 Good morning and welcome to Legislature's Committee on Environment and Energy. This morning we have with us Billy Koster from the Agency of Natural Resources. Welcome Mr. Koster. Good morning. Thanks for having me. The record I'm Billy Koster. I'm the Director of Planning for the Agency of Natural Resources. I believe you've asked me to come in to speak to Green Mound Power's proposal to seek a time-bound exemption for certain resilience projects for activity. I thought I would just give a little bit of background on Ann Ar's role in the Act of Fifty process since the proposal. So one of my responsibilities as the Plan Director for the Agency is to manage the agency's participation in Act 250. We are not the decision-maker in the Act of Fifty process. Act 250 is administered by the Natural Resources Board and Act of Fifty permits are issued by regional district commissions. Ann Ar is a party in that process. We appear like the applicant or others or other folks who have a vested interest in the project. We provide evidence and recommendations to district commissions on how we believe they should find on the environment. We do that in two primary ways. One is through the issuance of permits primarily through our Department of Environmental Conservation. And many of those permits can be used as rebuttable presumptions to prove compliance with Act of Fifty's criteria. So in many cases, if someone obtains a Wellands permit or a stormwater permit from our agency, they can use that in Act of Fifty to show they met that criteria. The other main way that we participate is in providing substantive testimony under criteria that don't have other permits, that Act of Fifty is really the only place that provides statewide regulatory oversight. And those areas are primarily focused on fish and wildlife habitat and flood ways issues. So necessary wildlife habitat, rare and irreplaceable natural communities, floodways and river corridors and riparian protection under the stream's criteria. So these are resources that generally do not have other state permits associated with them and that we and others rely on Act of Fifty right now. Can you say those three, those again, the phrase with the permits? Criteria 8 and 8A, which usually are necessary for wildlife habitat and rare and irreplaceable natural communities. And then criteria 1E, which is the stream's criteria, where we look at protecting riparian areas to maintain the natural condition of the stream. And then criteria 1F, which is the floodways criteria, which is which addresses floodplain and river corridor. Thank you. And then actually, since I'm just interrupting, can you tell us a rebuttable presumption? What does that mean? So there is this. So I'm not a lawyer, but I'll do my best here. I think that the basic construct is that if you obtain one of these permits, there is a reasonable expectation that you've met the Act of Fifty criteria. And then the burden is on other parties to rebut that assumption and and say that you have it. So if I'm a developer and I get a Welles permit, I go into Act of Fifty and say this permit proves or basically means I met my bird and under Act of Fifty and someone else has to prove otherwise and otherwise that permit carries the day. Thank you. Sure. Senator Smith, thank you. So if there is a butter that wants to argue that they can pursue the issue. I typically yes. They need to first have party status before the district commission and then they can bring evidence why the permit is not sufficient to address the criteria. Thank you. And then so we we we engage around Act of Fifty through those two main ways. We participate in hearings for major projects and provide written comments for minor projects. My office receives all Act of Fifty major minor permits from the N.R.B. And we circulate that to over 100 technical staff in all three of our departments. And then we coordinate their review of that work. We take their comments and suggest a permit conditions. And then we synthesize those into a single position representing the agency and share that with Act of Fifty and the applicant. We also do a tremendous amount of work before the form of the process even starts. We provide guidance and technical assistance and issues scoping for applicants if they're interested. If you're interested in doing a major development that you know will require an Act of Fifty permit, you're invited to come and meet with my team and others to talk through your proposal. We'll try to help identify what resources are present at the site, what potential impacts the project may pose and ways to resolve those with the goal that by the time you file your Act of Fifty application, all environmental issues from our perspective are resolved. We're not always successful in that, but that is something we strive for because it's it's a best practice to try to do that work in advance. So we really appreciate the value in Act of Fifty that it has for volunteers for now to resource protection, especially around those criteria that are satisfied by other permits. We also appreciate turning to the Green Mountain Powers proposal, the real need and value in resilience projects. You know, we've known for decades now that the climate is changing in ways that may get more severe, put these overground resources at risk, especially in cross country locations. We know that as we rely more recently on electricity to heat our homes and power our appliances and cars, that electricity is more and more of an essential service. So we're certainly appreciative and sympathetic to the need to move these projects forward. As I think you heard from the Natural Resources Board last week, you know, we have talked with them, we've talked with GMP. We do believe there are some real options within the existing legal framework to expedite these projects. There's opportunities to address individual landowners who may not be willing to sign off on Act of Fifty applications to still move those projects forward in a phased way or potentially waive those requirements. And I know the energy spoke to that. I encourage you to speak with them more if you've got questions there. And we do believe that Act of Fifty review adds value to these projects, to distribution line projects. I did look back at a number of recent Act of Fifty cases involving Green Mountain Power distribution lines that took, you know, a longer period of time in those cases. The environmental issues were fairly minimal. You know, it didn't seem like our work in the Act of Fifty process was contributing greatly to the delay. I know that likely there was a lot of work done by Green Mountain Power with our folks in advance of following their applications that positioned them well to not have a lot of environmental issues in that process. But, you know, we still see that there's value there. You know, we also acknowledge that the NRB is undertaking a study right now that's going to deliver back to the legislature at the start of the next session, what I hope to be a comprehensive set of recommendations to modernize Act of Fifty looking at jurisdiction criteria and this sort of update to, you know, better align Act of Fifty review distribution line projects with the need and the reality seems, you know, perfect subject matter for that work. And I do appreciate Green Mountain Power's inclusion of that specific point in their proposal. So, you know, Summarize Act of Fifty has value for natural resource protection for these projects. Many of them are running through River Valley River Valleys along roadways where we do have a potential floodway and the quarter issues, potential natural. So we would, you know, rather that we work collectively to find solutions under the existing system and our agency can certainly commit resources to expedite that review, to scope an issue spot and do everything that we can to help these projects be successful to move forward to the next. That said, you know, I appreciate that the committee may be interested in this proposal. And if you do choose to move forward with a time bound exemption for certain resilience projects, we would strongly recommend that that exemption sunset on January 1st, 2025, not 27, which is currently proposed and recommend that for a few reasons. First, that provides two full construction seasons under the exemption to complete highest priority projects. Second, it provides two year window to initiate permitting for projects that would commence beyond 2025. So that seems like a fairly good amount of time for Green Mountain Power and other utilities to initiate and permitting for projects in those out years. Third, that timeline seems aligned with the NRB study that if they were deliver recommendations to in the 2024 session, hopefully those recommendations would find their way into law by 2025. And if there was regulatory relief in those recommendations, Green Mountain Power would benefit from them in that post-25 construction season. And lastly, you know, if none of that works out and folks are still in the same bind in January 2025, you know, Green Mountain Power and other utilities can certainly come back to this body and ask for that sunset to be extended another year or two, if that's necessary. So that is, you know, generally our take on this. I would certainly be open to hearing more from utilities about why the 25 sunset is not acceptable. It does seem, from what I've heard so far, that given the flexibility in the existing system and those two full construction seasons, that that should provide pretty meaningful relief to move these projects forward. Certainly if there's more information to consider that, I think that happens. Sure. Thanks for your testimony. I'm curious if you're aware that if GMP is taking advantage of the existing opportunities within Act 250 rules to do permitting for any of these projects. I know they're in the room. No, I'll ask them that question, too. I just, they just came to my mind. As far as obtaining a landowner sign-off on applications, I don't know, that's part of the process we don't simply get involved with. I know that they have certainly engaged us in pre-file scoping for some of their larger generation and transmission projects. We've done some of that work on the distribution side. So I think, you know, we have a reasonably good, you know, we have a good relationship with GMP's technical staff. I think there is open lines of communication. So they have done some of that pre-file work with us in the past. Can you offer any comments on how the areas that ANR doesn't have a permit in that you, that I had you restate earlier, how would they be addressed if we kind of give them this reprieve for two years or four years? There of work. You know, I don't, I don't know, to be honest, you know, I think we have, for riparing area protections, we have guidance that we use in Act 250 that generally, you know, in the first interest instance, tries to direct development to maintain a 50-foot or 100-foot no-touch buffer from the top of bank or top of slope of streams and rivers. And, you know, there's some technical analysis and that guidance that dictates which of those standards is applicable. So that's the starting point for us, but we appreciate that, you know, River Valley development is often constrained and those default setbacks are not always possible. So we use the Act 250 process to kind of negotiate a reasonable outcome there. So without that process, I, you know, I don't know exactly how those issues would be managed. So yeah, we don't have, we don't participate in the review of those issues outside of Act 250. So without that framework, I don't know exactly how they would be addressed. And a little outside the scope of what we invited you in for, but I think you'll know the answer is, how are these areas treated in the designation areas? Because, you know, we're in S 100 and a lot of it's hinging on designated areas. So typically Act 250 jurisdiction is tied to whether a town has adopted zoning and subdivision bylaws. And in towns that have adopted those bylaws, they're called 10 acre towns. And Act 250 is not triggered if there's commercial development on parcels that are less than 10 acres or constitute 10 acres of development depending on the type of development. And towns, excuse me, in towns that haven't adopted zoning, it's one acre is a threshold. So it triggers a lot more in those communities. Towns that have designated, state designated growth areas have adopted zoning and subdivision bylaws. So the jurisdictional trigger is that 10 acres, which doesn't sound like it's been much of an issue for utilities to navigate. Most of their projects are under that trigger. So Act 250 would be applicable. Okay, I guess I was wondering about the wildlife and record or reviews separate from the GMP question, how they get in those areas, how are they done? Right, so the state designation process does require a certain level of bylaws, subdivision and zoning bylaws in those municipalities that are at a standard that is higher than kind of what the fall is required in other communities. So there's already some level of municipal land use regulation is typically more robust in other places. Those areas are also areas that are often fairly well developed and have less opportunity for significant natural resources than rural parts of the state. So I think that for those reasons, there's generally less risk for significant natural resource impacts. And they're just areas where the state has identified growth. I think that is one way to address these issues is you're saying this is a place where we wanna see growth. I know that the neighborhood development area designation does require exclusion or at least, there may have been some changes last year, but significant natural resources need to be addressed. So the neighborhood development area designation. So that is probably the newest and most robust designation and that does have some fairly clear standard regarding how these issues are addressed. Thanks. Representative Sebelia, thank you for your testimony. I have a couple of questions. The first, I guess is on Act 250 and the criteria themselves and which of the criteria address, I believe Act 250 helps us understand land use, which of the criteria help us understand kind of life safety issues related to land use. So for instance, people's medical equipment being able to be used reliably or folks being able to call for help reliably, which one of the criteria addresses that? We work primarily in the environmental criteria, so I'm not as familiar with the ones outside of that. So to be honest, I don't know that I could answer that. I know there's a municipal services criteria so that it may nest under that one, but the NRB would be in the best position to answer that. I'm sorry. Thank you. I agree with you. I don't think there is one. And so aside from this issue, which hopefully we will resolve with a waiver till 2027, perhaps this is something we should look at, like we have looked at, for instance, for cell siding and other items which we have deemed critical infrastructure, some sort of expedited process. We talk about identified growth areas. Of course, rural towns where people have existing homes are not necessarily growth areas. They haven't been identified as growth areas. Do you think that those folks should be able to rely on their lights