Senate committee wrestles with S.328 language on water‑served housing, quadplexes and farmworker housing report

Sen. Kinsdale, speaking as the committee’s reporter on S.328, told the Senate Natural Resources & Energy committee March 19 that the bill’s central goal is to harmonize the Home Act and Act 181 so municipal regulation and Act 250 apply consistently where a parcel is served by water and sewer. "We have about 41 square miles of water and sewer infrastructure in the state," she said, stressing the committee’s intent to protect limited public infrastructure while allowing multifamily housing where service exists.

Kinsdale said the lawmakers’ aim is to avoid using water‑and‑sewer hookups as a backdoor barrier to multifamily housing. She used a local example to explain the stakes: a site that once was slated for roughly 19 housing units became a car wash after developers abandoned housing plans because of perceived permit and capacity hurdles. "I don't think we're necessarily meeting our environmental goals by stopping housing from being able to get access to water, sewer where there is capacity," she said, arguing the Legislature intended duplexing — and, along service lines, flexing up to four units — where a single‑family home could otherwise be built.

Committee members pressed over numeric distance standards that have been floated for defining an area "served by municipal water and sewer" — figures discussed included 2,000 feet, roughly 1,200 feet (a quarter mile), 800 feet, and 300 feet. Witnesses and municipal representatives warned that adopting a single statewide distance could force many towns to reopen local ordinances and that "there is no one‑size‑fits‑all that's going to make sense," in one committee member’s words. The Legislature’s goal, members said, is to let municipalities certify or map areas served by their systems rather than imposing a blunt linear rule when practical.

The committee also heard from the Vermont Rural Water Association, which urged caution about the bill’s current wording. Its testimony said fewer than one quarter of Vermont's roughly 400 public community drinking‑water systems are owned by a town; "78% of the water systems and infrastructure in Vermont are owned by water districts, fire districts, homeowner and condo associations, housing nonprofits, water cooperatives, and water corporations," the witness said, recommending the draft be changed from the word "municipal" to "public" or otherwise explicitly include fire districts and water districts so the statute matches how systems are organized in practice.

Land Use Review Board members asked not to be the primary lead on a farmworker housing report that appears in the amendment language. Alex Weinhagen, a LURB board member, told the committee that act 250 typically will not trigger for small farmworker housing (jurisdiction generally triggers only if 10 or more residential units are created over five years), and that municipal zoning and state water/wastewater permitting are the primary barriers to such housing. LURB suggested the Department of Housing and Community Development, the Agency of Agriculture, or the Vermont Housing Conservation Board would be better positioned to lead a needs assessment.

Procedural and next steps: the chair asked staff to produce a revised amendment that would remove the LURB reporting requirement and add language to ensure fire districts and similar non‑municipal public systems are included; the committee plans a straw poll on the amendment the following day and hopes to discuss the draft with the Economic Development Committee the coming Tuesday. No formal motion or vote was taken on the amendment during the March 19 session.

What happens next: committee staff will circulate a new draft incorporating comments (including suggested language from the Vermont Rural Water Association and the Vermont Housing Conservation Board). The chair signaled the committee intends to take a straw poll and, if support exists, move the language onward to the committee of jurisdiction for S.328.