm here today as you know to talk about one portion of those recommendations and the bill that's before you and that's those enhanced designations so i'll talk a little about my view of what the problem is we're trying to solve um you'll hear some similar things to what chris just discussed and maybe some different ones too um and then i'll talk about my um my view on the elements that really needed to be included in an enhanced designation program if it's going to really work to achieve our overall goals so just by way of brief background um when i say that i'm the sustainable communities program director what what is a sustainable community it could be a lot of things um for me it involves promoting our villages and downtown's fighting sprawl and um also fighting resource fragmentation our farms and our forests and our natural areas so um as you know this this approach to our settlement pattern how we develop where on the land has environmental benefits because it keeps our resources healthy um whether those are working lands or um or or forested areas that help with flooding um it also means that if we have our homes and our services and our schools closer to one another we've at least got the option to drive less and that's really good for reducing greenhouse gas emissions so their environmental benefits to smart growth um but just as importantly it's an approach that can really help um communities thrive and it can help people's quality of life by providing a range of housing options that are affordable a range of transportation options that allow you to get out and about and not have a car if you don't want to um so that that's where i'm coming from when i say sustainable communities and it plugs very well into act 250 um it also plugs very well into our state's long-standing land use goals and you know the one right up top is to promote on um promote our historic downtowns and villages these compact centers surrounded by rural and working lands and avoiding strip development so so that's where i'm coming from and that brings us to the problem that we're trying to solve which is that um even though we value the feeling of these places we value the history that is part of them and we value the outlying areas that make vermont vermont you can't deny that it's more challenging to develop in a village to develop in a downtown and there are a lot of different reasons there are existing buildings there that you have to work between or around they're polluted soils tight space to work um maybe a lack of infrastructure that help that challenges different scales and so it's cheaper to build in an undeveloped field that's just the way it is um but we really care about promoting those downtowns and so this um this is a way to start the give doing that um the act 47 commission's report right up top concluded that when it comes to our state settlement patterns it asked this question are we meeting our settlement pattern goals and it concluded not really um and so that so that's why we're here the problem that enhanced designation is attempting to address is to simplify at least one piece of that puzzle of developing more successfully more easily more predictably in downtowns and villages and what we're talking about is these areas that have done the pre-planning and are truly development ready so this ties to an idea that you've heard a little bit about and you'll hear a lot more about and that's the idea of um locational jurisdiction rolls right off the tongue um but it's it's the idea that instead of the scale of the project or the number of lots triggering up to 50 you look more at what's the under what are the underlying resources there are they are you developing in a place that stands to be really harmed and changed by development in that case maybe you should scrutinize it more closely or are you developing in a place where there's already a lot of pavement or there's already a lot of development and infrastructure maybe that should be a little easier to do um today those areas those types of areas go through the same type of review so locational jurisdiction is a way of saying let's apply the appropriate level of scrutiny based on the underlying resource so i know you've heard that i think it's very important so i i repeat it so um vnrc yeah so i'm i'm thinking that locational jurisdiction could make it easier through an enhanced designation and i'm thinking we're we're thinking about making it easier in compact um uh settlement areas but i'm also thinking the flip side of that is locational jurisdiction can really apply in in in the the um in other areas um to to better understand for for developers and owners and and and and the the regulating community better understand that maybe the locational jurisdiction here and enhance designation programs that they're separate i'm not sure one's a concept and maybe another's a program correct um um it's going to be more challenging to site in in in some areas so there's a flip side i'm thinking of flip side to what we're saying is that accurate that is accurate in my view of how this should be approached yes thank you yes absolutely thank you um so in general we we agree that this idea of an enhanced designation makes sense it builds off state programs that are known and that have been very important to our state um and we think that it makes sense if certain requirements and processes are in place so so that's what i'd like to do next is share with you five elements five things that are on my mind that vnrc believes strongly believes would need to be in place for this enhanced designation to work so the first of those items is exactly what representative makala just mentioned it's our strong opinion that enhanced designation or creating this enhanced designation program is not a standalone act not a standalone change to act 250 but that for it to work for it to really create the overall development pattern that we wish to see as a state there need to be complementary protections in important natural resource areas and outside of these smart growth centers so we need to talk about not just act 250 inside centers but act 250 outside centers they really do go hand in hand and vnrc's support for the enhanced designations is is related to incantation on getting it right in the outlying areas so i know you'll be hearing a lot more about this topic as soon as this afternoon from my colleague jamie fidel and you will hear about those outlying areas and what it means to develop thoughtfully in those areas so that's that's the first thing that's really important to us for the enhanced designations to work second it's our position that the process for becoming an enhanced designation has to include adequate protection for natural areas inside the designated area so one thing that's useful to remember as we talk about using the designation programs for different purposes is that at their origins the village and the down village program in the downtown program those lines were drawn around areas where the focus was economic revitalization and historic preservation and for that the programs have been successful but they weren't originally envisioned as land use planning and new development programs per se that's for villages and downtowns for growth centers and new town centers those were envisioned for new land development but um there's still more probably that that we want to be aware of when developing in those areas which may include undeveloped land um so that means that the process of enhancement um kind of adds a layer that looks at the land use planning elements that looks at um what's on the ground in terms of natural resources so in many cases there may not be natural resources present we saw the map of Montpelier just now and there aren't a lot of hot spots um in downtown Montpelier nevertheless we want to make sure that whatever process there is for enhanced designation does ensure that a town that when there are those types of resources a town is looking at them because we don't want to presume that they aren't there so in other words making a place development ready doesn't mean that every portion is developable it means that we're doing the planning ahead of time to make sure that the right areas are developed okay so um third it's our position that um the decisions by the downtown development board about enhanced designation need to be appealable there needs to be an opportunity to to question the results if they do not meet the statutory intent and to be nrc appealable means um appealing to the natural resources board perhaps professional board um with appeal rights beyond that to the supreme court so this would ensure due process which i think is is quite reasonable when you're talking about an enhancement that removes regulatory oversight um this also means that you're you're getting people's input up front in the enhanced designation process ideally there would be no appeal because there would be a really good process where everyone understands the implications for the enhancement but in the event that it is not smoothly done um there does need to be that that option okay so the fourth item is um vnrc really sees this as a very focused program um we don't believe that the enhancement should extend to areas that are planned for growth so areas outside of growth centers anyway um there may be some areas that towns