staying on, Mr. Costa? Certainly. I live in a rural area. I have a rural utility provider. My part goes off from time to time. And yeah, absolutely. I think anyone in Vermont should have reliable service. And do you understand that the situation is getting more extreme? I know that you do with climate change and what we're seeing in terms of the storms and in terms of the adages. We've seen that throughout the state this year. Would you contest that? No, I think we've collectively known for some time that the results of climate change in Vermont are gonna be these more severe weather events, these marginal, heavy wet snows, high wind events, high rain events. So I don't think this is a surprise to any of us. I think TNP's resilience effort which they launched a number of years ago was reflective of that. So absolutely agree. And I think we're committed to working through the NRB process to look at these sorts of projects in that light and support durable long-term changes to the active 50 process to recognize that. Do you think that one Vermonter should be able to keep the liability, the lights coming on, keep that from hundreds of other Vermonters which is what we're seeing happen here? That's not really for me to say. Okay. So I really appreciate you taking a few moments to speak with me before the meeting this morning. We talked about the other issue here, looking at rural infrastructure and of course the other urgent crisis we have which is making sure that rural Vermonters are able to call for help. And we've spent a lot of time thinking about that. We have a lot of money that's invested in that. These are critical partners that communications union districts working with our electric utilities. This is also tied into that project. And so you and I spoke about how going to 25, a waiver to 25 does not necessarily help that additional issue here and that the need to go to 27 could help us with that issue while we, let's cross our fingers, see comprehensive active 50 reform next year. Suggested perhaps a list would be helpful in the agency thinking about whether or not a 27 waiver might be appropriate. Is that something that we can provide for you? I'm in the next couple of days. Are the critical rural infrastructure projects that we're seeing with our utilities and our CUDs? Would that be helpful in thinking about 2027? Yeah, I think based on the problem statement as I currently understand it, it seems that the 2025 sunset is appropriate for the reasons I articulated. If there's new information or data beyond that that has been shared with our agency, I'm happy to look at it. And if that changes that calculus, then it does. I just have not seen a clear articulation for why a four year exemption for these projects is necessary for the reasons I articulate. Thank you. Do other members have questions? You're like, I do, but I can't think of them right now. Thank you for joining us and for your testimony. If you come back, if you recall or feel free to contact me directly. Thank you. Thank you. Our witness is Candice Morgan from JMP. Welcome back. Thank you. If it's okay with the committee, I was also going to have my colleague, Mike Burke, join me if the people as well. Thank you. For the record, Candice Morgan with Green Mountain Power. Mike Burke also with Green Mountain Power. And so I just wanted to thank the committee for the opportunity to come back and speak with you all again as a follow up to our testimony from last week. I think it was about the need that we're seeing, especially in some of our more rural territories in our service territory, in terms of the projects that we need to execute on to provide an improved reliability and resiliency in those areas. I don't have any slides really for today's testimony, but happy to kind of respond a little bit to some of the testimony that you've since received and also just sort of answer questions is how I was planning to address the committee this morning. So I think I want to start out by expressing appreciation both to the Agency of Natural Resources and the Natural Resources Board for their willingness to collaborate and continue collaboration on these projects as well as understand and appreciate the urgency that we're trying to move within. And so they've come to the table to collaborate with us and continue to work with us, which has been true even leading up to these conversations, but especially true more recently. I think in terms of some of the alternatives that have been recommended or pointed out to us within the current framework of Act 250, for us it comes down to predictability and consistency. And I think a lot of those solutions still leave a little bit up in the air in terms of what the outcome could be. It's a little bit district by district and there's also just some decisions that still have to be made before the projects could begin. And the other thing that comes back to me is also consistency across different towns, right? And you heard Billy speak to the 10 acre versus one acre. And as he mentioned, for us, we very, very infrequently trigger Act 250 review in a 10 acre town, just given the linear length that we're working within and sort of how that shows up for us. And so Act 250 is not triggered in those towns. It's really in these smaller, more rural towns that are one acre towns where we run into this too. And so that's, I think for us, one of the things that we're struggling with is that we're not seeing the concerns play out in those 10 acre towns under these types of projects. And so that's the same work that we're planning to do in these one acre towns. So we have the benefit of sort of proving, I think the framework about what we're gonna even do in these types of projects, as well as how we've shown up in the 10 acre towns already. And so this would really bring consistency across all of our service territory and what we're able to do in the same type of timelines there. I'll turn it over to Mike to see if you wanted to add anything and then I'd be happy to answer any questions as well. Yeah, what I would say is when Candace says that we build them the same way, we actually have a team at GMP that looks at all the criteria that Mr. Koster spoke to earlier and we treat those in different towns the same way. In terms of the predictability and the options that were brought forward, we actually have looked at those and there are some issues with waivers that if you get a waiver and then you still have to change because the homeowner doesn't agree, then you have to go back and do an amended permit which adds more time. So really it's just none of the options that were on the table allow us to get these projects done in the timeframe that we need to get them done. I was in towns in again last night hearing from customers that are desperately literally begging us to do these projects. And just none of them would be done this year if even if we filed today. So just the timeframe is not sufficient for us to get these done at the time we need them done. So. Representative Smith. Thank you. Are these customers you're talking about businesses or residential or? Both. Last night was mainly probably one business customer and everyone else was residential. What do you feel the potential might be of these people moving out of state where regulations are quite astringent? What I did, I can't answer that. I didn't, one customer did say they had just moved here from California to get away from other climate change issues. And now they're seeing that wet snow is a pretty big issue here. So, but I couldn't answer the question in terms of. Fair enough. Representative Pat. Just trying to get more. I think you may have mentioned this when you were here previously, but in terms of could you describe my understanding of most other types of Act 250 projects is that they don't, one project does not cross as many town lines as a utility line would. And could you say a little bit more about the impact of that of having anyone? Thanks. Yeah, if you want to jump in. Yeah. The majority of projects, even the master plan, it's usually for a ski area or a larger development that's in one place. And we see that set up more for that. In our case, it's usually going from one town that's a one acre, another town that's a 10 acre, back to a town that's a one acre. And there's different criteria in different towns. And in the end, we're going to build it the same way. I don't know if that answers your question or if you would add anything. So, I mean, does that contribute to the time issue in terms of the process? Or I'm just trying to understand what the actual sort of on the ground effect is? Absolutely. Sorry, I misunderstood the question. So yes, in the 10 acre towns, if we are under the criteria there, we're able to follow all our practices, check all our maps, check with our environmental people. If there are any floodplain stream, any issues that were brought up earlier and then build it. In the other area, we go through, get all that done ahead of time and then present that other section to act 250. And then we wait for that process to happen, which could be anywhere from four to six to nine months after we get all the homeowners to agree to the projects. Which we're doing that in the 10 acre towns too. We always work with the landowners on, where they'd like to see the poles, things like that. But you're sometimes going from a 10 acre town to a one acre town to another one acre town to a 10 acre. Yeah. So kind of in follow up to that, I guess. Could you speak to, I mean, right now, maybe then there are these four areas that act 250 really does fill in gaps in other state permits. And if you're having to meet the standard for the one acre towns, and you're asking us for this exception, how will you meet that? I mean, I guess I have concerns about the necessary habitat, rare threat and danger or communities, natural communities, streams and floodways. So yeah, I'm happy to sort of have my initial answer and Mike can fill that in too. I think, so we have to bring all of those into consideration in our 10 acre towns too, even if we don't trigger act 250 in our projects in that space. So we're still working on that in that space. The other thing I would say is that we're talking about moving lines that are potentially moving through cross country corridors to roadside, right? And so working within existing rights of ways along on roadways. And so those are spaces that I think have, you know, their own requirements as well. So we'd be moving closer to already, you know, developed and built road structures. I don't know if there's any. Yeah, oftentimes when we come to that developed roadway and there's already a telephone line there, we're just joining them. So, but we still are required if there's wetlands, if there's any of those things in a 10 acre town, we're still required to get those permits. And we have a process within our mapping system and with our environmental people that we look for those in. I guess I'm looking for that gap space. Sure, there is no permit requirement. So if they're all treated, kind of as 10 acre towns. And I totally appreciate that you're mostly moving into roads and that's great. And that will minimize impacts. So with you on that, I'm just curious about that gap space. Absolutely. Or if you've thought about it and if there's a way to address it. Yeah, I'm happy to follow up with the committee in terms of what we see as the items that are met in both in terms of requirement or our best management practices for the different types of projects and also within one acre versus 10 acre towns. Cause I think that's also helpful to sort of see what is covered under all of these things regardless of activity as well being in the mix on that. So I'm happy to follow up with something that provides that kind of breakdown. Thank you. That would be helpful. Representative Spillian. Thanks. Thank you for your testimony. I'm not sure who this question is for. If you were a municipal utility, can you explain what the difference would be in, would you be sitting here now? Would you need to be asking us for this exemption? I would say we would likely would not be sitting here now asking for this. Our understanding of how the rules are constructed around municipal utilities is that they effectively are treated as 10 acre. They have to meet the 10 acre criteria regardless of any local zoning in the work and service territory that they are providing service to. So those projects that they do, I think typically don't meet the threshold to trigger Act 250. And so they're treated in that space in that way. Yeah. And certainly there are some municipal utilities out there that are just as rural as some of our rural areas. There's some in Southern Vermont as a matter of fact. But yeah, they're treated as the 10 acre towns whether they have a development review board or not. And so in addition to GMP, it's my understanding that the other two utilities that have different set of criteria than municipal are the two co-ops. Correct. And we're talking about landmass and largest number of rural customers. I believe that is, those are the three. And so in our municipal places where we want growth, this is easy in rural areas, it's hard. And we'll go back to the question. Sorry, now I'm off on a tangent. Life safety in Act 250. So thank you. Representative Tori. I'll just have probably a tangential question as well. So another important part of resilience is of course the vegetation management that you already do. I'm just curious as you do the other work that you're talking about doing, will you also be doing vegetation management at the same time because it's expeditious to do it together? Absolutely, that's a great question. Yes, whenever we rebuild a line, if there's vegetation there, we trim to make room for the lines, which we do the same thing when we rebuild it in place too. So yes. And that program's a year round program for all of our lines. All right, any further questions for... I'm happy to speak a little bit to the date too, if that's helpful. As proposed to the committee in follow-up to our testimony last week, we had a sunset of January 1 of 2027. The reason for our thinking on that was that it aligns up with our multi-year regulation plan that we currently are under from the PUC. And so that really encompasses these types of projects and sort of have been planned out in that space. I'm happy to talk about what the right landing point is for that, but that is the reason to tie it to that in addition to wanting to provide ample opportunity for larger conversations on Act 250 to play out as they're going to as well. But, and to Billy's point, we wanted to also add in a reference to sort of rebuilding and focusing on critical infrastructure as part of that overall study, just to make sure that both these conversations and all the other things that we have to talk about in Vermont related to infrastructure to support all of our residents is a part of that conversation as well. So we would be happy to be involved in that process too. All right. Thank you. All right, thank you. All right, next up we have Jim Porter with the Department of Public Service joining us via Zoom. Welcome, Mr. Porter. You can't hear you. We can't hear you. Mr. Porter, he's unmuted. Sean D'Jon. Yeah, if you can hear us, maybe you should try rejoining the meeting, Mr. Porter. It's