Senate committee weighs clarifying language after enforcement notice over multiuse farm structure

Summary

The Senate Committee on Agriculture heard testimony on April 24 about language in H.484 that critics say could subject multiuse farm structures to Act 250 permitting. Rural Vermont and a local farm collective urged dropping sections 4 and 5 of the draft and inserting language to clarify that structures primarily used for farming remain exempt.

Members of the Vermont Senate Committee on Agriculture on Thursday heard testimony urging clarification of H.484, the miscellaneous agricultural bill, after a Barnard farm received an Act 250 enforcement notice for a pole barn used primarily for farming but occasionally opened for public events.

The dispute centers on whether multiuse farm structures that are “primarily used as a farm structure” should require Act 250 permitting when they are also used intermittently for public events. Caroline Sherman Gordon, legislative director of Rural Vermont, told the committee that the bill’s current draft sections 4 and 5 “overshoot the mark” and recommended removing them and replacing them with language that exempts improvements used as part of an accessory on-farm business from Act 250 permitting so long as the structure is primarily used for farming.

Why it matters: The change would affect whether farms that host occasional public events — festivals, educational or social gatherings, or farm-to-table dinners — must undergo district Act 250 permitting, a process Rural Vermont and…

Senate committee weighs clarifying language after enforcement notice over multiuse farm structure

Summary

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