consider their future growth areas but they don't have any sort of um state designated planning done for them we also um and and that's because these areas planned for growth they vary tremendously throughout the state there are some that are next to highway interchanges there are some that are not in good locations there are others that are very good so um we don't think they should extend the areas planned for growth we also don't think that it should apply on a town-wide basis that would kind of defeat the purpose there may be towns who say that because the town is more sophisticated in the planning and zoning realm that they should be enhanced throughout their town and relieved from act 250 we we don't agree um so finally and this this gets us into the weeds a little bit but i think it is important to point out it's our position that the conditions of existing act 250 permits in designated areas need to be upheld unless there's a compelling reason to change them and a process to do so so um what what this is about is that even once area is received in enhanced designation you may have some buildings or properties within the enhanced area that have old act 250 permits on them and those permits may have been granted with conditions to ensure that the impacts of the project are minimized those might be specific hours of operation or they might be screening for landscaping or something like that um and we think it's really important that those carry some weight because it may be that people nearby whether neighbors or other community members rely on those conditions that they got involved and said this project is great for the community but you've got to have this condition um we want to make sure the enhanced designation doesn't simply wipe out those existing permits that would take away due process but we are open to a process um where those those permit conditions are honored and only modified if a careful process that maintains due process is followed lots of process that's how we make sure we get it right um and there are ways to do this so that you can really examine a condition and say is this relevant is this applicable is anyone relying on this condition uh has they have they placed their reliance in the condition then there can be a conversation about it um of course we have talked in this process about how even if in the enhanced designated areas act 250 doesn't apply local permitting will so between those two could be a way to ensure that conditions are maintained for their reliance of of any who are involved in the project so those are my five things that are important to me about enhanced designations um I really do think that thinking about jurisdiction based on location has the potential to help us meet our goals in a more uh direct way in a more intuitive way when the regulation that's applied makes sense for the underlying resource and I do believe that enhanced designations could be a workable approach but only if we adequately protect outlying areas um if the natural resources inside the designation are protected the decisions are appealable existing conditions are honored thank you who has the power to determine a project should uh receive an enhanced designation so I think that's going to be part of the conversation and decision making by this committee but it would be right now designations are granted um by the downtown development board and in determining whether or not to grant a designation they follow certain criteria statute lays out what the requirements are for a downtown and a village and a growth center and a new town center okay is that based on a town plan which in turn has been approved by the regional planning commission that's one of the ingredients yep yep so how is it appealed if you object to it and want it and didn't like the decision of the the development board where would you go from there um our proposal is that you'd go to the um professional board the natural resources board that is envisioned in the in the bill and it is your question also um what might you appeal about the enhancement like what what is there not to like to to contest so for example um if you think of a good example if you feel that natural resources are not adequately addressed by the town's bylaws so for if we're envisioning a future where that area has no act 250 review and a neighbor or someone in the town or or an agency thinks that the town bylaws actually don't address natural resources enough but it gets approved anyway that could it could be appealed on that basis another example is um if you have a growth center those are the most geographically expansive of our designations if the growth center is very large from the 2006 designation and the enhancement should maybe in order to accomplish planning goals be smaller but it's approved to be the whole growth center um that that the boundaries of the enhancement could be appealed but it's it's my hope that it would not happen often um but in the interest of just providing a mechanism to assure that statute is followed uh i think that is that the appeal is important and were you talking about distinguish between what's happening now yes and how it might work under an enhanced we were asking about yeah so what what's happening now is as I described where the downtown board follows certain criteria that to see if the town's taken the steps to be ready to develop in that area and they get a lot of really great staff support from the department of housing and community development the town doesn't show up with a piece of paper and have the board look at it it's it's a process of making sure there's a lot of coaching and that's very positive just gonna but isn't a lot of times that this town's decision driven by economics i mean they need that i don't like maybe i don't like dollar journal where they're going to put it but yet i understand sure if the town is struggling to uh give new revenue and add to its tax base then you know i i'm probably going to say well i understand i'm probably gonna give it it's not i'm gonna give the non to the uh to bring the money and it giving people a cheap place to shop sure so with the enhanced designation and even with the designations today it would really for the most part look only at that sort of core historic center that core smark growth area the enhanced designation as far as what it looks at outside of there it looks at the river corridor bylaws and the flood hazard bylaws as opposed to looking at the planning and zoning in general you know there's an argument to be made that if we're going to incentivize the downtown we should ask towns to be a little more thoughtful about strip development that's something you could consider because yeah did i answer your question go so all right thank you um okay i i failed to understand what your next to the last bullet point was the last one that as i understood it is we don't we we are not promoting enhanced designation townwide that's right and the one prior to that was what um that was about appeals so i mentioned appeals yeah not promoting it townwide and then conditions on existing at 250 permits okay good for that i mentioned adequate protection for resources inside thank you thank you any other questions for kate okay thank you okay so we have a few minutes before our next speaker but i guess i'm wondering if folks have ideas right now on areas we've covered so far in this conversation that they want more information on for example i'm thinking about um reaching out to some of the jurisdictions that bill keaton mentioned yesterday like hearing about the puget sound example or other places that are kind of already doing this other thoughts that you've had along the way so far about people you want to hear from so our current act 250 has been effective in lots of ways but not effective in in in the master planning goal if you will as as mentioned by john yesterday um and today we've heard i think fairly consistently yeah it's the towns and and and the towns and and we we do understand there's um a great difference in the various towns abilities capabilities from staffing issues which are always finance issues which are even just population-based to support planning and i want to better understand how we can how the new act 250 can be better at planning planning rather than just attaining goals through jurisdictional stuff um again back to the to the um i got that five thousand paper cuts my mind john had it differently a tragedy of tyranny of the small decisions and right now each of our and and appropriately so we should be looking at how each area is different and that's some of the magic of active 50 and yet that's driving the bus versus versus um maybe just saying okay towns there are your rules we're going to have to match our rules like we do with uh septic for instance you've got to be the state jurisdiction of the in-ground center and um and that made a level playing field for everybody across the state so i'd like to look better to understand how we might apply that concept in the new act 250 to to marrying if you will our our independent towns requirements to the overall plan of that so i think that's part of what's been called out is lining up the staff story requirements and if you're going to get an enhanced admission or um your town if your if your plan won't get approved unless it lines up the state but