like he left. He can hear us. He's gonna come back. Yeah, in the meeting, John is unmuted. Can you see him? I can see him. Oh, we can't even see him. We do last time. Even more brief potentially. Oh dear, did he submit his testimony in writing? Oh, Representative Stebbins. You're unmuted. Oh, now you're unmuted. Good morning. Morning. Good morning. Thanks for seeing my hand. I'm not sure if GMP is still in the room. I understand the rationale for why 2027 was the selected date, but I also heard Mr. Coster say that he wasn't certain. It sounded like there could be a preference from their end that it might be 2025. And I guess my question is, we just went through the 248A sunset discussion about six weeks ago. I wonder what GMP's thoughts are to keeping it through 2025. And then in 2025, the legislature would have another check back to assess whether or not it should go through 2027. They are still in the room and they just heard your question and I will ask them back. Well, hopefully Mr. Porter's technical difficulties get corrected. Thank you. Yep. Hi. Thank you for rejoining us. Absolutely. Candice Morgan, D. Mountain Power again. I appreciate the feedback on that from Representative Stebbins and also from the agency. I think we're open to talking about what the right length of time is and would certainly welcome that conversation within the committee or as needed. I just wanted to share that there was a sort of a rationale on our end for that date that we had put forward, right? So it wasn't necessarily just a slightly arbitrary date. It was really tied to our multi-year regulation plans. I just wanted to provide that context, but of course we're happy to consider whatever is most comfortable to the committee and others as well. Great. Okay, great. Thank you. All right, Mr. Porter, let's try again. Okay, can you hear me on the phone? We can, thank you. Perfect. Thank you. I'm Jim Porter. I'm the Director for Public Advocacy at the Department of Public Service. I would begin by saying that Act 250 is much more in A&R's wheelhouse. And so regarding any Act 250 questions, we would defer to A&R. That said, as you know, we're very supportive of projects that hasten better resiliency with our electric system. As you know, back around Christmas, we had two storms that resulted in some prolonged outages, largely in rural areas. And as a result of that and the number of consumer complaints that we heard about that, we requested and then the PUC has opened an investigation into best practices and whatnot for the utilities. And so I see this proposal by GMP as another way to get our system more resilient, which becomes more important as we more and more become reliant on the electric system. Well, one thing that Representative Sabilia mentioned earlier that I would just point out, during the storms, we had two issues. One was the outage themselves and two was communications. Some of the utilities had better than others in their call centers and ability to communicate with customers. The department during that period took kind of an unprecedented step in that we had our staff actually assisting one of the smaller utilities without reach to its customers who were, I think the utility just simply did not have the staffing to command the calls. Another thing, I'm a Green Mountain Power customer and I think when Representative Sabilia mentioned the communication piece of this as well, I access any outage information via an app on my telephone with GMP, which works absolutely great. So long as I have internet or cell service, I live in my pillar. So it's rare, if ever, that I don't, but in the rural areas, we know that's not the case. Regarding the timing of this, when this would sunset, all I can say is, and frankly, I'm more familiar with fell powers, development plans and buildouts that probably then I have GMPs. However, this year in section 248A, which is the permitting for cell facilities, it's sunset this year and there was discussion in this committee and others about whether it should be a one-year extension, a three-year extension, or remove the sunset altogether. We certainly supported in a minimum three-year extension just simply because the buildout plans of these companies they're done much more in advance than you might think. And so sometimes what appears to be a reasonable period when you're talking about building and planning, probably more time is beneficial. And with that, are there any questions I can answer? Members have questions for Mr. Porter. I'm not seeing any. Thank you for joining us and severing with the technology. Thank you. All right, members, any further comments on this topic? Representative Sebelia. Yes, Madam Chair. I am going to have some conversations with Mr. Costa on the utilities and others. I hope that we might consider this timeline a little bit bigger today. Maybe today or when you're ready, Madam Chair, when you're ready, we are considering. Absolutely, we're considering. Thank you. Right, members, with that, I think we'll just take a break till five minutes before the hour and then we're going to reconvene our meeting and start in with our legislative council on markup on S100. Welcome, Ellen. Good morning, Ellen Tchaikovsky, Office of Legislative Council. So today I am here on draft 1.1 of a committee amendment to S100. So you have taken a lot of testimony and so I haven't been here in a while to talk about it but you have heard a lot of different ideas about some of these sections. So in draft 1.1, there are new languages added and that is in yellow. So if you look at it digitally online, the changes are in yellow from S100 as came over from the Senate. I drafted this as a partial strike all amendment and maybe as we move forward, which I just touch base about how the committee wants to handle that in relation to the general amendment, making sure that they just line up. I don't know if you want to do a full strike all incorporating all the changes or two strike all. So we can talk about, that's a very sort of just traffic control issue. But so it just has the first 25 sections of S100 in it as opposed to the other sections that House General worked on. Thank you, I think for logistics, that's a really great way to do it for now. Okay. So yes, so this is just sections one through 25 and then there's some additional language. So these were amendment requests that the chair requested initially for discussion that came from some of the testimony that you heard. And so just moving forward, now that we're in the market process amendment, you've heard a lot of testimony, amendment requests to go in this draft should be part of this conversation, working with the chair and I to add things to the draft that should happen like during this process as opposed to just sending an outside email to me. So that's what we're going to do today to start today. So on page one, section one, you will recall that section one of the bill is the parking section. So the language has been changed and I believe this is the language that was recommended by PIA, okay. So it now reads, so a municipality may adopt parking standards for residential uses, online 14, a municipality shall not require more than one parking space for one bedroom dwelling unit. For dwelling units with more than one bedroom, a municipality shall determine parking requirements based on the context and specific needs of the residential use. This determination shall include factors that allow for less parking, including unique residential uses like senior housing, public transit, on street parking, public parking, shared parking. For both residential and non-residential uses, the municipality may limit the amount of parking, including by setting parking maximums based on demonstrated need, site constraint, or vehicle reduction provisions outlined by the municipal bylaw, including transportation demand and transit oriented development. So currently under the statute prior to S100, there's already a provision in here that municipality shall not require more than one parking space per bedroom for an accessory dwelling unit. And what came over from S100 in the Senate was not requiring more than one parking space per dwelling unit, including accessory dwelling unit, but any dwelling unit. This is making the change that not more than one parking space, if it's a one bedroom unit, that potentially would include an accessory dwelling unit. And then for larger units, they can set the parking requirement based on context. Senator Stevens. So this kind of narrows down or sorry, opens up the opportunity for municipalities to have more control over parking as compared to what we got from the Senate. And I hate it when legislators do this, but I'm gonna do this anyway. Like eight years ago, and Burlington has since changed their parking standards, but eight years ago, we wanted to extend a part of our house into our driveway because it was already not permeable surface. And we were told we couldn't because then that would mean that the two parking spots that we had to have for our house, one of them would have meant that the car was in the front of the house. Anyway, my point is, I really liked, to me, this reads that if someone builds a two bedroom unit, then municipality can say you must have two parking spots. And I don't, I feel like as an individual, and I know that's not how you develop policy, but I feel as an individual that is not in keeping with what we were trying to do with this bill. Representative Clifford. Thank you, Madam Chair. And just in reference to what you were talking about, the municipality shall determine those requirements. So does that change what you were talking about? No, I think it actually, I think this kind of keeps it still to the status quo in my reading. I mean, except for the, to me, this kind of the bill that we got from the Senate, if I'm reading this correctly, the bill that we got from the Senate basically said, you really can't tell people you've got to have like five parking lots if you have a five bedroom house parking spaces. And because what it said was, you can't force more than one. That was my sense, one and a half. So yes, what came up from the Senate was one, or if there were parking constraints, one and a half. So this is, yes, I do think this is much more broad than what the Senate proposed. And it is fairly similar to what's already in the statute. It provides more detail than what's already in the statute. Towns have currently under the statute, towns have a pretty broad flexibility on how to set parking standards for their town. This provides a bit more detail on that, but I do think it is closer to the original status quo law than what the Senate sent you. Yeah, I think what's tricky is we've, in having these conversations learned, I mean, we have such a spectrum of towns and every town addresses these differently based on their own on the ground reality. And I've had conversations with folks who live in Montpelier who have the ability to have on-street parking and alternate sides during the winter. In my own town, we have an on-street parking ban because we don't have that opportunity. And that's to kind of develop towns and then that opens the door for, like it's just such a range of needs in communities. I think intent is great, encouraging less parking where we don't need it. But the reality is many communities don't have, I mean, a school parking lot can be used overnight or I think somehow we need to make the intent clear. Less parking could be better and make housing more affordable. And then there's physical realities that they have to work with in. Sevens done so. What if we, what really irritated me about the experience that I had is, I knew we didn't need that parking spot. And maybe it's some language here saying that, a property owner can, has the authority to ask, work with the municipality to say, we don't need this. Please let me do this. Cause we were literally told no. And it's not the case anymore, but it's just that, I mean, I knew we didn't need it. And yet, I had no choice until they chose the, we worked the, this is 2015, we worked the entire rules. Representative Smith. Thank you. First, Admiral, I'm sorry, I was you. Second, we want to have one parking, or one bedroom apartment is going to be a lot of one parking space. What do you do for company or guests? Are they parking the street or find somewhere else to go? Or do you cross break? Is that what it is? Or why wouldn't every apartment have at least two parking spaces? Representative Lue. Thank you. I'm having a difficult time understanding how this is an improvement on what was in the original language that we saw. We took testimony from towns that, yeah. Had a hard time with it. Well, we had a lot of testimony from the affordable housing folks and like so many people saying they loved this. So I'm looking for like, how we thread the needle. Cause I do hear the concern that you can never require more than one, might or one and a half might not work. But I'm also quite scared for me. Just be. Is it fair for a two, two bedroom apartment to have two parking spaces if one person lives there and chose to have a little bit more room to live? That's my point. Yeah. And so maybe it's the petition. I don't know. My petition did nothing. Appeal. Did you say that was the VPA language? Yes. Yeah. The Vermont planners association language. The other thing I would add broadly is that this is dictating what the municipality is allowed to do. And so certain municipalities that parking minimums I think some of them set parking maximums. If it's a parking minimum developers may have an option to add more spaces beyond what the municipality requires at the baseline. If a municipality goes to the parking maximums it's the developer has the option to add less parking spaces if they think the project doesn't need it. So that aspect isn't changing specifically but this language is about what you want the towns to be able to do in regards to parking. Thank you. Representative Von Garts. It's one of the pillars of the bill. And this really doesn't do that. If you go to be the page today I have some potential language that we could look at. That is close to the Senate language that in any districts certified municipal sewer and water infrastructure that the Council has introduced is municipalities shall not require more than one parking space per dwelling unit. However, municipality may require 1.5 parking spaces for duplexes in both the unit dwellings in areas not served by sewer and water in areas that are located more than one quarter mile away from public parking mounted down to the nearest whole number of the total spaces. So it's, I guess we just need to talk about the two we have two patients here I just have to figure out which way to go. Can you, how does 1.5 work at a duplex if that's the maximum they can require the duplex 1.5? They can round up to two because you can round up if you're in a if you can round up to the nearest number so a duplex you would have two. And you say two at a duplex. And why don't they say two? Well, you could say to a duplex. I'll just talk about that in a sense. But overall, like if you have the idea was that if in the Senate language you have, if the 1.5 works out to 15 and a half spaces you can round up to 16. But if you're only dealing with two spaces round up from 1.5 to two. So that's what you have