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LCPC begins Act 181 regional plan amendment, releases draft future‑land‑use map and housing targets
Summary
Regional planners presented the Act 181/Act 47 regional plan amendment process, including new standardized future‑land‑use categories, aspirational housing targets broken down by population, and a draft future‑land‑use map. Staff will meet select boards and planning commissions and seek board check‑ins before final adoption.
Megan Rodier, regional planner with the Lamoille County Planning Commission (LCPC), presented the commission’s work to meet requirements of Act 181 and Act 47 by amending the regional plan to incorporate standardized future‑land‑use categories and housing targets.
Rodier said the amendment process will update the housing chapter with new assessment data, include meaningful public outreach and integrate standardized land‑use categories required by the statute. She said staff distributed regional housing targets to select boards and planning commissions and that LCPC broke the state’s regional targets down by population to create town‑level aspirational goals. “They are aspirational. They provide a baseline for measuring progress. They’re not mandatory,” she said.
Planners described 10 statutory land‑use categories they are mapping at the regional level — downtown centers, planned growth areas, village areas, transition/infill areas, resource‑based recreation, enterprise areas, hamlets, rural general, rural agriculture and forestry, and rural conservation — and showed a draft countywide map. Staff said the draft map will be refined town‑by‑town; they intend to hold check‑ins with the board in July and again in November, and to submit a draft for preliminary review to the state land‑use review board (referred to in the presentation as the land‑use review board) for feedback prior to adoption.
Staff emphasized three region‑wide considerations: (1) rural areas on the draft map primarily reflect lands voluntarily conserved and state‑owned conserved parcels, not every parcel in current use; (2) transition areas can help identify locations to expand village centers outside floodplains; and (3) expanded downtown and village center boundaries could make more areas eligible for incentives such as tax credits or certain exemptions (for example, “tier 1b” exemptions described in the presentation).
Board members raised questions about whether designating rural categories would restrict development and cautioned that the map does not equal zoning; staff agreed and said the regional plan language will make clear that land‑use categories are not a local zoning ordinance and that development may still occur in rural areas under local controls. Duncan Hastings urged caution about mapping rural lands because state review bodies can override regional or municipal plans in particular Act 250/land‑use appeals, a point staff acknowledged and said will inform the plan’s explanatory language.
Staff requested that board members allow staff to present the draft map to select boards and trustees first and then follow up with planning commissions. Staff also noted the statutory deadline pressures: they aim to have the regional plan amendment complete by June 1 (staff goal) but the statutory deadline is the end of 2026; submitting a draft for preliminary review to the state review board by the end of the year will allow time to address any appeals before the statutory deadline.
Staff said more detailed, town‑level discussions and map revisions will follow and scheduled additional board check‑ins before formal adoption.
