Justin Marsh (00:00.324)
All right. It's been a long time since you've been on the Democracy Dispatch. Welcome back, Lauren Hurl. For new listeners, Lauren was a regular guest for the first two seasons of Democracy Dispatch. And so what's new? Where did you go?

Lauren (00:28.492)
Yeah, so I used to love doing the democracy dispatch regularly with you, Justin. And when I transitioned about a year and a half ago to the role of executive director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council, I lost my standing seat on the democracy dispatch. And I'm really grateful to have a chance to come back and hang with you for a bit.

Justin Marsh (00:49.212)
Yeah, well, don't worry. I didn't replace you, as you know. Dan didn't get your spot. Well, very happy to have you back and to discuss something that's very relevant in this moment. We're recording this on Friday of what has been a very wild week, both for our organizations and for the state house around land use and Act 250 reform.

Lauren (00:51.947)
You

Justin Marsh (01:14.332)
So last week I spoke with Senator Ann Watson about what her committee has been working on through the session. And one of the major parts that she touched on were tweaks to Act 181 implementation and the ongoing Act 250 reforms. So I wanna kind of go deeper and really go through where we arrived to where we are today. And so to start zooming out for listeners who may not be familiar, what is Act 250 and what...

problem was it originally designed to solve in Vermont?

Lauren (01:47.278)
Yeah, so Act 250 was enacted back in 1970. And at the time it was kind of during the Back to the Land movement, a lot of people were moving to Vermont. There was a lot of change happening on the landscape and people in Vermont realized that there were not good tools to make sure that the state could.

really look at what kind of development is coming in and make sure that we're looking at potential impacts on the environment, but also communities, is it coming in and is there adequate infrastructure to handle them? Are there going to be traffic impacts or other things? So it was really kind of looking at that suite of potential ways that new development could change communities and making sure that any harms are being addressed and that that

development is going in and kind of smart, thoughtful ways. And it's been really credited with the kind of landscape we see today where we've been able to maintain, you know, compact community centers and our farms and forests. And, you know, when you compare Vermont to a lot of other states where there's been a lot of sprawling development that's kind of taken over a lot of the state that, you know, we've managed our development in.

more thoughtful ways a lot of people would say. And so that's been kind of the benefits and I'm sure we'll get into some of the controversies too.

Justin Marsh (03:12.956)
Well, yes. I mean, Act 250 has been somewhat controversial. I did an episode early on in the first season with Representative Amy Sheldon. was Vermont's love-hate relationship with Act 250. It was on Valentine's Day. I thought it was a fun hook. But it's kind of remained such a central, sometimes polarizing part of Vermont policy for decades. And even though we passed the reform last biennium,

and which we'll get to in a minute, it continues to be something that is addressed almost every single session it's brought up. it doesn't matter, it seems the committee. What's working well with Act 250 and where has it fallen short? Kind of just generally crossed its lifetime.

Lauren (04:00.502)
Yeah, so think it has, like I said, I think it has had a big role in encouraging kind of thoughtful development that has allowed us to, for example, maintain working farmlands, working forests in a way that many other states have struggled who have not had the same kind of statewide land use assessment opportunity. And at the same time, for

VNRC's part, we, more than a decade ago, we were coming up on the 50th anniversary of Act 250 and we're realizing that there were opportunities to update and improve the law. You know, and there's always been kind of underlying tension of, you want to protect people's property rights on the one hand, and you want to protect, you know, statewide resources of importance and make sure that development and things that are happening on private property are.

not going to harm the community in some way and so not harm neighbors and that kind of thing. So it's finding that balance point is always tricky and raises controversy. So that's what you're always operating in. But for us, we really wanted to figure out climate change is obviously a much bigger deal and we're seeing the impacts of flooding and droughts and things on the landscape. And when Act 50 was written, that was not really a consideration.

you know, on the environmental side, it wasn't fully capturing the kind of protections that we would want. But also we're dealing with a housing crisis and wanted to look at, how do we make it easier to build, you know, especially in and near our downtowns, our village centers, where, you know, smart growth development is great for communities, great for our environment, you know, and we really needed to figure out how to make it easier to build housing. So all of those pressures were

kind of coming into a reassessment of, where is Act 250 falling short? How could it be modernized to really meet this moment in a better way?

