Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Milne sees his struggle to lift a $30 million development project off the ground as illustrative of wider problems with the Shumlin administration’s approach to regional planning, he said Thursday.
Milne and his business partner, David Boies III, have sunk $4 million into the Quechee Highlands project, a proposed 130,000-square-foot commercial and residential village off the I-89 interchange in Hartford. Boies III and Milne are the principles of B&M Realty and former college roommates. Boies III and his family are major contributors to Milne’s gubernatorial campaign. (They donated half of the $20,000 Milne reported in his first campaign finance filing.)
The two men are appealing the denial of an Act 250 permit by the District 3 Environmental Commission, which hinged largely on traffic concerns and the Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Planning Commission’s assertion that the project doesn’t comply with its development plan for the region.
Milne did not want to comment on the appeal, which is before the Environmental Division of the state Superior Court.
But Milne’s antipathy toward the Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission is no secret. He blasted the commission in public statements and in an op-ed published last year in the Valley News after the permit was denied.
Act 250 is a regulatory framework meant to guide land use and development in the state. The law created a review process for development projects based on 10 criteria that are meant to protect the environment, communities and the aesthetic character of the state.
Since the piece was published critics have told Milne he doesn’t understand the state’s landmark land use law, but the gubernatorial candidate says Act 250 isn’t the problem.
“It’s the political direction that regional commissions are getting from Shumlin’s Agency of Commerce” that is creating problems for developers, he said.
Pressed for specifics, Milne said there’s a leadership vacuum at the Agency Commerce and Community Development, and the governance structure of regional commissions gives them too much authority over town planning.
“Clearly, the one I was involved with is one that has a lot of room for improvement,” he said, taking a jab at Two Rivers.
The town of Hartford got behind the Quechee Highlands project, designating the area where the project was planned a “growth center,” but it has since reversed course, according to a Valley News report.
Milne said that’s because town officials under pressure from Two Rivers “basically felt they had a gun to their head.”
State and federal development grants for towns are tied to regulations that require conformance with regional plans and are reviewed by the regional commission for compliance.
Two Rivers found that Hartford’s plan didn’t comply with the regional plan, thereby cutting off the town’s access to government grants.
To get back in compliance, town officials scrapped the “growth center” where Milne hopes to develop, creating another hurdle for the project.
Noelle MacKay, commissioner of the Department of Housing and Community Development, which oversees the state’s 11 regional commissions, says development goals in statute support compact villages surrounded by working lands. State law aims to reduce sprawl, she said.
Her department is working with the regional commissions to ensure consistency in the review of town plans and participation in the Act 250 permitting process, because some commissions have been more involved than others, MacKay said.
Regional planning commissions’ boards of directors are made up of representatives from the towns and form subcommittees to review the regional plan as well as the individual town plans.
Milne said part of the problem is that those boards “don’t have a democratic voting system,” and the members are appointed not elected, reducing accountability.
Hartford is a town of roughly 11,000 in a region with a population of roughly 57,000, he said, and its representation on the Two Rivers commission isn’t proportional.
“It would be like Burlington getting one vote in the Legislature,” Milne said.
But MacKay says regional commissions take a broader view than town authorities and as a result are better positioned to evaluate development projects.
The tug-of-war between preservation and development prompted the passage of Act 250 in the 1970s, and since then, Vermont’s governors have had different perspectives on how that balance should be struck, according to Brian Shupe, executive director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council.
Gov. Howard Dean tilted toward the preservation end of the scale and used an executive order to limit development along interstates, while Gov. Jim Douglas favored development along exit ramps, he said.
Gov. Peter Shumlin has been “a mixed-bag” when it comes to Act 250 and development issues, Shupe said.
His administration supported legislation limiting strip development this year, but Shumlin has also supported development along I-89 at Exit 4 in Randolph, he said.
Milne said development could be a topic he broaches during his campaign against Shumlin, but he says it’s not the most serious issue facing Vermont’s economy.
The state’s rising property taxes and the Shumlin administration’s health care reform efforts are higher priorities for his campaign, he said.