to always round up. This language may not quite say that, but that's it's really the Senate basically what can go from the Senate. That's what we have to just decide which way to go. You can have testimony from Townsend. Not happy with this. We also had a ton of testimony from people. I don't know. Representative Sarkozy, it's been covered. I'm curious about you've been hearing a lot about how people have traditionally used some of these parking requirements to make it harder to build housing. And so if the municipality is, if that's the goal, then that's an effective, currently waited to do that. Does the municipalities have other reasons why they might want to have error on the side of more parking rather than less like other other policy considerations that they're taking into account? I would say there's the physical limitations and the cost to the municipality of providing those parking spaces and managing snow removal and parking on the front lawns in places like Burlington. That's come up a lot when you have multiple units in a building and that every building has a car. They need somewhere to park. And we had that testimony from St. Albans, the affordable housing, often there's multiple people living in those units and they all need a car to get to work and live their lives. There's that. I guess I don't have that cynical view that municipalities use it to limit housing development. Maybe some do, but, and maybe it's had that unintended consequence. But parking on front lawns is also not great for your neighbors or perhaps you, Representative Clifford. Thank you very much. In kind of conjunction with, I think, with the concerns of Representative Sackowitz, I think this language, it gives, correct me if I'm wrong. Somebody could tell me if I'm reading this wrong here, but this gives the municipality the right to determine the parking requirements based on the context and specific needs of residential use. So I don't, I think that, I think that's a good thing to let them, to let the municipalities do that. I know in Rutland, there's been projects where, you know, street projects where they have that problem, where people park, you know, and there was that section of right away between the curb and the sidewalk. And what they did was they had these, I understand not every municipality is able to do this, but there's a process underway where those in those areas of the city, the city is actually going in and putting the curving in and then fixing up those right of ways, which, you know, kind of either would force people to, you know, find alternate ways of parking. And I think what they did was they went in and they talked to all the people at the apartments and they made requirements or they made spaces available for those people to park. But I understand not every municipalities can do that, but I mean, I kind of like this word, it gives the municipalities a control. That's just my opinion. Representative Sakwit. The section is about zoning and the language, the new language is saying that the municipality shall take into account a bunch of different factors when they decide about what the parking rules. Just strikes me that you could easily have, you know, different sorts of development within the same zone that could have very different needs. So, but this doesn't seem to be on a case-by-case basis. It's really about setting the language and zoning as a whole, as a whole. So, I guess, I don't understand, just feels like kind of a disconnect between what the language is and the context within which it would be used. So, I would just say that currently towns are using a variety of methods to require parking for different uses. I don't think towns are doing blanket parking zoning. Towns have different strategies. So, some towns have parking minimums or maximums based on the type of use that is in place. And so, residential use versus commercial use and then within that, what type? Additionally, there was testimony in the Senate. I don't know if you had it here that sometimes do be required for residential uses. One parking space per bedroom is a fairly common one or two per bedroom. So, some of them do it by bedroom and that's a fairly common method, not necessarily by the size, the physical square footage of the building but by the number of bedrooms within a unit. So, I do think towns are already using a variety of methods. This is a little bit of a change here because it is specifying about one bedroom units and then for other bedroom units it's allowing them to determine. So, I do think towns are already making different decisions based on the type of usage, whether it be commercial, industrial or residential, if they already take that into account. Would they also be taking into account like whether it's senior housing or other uses which by their very nature might require different amounts of quality. So, I haven't heard specifically about, if towns are making different changes about senior housing, I think there are, I do think I have heard developers propose less parking in senior housing but I don't know if zoning has specifically mentioned that. So, I don't know. I don't know. Other thoughts? In my bit. All right. Let's sit with that one and move on. Can we back up and let's do the manager? Yes. Can we back up and state what we're trying to accomplish here? It's. What is the problem? It's. You heard that for the parking requirement specifically. So, the current statutes has one for bedroom and towns have that. Currently the towns have very broad authority on setting parking minimum or maximums. The only limit that's currently in there really is about for accessory dwelling units. They can't have, they can't require more than one parking space per bedroom, but only for accessory dwelling units. So, that is, but otherwise they have pretty broad discretion when setting the amount of parking spaces they want per use. And so the Senate version introduced a limit and now you're looking at sort of modifying that. I don't know what your specific goal is, but that's to be kept. I think I concur with that. So a three bedroom can have three parking places. So that's not what this language says. That's what I thought. What this language says is that for residential uses with more than one bedroom, the town can set the amount of parking spaces. In the Senate's version, it was one parking space regardless of bedrooms unless there were parking constraints and then it could be 1.5 parking spaces. Would it happen to her somewhere there? Yes, half. Very nice. That's a great thinking. Representative Stockwoods. So if we don't, if we don't think that zoning around parking is intentionally being manipulated to reduce this kind of development, seems then like what we're really saying that is we want to change the rules because we don't think municipalities just are doing a good job of figuring this out and we're going to figure it out for them. Just seems like maybe we should just be helping to do a better job of figuring out what their needs are, at least by case basis. I guess I, thank you. I wanted to say, Representative Morris to your point. I mean, I think the problem we're trying to solve is mandating unnecessary parking. And the question is, do we agree that there's unnecessary parking that's been mandated? And if so, what is like our role in encouraging communities to have zoning that addresses that concern? Ironically, we heard from the developer of the property in Middlebury, the summit properties. Zeke, he said he's trying to do his best with what you would call smart growth and compact development. And he's still providing, I think two units, two parking spaces per two bedroom units. So I'm not sure what our role as state legislatures writing statute for the whole state is in this conversation. I would go to Representative Clifford next and then Representative Stettwich. I guess I'll ask the question, is it necessary for us to talk about zoning in this bill at all rather than just let the municipalities and the planning commissions deal with what they have to deal with? Do we have to regulate? I mean, I know we regulate things, but I mean, as far as this goes as far as trying to find a quicker solution, obviously to the housing problem, wouldn't it be better if we let the municipalities deal with it themselves with their local planning commissions rather than us deal with this? That's the question I have. I mean, I'm just throwing that out there for the session. Representative Scott. Yeah, I've been struggling with this because on the one hand, I think part of the reason why there's a thought to sort of put some limitations on the amount of parking space is how much room are you taking up in a developed downtown area for parking versus housing? On the other hand, this is very arbitrary and you're trying to guess when someone is saying, I'm looking for permits to do a building with four units. You're trying to guess ahead of time who's gonna be living in those units and how many people and what their needs are or they work, whether they're gonna need a car or not to go to, I mean, it just like, it seems arbitrary to try to put this too many parameters into statute itself here. I understand what's behind the intent, but it doesn't, for every situation that I can think of, I can think of a yes, but what if the family or the people moving in have this situation or that some people may require more vehicles than other people in the same unit. So I'm struggling with it. I don't know how to resolve that. Representative Stubbins, that's nice. So since I'm the one who threw out the first little mini implosion on this first proposed language discussion, I would be okay with this language as long as there was, I mean, we have a 10 persons rule somewhere else. Is there an opportunity to say an owner of a property or a developer of a property can overrule or I don't know what the word is, the municipality requirements if a clear case is made. I mean, even just on my street, again, it was 2014, little house on a quarter, grandparents built their own ADU and they had to hire a lawyer and spend like 10K to get through Burlington to get an approval. And they had to like put in their deed, I think, even that they would never buy a car because they have car share right down the road. So I guess I'd just like to make it a little bit easier or at least to have one opportunity that if it turns out a municipality has some, some proposal that works 90% of the time, is there a method forward that isn't quite so onerous? Representative Smith. Thank you. Derby, we have a town plan that gets redone every five years. We have a DRB and we also have a zoning board. So, and we've got a pretty good zoning administrator most of the time. And I don't know why this needs to be mandated if you've got coverage like that. Each town knows their own town, what the capabilities are and what they can and can't do. Senator Bomber. So I want to go back to what's the intent here. And we're talking about there's was still in water where the idea is compact, walkable, and parking takes up room and adds a lot of expense. And this was about shifting to Paragon. And it's not, I have no doubt it won't be without some difficulty getting there. But number one, if it's a kind of development that if it wasn't one car or space or one space for the developer is free to build more. If that's just saying what the municipality can and can't mandate. And if we just leave the status quo and we're trying to, we need it to accept, we need a lot of, we need to develop housing. We want it to be in these compact areas. If we have the housing competing with parking, it's really a challenge that maybe the municipality is, you know, we're going to have to get creative and figure out ways to talk to more parking in visible lots. And that'll be something they're probably looking at. But I just have a real concern that there's so much testimony from people trying to figure out that this is a key pillar of what it's going to take to get there. I don't want to see it. You know, it's going to be a transition, and it's transitions aren't always, I don't know if it's really or not, but I'm just really worried that we're. The language that came up from the Senate, I don't think is limited to water. I mean, yours might be. Yeah, but this is. So, Representative, would you be suggesting that this is a stumbling block, who it is in building? Yeah. Agreed. Noah, did you? Like, I don't know if you received testimony, but I did on this specifically, but I think there was testimony in the Senate, specifically about larger developments. And so multi-unit dwellings, specifically where this has been an issue. And so hypothetically, if a town requires four parking spaces or five per dwelling unit, and someone is trying to put in 50 units of housing, 250 parking spaces are going to need to be constructed on that same site, 50 times five. Did I get that right? So, I mean, that's an example. I don't know if that's an exact number. I have parking spaces for you. Right, so like in a, if a two-bedroom dwelling unit requires at least two parking spaces per bedroom. 