Editor’s note: This commentary is by Elizabeth Courtney, an author and environmental consultant who is former chair of the Environmental Board and former executive director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council. She can be contacted at elizabethcourtneyvt@gmail.com.
[T]his summer and fall, the Commission on the Future of Act 250 will be coming to a town near you. The commission’s six legislators, chaired by Middlebury Rep. Amy Sheldon, will be on a listening tour of the state, tasked to determine whether Act 250 — Vermont’s almost 50-year-old land use development regulation — could use a tune-up to better serve the Green Mountain State for the next 50 years.
Advances in technology and changes in our climate offer us bright opportunities and serious challenges that were not on our radar screen 50 years ago. At the time, southern Vermont was experiencing a frenzy of growth due to the improved access provided by the interstate’s arrival. In response to what he called “rampant” growth Gov. Deane Davis created the Growth Commission, also known as the Gibb Commission, after its chair, Weybridge Rep. Art Gibb. His intention was to create a process to guide development in a way that was accessible to citizens, had comprehensive criteria — including protections not only for natural but also cultural resources — and that it would be based on a statewide land use plan.
The land use plan was eliminated from Act 250 a few short years after the act was signed into law. Vermonters have wrestled for decades over the idea of planning for future land use. There have been many a battle over the notion of the state or local government limiting, through planning, the use of one’s property. But planning cuts both ways, with plans for growth as well as conservation.
In spite of a disdain for planning, there exists a pattern of land use in New England that has become known as the “compact village settlement, surrounded by open countryside.” The sharp distinction between a working landscape and tight-knit settlements is historically the product of a very pragmatic rural population. It provided the efficiencies of shared infrastructure and energy resources in the towns, while the farm and forested areas were worked, to provide food, fiber and fuel, to the community.
Then came the automobile and the affluence of the 1960s, enabling newcomers to live a distance from town centers. Farm and forest land was subdivided to accommodate the desire for rural living, relatively free from the responsibilities of tending the land. It was the interstate that gave Vermonters the first glimpses of the sprawl of suburbia. And today, the internet is enabling a silent, piecemeal, unseen sprawl that has further fragmented our farm and forest lands. Today our ability to telecommute over great distances is a coveted freedom, but one that may come with a high cost if we are not thoughtful about how we grow and where we grow. The parcelization and fragmentation of the whole cloth of the landscape, subdivision by subdivision, threatens our quality of life and the health of our farm and forest land, our headwaters, wetlands, rivers and lakes, wildlife, air quality and the vitality of our town centers. These are the vital resources we will need to maintain some degree of resilience and durability in the face of the brutalities of climate change in the next 50 years.
But why, if we have Act 250, are we seeing the fragmentation of our forests and farms? Why do we have sprawl? Why are so many of our downtowns hollowed out because businesses have fled to the strips? At least one of the many reasons is because Act 250 today has jurisdiction over big projects only, regardless of where they are intended to be built. What if a project proposed to be built in designated natural resource area triggered Act 250 review, regardless of its size? That would mean most developers would probably choose to build in a designated downtown or village, in order to avoid the rigorous Act 250 review. If that were the case, we might see a lot less fragmentation of the working landscape and more vital cities.
Think about it, this seemingly small change to Act 250 could mean a significant benefit for the future of our great little state. Remember the real estate mantra? It’s “location, location, location.”
When the commission comes to town this summer, let them hear from you. Tell them that you want Act 250 to reinforce the historic settlement pattern by changing the jurisdictional trigger from size of project to location of project. Tell them that you want Act 250 to better protect the beauty, functionality and durability of the Vermont landscape.
Forum schedule
All forums are on Wednesday evenings from 6 to 8 p.m.
Springfield, June 27, Nolin-Murray Center at St. Mary’s Catholic Church.
Manchester, July 11
Randolph, July 25
Island Pond, Aug. 22
Rutland, Sept. 5
Burlington, Sept. 12
For exact locations, visit legislature.vermont.gov/committee/detail/2018/333.