Response to the TRORC Regional Plan
I’m hearing from a lot of you right now, and I want to start by saying: I hear you, and I’m glad you’re showing up.
The fact that so many of you are attending hearings, watching recordings, reaching out to your towns, and writing to TRORC and the state is exactly how this process is supposed to work. Keep it up, and if you’re new to this, don’t stop at showing up. Look into volunteering for your town’s planning commission or selectboard where this work happens year-round.
A Little Background
I have represented Orange-2 (Bradford, Fairlee, and West Fairlee) in the State House for the past two terms as State Representative.
Just before that, I served on the Bradford Planning Commission from 2018 to 2023, and Bradford, like a lot of our towns, has had a long, complicated relationship with the Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Planning Commission (TRORC). The tension over land use designations, how strict they should be, who gets to decide, isn’t a new thing; it just historically hasn’t been felt by so many.
I voted for Act 181 in 2024 because of the reforms it set forth that were needed to start working on housing solutions: Act 181 gives Tier 1 towns faster, cheaper permits in designated growth areas by largely bypassing Act 250 review; raises the threshold before state review kicks in at all, from 6-10 housing units to 50 units on ten acres or less; offers full Act 250 exemption to towns that go furthest and meet the infrastructure and regulatory requirements; opens up automatic access to state funding and tax credits for any town with a mapped village or town center; sets housing targets as a planning tool with no penalty for towns that fall short; was built so virtually every Vermont town has a path to achieve reduced Act 250 review, new technical assistance, or more funding, not just the state’s biggest towns; and created temporary Act 250 exemption for a variety of housing developments to speed the construction of new homes during a critical housing shortage.
In 2025, we built on Act 181 by passing CHIP, the Community Housing and Infrastructure Program, to fix the piece Act 181 couldn’t fund on its own. Act 181 tied new housing density to municipal water and sewer capacity, but VLCT identified a $240 million gap in funding for exactly those water and sewer projects. CHIP closes that gap by letting towns finance infrastructure like water, sewer, roads, and stormwater systems without raising property taxes on existing residents, using future tax revenue generated by the new development itself to pay it back over up to 20 years. CHIP is projected to unlock up to $2 billion of state investment in infrastructure by 2035 and add at least $380 million to the state’s Education Fund, all without a tax hike. Most importantly, it was built specifically so rural towns, not just Vermont’s biggest cities, could use it to clear the infrastructure barriers that have kept them from building homes.Along with other leaders in the rural caucus, I fought attempts to restrict CHIP investment to only designated growth areas, so that municipalities can choose how and where to direct new public investment for housing.
In 2026, Vermonters highlighted that mapping showed Tier 3, and the old 800-foot “Road Rule” was set to kick back in alongside it, would cover a huge share of rural Vermont in new Act 250 jurisdiction. Meaning that ordinary projects on rural land could trigger a full state permit process, including for minor improvements to existing homes and homesteads. Things like widening a driveway or building an ADU or garage could have cost families thousands of dollars in legal and permit fees. Combined with hearing directly from constituents and hearing from Vermonters who participated in the Rural Caucus public listening session, it was made clear that Act 181 would cause real harm for many Vermonters and that certain aspects needed to be amended or repealed.
As a result, I worked in collaboration with the other co-chairs of the Rural Caucus, Rep. Laura Sibilia (I) and Rep. Lisa Hango (R), as well as our broader caucus membership, to push for changes to Act 181. Act 152 repealed Tier 3, Tier 2, and the road construction trigger, while keeping the Tier 1 growth-area exemptions and tools like CHIP and downtown tax credits that were actually working.
The intent of Act 181 was the right one, to unleash public and private investments for housing in the areas most able to accommodate rapid, dense home building, while keeping environmental protections in place for working lands and precious natural resources.
Further work on Act 181 and Act 250 is needed and the issues with TRORC’s plan are a demonstration of that.
I have not personally been able to attend the TRORC hearings on this draft due to scheduling conflicts, but I’ve been checking in regularly with people who were there and have been reviewing the online recordings and public comments.
What is TRORC and what does a regional plan actually do?
TRORC is one of Vermont’s 11 regional planning commissions, a body that coordinates land use, transportation, and community planning across our 30-town region.
In Vermont, Regional Planning Commissions are a subdivision of state government, governed by a board of commissioners appointed by each municipality in the region. The RPCs assist with intermunicipal cooperation at a regional scale, and provide technical assistance to municipal officials. Recently, the RPCs have been critical to help local communities navigate FEMA assistance and flood resiliency planning and helping to access major federal investments for economic development (like through the Community Development Block Program) and for transportation and infrastructure (like through the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity grant program).
Under Vermont law, all RPCs must also create regional plans every 8 years, and under Act 181, those regional plans must include the new Future Land Use Area maps that create future Tier 1 (Act 250 exempted) areas. Generally, and up until now, those 11 regional plans have been non-regulatory and aspirational in nature – they help align local, regional, and state land use planning goals for a variety of land use issues like renewable energy siting, historic preservation, downtown investment, the protection of endangered species, and more. The regional plans are critical for a number of state programs and processes, including the downtown investment program. When the regional plans use public input and are created in partnership with local planning commissions and town governments, they are a useful tool to direct public and private investment in ways that support the local communities long-term plans for growth. The regional plans are also considered in Act 250 permit review under Criteria 10, which requires that the permit applicant demonstrate that the project conforms to the municipal plan and regional plan.
