CCRPC outlines Act 181 maps and Tier 1B exemption as Richmond housing committee weighs infrastructure limits

Maya Balasa, a planner at the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission (CCRPC), told Richmond’s Housing Committee that Act 181—enacted in 2023—directs regional planning commissions to create updated future land use maps and disaggregate statewide housing targets to municipalities.

"Act 181 was a land use law passed in 2023," Balasa said, explaining the law’s aim to align Act 250 and the State Designation program and to add purposes including environmental justice, climate resilience and housing.

Balasa walked the committee through the new map categories—downtown/downtown center, village center, planned growth area, transition, enterprise, resource-based recreation and several rural classes—and said Richmond’s Village Center and nearby planned growth areas largely map to the new Village Center and planned growth designations on the regional map.

The planner detailed how Act 250 review will be tiered under the new approach. "Municipalities can opt in to Tier 1B, which is a partial exemption of Act 250 for housing projects of 50 residential units or less," Balasa said, adding that Tier 1A would offer fuller exemptions later through the state Land Use Review Board (LURB). She emphasized that opting in does not change local zoning: "That doesn't change anything about the local zoning and development review process," she said. Projects in a Tier 1B area would still need local approvals and state stormwater or wastewater permits.

Committee members pressed on practical implications. Virginia, a member of Richmond’s Planning Commission joining by phone, said the local planning body is debating whether it has the staff and technical capacity to review projects that would otherwise trigger Act 250. "The question that the Planning Commission has been talking about is: are we capable of doing that—do we have the staff and expertise and are we comfortable enough with the 50 units?" she said, noting an interim period could be a test case.

Members also raised infrastructure constraints. Several speakers warned that designating an area as eligible for partial exemption without concurrent water and sewer capacity could create unrealistic expectations. One committee member noted the Gateway area lacks public sewer and is in floodplain, saying large-scale housing would not be feasible there without significant wastewater infrastructure and state permitting.

Balasa said Richmond currently has an interim exemption in its Village Center and a quarter-mile buffer that treats projects of 50 units or fewer as exempt from Act 250 while maps and rules are finalized. She also said draft municipal housing targets—numbers developed from state demographic and housing-need data and disaggregated to towns—were scheduled for a public draft release the week the CCRPC presented.

The CCRPC invited the public and town officials to review parcel-level designations in its map viewer and submit comments; Balasa noted the regional plan and town plan future land use maps must be aligned and that the regional plan is reviewed every eight years with amendments possible in the interim.

The committee used the presentation to inform its ongoing Strategic Housing Plan and town plan update. Members agreed to review a shared folder of documents, provide comments on zoning and outreach sections, and consider whether the housing committee should recommend that the select board support continuation of Tier 1B status for qualifying areas. The chair set the next meeting for April 23 at 5:30 p.m.

What happens next: the CCRPC’s draft municipal housing targets and the regional future land use map are open for public comment via the CCRPC map viewer; locally, the housing committee and Planning Commission will decide whether to recommend that the select board pursue or continue Tier 1B partial-exemption status and how to align the town plan and zoning to the new targets.