This commentary is by Hannah Burrill, who works in real estate and excavation in Burke.
Nobody asked us when Act 181 was written, when it passed, or when the governor vetoed it and the Legislature overrode him. The people whose land, livelihoods and children’s futures this law will most directly shape were not in the room. And many of them still don’t know this law exists.
I did not learn about Act 181 through a public meeting or a letter from my government. I learned about it because my real estate license requires continuing education on new laws affecting property. If I only became aware of this law through my profession, how many Vermonters — busy with work, family and the daily reality of making ends meet — remain unaware of a policy that will directly affect what they can do with their own land?
I work in real estate and excavation. I spend my days around land — watching where septic systems can and cannot go, where wetland buffers begin, and what Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources will and will not permit. From that experience, one thing is clear: Rural development in Vermont is already heavily regulated.
Before Act 181, building a home was never as simple as choosing a spot and breaking ground. Licensed engineers must design septic systems. State wastewater permits are required. Wetlands are protected by strict buffers and oversight. In towns with local zoning, building permits add another layer of review. These are not abstract rules — they are the existing framework that governs rural development every single day.
What Act 181 adds is not a first layer of protection. It is a dramatic expansion of jurisdiction. Through its tiered system, it introduces new triggers for Act 250 review — originally designed for large-scale commercial development — now applied even when a rural family simply builds a modest home on their own land. In Tier 3 areas, which are mapped based on forest blocks, habitat connectors and other designated resources, building a single-family home can now require a full Act 250 permit. And under the road rule, a driveway or access road exceeding 800 feet — roughly the length of two and a half football fields, an entirely ordinary measurement in rural Vermont — triggers Act 250 review in Tier 2 areas. Tier 2, notably, is likely to encompass the largest portion of the state: If a parcel does not qualify for Tier 1 exemptions and is not mapped as Tier 3, it falls into Tier 2 by default.
This is not a narrow or marginal impact. This is the rural landscape of Vermont. The financial consequences are real. Act 250 compliance requires legal representation, engineering studies, environmental review and permitting — costs that can reach tens of thousands of dollars before a single foundation is poured. Vermont’s statewide median household income is approximately $81,000. In Essex County, one of the most rural in the state, the median is roughly $59,000. For families in these communities, that level of cost is not an inconvenience. It is, for many, effectively a prohibition on using their own land.
The exemptions built into Act 181 tell a clear story about who this law was designed to serve. They are tied to designated downtown areas and growth centers — places with municipal water, sewer and administrative infrastructure. Most rural towns do not have those things. Most rural towns cannot qualify. The result is a law that eases development in designated centers and makes it significantly harder everywhere else. That is not a housing policy. It is a geography of exclusion.
Supporters of Act 181 describe it as an environmental measure. Vermont’s own forest history raises a quiet challenge to that framing. According to the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, Vermont is currently 78 percent forested — a remarkable recovery from the mid-1800s, when early settlers had cleared nearly two-thirds of the state’s original forest. That recovery did not happen because of a tiered land use system. It happened because of private landowners. Today, more than 80 percent of Vermont’s forests are privately owned, cared for by families and individuals across the state. The people Act 181 treats as the problem nurtured the landscape it claims to protect.
What also became clear as I began speaking about this law is how the rules shaping it were made. The working group meetings for Criterion 8C — the forest block and habitat connector provisions — were held by invitation only from September through December 2025. This is documented on the state’s own website. Regular Vermonters were not invited. The rulemaking that will govern their land was conducted without them.
This is not an isolated oversight. Rural landowners do not have a dedicated lobbying presence in Montpelier. While organizations representing agriculture and forestry intersect with these concerns, there is no single voice in that building whose sole purpose is to represent the person trying to build a modest home on family land. When Act 181 was written, the people most affected by it had no seat at the table and no one holding one for them.
In February 2026 testimony, the Land Use Review Board — the entity responsible for implementing Act 181 — acknowledged that many Vermonters remain unaware of the law’s scope. That is not a communications failure. That is a consequence of a process that was never designed to include the people it would affect most.
Recently the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy voted unanimously to pass S.325 — a bill that delays, but does not repeal, the road rule and Tier 3 provisions. The road rule is now pushed to 2030, Tier 3 to 2028. That is an acknowledgment that this law was moving faster than the public process could keep up with. It is progress. But a delay is not the same as a solution. Rural Vermonters were not adequately included when this law was written. A few more years of the same process produces the same result.
Nobody asked us then. We are not waiting to be asked anymore.
