Housing & Conservation Board outlines land conservation, housing projects and Act 59 inventory

An unnamed director of the Housing and Conservation Board gave committee members a briefing that combined the board’s conservation and housing work, examples of locally driven projects and an update on implementation activities under Act 59. The director opened by describing the board’s statutory mission as supporting both conservation and economic vitality and said the board works with nonprofits, municipalities and private landowners.

The director described multidecade examples of projects where conservation and housing objectives were combined: acquiring and interpreting the Robert Frost house in Shaftesbury; conserving land around a lake to create public recreation access; and helping three municipalities enable 23 units of housing on conserved land via zoning changes and infrastructure extensions. The speaker said these examples illustrate how compact development and conserved lands can coexist.

Staff attending the briefing included Policy Director Polly Major and Director of Conservation and Rural Development Trey Martin, both identified by the director at the start of testimony. The director said the board’s programs cover farmland protection, working‑lands support, urban infill, mobile home park revitalization, home modification access programs, recovery residences and more. She said the board’s recent awards — including ARPA and state surplus funds approved since 2020 — are expected to serve “close to over 5,000 households” and leverage nearly $1 billion in total investment.

On water, wetlands and resilience, the director said the board added roughly 1400 acres of wetlands and 80 miles of riparian buffers since a statutory focus on water quality was added in about 2012. She described buyouts and park creation after flooding events (citing Water Street Park in Northfield) and projects that convert flood‑prone residential parcels to public open space to reduce future risk.

The director discussed efforts to scale lower‑cost, energy‑efficient modular housing (called “0 energy ready mobile homes” in the briefing), noting production costs remain high without higher volume. She gave farmland and forestry conservation examples where easements both protect resources and enable intergenerational transfers or improve farm economics.

On Act 59 (Community Resilience and Biodiversity Protection Act), the director said the board completed a Phase 1 inventory and recently received a National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant to support next steps. She said consultants will be hired and staff will work with the Agency of Natural Resources to develop a plan and that the board will return to the committee with more detail in a later session.

Committee members asked procedural and funding questions, including how much of the property transfer tax supports the board; the director said the board currently generates about $34 million a year from that source and that statutes and past actions have altered allocations over time. The director requested legislative support for continued funding and closed by offering to return with more detail on specific programs and statutes.

Ending: The committee paused the hearing to move to other agenda items; no formal board actions or votes were recorded in the provided transcript portion.