100. It's 50 units. So, I'm just saying, I think there were different numbers that were, that was for, okay, so I'll stop. I was just trying to be helpful that I think that there was testimony in the Senate about larger developments, specifically having size issues on parcels because of the parking minimums in some towns. And I don't have a number specifically at the top of my head, so I should probably stop. And actually, Chip Boyer provided one that was about units. Oh, okay. His suggested language manner in St. Albans was, he had a threshold of 20 dwelling units, so couldn't require more than two spaces for up to 20, and then after that, couldn't require more. It gets to the scale of that you're talking about. Senator Logan. Thanks. I just keep going back to this original language that we had that actually had some sort of standard for when you might want to exceed one parking space per dwelling unit. It was in the case of basically access to parking out off the property being more than a quarter of a mile away. How many of you walk a quarter of a mile away from to get to your house to park it far? That to me is. That's far. It doesn't quite, like with your groceries or whatever I can tell you. Oh, but I mean, you would still have at least one space per unit on site. It would be the idea being that. How many people have a hard time parking a property? Destroyed a property. Yeah. No, that's long, but I appreciate the attempt here to establish sort of like the maximum distance. One should have to walk to get to their second vehicle and for their home. All feet. All right. I think we should. Representative Tori. I'm not as comfortable with the one bedroom insertion. I think the household really was more of the intent. And I think that's important as we've learned how small our household sizes are getting and that we're talking about smaller buildings, smaller household units, smaller and denser construction. We're trying to encourage that. So you're saying. I mean, that's the whole ball of gold. Not more than one parking space per dwelling unit. Right. Yeah. Maybe we could say. Yeah, I just think putting in one bedroom. It's a lot of children. Yeah. And then they will represent exact to it. I want to reiterate the comment about scale and how that makes a big difference. I think because if you have just one or two units in a building of each small one or two bedrooms, you can easily imagine a range of scenarios where you need very little parking or you need three or four times that amount of parking depending upon who's living there. And it could change a lot depending on the year to year. If you have a big building with 20 or 30 or 50 units, all that variation is going to get spread out and averaged out over over time. So you're never going to have a time where you suddenly that building needs three or four times as much parking as it did the year before. The variation is going to be much, much, much narrower. And so I could see including, you know, minimums based upon that size, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I think that's like maybe getting to the challenge that the affordable housing folks are talking about those larger developments and the creation of a sea of parking that's not needed. I know, but I- Binge too. Parking is always one of the tricky issues. I don't know why I started with Bill with that, but anyway. The spider's okay over there. Flowers, no, it's over here. You have to leave it on. I'll let him go. I've done that badly there. He must not be on the floor. All right. So on page three, on page three is the next topic. So I do want to- So on page three, the first paragraph on page three is not highlighted, but this is where the duplexing by right and quadplexing by right in water sewer service areas language is located. I do want to flag an issue that came up. There isn't a change here, but I do think there was a lot of, there was at least multiple pieces of testimony regarding the word allowed use versus permitted use. I just wanted to touch on that. In the early version of S 100, it was originally permitted use, which I do think is more classically known as the by right provision, which would be by right duplex. Allow to use, I think allows a, it is a weaker provision in that it allows the town to potentially do conditional use review, which would require a permit. So if you were to change this to permitted, that potentially wouldn't allow for conditional use review. As it reads as an allowed use, I do think that allows for conditional use review by the town. So I don't know if you wanted to discuss that today, but I think you heard from multiple witnesses about whether or not to change that. Yeah. And I mean, I guess while we're talking about this one, I understand the intent of this is to help make housing more affordable. But I also think that the goal of this bill is supposed to be about smart growth. And I wonder if these sort of duplex by right isn't encouraging people to spread out and not be in smart growth areas. I look at the duplexes, going to be a single family house that's already happening. So I don't think that's has one foundation, one driveway, one set of services, and it really results in the ability of two people to live with two families, whatever it is to live and where there would have been one. And I guess I think that if we're going to, wherever you're going to allow to build a single family home, why wouldn't we say you could build a duplex? Because it's the land use pattern outside of traffic and I will confess that, but in terms of disturbance to places we'd rather not have it, it doesn't change anything. It's what happened in World of One. And it's a way to get more housing without actually making anything more than what happened with one. Representative Sackiewicz. Thank you. I'd say that we would be opening up the possibility of development that would happen, that might not have happened because of the economies of scale and that you do get from a duplex bringing the costs down, which is what we're trying to do in most places, but it would also have the same effect in more rural areas where somebody might say, well, if I only can build a single family home, that's too expensive. But if I can put a duplex there, now I can bring my costs down to the point where now I have a very nice place that I can rent at market rates that where I couldn't before, so we would actually be supporting development in this place as well. Maybe we don't want to. Representative Sabeelia Ben-Stubbins. Hearing that, thinking about that and thinking about World Towns where I live and I think what I'm hearing you say is that makes it easier to build or less expensive to build. And so then, I'm thinking about, okay, so only from a way should be able to live in our small towns. Is that what we're saying? In our small towns, not in the... So for building... In the places where we are saying that this conversation has been around, that we want development. We want people to be building in the villages in the already developed areas. And we want to discourage development outside those areas. And I think that if we allow duplexes outside those areas, we're just encouraging development. And yes, it would make it... I mean, I just thought of this when I brought this up. So I guess I haven't thought of it through all the way, but my biggest concern would be people would be up and up with more rental units in these outlying areas. I'm not sure that that's what we're trying to see. Representative Stubbins. Thanks for answering. I hear your concern, Representative Sakowicz, with the way it's written. I really liked the concept of I write, duplex, or if you have a building, just as the fellow from... Just as that individual was saying, if you have a unit and you can split it into four, that we should not be making that more challenging. I guess what you're saying reminds me of one of the comments that Thomas Weiss said, which was, are we being clear enough about, yes, we want this easier development to occur, not in the middle of nowhere. And I guess I just... I got to hear your concern. And if there was a way to articulate this more clearly, that it's not, oh, okay. So if you have a one large home, the top, well, I don't know where, it's really remotely far away. That's not necessarily what we're hoping to have you make into a four unit house. I don't know if there's a way to do that with the language, because I don't... I don't think that's our intent. I wonder if that gets to the allowed versus permitted and the town can decide how they want to use through conditional use, through conditions. Representative Banger. I would also ask us to think about the fact that we have a lot of housing stock. This isn't really gonna invite me to talk like, may result in some new duplexes, but I think it's also very likely, people living now, as we've heard a lot of testimony about, and houses that are way too big for them. And that the average size is now different. So why would we need that housing stock essentially sitting there when we're trying to encourage what we're trying to develop a system for housing that actually fits the needs of a lot now, which is very different than what it was in the 1950s. And I would, a lot of this housing was built and I don't, I think the duplex, by right, especially when you think about a lot of the rural areas, that's where the house, that's where, if you're gonna get housing, that's where that's one of the places it's gonna come from. And we don't make that a permit. And I think the word permitted is key to this actually, if there was support versus a lot of it, then we're just, again, not gonna see as much housing as we could be seeing when we have such a view. One thing that Zach mentioned was existing housing. I mean, his business is really grounded in a lot of what we're hoping to encourage, which is the reuse of existing housing that's overbuilt. And so, and that's kind of what you just framed your start with. And so is there a way to do it through, you know, encouraging the existing housing stock to be utilized better in this bill, which I think is a big, I'm seeing a lot of knots. So I'll represent Zach with some, but we already have parts that in this bill concerning ADUs. So if somebody does have a rural property that is too big, that they can convert that to an ADU, which is different than a duplex. So it's on the same page. So it's already, so we would have that capability. Representative Logan. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, this does say that in any district that allows your round residential development already. And unless we're mandating a particular kind of housing plan in every municipality, it does seem like we need to allow municipalities to establish their own residential districts. But then, so I'm putting in the context of where I currently live in Burlington. There are districts within the city of Burlington where single family housing is the kind of development that's allowed. And so I think the right to build a duplex or develop a property into a duplex in a area previously zoned only for single family housing is great. Actually, that's a huge improvement because that really does bias higher income households, decreases density in very residential neighborhoods within Burlington and in effect creates higher income neighborhoods versus lower and middle income neighborhoods. So it seems like an improvement. I think my overall concern about the loosening up of development restrictions in the state is that it isn't necessary these over the course of the bill aren't tied as they are in a place like the city of Burlington to certain requirements around a percentage of that housing being developed for the purposes of permanently affordable housing. And the timeline for like a funding for the moderate income housing only needing to be moderate, affordable for moderate income households for a couple of years after the development takes place rather than permanently affordable. VHIP for example. Yeah, for VHIP. So I think higher density and already single family household neighborhoods is a good idea. Duplex is fine. I would be okay with even more. Well, within if you read, I mean, this is areas served with municipal water and sewer, it's four flex. Yeah, yeah. So it is. Yes, that's good. So yeah. I think though that again going back to the range of towns that we are working with almost, we don't have a zoning kind of review from context of this bill. And B, the default allowable use is usually a house. Right, no matter the minimum makers of parcel size or whatever else happens. So it's a challenge, I think. That's why. Yeah, without an overall smart growth plan. Yeah, we don't have, yeah. You don't have a bigger. Yeah. There are other comments on this. Representative Sackham. Thank you. I guess I would just say we could have duplexes where single family homes are allowed in designated areas and areas where there's like a single garden sewer in those places where we want to see development I guess my concern there is if development is already going to be happening in a place because we're not doing anything to prevent it in this bill. And as far as I can tell, right? We're not preventing any further development. So if there is going to be further development, it could be a duplex other than a single family home. That would be an improvement. Unless we're seeing duplexes pop up in places where single family homes wouldn't have been built. Yeah. Representative Smith. I was like, are we preventing development by mandating one parking space per single bedroom unit? Could you say are we preventing it? Yeah. I think that some people think we are. Yeah, I think we are. You think? Yeah. That was all. I just want to act on this duplex thing. A lot of our towns don't have sewer and water. They're desperate for housing too. And the duplex is kind of by definition water income housing. And that's one of our key missing pieces. And I really like the focus of this bill. Kind of really maximize asking what we could do with areas with sewer and water because that just makes sense to me. But we also have a lot of towns who are desperate for housing that don't have access to that at this point. And the real need is lower in water income housing than duplex is almost by definition. It's that bill. So I am very much a favor of allowing it any more. If you have some of that in favor of it being able to be a duplex. Others who haven't spoken on this. I just have a clarification on we're in this paragraph where it talks about multi-unit dwellings with more fewer units shall be and it allowed you, does the interpretation of the word allowed just means that it can't be prevented? Or if we change it to permitted then it would have to go through the permitting process of the local. Actually the opposite. It's actually the opposite. Yes, permitted might not need a permit. It's a by-right and allowed means they're allowed to do conditional use review. So they might not do conditional use review but they also could do conditional use review which is a permit. Thank you. I know I feel like I should get it down. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't want to step on it. I didn't use permitted, setting rule. No, I honestly was not here for most of your testimony. So I don't know if anybody else said it's gonna come down to like the town planners would prefer allowed and the others that were working with South prefer permitted. It's a similar to the parking conversation. And allowed gives the town can have a conditional use permit if they would like. You don't have to, but they could. Right. Let's go to the next challenge. I mean, actually. I think the next one is a little bit simpler because it's a very minor change on the bottom of page three. We're rolling right along. So on the bottom of page three, subsection E is where the accessory dwelling unit regulation has been for a long time. So there are a couple of, I think, minor changes to that statute. So the May becomes a shall. So that shall have the same review as a single family dwelling. That hasn't changed. There's also that criteria for conversion shall not be more restrictive than for a single family. But the change is at the bottom of the page. And so it's striking the language about accessory dwelling unit definition and moving it exactly identically to the definition section. And so. That was something I asked for. Yeah. It seemed like we had a definition section and it referred back to the accessory and it'll be easier for the reader to have it in the definitions. Yeah. And so the language isn't changing. It's just being moved to section four. Okay. But does anyone have questions on this section? I don't want to just go through the things that, if you do have questions, please ask them. Great. Great. Page four. So on page four, subsection H has language about hotels, a bylaw can't prohibit or penalize a hotel from renting rooms, those using housing assistance with public funds. And this has not been changed. And I actually don't know if you received any testimony on this section specifically. I'm not sure, but we did talk about what does a penalizing mean in this instance. And why is that word in there? How would a town penalize a hotel? I'm not sure. So representative Smith. Representative Clifford may have some ideas about section H here, because I've understood that there are concerns in Rutland in that area about state funding hotel rooms or homeless people. And I think, and I couldn't be wrong, that it had created problems for tourists who wanted to come into the area to visit. Is that anything we should be concerned with? Is that a question for representative Clifford? I guess it could be. Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't see how you would, it has been a concern. It just, that's been a concern on other disciplines as well. But I'm not sure if you could penalize a hotel for renting rooms. I don't think if it's even legal, I don't think I think it'd be up to whoever could be wrong. I think it's whoever, if the person wants to rent that room for those purposes, I don't see where it's, I don't see what law is gonna say you can't. Is there? I mean, I mean, that's, I don't think you can know about it. Well, unfortunately, no. That, I'd say that whole scenario was, brought on by COVID and by any other reasons. And that's, it happens, it happens. Now you gotta kind of work on, what you do going forward. And that's, I think a lot of different municipalities have a plan, but I just don't, I don't see where any law would prevent that from can't tell a business owner what, unless it's against the law. That's what I'm looking at. Representative Pat. Yeah, I don't think you can, in the case of a hotel, basically discriminate about where, how is the person paying for the room? So if the person's using public funds versus out of their own pocket, that you, I don't think we can put that into law. The discussion that we have had in the legislature is more in terms of are we gonna continue funding a certain program and all of that? We certainly have debate about that, that's the appropriate place to debate what the impact is when a lot of hotel rooms are filled with people who don't have anywhere else to go. I don't think you can, it will be discriminatory if you said, well, I can't rent a room to you because, or I won't rent a room to you because of the fact that it's being paid for a public funds versus your own person. Okay, it seems like this is, we're okay with this. Yeah. All right. Let me not. So still on page four, subsection 12. So this is about Ben City. So subsection 12, there was a, a suggestion I think from South Burlington to change district to area because municipal sewer and water infrastructure spans districts and may not be a regular shape. As a district, it may just be an area. So that change has been made and I'm happy to discuss further. So it now reads, in any area served by municipal water sewer and water infrastructure that allows residential development, bylaws shall establish lot and building dimensional standards that allow four or more dwelling units per acre for each allowed residential use. And density standards for multi-unit dwellings shall not be more restrictive than those required for single family dwellings. And so as it came over from the Senate, it was five units per acre and this is going back to four. And that was a recommendation because the NDAs are at four and it was just sort of to make them line up and be consistent. And maybe when we talk about NDAs, we could revisit it as to why it's four there. So you want to wait to talk about it? Well, if you have something to say about it now and finally that, but I think that was why it's, that's why it was just so that we weren't creating inconsistencies. My own view is that five is like the, we ought to be at least at five here. There's 43,560 square feet that takes a lot. If you have the buildings with a thousand, with a foot print of a thousand feet, that's a lot. Well, that's a big house, but that's only 5,000 feet out of 43,000. I realized there's parking and other things but there is that are served by sewer and water to go the whole point here is to get some density there. And so I am, in my mind, we'll adjust the NDAs that we have to rather than this way. So that's what we're trying to accomplish here. And finally, we're not very dense. All right. I'm fine with that. I just want to make sure we discuss it when we get to the NDAs. Others have thoughts or questions on this? Madam Chair, I'm thinking this is what one of the concerns that Mayor Dunn just had from Rotland as far as allow these to happen. It's going to depend on again, what I think what his testimony was about. It's the lines or service lines can even take it. And I think every municipality that has water and sewer is going to have a concern about that. So I just, you know, if we come back to what's fine. Well, I think we're going to get to that in the water and sewer service area definitions. And I think that South Burlington also brought up concerns about like a natural resource issue. And that's going to also come back to us when we talk about those definitions of a water and sewer service area. Thank you. So am I making a change in the next draft? Maybe we're going to, but yeah, I think yes. Ending the conversation about NDAs, change it to five and water and sewer service areas. Okay. So still in page four, subsection 13 is the density bonus section. And so as it came over from the Senate, and I'll read you the new language as it is here, but as it came over from the Senate, affordable housing, an affordable housing development could add an additional floor and add an additional 40% above the maximum density. And this is removing the floor. So as it reads in this draft is in any area served by municipal water and sewer infrastructure, sewer and water infrastructure that allows residential development, any affordable housing development as defined in 4302, including mixed use development may exceed density limitations for residential developments by an additional 40% provided the structure complies with the Vermont fire and building safety code. So it's getting rid of the, may add an additional floor beyond the maximum that by the town. That seemed to have unintended consequences for towns that already have multiple floors allowed and possibly with fire protection, but we represent a separate. I've been thinking about this part for a bit. And it just seems like if we have rules around density, and the rules are a place for good reason, then I'm not sure why it matters whether it's affordable housing or not. Just seems, just so I don't see what the, it just doesn't seem like a natural fit. Oh, I would say that some towns already do this where they provide a density bonus for affordable housing. So affordable housing is allowed to be more dense than the other housing. So that is definitely a policy consideration, but I think this is modeled on what some towns are already doing. I guess I would say I don't, it still doesn't mean that it makes sense to me if they're doing it. Senator Bunger. What's the way to encourage affordable work? No, I understand what it's trying to do. It just seems like if you have good reasons for keeping density at a certain level, I should have matter of whether the housing happens to be affordable housing. What is the cost of the housing have to do with, what's the appropriate density? Yeah, that's a good point. Putting that aside for a second. The concept here is that you use the concept for going public. That's the main concept here. It's that you're not increasing your footprint. You're in an area with sewer and water. It meets fire mode and you can sprinkle the building. And so it's a way to, the idea was to encourage more affordable housing by getting the bonus. And realistically what we're talking about in many cases would be going from two to three stories depending on the industry toward three or four. And if we want to, frankly, I'm just trying to say this. You could say let's say this needs to be a number of times and so on, but you got to go up if you want to go past it. And so this is, I think, and my talents can still have design control and they can still have the same plan that's under review and sectional review, but it just makes intuitive sense to me that we make it possible in all communities to go up. And part of the concept of this whole release age 68 was a lot of communities are moving this direction. Some of yous are moving this direction already. And it's just like moving along and get it done. And so I like the, I'm very, I particularly like the ability to go up to, let's say four floors for housing. Yeah, go ahead. And I agree that that makes sense. So if that amount of density actually does make sense for a given area, why not require that we allow greater heights for all buildings, not just affordable housing buildings, like we'd make it even better. Like we can have market rate housing that is also taller. Like it still doesn't, I don't see why we would pick one or the other just on the basis of cost. I have, yeah, I'm interested in this conversation. And I think I have the same question that Representative Sackowitz is asking. That seems to make sense to me, but I wonder if we were to, I also share the need to go up, but if we are not limiting it to just affordable housing, does that create any burdens? I mean, I think, interested in the discussion here anymore. Yeah, that's good. So Representative Logan. Thanks. Yeah, I'm not sure why the building height limitations part was taken out here. I also missed the testimony. Yeah, so I, talents have said we already, like if we're allowing four already, then you're going to tell us we have to have five. We're going to go to three to meet your need. So it has unintended consequences when you try to, like, because some towns are already doing it. Oh, right. And they may not want to be told. They need to add one more when they've already gone to, they've had this discussion and they've chosen three, four, five, whatever, 14 in Burlington, I don't know. So this again gets to, we have such a variety in our community. So, Representative. So just to follow up though, so may exceed density limitations. So that would have the same effect. You said you could go up. Really, that's the whole, I mean, I think we want to encourage people to go up. Right. And so I think to the extent that we think of carrots, not that we can't make data. Yeah, I think so. We're not choosing to mandate it. That's what we're talking about. Right. But so anyhow, just in defense of of of framing this out in terms of affordable housing development, I think the idea would be because we're not mandating any percentage of housing development be affordable, despite the fact that we know that that's the greatest need for housing in our state. This incentivizes the development of affordable housing because it allows you to build more on a particular piece of property. You're allowed to build up or, you know, a denser development if it's an affordable housing development. But not if it's market rate. Yeah, my question is about the mixed use development that's all about the fall on the first floor going up. Because I know that's usually what is important to be able to encourage. Is that a question? Yeah, I guess. Whether the mixed use development covers enough of what you're getting at about thousand times. So is that in our definition? So I think so. So affordable housing is defined in in title in chapter one, 17. And so currently, affordable housing in this chapter means at least 20 percent or a minimum of five units, whichever is greater, are affordable housing and subject to affordability covenants for at least 15 years. And affordable means does not exceed 30 percent of gross annual income of a household with 125 percent of the following. And it's county median income. I must say median income or statewide median income. So it's 120 percent of area median income. And so mixed use does include use of commercial space. It doesn't necessarily have to be the first floor. And I'm looking. And so I don't think there's a definition of mixed use in chapter one, 17 specifically in act two, 50. The definition of mixed use requires that the housing be at least 40 percent of the development. So 60 percent. It can be up to 60 percent commercial and 60 percent housing. I I'm looking right now and I don't see it here in in chapter one, 17. So I don't think there's necessarily a mandated size of the split, but it would be the inclusion of a commercial space. So I'm looking currently for the definition of mixed use. And I'm not finding it. But do you know if it includes the word hotel? So you could actually have, you know, cafe, hotel, shop, house, housing. So I just said I also didn't find the definition of mixed use in chapter one, 17. Because I was looking. Yes, that's OK. So hotel. You can find that for later. Yeah, OK, yes. And so I think under act two, 50 hotels actually fall under lodging. And so I'm not sure if it is commercial. If there's a distinction between commercial and lodging. Because there isn't a definition. Towns would have the ability to specify that. Or you could specify that if you'd like. That's all of the area. Representative Bungart. I just want to guess one question is about we have mixed use across that one place, but it's still there in another. So what does that mean? But then I have a bigger that has that question. Then I have others say that I don't believe in any the way this is structured for affordable housing right now. I don't believe any towns have changed their height limitations. They go from three to two in order to not have a building somewhere that might happen with some of the housing. And I just don't think that will happen. And what this does is for affordable housing. Or possibly get some that's really what it does. But what I don't have that question about what is the impact of taking it out in that one place and having it still be in the other? Or is it just redundant work? So this is the proposed language from EPA or possibly VAPTA. And I don't know because I didn't actually hear their testimony. I think it is an acknowledging acknowledgement of the fact that mixed use isn't actually defined. And so it's moving it so that it's not being part of that clause referencing a definition because it now reads affordable housing development, including mixed use development. So it's suggesting that I think it's suggesting that it's affordable housing development. It could be an affordable mixed use development. So OK, so this is coming down to definitions. And what I was actually just saying a minute ago is that mixed use development is not defined in Chapter 117. Mixed use development is defined under Act 250. Under the Act 250 definition, mixed use development has to be affordable. But because there isn't a definition in Chapter 117, I think it doesn't need to be affordable. And so this is reframing the sentence is that it's affordable housing, some of which could be a mixed use development. So I think it's reframing it so that affordable is first to make sure it's affordable, even if it's a mixed use development. Which I suspect was the intent originally. But again, this is a proposal that I took from proposed language. But if you'd like to change it or define mixed use, you can. So other thoughts on this? Representative Stevens, I prefer the language as it had been in the last program or access comments about. I'd like to have comments about the goal to really try to address affordable housing in this game. An idea of concern about unintended consequences. But I would hope maybe there would be one of those in the rest of them we'd actually see go up. Representative Sackland. Yeah, I guess I would just make the same point I made about density, but there's no obvious connection between how much it costs to live in a place and how high it should be. So that's the