This story, by Report for America corps member Carly Berlin, was produced through a partnership between VTDigger and Vermont Public.
Democratic leaders in the Vermont House have signaled their willingness to roll back portions of Act 181, the contentious 2024 law that overhauled Vermont’s land use permitting system.
The move comes after weeks of protest from rural landowners who have argued that the law’s conservation aims infringe on personal property rights and impede development in rural areas. The Senate moved to postpone the law’s implementation late last month, but stopped short of a repeal. Now, the speaker of the House and the House Environment committee have indicated that the lower chamber is willing to go further.
Rep. Amy Sheldon, D-Middlebury, chair of the House Environment committee, said on Tuesday afternoon that the tiered land use classification system set forth in Act 181 is dividing Vermonters and needs rethinking.
“We don’t need our shared interest in protecting our environment to divide Vermont, particularly at this moment,” Sheldon told the committee.
Act 181 set in motion a transformation of Vermont’s landmark development-review policy, Act 250, mandating a first-of-its-kind mapping effort that would essentially dictate where future development would be subject to Act 250 scrutiny, and where it wouldn’t be. The Democratic-controlled Legislature passed the law over Republican Gov. Phil Scott’s objections two years ago.
Act 181 sought to ease regulations in already-developed areas – “Tier 1” zones – to speed up housing construction amid the state’s acute home shortage. At the same time, the law put in place a new “road rule” in much of the state – “Tier 2” areas – that would require a permit for private road construction longer than 800 feet, a measure meant to cut back on the fragmentation of forest blocks. Proposed “Tier 3” areas would bolster regulations over particularly sensitive ecosystems, like headwater streams and habitat connectors.
None of these zones are set in stone yet, as regional planning commissions and the state-level Land Use Review Board continue to map out their boundaries. But as draft maps have come out over the last several months, housing advocates, municipal leaders and conservative legislators have argued – at an increasingly loud pitch – that the conservation measures are too sweeping, and would tack on complicated and costly permitting processes for rural landowners.
Sheldon, one of Act 181’s initial drafters, is known as a devoted conservationist at the Statehouse. She told VTDigger/Vermont Public in late March that she was not open to rolling back portions of the law, saying that some of the arguments raised by opponents were overstated and misguided.
But after hearing days of critical testimony in the House Environment committee room, she made an about-face on Tuesday.
“I’m looking at repealing the road rule and the Tier 3 and revisiting how we structure that,” she said.
In a statement on Wednesday morning, House Speaker Jill Krowinski, a Burlington Democrat, echoed that position.
“Following extensive feedback from communities across Vermont, it is clear that the ‘Road Rule’ and ‘Tier 3’ need to be repealed,” Krowinski said. She likened the land use overhaul to the school consolidation effort backed by Scott.
“Vermonters have been clear that a top-down approach, whether it be land use policy or the administration’s proposal to force school consolidation into five districts, is not the right approach for shaping the future of our state,” Krowinski said.
The pivot from Democratic leaders in the House comes in the lead up to election season. During the last election cycle, voters’ concerns about the costliness of the new clean heat standard helped fuel a wave of Republican victories in the House and Senate. The Act 181 debate has been animated by a similar push-and-pull between environmental goals and affordability.
Sheldon and other House Environment committee members said on Tuesday that they intend to look at alternative ways to protect Vermont’s most sensitive ecosystems, outside of the Act 181 framework. But there was a sense of loss in the room.
“I’m sort of, like, mourning that we have to start over in some ways,” said Rep. Ela Chapin, D-East Montpelier. “But also excited that we do actually have new information from the last two years.”
The committee will next need to take a formal vote to amend S.325, the bill currently moving forward that would alter Act 181. The full House chamber would then need to vote on the bill before sending it back to the Senate.
Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth, a Burlington Democrat, told Seven Days on Tuesday that he was “shocked” by Sheldon’s pivot. The chair of the Senate Natural Resources and Energy committee, Sen. Anne Watson, D/P-Washington, expressed less surprise. She told the paper she would take testimony before making any decisions, but indicated “she was unlikely to resist” the House’s change, Seven Days reported.
