Advocates and land-use officials tell Senate Finance 248A is failing towns; some urge moving siting to Act 250

At Senate Finance on April 2, land-use officials and community advocates urged lawmakers to address public participation shortfalls in the state's telecommunications siting process and proposed statutory fixes — up to and including shifting siting review to Act 250.

Peter Giller, executive director of the Land Use Review Board, described how Act 250's district commission model provides local-facing hearings with sworn testimony, cross-examination, site visits and district coordinators who help applicants, neighbors and municipalities navigate the process. He told the committee that those district-level procedures can be more accessible to lay participants than the PUC's largely paper-based docketing and litigation-style schedule.

Annette Smith, who identified herself as executive director of Forers for a Clean Environment and who has worked on many tower cases, told senators that 248A is not working for many Vermont communities. Smith described several recurring problems: advance-notice comments directed to applicants rather than the commission; town officials who do not know they must request department-led public hearings within the 60-day advance-notice window; confusing EPU/PUC forms for intervention and motion practice; and the practical inability of many towns to mount timely responses in the 30-day comment window after an application is deemed complete. Smith also raised small-cell deployments on utility poles that she said appear to have little or no public record and said residents are effectively barred from raising RF health concerns because of federal preemption.

Smith proposed statutory changes including clearer pre-filing obligations for applicants, longer or clearer comment windows, mandatory local site visits and balloon tests, improved and simplified guidance and forms for non-lawyer participants, and bolstering district-coordinator/permit-specialist support for municipalities. She said that if the committee chose to sunset 248A, Act 250 would provide a more citizen-facing regulatory venue for siting review, though she acknowledged that most projects historically get approved under both systems; she framed the change as one that would create more opportunity for local collaboration on siting and design.

Committee members asked for written materials, and witnesses offered to provide reports and consolidated recommendations for statutory language. The hearing closed without a committee vote.