Last Friday, the state of Vermont’s Land Use Review Board visited West Windsor, as the town’s newly formed housing committee and the Mount Ascutney Regional Commission (MARC) work to expedite their housing initiative.
Al Keiller and Jill Appel, founding members of the West Windsor Housing Committee, have been working to bring affordable housing to their community. The committee partnered with Jason Rasmussen, executive director of the Mount Ascutney Regional Commission to help create a map that, if approved by the state, could exempt areas of West Windsor from needing to obtain Act 250 permits. They say this would allow builders and contractors to move forward in a quicker and more affordable fashion.
Keiller told the Standard this week, “The [Vermont State] legislature in 2024 came up with Act 181, which made changes to the long-standing Act 250 Land Use Act that went into place back in the ‘70s. Act 250 has been very successful in keeping Vermont beautiful, but it has also contributed to a lot of frustration around development.”
“Act 250,” Keiller continued, “Is designed purposefully to keep the environment safe and to not have unnecessary sprawl and so forth. However, the legislature and the governor recognized that [Act 250] actually has inhibited a sufficient amount of infrastructural development and growth. So, they put into place Act 181 in 2024, and that put several things into motion.”
Keiller went on to explain that one of the effects of Act 181 was the creation of the Vermont Land Use Review Board, the very group that visited West Windsor last week. “Act 181 also requires that the state have what is called a ‘land use map,’” Keiller added. The land use map will eventually be instituted across the state and will categorize designated areas into “Tiers,” Keiller explained. “If your land is designated as a Tier 1A or a Tier 1B for development, the land does not have to go through all the rigorous Act 250 requirements,” Keiller said.
Rasmussen’s team has worked with the housing commission to develop a map for West Windsor that extends their Tier 1B designation, which would mean fewer Act 250 requirements within the village area, extending all the way to the Ascutney Resort as well as properties along Route 44, Keiller told the Standard.
For more on this, please see our March 25 edition of the Vermont Standard.