Justin Marsh (06:06.811)
So Act 250, when it was enacted in 1970, it's not the same bill and it hasn't been that same bill for a while. It sounds like there's been tweaks made over the span and it's been adjusted. And so this sort of adjustment that we're gonna get into is not that irregular.

Lauren (06:27.232)
Yeah, it's been an evolving law, and you know, any law you have to keep updating and looking at, you know, what's working, what isn't working, you know, things change, administrations change, priorities change. And so, you know, Act 250 like that has evolved along with Vermont for the past, you know, 50 plus years.

Justin Marsh (06:49.883)
Yeah. Well, as I mentioned last biennium, the legislature passed an Act 250 reform bill that is now known as Act 181. It's considered a major modernization of Act 250. And so what were lawmakers trying to improve with Act 181?

Lauren (07:05.624)
Fundamentally, people were looking at how do we make it easier to build housing in Vermont while also maintaining our working lands, our farms, our forests, and can we make it easier to build housing while also maintaining a healthy environment? And so it was really looking for that balance of trying to strengthen. So for example, how do we put in Act 250 exemptions in

you know, if people are developing in and near our downtowns and village centers so that we're really kind of encouraging development in those places, making it easier. And then also though, at the same time, you know, there's these resources of statewide importance that we don't have any good protections for. And so can we put in some new, new areas of protection for things like headwaters and wildlife corridors?

and some of the assets that really do have statewide importance, but are not protected in any other program right now in Vermont.

Justin Marsh (08:13.435)
So Act 181 also reintroduces the road rule. Can you explain sort of the history there broadly, what it is, why it's back as a component of Act 181?

Lauren (08:24.078)
Yeah, so the road rule was a part of Act 250 for, I believe, more than 20 years. And it really is saying, you know, if you're building a very long road or driveway, that that project could trigger an Act 250 review. And, you know, it's looking at if you're kind of cutting deep into our forests, there's impacts of development that, you know, if you're looking at a statewide level,

each development that's cutting into the forest is fragmenting the forest that really undermines the integrity and the ability of our wildlife to thrive and just having a healthy ecosystem. having that look for projects that are building really long roads has kind of been a part of the way Act 250 was approached for many years. And then in the early 2000s,

there was one of these moments where Act 250 was being changed in a number of ways. The road rule went away at that point, but they were putting in other provisions that were changing how Act 250 was being administered. So it's just kind of a part of a package of changes that were going in at the time. It hadn't been a hugely controversial thing. There aren't really that many really long roads that are built. It's expensive to build really long driveway, it's really long roads.

So it wasn't something that was at the time, as it's been told to me, a huge deal. was just kind of part of a package of changes. And so when Act of 50 modernization was being discussed in the last few years, the road rule was one of those tools that was just part of the conversation, like, that's existed before. That was a way that we could get at some of these projects that could have impacts on important resources.

And so had been part of, there was a stakeholder group looking at Act 250 modernization and that group had brought it up as one of the tools that should be considered as part of a package when you're looking at loosening Act 250 in some places and protecting resources at the same time.

Justin Marsh (10:27.769)
Yeah, and there's exemptions as there is to any bill it feels like. like, you know, farm roads are exempt from the road rule. Is that correct in my understanding?

Lauren (10:37.996)
Yeah, yeah, farm and logging roads, for example, and farming and logging have always and continue to be exempt from Act 250.

Justin Marsh (10:45.883)
Great. So we're in the implementation phase now. What's been learned about how Act 181 actually plays out on the ground and what parts have gone smoothly and where have there been some challenges or confusion?