i think it's boring that's important as we hear from planners Sharon Murray's a planner she's part of the group that brought us those recommendations so we may have time to ask her that today but if we don't get to it we should make sure we do good i would like to hear more of how uh location jurisdiction applies to the working lands um in terms of uh whether or not uh you know in terms of getting an act 250 permit or whether or not positions are applicable in the situation depending on its location on our projects you know if you can hear more testimony on that i think we'll at least talk to me yeah so we we have a minute here to have a break and come back to 11 before you run off call just we're gonna have maybe longer floor time today um than we expected when we made the agenda so we'll see how long it goes hopefully we'll have time to get to our witnesses but it could be that four supersedes our work the committee and we'll have to reschedule folks we'll just have to wait and see but as soon as we are finished on the floor we'll come back within you know 10 minutes to try to honor our people we've invited to come are we still doing a dinner right no good question too um i'm here from jerry so that must be you so all right right excuse me sorry we i just remember that jerry had some comments he wanted to share with us so i think we're gonna pick up with the time you have okay do you want to come back up there again i'm gonna go where i was going so i thought i well my name is jerry tariff um i live in my pillier um and i've watched regulation throughout my life in her month i've been involved at the state level and in practice i'm a lawyer i have a law firm tariff gillison richardson um i'd like to speak as a individual not as a representative of anyone um downtown's are special in vermont i think we've started the conversation which is a good thing and we've probably gone beyond that because there's already statutory provisions for designated areas but i think you've heard testimony today that there is an intent to fill in and i think that's to fill in along river corridors and areas like that and those are high resource areas uh enhanced resource areas in a lot of different ways we've also been struggling for years in terms of water purity cleanliness cleaning up the lakes streams and rivers feed into our lakes our history shows clearly that we've built our commercial areas along rivers especially in the downtown areas that now are becoming designated areas and they're especially in places like mob pillier hydrocarbons and a lot of pollution along the rivers and if you do not develop properly those pollutions fall into the river are you as an attorney are you representing anyone to represent yourself i'm not representing anyone i mean are you here representing yourself or just myself yeah i have no bite in this in terms of clients or anything um i own own three buildings in mob pillier that are in the flood zone along the river along the north branch feed into the musky i deal with flood insurance and the problems with flooding they're not minor to the extent there have been indications that it's a little bit of a cleanup if you've lived through the floods in different parts of the state you know it's not a little bit of a cleanup before you put public monies into floodways flood corridors flood areas instead public monies understand that there are also costs you may save five or ten or fifteen percent on the appeals perhaps but there are costs that are ongoing monetary costs but there's more than that act 250 is not just about aesthetics and beautifying and protecting excellence the guts of act 250 are about safety and health and welfare and a narrow and a broader sense if you look at the existing act 250 under criterion one talks about floodways streams and shorelines and in each instance the legislature talked about a permit will be granted whenever it is demonstrated by the applicant than in addition to all other criteria the development or subdivision of lands within a floodway will not restrict or divert the flow of flood waters and endanger the health safety and welfare of the public or of riparian owners during the flooding streams same language go through it and it goes down and maintain the natural condition of the stream and will not endanger the health safety welfare of the public shorelines same thing and it goes insofar as public health and safety the same thing on your traffic the guts of act 250 are about your children and great children and my children and grandchildren being safe and what you heard this morning is we'd like to put this development in downtowns and we'd like less regulation and i guess i'm here to say there's more than just applying act 250 or taking it away if you want one in one example would be have a a smaller act 250 that applies to enhanced areas that deals with safety and welfare welfare and safety not only for me and my children and grandchildren and yours but also to help clean up the waterways we've seen and we will see again big flooding i have a friend downtown on state street has 14 pumps in his basement he spent he's a commercial enterprise he spent tens and tens and tens and tens and tens of thousands to do that no one else that I know and Montpelier has that I have one pump in one building it's a great first step to try to protect those historic buildings that can be renovated or are lived in already I've renovated mine and we have apartments and it's a good thing because I think downtowns are a special part of Vermont and I think protecting them not only them but the people is worthy to simply say and we've been through this with your commission every state agency came in and I know the people in these state agencies they love regulation vitreans forests and parks agency of commerce don't regulate us nobody wants to be regulated if there's not a problem when you go through act 250 and I've done it many many many times you have a problem any issues on this you just cross it off and you get down even at the district commission level to traffic consistency with town plan and if it's on a stream you can look at the stream and the floodways that's it it's not just on the appeal you when when someone comes up and says there aren't any sheep downtown and there's not a prime ag soil and there's not for the most part natural areas and probably so in Montpelier we have hundreds and hundreds of acres that are undeveloped they need to be developed right I think and in the downtown areas I think you can find a way where you protect the health safety and welfare of the public allow for development renovations and do it the right way rather than just exempt state agencies I think that's the biggest point I'd like to make because I found a lot of generalizations being made this morning you know there aren't any act 250 criteria that have to apply and it's just a we're worried about the appeals and stuff no one that I know is going to spend thousands of dollars on an appeal if there aren't really issues the people that live in downtown so the issues are health and safety and welfare of their children traffic and floodways flooding is a big issue now as you know and it's not just in some pockets down in the southern part of the state where towns have been really hit hard Montpelier has been hit hard by flooding in the last 30 years and and it's it's an issue that's hard to deal with the other thing I want to say is when you get into this and I think most of the comments show that you understand this towns have different zoning regulations if they have zoning it's not they're not all the same you look at title 24 the legislature has said you have to adopt a certain few criteria like traffic and small lots and something like that but they all the zoning throughout the state they're different and they're applied differently and they have different resources in terms of people to implement them and so not all towns and cities are regulated the same way the purpose back 50 years ago for act 250 was to have consistency on a statewide level so that on large development and here this is an issue for debate jurisdiction is it just size or is it importance that should be regulated and here's an example with your designated areas downtown it may not be 10 acres may only be three acres but it should be regulated if it's on in a floodway and it's in a high traffic zone and the town is inclined just to get taxes up and not look hard at the traffic or the the flood issues act 250 is charged with doing that and that's why some people don't like active 50 because they actually look at that's not a bad thing that's a good thing and I guess that's my point one other question and I appreciate you mentioning the health and welfare issues that are around criteria in 1d and that also helps us ensure compliance with the national flood insurance program but my my question to you is about if we were to think about a act 250 light per say and and in recognition that we're trying to reduce the cost of our energy costs whether it's weatherization or electricity for all new development commercial or residential with what would you um what's your thinking in along lines of trying to improve the efficiency of our buildings or new buildings or renovated buildings and not specific to criterion nine which efficiency is more important than almost anything certainly