thing that communities can make buildings higher. You know, given the reasons why they may or may not do so. And that they're making that mistake that we should tell them that they need to make higher buildings in general. And it just seems like it's a real disconnect between. That said, just focusing on affordable housing, that if you're affordable, you get to go higher because I just don't see how it makes sense. If we think that towns can go higher and they should go higher everywhere and not just for this particular particular kind of housing, which is good reasons to keep buildings at a certain height and we should keep them at that site. Yeah, one thing I know that comes up with going up is additional need for fire, like a ladder trucks. And and I wonder about how this relates to having. What does it do something to our communities that that. Again, we don't enough for seeing. We do have representative Morris who's on the fire department, right? I agree with that assumption that you just. I'll wait there. It was some communities don't have access to. Other trucks, platforms, etc. Is there any ramifications to that feeling like if. Are we are we creating? Are we telling towns they then have to have a ladder truck? Or could they then say, we can't do multiple floors? We don't have the capacity to do that fire protection. It does say as the end, building fire and safety codes. But you can meet code by buying a ladder truck. I mean, you could meet the requirements. So are we telling towns they have to buy a ladder truck to do this? Don't know the answer. Representative Clifford. Thank you, Madam Chair. Can we just put a provision in there that leaves it up to town and that. They have the capacity to do that or not. Or in the two. To. Build as high as there. They can based on. What their capacities are is having the fire equipment necessary. And it may already have that in there with fire building safety code. I just don't know. Yeah. We're telling them they have to do it. Two seconds. How do we get the answer to that question? So. Damien and our office handles fire code. Or perhaps the division of. Fire and building safety could. Speak to it. It is my understanding the fire code itself applies to. Individual structures. Not the. How. So. That's all I'm going to say. I don't. Right. The fire code is a very complicated thing that I only slightly am aware of. I think I'm going to maybe just say if you could talk with Damien and sort of. Work on an answer. So what was, can you rephrase? Can you re-state your question? I guess I'm wondering is it for sort of, you know, we're saying. We're saying you, you, you, you will do this. Increase the density and that's going to. Push a building up higher. I know that I don't know what the height is, but above a certain height, you need a different truck to help to evacuate the building. We then that then pushing another cost onto the town and saying, you got to go buy that truck or can they say, sorry, we don't have the truck. Can't build that high in our town. That's my question. Representative Logan. Yeah. Could we also state that no. No area in no area served by a municipal sewer water infrastructure that allows residential development. That they can. Decrease their. Building height limitations as a result of this legislation. But could also. The option that is to. What's the term that is being ramped in. In the case like you just mentioned. Exceeding their current height. Good. Yeah. Just to get at that. Surround about lowering building height. Limitations in order to. Represented. Just so the concept here is that again. I don't think we can get an answer to that question. Just for full disclosure, there are buildings and towns that don't have a lot of trucks that they're difficult to get to already. I think there's probably a lot of towns that have pretty small fire departments as well. You know, when we're thinking about apparatus needed to fight fires. So don't go to the fire department. Yeah, exactly. Page five. Page five. Subsection 15 establishes a process by which towns can establish areas served by sewer, water and sewer infrastructure. At the very least, in the next draft, I think I should make sure that all of the phrases sewer and water or water and sewer are the same because I was inconsistent in my drafting. So I would like to flag that for myself. But I thought that I did that before it was on set, but it was a long day. So on page five, so as used in the section, an area served by municipal water and sewer infrastructure means there are two categories here. First, residential connections and expansions are available to municipal water and direct discharge wastewater systems and not prohibited by state regulated permits, identified capacity constraints or municipally adopted service and capacity agreements. And so that's kind of a default provision that the town has connections and expansions available that aren't constrained by those identified constraints. So that's where areas established by the municipality by ordinance or bylaw that and then it gives these are the parameters that the municipality can identify in their bylaw or ordinance. So that exclude blood hazard or inundation areas as established by statute or corridors or fluvial erosion areas as established by statute shorelands areas within a zoning district or overlay district, which purpose is natural resource protection. And wherever year round residential development is not allowed. This hasn't gone to this hasn't gone to the editor hasn't it hasn't gone to editing. I'm sorry. It was funny. Well, it was a proposed language was whose purpose is yeah whose isn't the right word either. So I'm trying which. Yes. Got it. I'll ask the editors. The purpose of which is maybe. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And there's a typo on page one also. So yes, I will yes, there will be editing. All right. So also they can include they can reflect identified service limits established by state regulations or permits identified capacity constraints or miniscule adopted servicing capacity agreements. They can exclude areas served by water and sewer to address and identified community scale public health hazard or environmental hazard. You can exclude areas serving a mobile home park that is not within an area planned for year round residential development. You can exclude areas serving an industrial site or park. You can exclude areas where service lines are located to serve the areas described above three for three through five, which are the ones I just read, but no connections or expansions are permitted. It can exclude areas which through an approved planned unit development under section 44 17 of this title or transfer development rights under this title prohibit your round development or modify the zoning provisions allowed in this chapter in areas served by indirect discharge designed for less than 100,000 gallons per day. So that is providing flexibility to decide what these areas consist of based on these constraints. And then B says that municipally adopted areas served by municipal water and sewer infrastructure that limit water and sewer connections and expansions will not result in the unequal treatment of housing by discriminating against a year round residential use or housing type otherwise allowed in this chapter. So you can adopt areas that are based on this list of things that are smaller areas. So long as they're not doing it to discriminate against housing. So the language that's on page six that's highlighted before we go. Let's just try to understand. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were going to do that. So I'm sorry. Yeah, let's just skip over this whole section because it's very clear to everyone what was going to go again. So back on page six, the new language that's being added here was proposed by South Burlington, I believe, because they do use planned unit development and transfer development rights to prohibit year round development in certain areas. So that was a proposal from them. And then as I mentioned on the prior page, there's also the language that's being added about overlay districts that I mentioned a minute ago. We need some grammar work, but yes, overlay districts for natural resource protection, many district or overlay districts in that language came from a couple of places, including DNRC and Southern. So there is a lot of information in this section. I will I can explain the Senate, the Senate's intent, and then you can have further discussion because I think you received some other proposals. The Senate was interested in giving town some flexibilities, particularly if they have identified constraints, if they have permits that limit their water supply, or if they have already established sharing agreements with other towns or specific situations. So because this this set of language in subsection 15 refers to the area early the areas earlier in this bill that are being mandated to increase density. So this these provisions on page five and six give the town some flexibility to define those areas for themselves based on a limited set of criteria that involve constraints. And it is a limited set of criteria so that towns cannot intentionally discriminate against housing types they don't like. But you can choose to make other decisions and expand the list or shrink the list or make other changes if you like. And do you I think we discussed just sort of the structure of this section. I mean, I've gone through it a few enough to understand it and I'm comfortable with it, but I didn't know if you were sort of editorial suggestions that would improve it, make it so first or second time reader to understand it. Well, I have considered whether it should just be in the definition section. It's currently in this section of the bill because this is where it this is I believe the only section that it's actually being used in. So it's close to the areas of law where it's being used. It could go into the definition section. You potentially I think the list potentially is a little redundant. I think it reflects the concept of capacity constraints multiple times. So you could potentially come up with different ways to phrase that. If you'd like reminding me, because under large like Roman numeral one and two state regulations or permits and then identified capacity constraints, which maybe redundant, it's clarifying, maybe. Well, and so I think that it reflects a couple. So I think that almost everything that's included in here came from specific testimony. And so I think a big picture you're thinking about is that a big picture thing is that I am not the sewer attorney. And this is a section of law specific zoning, not attempting to impact how municipalities actually administer their sewer and water programs and physically administer their permits. It's asking to for the municipalities in their zoning to bring in some of the concepts related to that, but not impacting how they actually administer their wastewater systems in that way. And so that's why it's a little unusual because we're talking about zoning, but we're talking about a concept of law that is much broader zoning and may have a lot of different aspects to it, depending on the town and depending on the type of system they actually used in that town. And so you were just asking, so I think that there was testimony that some towns may have state permits that they're working under, but other towns don't have state permits and they have identified internally constraints in their system and there isn't necessarily a permit to back that up or anything like that. So I think all towns have, if you have a wastewater facility, you have a state permit. Right, but I'm not sure if all of those permits, if there are constraints under those permits that would prohibit density specifically. Yeah, and actually I think the testimony from Rutland maybe is partly, they may not have. They have capacity constraints based on the cost of increasing service to certain areas of town. Yeah, OK, let's let's leave this section. Do folks have further questions on? Yeah, Representative Baumgartus, I wanted to talk a little bit about the section of yellow. What it actually translates to. So I know it came from Selberl. So I'm not entirely sure if this is necessary. I think there are two sections under title and under chapter 117, section forty four seventeen and then section forty four twenty three that give towns the options to use these two types of regulatory programs planned unit development, which is a permitting process and then transfer of development rights. And so towns have the ability to use that. I don't think that anything in this bill currently is impacting that. But I think there was concerns from the city of South Brillington who uses both of those provisions a lot that they have outlined under those two programs areas where they are prohibiting year round residential development. And it was unclear to them if. Those areas that have been already prohibited from residential development would then have to be subject to this increased development requirement. So I'm not sure that I entirely agree with their assessment. However, I'm actually not super well versed, especially in transfer of development, right the mechanisms for that. So. So the key language here is really areas that develop. Why do we say year round? It's of course, it's residential because it could be a camp, a hunting camp. Yes. So I'm thinking about a place like South Brillington. Right, please. So I'm just wondering whether there's a. I mean, they may still have camps in South Brillington. It was just a. But the real key here is that they can do this if it's an area where. Year round residential development is. Allow. Yeah, those are just two mechanisms for doing so. Yeah, OK. So I understand it. OK, representative stones. So building off of trying to figure out what this language does. Is this sort of received a lot of emails from the South Brillington. Presidents. Some saying. You should be allowing more housing than the southeast area. Some saying we've worked really hard on our zoning process. We've done a lot in this area. We're continuing to is this language pertaining to that sort of dialogue or is that somewhere else? Yeah, I would just say I don't I wasn't here for most of the testimony. So I'm not sure my sense is this is actually like natural resource areas that were identified in their planning process. And I don't know that it's specific. Southeast, I don't necessarily mean the Southeast. I mean, sort of the very core of this bill is where should we build or shouldn't we if if this language is. Related to those few sets of emails we've been getting. I just need to spend more time. I really mean I guess what I would say is this language is from their. Chair of their select board or city council, I think it's in their planner. And that they may be in the midst of their own internal discussion about that stuff, but I don't think we should worry about waiting into it. So you've heard from their elected officials and their staff. I respect that and let them have their own conversation about the rest of it to the extent it impacts the rest of the state. And what we're trying to do with statewide goals, think we should talk about other thoughts on this. Yeah, still thinking that's good. OK, let's move on. OK, page