On Act 181

I have been spending time sitting with Act 181; listening intently to the community’s concerns. I’ve been sitting with my own concerns about the law. We have many interests to balance as we look to the future; the needs of our community youth and adults alike, the needs of our natural environment, and the needs of our built environment including our preserving our existing homes. From what I have seen VT has a vision for the future. We have set forward on a path that builds on the land standing regenerative stewardship of our beautiful Green Mountains. This includes protecting our wild, recreational, and working lands, multi modal trails from the top to the bottom of the state, and crystal clear waterways for swimming, boating, and fishing. It also includes vibrant, bustling village, town, and city centers filled with arts, entertainment, shopping, farmer’s markets, and restaurants. This is a beautiful vision that takes time and care to bear out.

Act 181 has the potential to get us there. Easing the zoning restrictions in village, town, and city centers will welcome some of the housing the state needs. But the framework falls short of our needs as a rural state at the moment. It has tight deadlines that limit thoughtful community input, increased regulation for rural communities with Tier 3 regulations and the road rule. It also lacks support for the preservation of existing homes which creates an imbalance in the development work that we need to do. But I believe that the message is being heard.

As the House Committee on Environment works on S.325 they are listening to comments and concerns from the community to find a way forward. They are evaluating what is working an what is not and are working towards a community driven process, including repealing the Road Rule, Tier 3 Rulemaking. Vermont has an opportunity to develop a collaborative, bottom up process that centers our diverse rural communities. Like our more urban centers, our rural communities contain a variety of lived experiences that include multi generational families, indigenous, queer, trans, immigrants and Vermonter’s of Color. We are bound together in our love of nature and desire to live in close relationship to it.

We must move forward with a process that includes all of these voices. A process that builds on the good work that is already being done at the local level. We have a town planning process that has been completed or is underway in many communities. These plans offer defined land use priorities and clarity about what should be built where. Land use regulation in Vermont's needs to expand on this process and include the voices of rural Vermont to ensure that we don’t fall prey to the pitfalls of gentrification which drive inequity, cultural splintering, political division and displacement.

This moment is a crisis but we must not panic. We have the opportunity to get this right and build stronger communities for our efforts. Our rural communities and urban areas are family and have consensus on the desire to conserve VT for the long term. They positively feed off of each other with our urban areas and town centers offering bustling energy, creative inspiration, and marketplaces to share our goods or services. Our rural communities offer a space to slow down, to connect to our natural surroundings, and to provide respite from an uncertain world. All within a serene working landscape. In the face of an artificial future the community and authenticity Vermont offers is a beacon.