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VPA chair briefs PAC on bills affecting sewer, housing and municipal authority including S.328
Summary
Matt Boulanger, chair of the Vermont Planners Association legislative committee, summarized bills advancing toward crossover that would affect municipal jurisdiction over distressed properties, wastewater permitting, cannabis retail opt-in votes, farming exemptions, and changes to the statutory definition of areas served by water and sewer (S.328).
Matt Boulanger, who chairs the Vermont Planners Association Legislative Committee, briefed the Planning Advisory Committee on several bills moving toward crossover and other deadlines in the legislative calendar.
Boulanger listed a set of bills of interest to planners: S.192 (clarifying municipal authority for cleanup of distressed properties), S.212 (delegation of wastewater permitting to municipalities), S.278 (compels an opt-in vote on cannabis retail in municipalities that have not taken action), S.323 (clarifying farming exemptions from municipal regulation), S.328 (statutory “clean-up” language that would change the definition of an area "served" by water and sewer and adds housing-related provisions), and S.325 (clarifications about taking on Act 250 permit conditions as amendments occur).
Members focused discussion on S.328 and its potential implications. The bill would move the statutory definition of an area served by water and sewer (currently in Ch. 117) and has language tied to the quadplex preemption and the five-dwelling-unit-per-acre preemption. A small VPA working group flagged that the proposal should not be read to compel communities to extend physical sewer service beyond sewer service areas or beyond sewer capacity governed under 24 V.S.A. Chapter 101. "This is only about zoning, not about the allocation of sewer capacity," a staff presenter said.
Committee members also noted implementation concerns: S.328 includes a new section that would effectively require municipalities to do a housing needs assessment, which could be burdensome for small towns with limited data. Taylor Newton offered the Winooski example where infrastructure presence allows quadplexes by zoning but dimensional standards such as height limits can still constrain development; members said statutory preemption could ease some barriers but not others.
Boulanger reminded the PAC that crossover deadlines are approaching: crossover for non-money bills is the coming Friday and crossover for money bills is March 20, per the meeting update.