seven, section three. Section three has changes related to emergency shelters. You will recall our homeless shelter home shelter for the homeless. So it's adding it to the list of uses that towns can only regulate a subset of material on. And so there are any changes here. Oh, OK, that's that was my question. We're just talking. We're walking through the whole whole talk about it. OK. Thank you. Additionally, on page eight, still related to this topic is that it's it again. Defines daily and seasonal hours of operation as part of the intended functional use. So again, that's something else that towns can't interfere with on this. For emergency shelters. Questions on the second. So on page eight, the next section is section four, the definition section. And so the only change here is the definition of accessory dwelling unit, which is identical to the language that is currently existing in 44 12 E. And so it reads an accessory dwelling unit means a distinct unit that is clearly subordinate to a single family dwelling and has facilities and provisions for independent living, including sleeping, food preparation and sanitation provided. There is also provided there is compliance with all of the following. The property has sufficient wastewater capacity. The unit does not exceed 30 percent of the total habitable area of the single family dwelling or nine hundred square feet, whichever is greater. And so that language hasn't changed. It's just being moved here. All right. And so that, yeah, so the other definitions that are in this section are duplex emergency shelter and multi unit or multifamily dwelling. And those have not changed since the bill came over. So on page nine, the next section is section five. This section 44 41 is related to the report that towns have to make to the Department of Housing and Community Development when they update or add bylaws. They have to submit information to the Department. And so the change. So there are no changes in this section in this draft. They do have, but the towns are required to demonstrate conformity with sections 44 12 13 and 14, which are the first three sections of this bill. So they'll have to demonstrate how they're conforming with with the changes that are being made in this bill, but also the other language that's in those statutes. And then they'll also have to provide information on how they what process the town uses for their their bylaw adoption, their administration and their appropriate municipal panels. And that whole information will be going into the municipal planning and data center perspective use for a statewide zoning Atlas. And so this language also has not changed in this draft. I have some language that came from the anyways, I believe you're. It would place I and to I'm starting on page four. I'm sorry, line 14 page 10. But I think getting at the same thing. But so we say above it on an option or member of a bylaw, the planning commission shall compare an adoption report and form a content provided by the partner of housing and community development that. And I assume I would like us to think about that with says confirms that zoning districts, G.I.S. data has been submitted to the Department of Housing and Community Development and that data complies with Vermont zoning G.I.S. data standard adopt adopted pursuant to 10 BSA section 123 and then new to confirms. Actually, to continue new to it, then to go down to three confirms that the complete bylaw has been uploaded to the municipal plan by law database. This this goes to some of the questions that the share was asking for way on about what do we actually know about what's what's everywhere? And this is about getting that information uploaded and accessible so that the next time we're looking at this, we actually have a lot of that stuff for our fingertips. So it's just about G.I.S. and uploading bylaw. What is it? Oh, and then three, you have to keep going. I think it's done. The other two become demonstrates conformity and then provides information. It's an insertion of a new one and two and the others get renumbered to three and four. And so I would just add, I think I'd have to double check, but I think that's those two subsections were in Senate Economic Development's version and then they actually took them out. Senate Economic Development took them out. Yeah. Any recollection as to why? Yes. There was specific concern about town's capacity to upload data. Complete bylaw. Yeah. Yeah. And they. Yes. Yes. I was trying to be vague, but I do recall the discussion very clearly about. Whether towns have internet. Whether they have staff who know how to upload and use the database. So they were very sort of specific questions about. How to use the database that it would be required under that language. And they took more testimony from John Adams. I looked at it yesterday. It's worth looking at his testimony that was in their committee. Representative Bongers. Couldn't they just take their bylaws to the initial commission and have them upload them? Yeah. I can imagine that's. Well, and we're in the midst of a, you know, GIS, you know, parcel mapping project that. Every town. Okay. Did you have something to add, Mr. To confirm that when this question came up in the Senate, the RBC is indicated that they would help any town. Any assistance with internet forms during the process, because. Without this information being uploaded, we can't really get the clarity. It's allowed in communities. And if this bill passes, a lot of zoning is going to change. The zoning map we're currently building. We stay in two years because everything has changed. So we are going to have to take this into account. So. You know, I'm not sure it's critical that we. Create a procedure and process. To collect this data. And any town meeting assistance. This assistance will be provided by the. Okay. Okay. I'm okay. Putting that in the next version. Not seeing any other questions about it. Page 11. So section. is about appeals in the municipal system, the municipal planning system, so including zoning and planning. And so none of the language on page 11 is changing and it lists the people currently allowed to appeal. The changes are on page 12. And so this bill has been proposing to change subsection four, which establishes that any 10 persons who are voters or real property owners in a municipality can appeal. And so this version is, and so as it came over from the Senate, it was changing it to say any 10 persons with a common injury to a particularized interest protected by the chapter could appeal. And this is has similar intent, but it's changing it further. So on page 12, any person agreed, as defined in 8502-7 can appeal. For purposes of the subdivision, a particularized interest shall not include the character of the area affected if the project has a residential component that includes affordable housing. So the Senate version did include this part about particularized interest, not including character of the area. And that is being narrowed to only apply to affordable housing. And I will say that the definition of a grieved person is actually being added on the next page. So, although it's very similar. So on page 13, a person agreed means a person who alleges an injury to a particularized interest protected by the provisions of law listed in 8503 of this title or 24 VSA chapter 117, which is the zoning chapter we've been looking at. Attributable to an act or decision by a district coordinator, district commission, secretary or an appropriate municipal panel or the environmental division that can be redressed by the environmental division for the Supreme Court. So this is showing that currently this definition of person of grieve, a grieve which uses the definition of particularized interest is what's currently being used for Act 250 and ANR appeals. And so it's adding that this also be the standard of appeal for municipal decisions regarding planning and zoning. Represent seven. Thanks, Senator. So I thought not having been in the Senate side, my understanding of part of why it was 10 persons with shared interests was to really make it so that there was less of one person showing up saying, I don't want this because I'm gonna see this or whatever this to me feels like. And frankly, many of the components that we've talked about this morning feel to me like we are walking away from the substitutive meaningful changes that were in S 100. And I guess when it came to us and I guess for my question here, doesn't this sort of just go back to where we're at? Currently we're like one person. No, I'm misunderstanding this. Okay, good. Go ahead. Yes, right now it's just any persons, any 10 persons. So you don't have to have a threshold showing a particular last interest. And this, the way you can work from the Senate have 10 people with effectively a particular last interest. It would make it, in many cases, almost impossible to deal and I actually agree with this language and actually, I think like. And I think lining it up with two 15, you do have to make a showing. The first question is, do you actually have a particular last interest? It's not that you just get to say it and you don't like it. So it isn't just one person being able to appeal. It is somebody, because this does get then to a deep philosophical discussion. And as, I don't like Nibbius a little bit. And I'll sort of, I do think that you have to have a viable means for appeal, but I do believe you have to be able to make that last interest just like you do in an active case or an agency appeal that makes sense that they're consistent to me. So it isn't, it's actually easier to get any 10 with no, that's easy, because under the existing system, because they don't have to have a particular last interest with just 10. And here it's saying you must have a particular interest even though it's one. Senate saying 10 with effectively the use slightly different language with a particular last interest could actually make it virtually impossible to appeal because you might not have that to be the neighbor. And I do believe you have to have viable appeal rights because people sometimes they're right. So I actually like this language lining it up with what you need for the agency appeal. Representative Smith. Thank you. It makes it easier for one person to complain a lot easier than 10 to get together and have the same issue. Shouldn't it be two or three at least? It's a hard question because it may be that only one person has the particular last interest. Or you may not like the person that's building. Well, that wouldn't stand up because the threshold question of the court would be to approve the last interest back to don't like somebody wouldn't do it. So I think that's I mean, feel free to quantify it. I've said as you want to, but. So yeah, so this is the legal concept known as standing and defining who has the ability to bring a lawsuit to appeal a decision. It is a big question. So I would just say yes. So the, even though the words are a little bit different in this draft, I do think the primary difference here than what is in the Senate version is the 10 number of people as well as the mentioning of affordable housing but they had used particularized interest. And so this draft is using that in slightly different words but yes, currently under municipal planning appeal those can be by any person, any 10 persons and they don't need to have the particularized interest which is a threshold question to get your appeal to get status to bring the appeal. It seems to me that this is kind of in the middle. It's sort of, it's splitting the difference more than just going from one extreme to another. Let me just give an example. Something's being filled with a person who actually slopes onto your property and you really don't watch this fall. Watched onto your, you are filled person with a particularized interest that wouldn't be 10. If you required 10 of the particularized interest that person would have no appeal rights. And so, but the court's not sympathetic. Also, you've got to prove standing. That's not just, I don't like to develop that work. It's got to, you have to really prove a particularized interest and then, yet if we make it 10, it's very often virtually impossible for that person with an actual alleged injury to be able to, they wouldn't know the point of that. And this does, by the way, before we're done here, if I'm right, we end up saying this can't be character of the area as it relates to housing. That's in there. So, we'll- We're housing with a court. Let me just point that out because that's the usual maybe tool. And this is taking that away, which is also right, limiting it. Also, but limiting it. You can't appeal on that. So, yeah. Representative Sebelia. Yeah, I appreciate that second, the secondary addition there of that language, but I am concerned about the one person. And I understand on 10, but how are the courts working on these days? You know, what is the cost that is associated here? So, yes, they may be fine going to court. How long is that going to take? How much is that going to take? Can't we up the bar a little bit more than just one? Could we make it two or three? Just to play this out. The problem with that is that it may be one person who has that particular interest only and the second person wouldn't have it. And so we are, I think the chair is right about this, that this really isn't the middle ground. Any 10 is easy. Like you can do that any time you want. You can get 10 if it's just without any. Without a particular interest. Yeah, that's the old. This is actually harder, but it is possible. And by the way, to go to your point about expensive everything, there's a threshold showing before you do it. You don't go through the whole court. You go through the threshold question of do you actually have standing, do you actually have a particular interest? Then you go to court, effectively. So anyway, I think you have to have this. Otherwise people are going to, it's going to happen that some people are treated unfairly because they are gonna, I just picked that example up to my head, but there's others that you can get visited on. The real effects can get to the wrong view. Or we'll have to decide whether what you're complaining about rises to the average. A particular interest to the first day of that. I want to be sure that we did take testimony of some racial equity that the original language has been struck didn't necessarily cover a renter. I just want to make sure that this one would, the way it's written now, if you were a renter who's had a particularized interest next to it though, you still could have particularized interests and have standard. Yes. All right. Members, it's lunchtime. Representative Logan. Well, I'm property. I'm trying to see where renters have cause. The other one limited it to certain people and this one doesn't. It's the existing law and it says, it's not necessarily renters specifically, it's renters who can't vote. Is that the limit? Well, so it limited it to voters or property owners and that could be not non-voting, non-property owning neighbor. Right, yeah. So this, but this eliminates that language. I want to be aware of the time. We just did a long stretch. Thank you everyone. Time for lunch. We're on the floor at one and then we are back with Ellen 10 minutes after the floor to continue this.