much more important than renewable energy I mean I think renewable energy comes after efficiency efficiencies should be the number one issue it's expensive for efficiency and and if there are ways to help people become more efficient in public buildings to become more efficient and certainly any subsidized area where public monies are going into subsidized housing they should be energy efficient right to the health energy efficiencies the key if I mean number one but it says the state money in terms of avoided costs of new energy source development of new energy sources we can manage to efficiency you know our demand for energy yeah I think we've been struggling with this for as long as I've been I was involved in utility regulation for a number of years and it's always been a difficult thing because when you deal with humanity not everybody has the same amount of money first of all or the same standards or the same desires and developers are the same way and so it's hard unless you regulate in a way and the key of course is to regulate development where public funds are going in and where there is review like Act 250 and make sure that they meet high levels of efficiency otherwise it's a waste of money and it does make sense to have more development in towns but you got to do it the right way especially because our towns and villages and even small cities like Montpelier are fragile I mean we're struggling right now they're putting in a hotel a transit center and a 450 parking garage in a flood area it's not appeal but because it's hard to but cities want to do that towns want to do that because they want the tax money and they're not always thinking about the other residual effects because let the state worry about that or let somebody else worry that. President McCullough. One of the last points that you made I want to be sure I understand should Act 250 be just about the size of the project or should it be and I'm going to substitute because I don't think you use the word locational specific but we heard that idea or should it be if it's not just about the size should it be about the the resources that we're getting at. Yeah I think this is this is difficult it was easy back 50 years ago to simply say size matters I mean because it was a lot of it was ski resort and second house second homes from out-of-staters and those were the the driving forces for the regulation I do think Act 250 needs to be looked at and and it's not just size anymore it's like enhanced designations maybe a acre and a half but it might right be on on a river bank and it might you know might cause also and it might have endangered species so it might so I think it has to be more than just size yeah it does. And the other thing you mentioned for you and well indeed for what it is Act 250 safety health welfare of people and and we we we understand that all of the above also is about the economy and the positive yesterday Act 250 is really an economic would you agree with you weren't here for that that's the one I wasn't but I I don't disagree with that if you plan properly and planning is really difficult and I've heard people for the last year and a half before your chair's commission talk about we plan right we plan well you know not necessarily I've seen really poor planning in the state and I've seen cities like Montpelier that didn't even follow the statutes and they had to start over again because they didn't follow the statutes they didn't do fundamental planning. And finally if I could you were in the room earlier this morning when when I talked about perhaps Act 250 needs to move forward like we did with subsurface disposal statewide jurisdiction for subsurface disposal Act 250 may want to also move forward with a statewide jurisdictional component and so we no longer have to depend on the various towns trying to come up with their own their own thing they can do that as long as it meets master plan goals in Act 250 where are you on that thought yeah I think we're we're headed towards what I like to say about when I acknowledge my weaknesses I like to say that I'm evolving and trying to improve I think the same thing is is true for our towns and villages and state we have to evolve and we have to get better and we are going to get better I mean we're at the beginning essentially of time that past this prologue and we have to we can improve and and everything that that that Amy Sheldon's commission looked at can be approved and proved I think and and I'm not in I'm not in favor of big bureaucracies and I just think you can do it better and one way is not to waive jurisdiction in designated areas but there are other ways and and economics play a big part in terms of transportation and things like that and efficiency for energy we are really at the beginning of a lot of these enterprises and industries we haven't really gone as far as we could go thank you and a lot of it's planned this is going to take a while to get this right I think you're you got good conversations thank you we're getting set up I do have a powerpoint presentation if we can get it to work my name's Sharon Murray I'm here on behalf of Vermont planners association I've been a professional planner working in Vermont for the last 30 years I hate to say 10 years up at the Northwest Regional Planning Commission in St. Albans and the last 20 or so years I won't say exactly how many working for local regional and state government basically as a planning consultant so and I was formerly the the Legislative Liaison for the Vermont Planners Association but I'm here today because I was appointed as our advisor to the Act 250 Commission VPA took a real interest in in this process yeah oh good thank you we had an active working group headed by Peg Elmer who I think some of you are also know and I've been also working closely as follow-up with Alex Winehagen our legislative liaison who I think you met last week he was in committee so I was asked today to talk about Maryland's growth tier system and it's a bit of a nerdy topic and I'm the nerd of the group so I was the one elected to come and sit here and I want to apologize in advance for some of the slides are a bit wordy they started out as handouts and then I didn't have time so I just threw everything in here but basically what I'm hoping today is to walk you through the process of Maryland went through in defining what they call growth tiers and how they use that in regulation in terms of our our work in this area some of you may be aware that back last May 2018 VPA with a whole lot of other groups sponsored an Act 250 conference at the law school I mean that was funded in part by high meadows and again the NRC the law school of APTA you know a lot of most of the planning groups in the state and the intent of this was to support the work of the Act 250 Commission by providing a form for basically a deep dive into Act 250 to accompany everything that Commission was doing in terms of getting public input so we had over 200 attendees at this conference most of whom were familiar with Act 250 so we were trying to generate a lot of good ideas for you to consider as you go forward one of the panels we had that day was on outside perspectives we invited three people working in other states who also had experience and connections with Vermont and that included Josh Brower from Washington state he was actually the chair of the Seattle Planning Commission Drush Mitt Perkins who was worked down in Maryland and Rob Sanford who some of you may know who was currently a professor at University of Southern Maine but was a former Act 250 coordinator so all these people had some knowledge and experience of Act 250 but we were saying okay how does it compare to what you do where you are now Drew is provided the Maryland example Drew worked with a thousand friends of Maryland they're really interested in land use and water quality and how those two things connect so she's also now on the board of smart growth America but at the time they were really advocating for Maryland to do better on how they regulate subdivision and development in relation to water quality so they really advocated for a law that Maryland passed back in 2012 that will be going over briefly today and basically what this law does is set up for Maryland's really into tears I'm not sure I'm fond of that but they call everything tears but they set up four tears that are very location-based jurisdiction for water quality and basically they do that by regulating septic systems so it's also called the septic law this law was passed by Maryland back in 2012 it's taken some time to implement you know we're in six years later so there's some interesting results that I'll present briefly the law only applies to residential subdivisions it doesn't like unlike active 50 it doesn't apply to commercial development um and it's yeah and you probably know that Maryland's a little different than Vermont that they regulate land use zoning and planning at the county level and at the incorporated municipal level so urban areas like Baltimore and and well smaller areas too that are incorporated also do zoning and planning but a lot of it's done at the county level in Maryland which for your purposes is interesting because it is somewhat similar to district commission regional review at that level one of the things I found interesting most interesting