Lauren (11:00.076)
Yeah, I mean, think change is always hard, first of all, and it takes time. And this, you know, it's a complicated law and a complicated, you know, set of changes. so part of Act 181 was creating a new land use review board. And so this was trying to move away from what had been a volunteer board and

district commissioners around the state to maintaining the district commissioners. You've got that local engagement in Act 250 still, but having a professional board that are people with expertise and looking for a range of people. They all had to be from different parts of the state and really looking at trying to have that kind full-time capacity with people who could build expertise and how to administer the program with the goal of it going.

more smoothly, more efficiently, more consistently for people around the state. Because part of what we'd been hearing was depending on where you were in the state, you might get very different decisions from from Act 250. So that new board has now been, you know, was created and then they were charged with developing a whole bunch of policies and regulations to try to implement this big new law. And so that has what's been happening for the past two years, essentially, since

Act 181 was passed in 2024. So it's been, I would say there's a lot of work that's been done. There have been a number of stakeholder groups, a lot of people brought to the table trying to work through how to make this law play out smoothly on the landscape. And I would say that it was a big task and kind of building the plane as you go. And understandably, there's, it's

complicated and it affects a lot of people and trying to get that right and do the kind of community engagement and outreach, you know, from our perspective coming in this legislative session, we thought there was a lot more work that needed to be done to engage Vermonters and hear from people and understand, you know, concerns that were coming up or, you know, how could we shape the policy to make it really work for different types of communities? And so I think the kind of

Lauren (13:17.472)
Outreach and engagement is an area that I would say needs more time and more work.

Justin Marsh (13:23.067)
Well, this year the Senate introduced S325 and it's been debated at length this week on the Senate floor. Walk me through the components of the bill. There are some delays, there are some changes to timelines, adjustments. Yeah, what does it do?

Lauren (13:43.311)
Yeah, mean, fundamentally, as 325 was a bill introduced in response to the concern about wanting to give more time to hear from Vermonters and to really shape policies that are going to work and not be kind of overly broad in a lot of ways. I think that the kind of early drafts that the Land Use Review Board was putting out, particularly around some of the

critical natural resource protection pieces of the law were kind of broad and didn't have some of the nuance and addressing some ways that you could really narrowly focus on protecting the resources without being, know, sweeping in a bunch of projects that you really don't need to. And so, you know, from our perspective, for example,

you know, how to roll out tier three, which is the critical natural resource tier. So you've got tier one that makes it, you know, take, create some actually 50 exemptions to spur housing. And then tier two is kind of status quo and tier three is the identifying these critical natural resources. And, and so as the land use review board was putting out their tier three proposals, you know, there's a lot of ways that you could.

try to identify those resources, but also say, you know, like what size project is going to trigger it? You know, if someone's building a shed, do we care? It's like, I personally, I don't think that kind of project should trigger an Act 250 review. But the land use review board really needed more time to figure out, okay, like what kind of project size would have the type of impact on these resources that we care about, you know.

if your land might have a critical natural resource on it, but then you've got a bunch of other land, if you're doing a development on the other piece of your land, do you have to go through Act 250 just because part of your land has a critical natural resource on it? Again, we don't think so, but let's get clarity around that. So there's a whole bunch of ways you can look at how do we really narrowly target wanting to protect these resources, but not be overly sweeping and pulling in projects that we really don't need to be reviewing through Act 250. So S325 was...

Lauren (15:57.647)
you know, to us, a core part of it was let's take more time to have those conversations so we can make that policy work better from our perspective, certainly to, you know, just narrowly target the protections that we want without being too sweeping. So it also extends the timeline for the road rule out at this point now out to 2030. So again, giving a lot of time to figure out, you know, what types of projects.

might get triggered by the road rule. And if you go through Act 250, part of it is also saying you could limit the criteria that you have to look at. So Act 250, there's a whole bunch of things that you need to look at, traffic and water quality impacts and this and that. And you could really tailor it to say, if we're trying to through this, the road rule or

this tier three protection just to protect a specific resource, then let's just look at that resource. You don't need to maybe do a traffic analysis for your project if that's not a concern. So I think there's ways to also limit what that review could involve to make it a lot more streamlined for people. So those are, to me, some of the core pieces of S325.

Justin Marsh (17:12.507)
So from VNRC's perspective, and also just if you can catch us up on what happened this week on the Senate floor. I know there were a lot of amendments. what improvements are the most important to us or to you and what might still need work as it moves over to the House and sort of where did it ultimately land with all the amendments?

