Committee examines H.72 to expand municipal tools for nuisance properties, add cleanup grants and liens

The House Government Operations & Military Affairs Committee on an unspecified date heard detailed explanation and testimony about H.72, a bill that would expand municipal authority over properties with accumulations of salvage, scrap and other refuse and add funding and collection tools to support cleanup.

Legislative Council counsel Tucker Anderson told the committee that the bill would add a new subdivision to the waste management fund statute allowing grants to municipalities for soil testing and cleanup on properties foreclosed under 32 V.S.A. chapter 9, and that “grants ... shall not exceed $250,000.” He described multiple changes across Title 24 that would (1) permit municipalities to require people who illegally deposit refuse to dispose of it at a solid waste management facility or face a $100-per-day penalty for failing to do so; (2) create definitions for “unauthorized salvage yard” and related terms; and (3) make unpaid civil penalties and fines a lien on the property “in the same manner and to the same extent as taxes assessed on the grand list,” with collection procedures modeled on existing tax-collection law.

Why it matters: Municipal officials and the Vermont League of Cities and Towns told the committee that chronic nuisance properties…