was the intent of this legislation should sound very familiar to all of us one it was to look at subdivision what was happening in Maryland in relation to water quality in the Chesapeake Bay and they were very interested in more stringently regulating their septic systems more for nitrogen and phosphorus in that context but the impacts of sprawl and development on water quality and the second was the impacts of sprawl and development on forest and farmland big blocks of forest and farmland so it's very much uh they had some of the similar discussions that we've been having in terms of changes to possible changes to active 50 share before you go to the next slide what is the last bullet voluntary but required oh sorry yeah I'll talk about that a little bit more basically what this law does it's set up a whole mapping and regulatory scheme that's adopted at the local level local being county and and some municipalities you don't have to adopt it but the effect of that is if you don't adopt these map this mapping process and regulations tied to it then you can't allow for major subdivisions outside of areas that are already served by water and sewer so it becomes very restrictive if you don't do this and I will say in general this law tends to be more restrictive than what we do in Vermont and I'm not sure BPA would recommend that but we can talk about a little bit more as we go on in terms of allowing development in terms of act 250 we generally allow it with conditions in the Maryland role they actually you're allowed a certain amount of subdivision and then no more so it's essentially sets a cap especially in rural areas on how much subdivision can occur which we don't do right now so again it sets up what they call tiers they're basically four different areas that are they they require counties and local areas to map tier one is the area that's currently served by water and sewer so those areas are pretty easily defined by existing water and sewer areas tier two are areas that have been planned for growth basically have been planned for areas that where water and sewers plan to occur so expanded water and sewer areas that's something we don't really have in Vermont in terms of act 250 at least we don't have that kind of designation here three is basically what I would say most of Vermont falls in it's the rural areas served by onsite systems again there's no public water and sewer it's just onsite areas and then tier four is something they had a lot of discussion about as they were going through this process it's rural areas that right now may be served by onsite septic systems but also include a lot of areas of critical value so tier four is basically what I would call their conservation lands they include large blocks of ag and farm and forest land and also other resource lands that are considered significant so that's the general scheme of things those are the areas that communities the counties and communities required required under this law to map if they wanted to participate the law also defined residential subdivisions and actually I was surprised because this is very similar to what we do in Vermont in terms of how we define these things so minor subdivision uh can't exceed under the law seven new lots plots or building sites the default if you decide not to go through this process they define minor as less than five lots that's very consistent with how a lot of Vermont communities define minor subdivisions who regulate subdivision it's also somewhat consistent with act 250 in terms of our one acre 10 acre town I don't know if you've gotten into that yet but um as you know if you're uh if you don't have zoning and subdivision regulations the threshold for review is six lots versus 10 lots so again it falls within that range of minor subdivision major subdivisions then are anything that are bigger than that so anything that's you know more than five lots by default and again that's what's limited under the new the new rules the the ability to regulate major or allow for and regulate major subdivisions in tier four those and I should have put this on another slide but in those conservation areas basically the bottom line is no new big subdivisions so any subdivision in there would be typically five lots or less and again that's to minimize fragmentation of those resources there is an exception in the law if you have zoning or subdivision regulations within those areas that allow for a density of only one unit per 20 acres then they will give you an exception and allow for major subdivisions but that means that you know again if you have 100 acres you're allowed five five building sites and there are other restrictions around that that they need to be clustered so that they can't fragment um generally those areas are not supposed to go through anything but minor subdivision representative Smith yeah just uh you know and we're talking about conserving or preserving uh ag land open land space it seems all breaking up 100 acres and to fight lots in order to circumvent the system is kind of counterproductive it is and that's why in this you know we'll get get into a little more probably with too much detail and let me know if it is but uh you're right so where that is allowed again it can that's the the density that's allowed it has to be clustered too there's other things that okay so they would cut clusters on maybe a 20 acre parcel or even less even less yeah okay and then the rest of it would still remain open which is actually an approach a lot of communities in bramont take now um so then it becomes common land in essence common land where else it's maintained as a separate parcel that's lent or leased out or sold to a you know a lot of farmer or forester there's different ownership options for that but yeah it's maintained as a single unit um and again that's what the other critical part of this bill was how they define farm and forest land for map at least for mapping purposes so again this is all done at the county level with some guidance from the state these areas were mapped initially to include any areas that were planned or zoned for resource conservation areas they have other designations which is something we might consider in bramont at some point you I know you've been hearing about our village and downtown designations marillad also has rural legacy and ag area designations so areas that have already received those designations are automatically included in the in these areas of I think of interest to you might be the isolated areas of that are a hundred acres or more and this is initially defined by land cover so if you look on a satellite photo or land cover map and you see there's a hundred contiguous acres of farm and forest land initially you're supposed to include that in your tier four area too we've been talking about how to define things like forest blocks and that so again they went through a similar process so this is the initial mapping then after those areas are initially mapped there's a second step going back through all those maps to make sure they make sense and we'll see what the difference is between that initial mapping and how they finally come out representing the color as a question yes so the hundred acres are more contiguous combined farm forest and other natural do those need to be those acres need to be under single ownership or they're just contiguous parcels um farmer brown is 25 and the other guy has 70 yep again this was done through land cover so it's just looking at a picture and saying yep yep there's farm field here there's wood land here and again that was the initial cut uh but there was some second uh you know another level of review of that to look at things like ownership patterns and and stuff so it was basically a two-step process to define those areas and it's all done at the county level this mapping um for this yes because and here i'll push up this is the one that i didn't want to spend too much but this is kind of sums up everything that's in each tier and the first two tiers are largely at the municipal level again they're the places where there's the tier ones where there's water and sewer existing water and sewer service so those are areas that have already received a lot of public investment they're the areas that have the infrastructure to support higher density development so they're very much similar to what we've been talking about in terms of enhanced designation areas some of them not all of them but again they tied to water and sewer in vermont we haven't done that quite yet so they include again water basically they're water and sewer service areas um tier two are the areas that the either the county or the local community has planned for water and sewer expansion so they're areas that will be served with uh public infrastructure within say the next ten years you know there's a whole process that maryland has in place for for having counties and communities to find those areas again those are the areas that are supposed there to support new development at the same density that's happening in areas that are already built out or have water and sewer because they're supporting infrastructure for that so it's kind of like the core and then the donut around the core where the expansion is going to occur uh tier three again that's very similar to most of vermont rural areas served by