Stop strong-arming towns into signing off on regional plans

This commentary is by Colleen Geddis, founder of the Rural Vermont Rising Facebook group.

Imagine being handed a 408-page document that will shape how land in your town can be used for decades. You get about 30 days’ notice before the first hearing. Your town’s map was redrawn only this summer, after the law changed again in June. And if your region misses the Dec. 31 deadline, your town could lose state grants, housing exemptions and the help it counts on after a disaster.

That is exactly where Cabot found itself this fall. So did many other towns.

Act 181 requires nearly every regional planning commission to adopt a new plan, with a land use map and housing targets for each town, by the end of the year. In theory, towns do not have to agree. In practice, the Legislature enforces the mandate with money. If the state Land Use Review Board does not approve a region’s plan, its towns can lose Act 250 housing exemptions, designation benefits and eligibility for state grants.

Simply put, the message from Montpelier is: Sign it or lose your funding.

The Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission spent two years preparing its plan. Towns got the same short review window that applied when regional plans were a fraction of this length and far less consequential. The Cabot Selectboard said so in comments approved Oct. 13 and told its commissioners to vote no until the town could finish its review. Saying “approve this plan or lose your funding” is no way to get buy-in. The commission adopted the plan anyway on Oct. 20, by a vote of 21-1.

Cabot’s own zoning administrator sits on the regional commission. Her question is the right one: Why should a town have to choose between a fair review and protecting its residents?

Rural landowners have good reason to be cautious. Act 181 used state habitat maps to create Tier 3 and added a road rule. The Legislature repealed both this year, but only after rural Vermonters saw what the maps meant and pushed back. The rules that may eventually attach to rural designations like Rural Forestry and Agriculture still have not been written. Some will not arrive until 2028. Landowners deserve to know what a designation means before it is locked in.

And this is not just Central Vermont. In the Two Rivers-Ottauquechee region, people in 27 of 30 towns commented on the draft plan. In August, the Land Use Review Board itself questioned whether that plan’s mandatory rules infringe on property rights. In Granville and Hancock, two of the region’s poorer towns, the draft map would expand the most restrictive category, effectively banning future economic development.

That is not planning. That is a freeze.

There is a simple fix. The funding and housing benefits at stake depend mainly on growth areas: village centers, downtowns and the Tier 1A and 1B areas that qualify for Act 250 housing exemptions. Regions could map those now and refine everything else next year. As the selectboard wrote in its comments to the commission, “None of these elements affect the Act 250 housing exemptions or grant eligibility, so there is no need to rush them.”

It was all Cabot was asking for. Adopt the village growth areas and the state minimum now. Leave rural mapping and final housing targets for a 2027 review.

The planning commissions did not choose this timeline. The Legislature did, and then it changed the rules in June. It is up to the Legislature to fix it. Lawmakers should move the deadline to Dec. 31, 2027.

Until they do, every Vermonter should read their regional plan and speak up. The Two Rivers-Ottauquechee plan has not been submitted yet. Once a commission adopts its plan, residents who took part in the process have just 15 days to file an objection with the Land Use Review Board on the board’s form. Details are at act250.vermont.gov.

Good planning takes time. Vermonters deserve the chance to get it right.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Stop strong-arming towns into signing off on regional plans.