Statelaw Act 181 reshapes regional planning; RPC outlines Act 250 exemptions and municipal housing targets to South Burlington planning commission

The Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission told the South Burlington Planning Commission on Tuesday that the new state law known as Act 181 standardizes regional future land-use categories and links those categories to state designation programs and to changes in Act 250 review.

CCRPC Senior Planner Kate McCarthy said the law "builds on a long standing planning role" to preserve compact settlement patterns and to promote housing options. She said regional future land-use maps will use a single set of 11 categories defined in statute and that those categories will translate into state designations such as downtowns and neighborhood development areas.

The change moves part of the designation step from a state board process to the regional planning level: once a regional future land-use map is approved by the state Land Use Review Board, centers identified on the RPC map become state-designated centers, McCarthy said. The Department of Housing and Community Development will still administer grants and tax-credit programs.

The meeting covered how Act 181 interacts with Act 250. Taylor Newton, planning program director at CCRPC, described interim, location-based exemptions the legislature created to accelerate housing while RPCs complete mapping. He cited the current interim thresholds: residential projects of up to 75 units within a new town center and up to 50 units in a transit corridor may be exempt from Act 250 under interim rules. Newton said the interim measures last through the period the legislature set to allow RPC mapping to proceed.

Newton also summarized the proposed tiered approach under Act 250 reform: "Tier 1a is full Act 250 exemption" if a municipality meets eligibility criteria and applies, he said; tier 1b offers partial local enforcement options. He said tier 3 would represent areas of increased Act 250 oversight for regionally or statewide significant natural resources, and the Land Use Review Board will define those areas through a separate rulemaking process.

On housing targets, CCRPC staff said the state recently provided a range of regional targets and that the commission will disaggregate a regional number to municipal targets. Newton recapped the range released for Chittenden County (roughly 17,000 to 47,000 new dwelling units by 2050, with a middle estimate the RPC used of about 31,000) and described a simplified methodology the RPC used in preliminary work: dividing municipalities into three buckets (urban, rural and mixed) and applying different weights tied to infrastructure and centers. He said staff will re-run the methodology with the official regional target, post draft municipal targets in March for public review and adjust the approach if necessary.

Commission members asked how municipal plans and zoning interact with exemptions. Newton and McCarthy said municipalities may choose whether to seek exemptions for eligible areas, that tier 1a requires certain local criteria (for example, zoning and design standards) and that local regulations still apply to on-the-ground issues such as wetlands or steep slopes. McCarthy emphasized that the RPC map operates at a regional granularity while municipalities retain authority to be more specific in their local plans and regulations.

Staff outlined the next steps and timing: CCRPC expects to release draft maps and targets for public comment in March, continue outreach through spring and to return to local commissions and councils in the months before a final regional plan is submitted. Newton said the council-level decision about whether to pursue tier 1b eligibility would likely come this summer.

The planning commission did not take formal action on the maps or targets at the meeting; the body approved routine minutes later in the agenda.