onsite systems um in terms of designations actually a lot of our village designations because they don't have water and sewer would be included in tier three and that's very similar maryland they have rural villages also that are not served by water and sewer so they're in tier three um and those are areas that have been identified locally within rural areas for growth um but again supported by onsite systems shared community onsite systems not public infrastructure uh i will say that in early days of act 250 and we can talk about this a little those areas were called rural growth areas and there used to be a criteria specific to them under criterion nine um which we amended a while ago to deal more with existing settlements and our designated areas but originally act 250 was mapped and designed to deal with rural growth areas which is basically that tier three stuff and then tier four again are the conservation areas so if you go through in terms of what that means in tier one minor subdivisions and major subdivisions are allowed because they have the ability to hook into infrastructure so there's no real review it's the least restrictive in terms of this law um a local communities can still regulate that stuff but it's done locally it's just assume that they have the capacity support new development so again that's kind of what you're talking about with enhanced designations areas that have been clearly shown to be able to support development um again vermont we don't have tier two but under tier two you you can allow for larger subdivisions but only if they're actually hooked on to sewer uh you can allow for minor subdivisions smaller subdivisions on an interim basis um if they're supported by onsite systems with the assumption that at some point they're going to get hooked into a public water sewer system and again the intent is that those areas have to be developed at the same or greater density than the current areas designated for development um tier three used question um so for for smaller communities today that are using more decentralized wastewater which are somewhat of an indirect system right larger leach field based onsite system would that fall under your tier three tier three yeah anything that's soil based would be under tier three why I shouldn't say anything that's not a public sewer system is under tier three so that includes individual onsite um shared onsite and community onsite similar to yeah community systems um and then tier four and and I will say two in maryland they actually allow for and plan for large large lot rural development which we try to avoid in vermont but again tier three doesn't include those conservation areas that are they view as critical so if you're out of a conservation area and you want a 20 acre parcel well you know it's okay an onsite in those but the one thing about tier three is that again you can have a minor subdivision uh say five or seven lots then there's no more subdivision of that land no more subdivision of the retained parcel or the lots so it's basically fixed in time at the point and that's something that we don't do in vermont um and you can also towns do uh they do you can put limits on subdivision especially if you have conserved open space attached to it well we're in like a case of the clustering yeah yeah i know middlebury's rural ag area it's basically 10 acre zoning clustered and cap right but it often that applies to the it's not necessarily the retaining parcel too um but you're right there are there are limits in some some areas um so and then you can allow major subdivisions you know anything over five acres are allowed there on but they require full review not just on water and sewer but environmental impacts and septic so it becomes more similar to what you do now under act 250 it's not just a septic review at that point it's if you're in tier three and you're more than five lots then you go through a full review which is very similar to what we do today so i would say in terms of parallels much of what we do falls under act two three or tier three and tier four is the one that we're all talking about within committee and out of committee uh how do we define that we know how do we regulate it um and again in maryland uh you're allowed to do minor subdivisions but again no further subdivision once you do your five lots that's it um you're not allowed to do major subdivisions unless you've gone through that exception process by defining regulations again and only allow one unit for 20 acres or even less than that but there is an exception there for some of the towns that do pretty restrictive subdivisions so and again i've already talked about this a bit but the the big difference is the the limits on re subdivisions of the land and this applies again to things that are on on site systems not to subdivisions on served by water and sewer so the process for doing all this you know the state defines those definitions we talked about it defines some of the parameters and it defines even some guidance in their statute and i'm happy to forward a copy of the statutes themselves if you're interested or legislative council's interested um but a lot of the guidance kit comes from the state level uh they have a the maryland planning department was responsible for rolling out this program with communities and providing the guidance needed to actually implement it but again the mapping itself was done at the county and the local level so and at the local level it's mainly dealing with those tier one tier two you know the areas that were served by water and sewer and the areas that are planted water and sewer most of those within in maryland are within incorporated municipalities and then the three and four very much were done at the county level at the regional level in terms of defining rural areas and these these conservation areas you say most of the mapping is done at the local and regional levels and is that reviewed by the state or yeah that's what can they know can they know why can i say no that doesn't work well it's interesting yes the guidance comes top down from the state and says these are the parameters here's all the information you need but it's done at the local level the counties and the municipalities then send their their maps to the state for review the planning department gets to comment on them and if state planning the state planning department and if there are sufficient comments at that point they don't deny it but they say you have to have a public hearing on it it's really interesting that this all this process can happen without any public input which is not something i necessarily support either but but um at that point if if the state has serious concerns about it then they say you go have a public hearing on this but at that point it's still up to the locality to adopt it the decision the final decision rests with the locality yes again it's technically a voluntary program so if you and you adopt your maps then they're recognized locally i know that you know as it's rolled out there have been some issues with that with a couple of counties that the the disparities are so great that there's concern that they're they're not meeting the intent of the law and therefore there needs to be some ability to enforce this but for now it is adopted locally and then it's just recognized at the state level where there is a dispute you know a say between a municipality county or local and regional level um the planning department does mediate that and if they can't resolve it it becomes a decision of the department of environment there because again it's tied to their septic regulations so they were appealed to court uh not that i'm aware of but again i i i don't know okay earlier i i thought i heard you say that um it is voluntary by the towns slash counties but that if they did not meet the tier standards um then then they were they were subject to statewide regulations that were more stringent did i hear that no no i mean the state will still regulate septic systems too that those are regulated separately what what it means is you can't approve any major subdivisions so if if you decide not to participate in this program at the county level the only subdivisions you can approve are five lots are less or less than five lots so it basically limits your ability to allow for development right okay that that that's that's a finer point i'm glad i checked back yeah the other thing is of course you're aware we have conservation design mapping and and that is a statewide plan already matt already right what's the and but the maryland plan is flipped so i'm wondering about actually it's it's flipped to a point you know and it will go what maryland did again they provided the statutes the parameters and guidance part of that guidance was something very similar to what we have a web based mapping platform okay so they had similar maps again based more on land cover our forest blocks are defined you know in other ways too but they did have a map all these map data layers and you could default to those you could just go on to the state's platform pull up those those data layers and adopt them as your map right um so yeah so they had done some mapping too in support of this process good so can you so i just want to hear that one thought again because sure importantly you could use their mapping you