Gov. Phil Scott has vetoed a bill that would have updated Act 250, Vermont’s broad land use and development law, over concerns that it would impede efforts to alleviate the state’s severe housing crisis.
Proponents of the bill said it struck a balance, relaxing Act 250 in designated areas while installing protections for natural areas, such as forest blocks, to prevent sprawling development there. Organizations such as the Vermont Natural Resources Council, Audubon Vermont, the Vermont Land Trust and the Nature Conservancy had advocated for its passage.
“This bill makes Act 250 even more cumbersome than it is today and it will make it harder to build the housing we desperately need,” Scott wrote in a letter to lawmakers on Wednesday. “These concerns were raised by elected leaders on both sides of the aisle, though were not addressed by the Legislature.”
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger and Ted Brady, executive director of the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, both spoke out against the bill at a press conference May 10, during which Scott announced plans to veto the legislation. The Vermont League of Cities and Towns also wrote a letter to lawmakers opposing the bill, saying it “misses significant opportunities to ease the permit process for building housing in Vermont in several important respects.”
The bill, S.234, saw a number of last-minute changes on the Senate floor on the final day of the legislative session. Anticipating the bill’s likely death, lawmakers funneled its housing-related provisions into the more favorable omnibus housing bill, S.226, which passed both chambers and has yet to be delivered to the governor. Scott indicated he would sign S.226 in his letter to lawmakers on Wednesday.
The remaining Act 250 bill would have changed the law’s governance structure. Now, the Natural Resources Board administers Act 250, and appeals go to the Environmental Division of the Vermont Superior Court. Under the proposed legislation, a new, professionalized Environmental Review Board would administer the law and handle Act 250 appeals.
Had S.234 become law, it would have also included protections for connecting habitat and forest blocks.
The bill defines “connecting habitat” as “land or water, or both, that links patches of habitat within a landscape, allowing the movement, migration, and dispersal of wildlife and plants and the functioning of ecological processes.”
Its definition of forest blocks reads, “a contiguous area of forest in any stage of succession and not currently developed for nonforest use.”
Under the bill, proposed development projects on both types of land would have been subject to greater scrutiny from the new Environmental Review Board.
It’s this section of the bill that David Mears, executive director of Audubon Vermont and vice president of the National Audubon Society, is particularly disappointed won’t become law. Mears said the bill was “Audubon Vermont’s top priority” this session.
“I think everyone who cares about forests should agree — whether they’re recreationists, or a logger, or a birder, or someone who cares about climate change — should be concerned about the encroachment of development on our forest and the fragmentation of our large forest blocks,” he said.
He called the argument that the bill would have affected the state’s ability to mitigate the housing crisis “absurd.”
“There’s no threat to housing by protecting large forest blocks,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of space to build housing in our villages, downtowns and cities.”
Brian Shupe, executive director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council, also criticized the governor’s veto Wednesday.
“By vetoing this bill, the Governor has put at risk Vermont’s beloved landscape of compact community centers surrounded by intact forests and working lands,” he said in a statement, adding that S.234 would have safeguarded the state’s natural landscape from a Covid-related increase in real estate pressure.
Scott signed two wildlife bills on Wednesday. One of the bills, S.201, requires the Fish & Wildlife Department to develop best management practices for trapping wildlife in the state to “improve the welfare of animals subject to trapping programs.” The other, S.281, restricts and regulates the practice of hunting coyotes with dogs.
In rejecting S.234, Scott has now vetoed nine bills this session and 33 during his time in office.