Lauren (17:39.287)
Yeah, so there are a number of amendments that were offered. Some were looking to repeal pieces of Act 181. Some were looking to extend timelines even further than the committee had already extended them. And there were some that were looking at those tier one areas, the areas where we're trying to make it easier to develop housing in particular. So some of those tier one amendments did move forward and I think will be.

from VNRC's perspective, trying to understand, floor amendments happen quickly and you're trying to understand kind of on the fly what the impacts might be. But I think they're really just trying to get at some holes in how Act 181 exemptions were showing up in some small towns. And so I think it seemed like generally a fine policy. But we'll look more closely to see potential impacts. But I think

It was in the spirit of Act 181 of how we're spurring housing in our downtown and village centers. The amendments that we're looking to either repeal or further extend timelines did not move forward. So essentially what ended up in the version of the bill that's now moved over to the House includes pushing implementation of the Tier 3 Natural Resource Protection Tier.

out to June 30th of 2028. So there'll be, you know, two full years to look at how to shape that policy thoughtfully and two legislative sessions where if there's tweaks that need to be made to it, there's opportunity to do that. And then the road rule pushed out to 2030 was included in that final version. There's also some extensions of timeline exemptions for housing. So some Act 250 exemption areas.

that are extended in S325 as well.

Justin Marsh (19:38.492)
So last week we saw a rally at the Statehouse and strong pushback from rural Vermonters. Many opponents argue that Act 181 threatens property rights and makes it harder to build in rural areas. Some landowners say that these new designations could leave them frozen and unable to develop their land. What's your take on that fear and how do you respond to that concern?

Lauren (20:01.772)
I think there's some really important and legitimate concerns coming up of what could this new approach to Act 250 mean. So for example, we've been hearing of a farmer or a large landowner who has always planned to pass part of their land onto their kids, build a house, and they're worried that now they're all of a sudden gonna have to go through Act 250 if they just want to build a house for.

for their children on their own land. And I think that is a good example of the kind of issue that with more time we can really think about. Like a lot of projects I don't think would get triggered. Like you'd have to be maybe building a 2000 foot driveway, which is a, you know, almost a half mile long driveway. So you could avoid it by just building a short, a slightly shorter, you could build a 1900 foot driveway and you wouldn't go through active 50. So I think there's like some.

ways that you could potentially avoid it, but I think we could also look at are there policy options like, you know, if you're at a certain income level, you know, maybe we could waive Act 250 fees or I think there's a whole bunch of things like we could think about to make sure that this is not pulling in, you know, something like that type of project where you're just building a house for your kid. So,

That's the kind of conversation that I think needs to play out more. And that is really important. You know, I think at the same time it's been frustrating that there's, think a lot of misinformation being pushed out as well of, you know, saying, for example, that tier three is covering huge swaths of the state, entire counties, entire towns, and that, you know, so every development in these areas, huge swaths of the state are going to get pulled into act 250, which is just simply not true. And

I think, again, giving more time as the land use review board continues to refine it, we're certainly pushing that they really stay narrowly focused on what are these critical resources of statewide importance and how do we narrowly focus on protecting those without pulling in too much area and too many properties. Again, important issues being raised, certainly some people trying to raise

Lauren (22:24.088)
fear and anger in ways that I think are not really constructive for coming up with solutions, but hopefully we can work through it. And I think in the state house, people are really committed to trying to work through the issues in constructive ways. So hopefully that's how it plays out.

Justin Marsh (22:40.667)
I'm a lifelong Vermonter, so I've never owned property anywhere besides here. And so I'm just curious if, and maybe you don't know the answer to this question, and I'm kind of asking it on the fly here, but property rights, it's not just a Vermont thing. Act 250 is a Vermont thing, but if I owned a large swath of land in New Hampshire or Maine, for an example,

and I wanted to develop, I would still have to go through some regulatory process, I imagine. Am I correct there?

Lauren (23:18.004)
Yeah, mean, states have all kinds of different land use laws, but, you know, every state has their own set of land use laws. you know, there's property rights in America are strong, but they're not absolute. And especially, you know, this is where if you're doing something that could impact your downstream neighbor, for example, you know, then there is this kind of community responsibility. And so, you know, I think that's, that's where

Government is always trying to find that balance of how do we give people a lot of freedom and maintain property rights, but also if you're having impacts that could harm the community in some way, then the state has the ability to kind of look at that and do some assessment.