could default to their mapping right and it's my understanding too that some municipalities defaulted to the county or the regional level maps too you know again this is very similar to what we set up for enhanced energy planning for plans and things that go through the public service board or i'm sorry i'm still back in the old days public utilities commission so we have enhanced energy planning where we have regions and towns do this kind of mapping and then it gives them more weight in the the 248 process yeah so so Sharon that the the thought that the chair um discovered um from you is that the towns could by could accept those maps by the fall or just say we're accepting them and so i'm taking that one additional step we have all these maps now with the multiple layers um and we could um i'm going to pause it we could they are totally available to the towns the towns adopt those maps or not and if they don't then it goes back to okay you didn't adopt it you wanted to change it this way in that way and then there's then there's some back and forth which is kind of backwards from the way it's done in Maryland um and and how does that that idea well i know like within again enhanced energy planning those maps are prepared and then they're reviewed and approved at the regional level okay along with the municipal plan approval so it could be a process it's similar to that there's also again the option for in that process i think for communities to accept the regional plan as their plan so again it could be a very similar process to that thank you but this is what i thought was kind of interesting and as a planner especially uh University of Maryland again this has been on the books now for six years most of the counties that filed their maps and are in effect but what this shows is what came out of the state's database using their data layers and again the big difference in here is tier three and tier four so tier three is again the rural areas where developments allowed on onsite tier four is where you don't want to limit you want to limit development and not allow it so when you use the state maps mapping platform this is what you came up with and again this was based largely on land cover so the tier four area the green is much more extensive for Frederick County uh based just on land cover information when the county actually went through and processed that information um usually again you know the first step is this initial color and then you go back and say okay what are the ownership patterns what's happening on the ground there you know we're going to have more input this is what they came up with and I expect something very similar would happen in Vermont that most of this green turned yellow and that's the tier three area where development is allowed again very limited development minor subdivisions major subdivisions with full review similar to our full act 250 review now but it does show that in terms of the mapping there is a difference as it goes through that process it also shows a lot more tier two on the state's map which is interesting yeah it shows more proposed in a core uh and much less outlining it right and I think these are because this is again much more detail until where these areas are actually planning to extend their water and sewer systems so that we know and we don't know the level of accuracy or filter that the state used to create their map well again my understanding is that the the initial were those elements that I listed the hundred acre land cover the existing uh but the units that that's done that matters right so how coarse this is how coarse yeah I mean I'm sure it's some very similar what we use in Vermont or at least for the land cover data so that factors into this too representative Dolan my um I guess my reaction to this is that the statewide level they're viewing certain land uses as a tier four land use where you're trying to preserve the land agricultural working landscape kind of values but when you bring that kind of planning down to a regional level here in the in this case Maryland with county government that they from my reaction maybe you could correct that the reaction is there's less interest in a working landscape but more um a um almost an easing of um any kind of restrictions on that and on that front in order to allow for more land to qualify under a tier three development pattern well one thing I'm I don't know is what the current regulations are what what this does say that and you're right it definitely shifts a lot of land out of tier four into tier three which would essentially say yeah it's okay to develop here but again in Maryland's case that development means you've got to go through a full review again similar to what we do under act 250 um you can't just approve a subdivision flat you've got to look at all the environmental impacts of those areas so it may have actually and again there's also in tier three still limits on further subdivision so which we don't have so it still does restrict the spread of residential development in those areas but you're right it's definitely a different um scheme and I and again it's partly you're right I'm sure partly it's political but it's also again reflects a more detailed look at those areas than you have at the state level and for your county is a booming yeah and is it their is it their growth biggest area it's one of the Montgomery County Montgomery is yeah and then I was kind of hoping they'd have Montgomery County but yeah but I think it's in between kind of yeah and actually I don't know Brian's from down there you might have a better sense this is within the DC yeah yeah so again the development pressures are down there are much greater than they are here too I have one question in the difference between the two original folks would they be more interested in economic development again it's always a balancing act it did really in again that partly it reflects local and regional planning and zoning in areas that are underserved they probably do want more development in areas that are experiencing too much growth in development they probably appreciate the fact that they can limit it more so it's always a balancing act and that's really part of the difference I think between those two maps is you know what are the local goals and objectives for growth and development and for later conservation so again some quick comparisons Maryland's is based in terms of their location base is all on water and sewer you know in Vermont we look more at whether towns have adopted zoning supervision regulations so one's of the structure base the other's more policy based Maryland has designated areas just like we do but they do it both for where they want development to occur again what we're talking about in terms of enhanced designations for village downtowns and villages but they also have designations for their rural areas that we don't have the other thing Maryland is requiring mapping and that's one thing that we've been missing for a long time in terms of location based jurisdictions again and when Act 250 was originally adopted there were maps attached to it there were county level maps capability and development maps that we we've have recommended to you to consider bringing back that would include both mapping critical areas like forest land as well as areas that are designated for development like our existing and land settlements in terms of the jurisdiction it's actually somewhat similar again at Maryland most of this is happening at the county level so it's very similar to happening at the Act 250 level I will say that Act 250 is a more comprehensive review Maryland's just getting into that now although again some of their counties have pretty extensive subdivision and zoning regulations and again there there are more limitations on subdivision than we have it's statute anyway and for Act 250 than what exists in Vermont and so just some takeaways in terms of location based jurisdiction the intents are very same very similar to what they did in terms of what we're trying to do tier ones where they want to promote development tier one and two so in a sense that's parallel to our designations and our existing settlements tier three is where you allow subdivision and development but with a higher level of review again we sort of do that now but that could be even clarified more and then the difference would be tier four where we're talking about even more restrictive jurisdiction or limits on development which we haven't quite gotten to yet but we're talking about and so and that could either be through jurisdiction whether Act 250 applies or not or it could be if Act 250 applies these are the things we need to take into consideration so there's there's options there too the guidance is basically top down but we would encourage you to consider this that the mapping and implementation should still be bottom up especially if you want local communities and regions to buy into the process so we would support something like what's being done for enhanced energy planning to have that mapping occur with some state guidance at the municipal and regional level and then have some kind of sign off as you mentioned at the state level to make sure it's meeting the state's criteria can you explain how if the capability and development plan maps then would interact if you think