Vermont committee advances compromise on farm zoning after Supreme Court ruling; livestock rules remain unsettled

Summary

Stakeholders briefed a legislative committee on a draft fix after a Supreme Court decision removed a municipal exemption for farming. Parties agreed to protect plant-growing and small poultry under a new “right to grow food” but disagreed over municipal authority in dense “tier 1” areas and over livestock/stocking-density rules.

A legislative committee met Feb. 20 to consider changes to state law after a recent Supreme Court decision narrowed the municipal exemption for farming, hearing testimony from the Agency of Agriculture and multiple stakeholder groups on a draft amendment covering sections 1–3 of a miscellaneous agriculture bill.

Steve Collier of the Agency of Agriculture told the committee the agency initially wanted to restore the prior interpretation but, after talks with the League of Cities and Towns, accepted some compromises. Collier summarized the existing statutory tests — a four-acre acreage test and a commercial-sales threshold — and said those standards produced inconsistent results “at the margins,” citing cases of small-scale poultry and backyard livestock being treated as farms for zoning purposes.

The agency and many stakeholders agreed on two core elements: (1) lowering the livestock acreage threshold from four acres to one acre for the purpose of municipal zoning exemption so that livestock kept on less than an acre could be subject to municipal rules in some cases; and…

Vermont committee advances compromise on farm zoning after Supreme Court ruling; livestock rules remain unsettled

Summary

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