Justin Marsh (24:07.097)
Okay, you kind of touched on this, where do you see room for compromise between the rural landowners, the housing advocates and environmental groups? And what would you say to everyone who feels like these decisions have been made without any of their input?

Lauren (24:22.254)
Yeah, I mean, I think fundamentally coming in this year, we were hearing from a lot of, we've got a lot of rural landowner members and supporters, and we are hearing frustration from people that they wanted more time and more opportunities to engage. Because it's kind of a complicated law and process, there have been a lot of public meetings and stuff, but it's hard to really.

know how and where to make your voice heard in the process. And so, you know, one of the things that we had supported coming in was actually putting some funding into outreach and engagement for the land use review board. And so I'm hoping that makes its way all the way through and that we actually do get some resources for that. So that would help. You know, can you actually set up a process that's focused on really listening to people? And I think that that kind of

know, gathering of what are the potential issues, concerns people have, and then you can start brainstorming solutions and really look at, you know, okay, where do we, how might we tweak act 181 so that we can really address those? And, you know, I think any scale of change that's this big, you're going to be coming back for years and making adjustments to the law to address things that come up and unintended consequences of any law. And so.

I think that's where there's huge opportunity to do a better job listening to people and then working to come up with creative solutions to address those concerns. mean, so much of what we're hearing, there's definitely this deep and shared love for our land and a set of values of stewardship that we collectively have done a great job as Vermont of taking care of our landscape. so just finding that balance so we don't lose that.

but also are overly burdensome on people.

Justin Marsh (26:18.139)
So looking ahead, you know, as S325 travels through the process and is now moving over to the house, if it ultimately passes, what should Vermonters expect next? What changes will they actually notice? And then what would success look like five or 10 years from now, especially knowing that some things have been amended to only go into effect five years from now.

Lauren (26:41.55)
Yeah, I mean, so at this point, the next couple of years are really going to be that listening and shaping of policies. So I would encourage people to really engage with the land use review board, you know, keep going in with your legislators too, because ultimately I do think there will be again, some ongoing policy changes that are needed to keep tweaking. So we try to get this law, you know, as good as possible. But the land use review board will be charged with really

trying to go out and hear from Vermonters and understand any concerns people have. And then, as we try to shape, what does something like the critical natural resource area map look like and really hear that input and try to respond to concerns, meet the goal of protecting those resources, but do it in a way that really works for Vermont communities of all sizes. So I think that's what people should be.

looking for public meetings, ways to share written comments, show up to events, and make their voices heard. And so I'm hoping that really ramps up in a meaningful way so that a lot more people can be engaged in the process.

Justin Marsh (27:55.435)
And if listeners were to take one thing about land use and these policies and the current debate away with them, what would that nugget be?

Lauren (28:05.974)
I think any kind of change is hard and the only way we can get through it is by trying to listen to each other and try to understand that as a state, I think we do care deeply about our communities, about our landscape and finding that balance where we can protect the Vermont we love, but also allow for new housing development and also...

you know, maintain property rights as much as we can while we do all of that. So I think that's like the tension points that we're at right now. And I just, you know, certainly from the NRC's perspective, want to hear from people, want to engage with people with all kinds of perspectives so that we can be really understanding each other and looking for productive solutions forward through, you know, some tricky terrain. So look forward to that debate, but hope people can show up constructively and with creative ideas to.

to move forward.

Justin Marsh (29:03.855)
Well, thanks so much for coming back. I know you were begging. And yeah, thanks for all the work that you did this week and all of the, you've been the target of some stuff. So I hope you're hanging in there and doing okay. And yeah, it's been a wild one. So thanks for all your work on that. And thanks for joining me for this conversation. Hopefully people find it.

Lauren (29:09.058)
Finally getting an invitation.

Justin Marsh (29:33.817)
valuable to them.

Lauren (29:35.395)
Thanks, Justin. Appreciate it.