mapping should come from the bottom up but we have capability development plan maps where do they meet and how do they in your mind when you recommend both those things how does that look yeah I think the capability development plan maps could be these maps the Maryland's you know a version of this and maybe different things and if so again it would be the state guidance that this is what we want to see on those maps and then that would be up to the local and regional folks to define those so they would be doing the capability development plan mapping that's an option yeah I mean at least there should be some level of local and regional review of those maps and I think that was even the intent in Act 250 that there was a public review process for those maps but you know and again I think being planners we really recognize and would emphasize the importance of having maps to be able to to especially in Act 250 under criterion 9 which where those old maps were applied so things like existing settlements for old growth areas it's really hard to interpret that if you're just looking at words on a page it's much easier to see where that is if you have a map in front of you so we would ask that you bring those back into the process somehow and there are different options for that Representative Smith yeah don't we have a combination of local and state mapping overlays in our process today well we've got regional and municipal plans and those maps we hope are considered under there's a separate criterion 10 conformance with the local and regional plan in the past those maps have not always been reviewed it's gotten more down to what's the policy say in the plan versus what does the map show you by the district commission yeah and then in terms of criterion 9 if you look at the language it says that a project has to conform to the capability and development plan which in effect no longer exists but could again and that's what we're asking you to reconsider bringing back so that those criteria under 9 can be have a spatial context so could our regional planning maps then just be kind of lined up then with that so they could still come from our regional commissions but you'd have them defining those areas okay well again that's what they did in in Maryland you saw the result I but I do think that you know again the guidance should come from the state so we have suggested that the state map critical state interests for consideration at the local and regional level so if it you know I'm there I will admit there's some concern over the forest blocks how they're currently mapped in my town Bolton the entire town is within and a forest block so if that actually triggered act 250 jurisdiction for any development that means anything in Bolton's going to have to go through act 250 review if it triggered if it's an act 250 project in Bolton then you've got to deal with forest resources I think that's a different discussion so partly it's what are you going to use those maps for but certainly in order for us to be all on the same page it would be very helpful for the state to map what you consider what the state considers our critical resources and that could be existing settlements water sewer areas you know forest blocks interchanged areas I think are identified on the list and again at least as an initial cut for the state to do it and then have that reviewed at the local and regional level it may be even ability to modify it some depending on local circumstances when you talk about the state maps I'm getting a concept of these are the broader maps kind of a more of an outline or a grand design and then when it comes down to either regional local level then they are refined by detail of what basically they find is more appropriate to their own given situation right again I would go back to the energy planning the the states identified what are called known and anticipated constraints you know and Charlie's here probably oh Charlie's leaving but he can probably tell you how that works at the regional level because you know we've all been going through that so the states again define some some resources and parameters at the state level that are incorporated in those maps then there's the option for communities and the region to also define both constraint areas where development shouldn't occur but also where they prefer solar and wind projects to go so there's also you know it's a balance of we don't want it here but we want it there well in that situation the state still has final approval they do in act 250 act 250 would still have final approval over projects that go through act 250 can you speak a little bit to I think your town has gotten ahead of or is working on compliance with mapping force blocks not your town when you're familiar with it is well actually my town and I as a planning consultant I wrote the regulations for my town and then when I wrote them they made me the chair of the drb said you did this you gotta own it but we do have regulations because boltons 96 for us a lot of it's undevelopable a lot of it as you know is very steep but we do we have had quite at most of our projects trigger our subdivisions trigger our forest standards and so basically our subdivision regulations are set up to require clustering and both require clustering on larger forest parcels we we require that the retained parcels for forestry are large enough to qualify for current use or I don't know we try to require it we strongly suggest it and most most applicants are fine with that because they want to benefit from the current use program and that's 25 acres of work yeah and that's our minimum lot size in those areas and then we also require that they retain access to upland parcels so if you have an upland parcel and you subdivide for residential development down below there's got it we maintain logging access up so that for forestry not for forestry right and and you know and we we spent I will say quite a bit of earring time negotiating between residential and the A. Johnson company owns a lot of upland area in Bolton and they're in there protecting their rights under the regs and so far I think it's benefited both the people because they know you know we we don't want a logging road right up our driveway but we know what's going to happen in the area so yeah we've spent quite a bit of time on the on that specific issue dealing with forest land and I think there's ways to incorporate that again I don't know if they have to be an act 250 in the standards but certainly in the guidance that's provided with act 250 in the mapping there are ways to address those things so those forest roads you mentioned were they uh deeded roads right away a lot of them are well I don't know if you've read the old deeds basically well deed but that you know right away they have to have some there they don't define one of the things we've been trying to do is the deed will just say that you have rights to access the land for forestry it doesn't say where the easement is so when things come back through for subdivision we actually say okay where's the forest road going you know and you gotta show that on the plat too so that everybody knows where it is because yeah the old deeds basically just grant a general access over the property to get to the forest want to ask something related more towards Bolton in the being in the steep terrain what we discovered in our region is the impacts of private roads and driveways on municipal roads delivering water yeah blowing up our ditches does Bolton or have you seen any experience where municipalities or even on the county level have been able to provide the right bylaw or guidance to be able to avoid those impacts to municipalities especially our rural landscape when we're seeing that kind of fragmentation or development we're seeing the impacts of that actually creating costs on municipalities and it's it's really tough to do but in Bolton we prohibit all development including roads and driveways on any slope that's over 25 we require we actually allow for a maximum grade on our driveways of 15 which is five percent over what the national standard is and we do that but we require a huge amount of ditching and still my ditching and stuff the only time we've been in court on our regulations is over our steep slope provisions and that was not a road or a driveway that was a four by four trail that we denied because they wanted to run basically we have a off-road driving school they run land rovers and stuff all over the ski area and they wanted to put in some trails that were over 25 percent because land rovers can apparently handle that um and we denied them and we said no you know because of water quality and erosion we don't want these up there and it went to court well i would say it was it was negotiated out of settled out of court and i would say that we lost because they're loud yeah and it came up again in act 250 act 250 didn't really have good standards for regulating that kind of development you know in steep areas so act 250 imposed all kinds of monitoring requirements but they couldn't deny it based on the fact that it was over 25 percent they just said you have to do all this erosion stuff and you have to monitor the water quality down below so that's a tough one thank you that's really helpful good well yeah if we can give help we're available so thanks