The Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee has a mighty task.
By Wednesday, committee members plan to have hammered out complex details of Act 250 reform while sticking to a compromise that environmentalists and housing advocates crafted over the summer.
Committee members plan to combine the meat of three bills — H.687, S.311 and S.308 — each of which modifies Act 250 in different ways.
Act 250, Vermont’s 54-year-old sweeping and controversial land use law, is designed to ensure that development in the state is carefully planned and desired by neighbors.
In more recent years, developers and affordability advocates have targeted the law, calling it a barrier to addressing Vermont’s dire housing crisis. Meanwhile, environmentalists have responded that climate change and habitat loss due to development should require builders to think even more carefully about their projects.
Despite the conflict, the compromise crafted over the summer gives this legislative session the unique potential to lead to change. But the consensus is high-level, and an hourslong debate on the House floor over H.687 late last month, complete with 10 amendments, shows there’s plenty of room for disagreement.
With some conflicting sections, the two main bills could be tricky for the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee to merge.
For example, the House bill would send appeals to a professionalized board instead of a judge. S.311, however, appoints a new judge to help speed along Act 250 appeals.
H.687 creates tiers that would define how the law applies to various types of land use. S.311, would set up a public process to define those tiers and where they would apply. In the meantime, it would allow Act 250 exemptions for certain types of projects in specific areas.
“We’re really, definitely, under a microscope,” Sen. Chris Bray, D-Addison, who chairs the committee. “That’s OK, fine. We’ve been there before. There’s been controversy attached to things before. We just stay open-minded and keep working. We have a history of getting good work done.”
Bray said H.687 — a bill Gov. Phil Scott has taken direct aim at this session — will be the vehicle that will carry pieces of S.311 and S.308, a Senate Natural Resources bill that hasn’t seen much discussion yet. The committee plans to meet for most of Monday, an off day for most lawmakers, and to vote by Wednesday, he said.
He’ll be staying in “close communication” with Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D/P-Chittenden Southeast, who chairs the Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs Committee, which crafted S.311.
Ram Hinsdale told VTDigger via text that she’s “cautiously optimistic about the next two weeks.” Her priorities for the final product are strong Act 250 exemptions for the next five years as well as a tier system and mapping process that is “fair and begins with our municipalities,” she said.
She also hopes Senate Natural Resources will leave large chunks of S.311, which are not related to Act 250, alone. Bray said that’s his intention.
Stakeholders are anxiously awaiting the product.
Megan Sullivan, a lobbyist for the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, said the “pieces around compromise are still there,” but she’s hoping the bill will lean toward S.311’s approach.
“I haven’t heard anything that’s giving us pause that there isn’t a commitment to really bringing the housing pieces from S.311 in,” she said, adding that she plans to be in the committee room on Monday all day.
— Emma Cotton
In the know
In late March, the House passed an ambitious spending bill that creates new revenue streams for a wide range of housing programs, from bolstering shelter capacity, to eviction prevention, to boosting affordable rental housing production. With a stated intent to invest $900 million in housing initiatives over the next 10 years, H.829 has been lauded by its supporters as a long-overdue plan to transition Vermonters out of homelessness — and reduce the state’s reliance on motels for shelter.
But as that bill arrives in the Senate, it faces headwinds. Key senators say this is the year to focus on easing regulations that impede housing development — not continuing to spend.
— Carly Berlin
The Vermont Senate Committee on Education will hold its confirmation hearing for Gov. Phil Scott’s pick for education secretary, Zoie Saunders, on April 23.
The committee’s chair, Sen. Brian Campion, D-Bennington, initially considered holding the hearing next week, when Saunders plans to begin work. But Campion said in an interview on Thursday that the administration had requested the hearing be scheduled one week later.
— Ethan Weinstein
When the week started, the House’s tax writing committee looked poised to structurally transform Vermont’s education finance system.
By Thursday, such changes seemed less certain.
And on Friday, Gov. Phil Scott’s administration entered the room, throwing out an unexpected proposal to lower property taxes this year by spreading out the tax increase over multiple years using a yet-to-be-named pot of money.
— Ethan Weinstein
On the move
On Friday morning, the Senate passed H.363, prohibiting discrimination based on certain hair types and styles by employers and in public places — legislation modeled on the CROWN Act, which has already been enacted in dozens of states, including New York and Maine.
The chamber also gave preliminary approval to H.664, which designates the Bear’s Head Tooth as the state mushroom.
Meanwhile, the House gave preliminary approval to S.199, concerning the governance and business practices of communication union districts, or CUDs.
The bill creates rules for the merger of CUDs — municipal structures created to promote the development of universal high speed broadband across Vermont. The rules would allow CUD mergers to occur after backing by their respective governing boards, rather than requiring approval by voters which is the law for other municipalities. It also gives CUD business records the presumption of confidentiality and makes miscellaneous other more technical changes to current law.
— VTD Editors
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Happy birthday
You know when you buy your significant other a gift for a special occasion, but it’s really mostly a gift for yourself? No? Just me? Well, the entire Senate (and a certain reporter) pulled a similar stunt on Senate Secretary John Bloomer on Friday in celebration of his birthday this weekend.
Chief of Staff Ashley Moore and Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky, P/D-Chittenden Central, hatched the plan. Here’s how it was supposed to go: On cue, at the end of Friday’s floor session, senators would all take out their cellphones at once to send identical texts to Moore and Bloomer.
“The senator next to me is texting,” all the texts would read.
If you don’t know Bloomer, this may seem like a pretty mild prank. But IYKYK: Bloomer, a stickler for decorum, strictly enforces the Senate’s “no electronics” rule. To send a text from the Senate floor is the equivalent of spitting on Bloomer’s shoes, more or less.
It nearly didn’t go as planned. Before the cue, Moore’s phone began ringing in the chamber. Senators exchanged panicked glances and stifled laughter, worried it was all over.
Bloomer stalked around the chamber until he located the ringing phone and nearly confiscated it. Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman, quick on his feet, jumped in. “I’ll take that!” he said.
At the close of the floor session, Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden Central, gave the cue. All senators took out their phones at once and began texting. The confiscated phone ding, ding, dinged from Zuckerman’s dais. From the balcony, I’m pretty sure I spotted an actual flash of red in Bloomer’s eyes.
And then I played my part, committing the cardinal sin of eating and drinking in the historic chamber. Out from my bag I pulled a bag of popcorn and soda, which I loudly cracked open. In the words of Vyhovsky, such a show requires popcorn.
Happy birthday to the secretary — sorry not sorry!
— Sarah Mearhoff
What we’re reading
Vermont’s Union Mutual insurance company announces affiliation with Norfolk & Dedham, VTDigger
Fossil fuel companies can be linked to climate damages, Dartmouth scientist tells Vermont lawmakers, Vermont Public
Ethics panel dismisses complaint against Ram Hinsdale, Seven Days
