CCRPC readies draft ECOS regional plan and Act 181 future‑land‑use map for state pre‑application review

The Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission heard a detailed briefing on the draft 2026 ECOS regional plan, the revised regional future‑land‑use map required by Act 181, and related deliverables including municipal housing targets and a new environmental benefits-and-burdens supplement.

Taylor Newton, planning program director at CCRPC, told the board the long‑range planning committee recommends that the commission submit the draft plan to the Vermont Land Use Review Board for pre‑application review in October. Newton said the committee’s recommendation includes one caveat: a recalculation of municipal housing targets for a small set of municipalities where staff used an incorrect spatial layer. Newton said staff will provide corrected targets to the board at its October meeting.

Why it matters: Act 181 requires regional future‑land‑use maps as part of regional plans; the bill also created new linkages to state designation and certain Act 250 exemptions for areas that qualify. Newton described the draft plan as reorganized around two cross‑cutting themes — climate and equity — with 17 goal chapters, a new interactive web presentation and seven supplements, including a new supplement that analyzes how benefits and burdens (for example, access to green space, clean water, or exposure to pollution) are distributed across the region’s communities.

Newton said the plan reflects four years of work, including two major rounds of public engagement and targeted outreach to underrepresented communities. He described the interactive website staff built to publish chapters, indicators and an implementation table and said staff will ask the board to begin the state pre‑application review in October and to hold an initial public hearing in January 2026.

Anne Nelson, who led the environmental benefits and burdens analysis, said the statutory definitions in the 2022 environmental justice law cover a wide range of benefits and burdens and that data gaps made a purely quantitative, county‑wide analysis difficult. Nelson said staff combined available spatial datasets with community‑sourced, qualitative information gathered during engagement to produce municipality‑level narrative summaries of benefits and burdens.

Newton emphasized process points: staff will revise and reissue corrected municipal housing targets before the October board meeting, the long‑range planning committee will produce a short list of priority actions this fall, and the commission would hold a first public hearing in January and a second hearing in May 2026 before seeking adoption and state review. Newton said the Land Use Review Board will provide formal comments after pre‑application review; the state review and any follow‑up could continue into mid‑2026.

The board did not take a final vote to submit the plan for state review at this meeting; the long‑range planning committee’s recommendation is procedural guidance to start the pre‑application process and to finalize outstanding target calculations.