Where do things stand right now?
All hearings on the first draft are complete, but the written comment window is open until August 10th. Send comments to regionalplan@trorc.org, or find the full process at https://trorc.org/regional-chapters-draft. TRORC’s board and town contacts are listed at https://trorc.org/member-towns and https://trorc.org/about/board-of-directors.
What did the State’s Land Use Review Board find?
The plan also has to go through the Land Use Review Board (LURB), the state body created under Act 181, and their review happens separately from TRORC’s own hearing process. I’ve now read the LURB’s August 3rd preapplication response in full, and I want to share what’s actually in it, because a lot of it echoes what I’m hearing from you. Here is the preapplication response: https://act250.vermont.gov/sites/acttwofifty/files/documents/Preapplication%20Response%20RPC10-0001%20DRAFT%20for%208-3-2026%20Board%20Meeting.pdf.
A few things worth knowing:
The Board itself raised a version of the same concern many of you have raised. It questioned whether the plan’s mandatory restrictions on land use infringe on property rights without enough input from the landowners affected, and whether some of these policies could fall harder on lower-income, senior, and rural residents in particular. Based on that concern, the Board could not determine that the draft meets the general purposes required by state planning law, and it’s asking TRORC to show that rural communities actually support the mandatory policies before the plan moves forward.
The Board flagged several specific “shall” (mandatory) policies as overly restrictive and asked TRORC to either soften them to advisory language or prove they have real community support. Among them: a ban on fossil fuel heating for new construction subject to Act 250, a requirement to install EV charging stations for new development, a ban on new development involving truck traffic on gravel roads, a cap on new multi-unit buildings of six or more units in rural-general areas, and a ban on new principal retail in those same areas. The Board also flagged a housing policy that limits where housing for elderly, disabled, and low-or-moderate-income residents can be sited, saying it could have a discriminatory effect by cutting those residents off from housing options in rural areas that everyone else has access to.
The Board could not confirm that TRORC’s outreach process met the legal standard for meaningful public participation. It noted it has received reports from people in the region who feel they didn’t get an adequate chance to weigh in, and it’s asking TRORC to demonstrate that concerns raised were actually addressed.
The Board also found the plan doesn’t include an actual analysis of whether environmental benefits and burdens are currently distributed equitably across the region, which state environmental justice law requires. Good intentions were noted, but the underlying analysis wasn’t there.
Ultimately, preapplication response is advisory. It doesn’t bind TRORC, and it doesn’t guarantee an outcome either way when the final plan comes back to the Board. But it’s a serious, detailed, 47-page review from the state’s own land use authority, and a lot of it lines up with what residents have been telling me directly. I’d encourage anyone who wants the full picture to read it themselves.
What can you do about this yourself?
I reached out to the Agency of Commerce & Community Development and to the LURB directly to get a clear answer for the constituents who’ve been asking me whether this requires a legislative vote. It doesn’t. Here’s what does work:
Each town’s TRORC board seat is filled by someone your selectboard appoints, and your selectboard can instruct that person how to vote. If you don’t like this plan, the most direct thing you can do is go to your selectboard and ask them to instruct your TRORC representative to vote no. It takes 18 of TRORC’s 30 towns, 60%, to vote the plan down. One caveat is that if the plan fails, there’s a real chance that towns and villages could lose their downtown or village center designations, which matters for the tax and development benefits I mentioned above. It sounds like the State’s legal counsel would need to weigh in to sort out exactly what that means town by town. I’m not sharing that to dissuade anyone, just to share a major factor at play in accessing state and federal programs like grants.
Additionally, you can reach out to the LURB yourself with comments at https://act250.vermont.gov/contact-us. You can read more about the plan approval process here: https://act250.vermont.gov/regional-plan-approval-process.
Where I Stand
I’m hearing loud and clear that a lot of you are not in favor of this draft as written, and now that I’ve read the LURB’s own review, I understand why in more detail, and I agree. I am going to write my own letter with my concerns to both TRORC and the LURB. I am concerned that there has been a lack of public engagement and input; that municipal bodies were not informed about the changes to the mandatory policy language; that the specific policies will restrict or prevent new economic development and rural housing development; and that, as someone who supports local control, this plan completely disrespects local planning and zoning decisions.
A Bigger Conversation
Some of you have raised a bigger question: why do we have regional planning commissions at all. It’s a fair question, and I don’t think it should be off limits. Here’s what I know from having applied for federal EDA grants and served on two Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies with the East Central Vermont Economic Development District: RPCs are currently the entity that lets Vermont access certain federal economic development money, because Vermont doesn’t have county government to fill that role the way other states do. If RPCs went away tomorrow, it wouldn’t automatically cut off that federal funding, but it would mean the state would need to stand up some other structure, whether that’s a council of governments, a nonprofit development corporation, or something else entirely, to keep that money flowing. That’s a real conversation worth having, but it’s a bigger one than this plan, and it deserves its own discussion.
I am also hearing questions about why a non-elected body can make such big decisions about land use regulation and those are good questions too. Before Act 181, Act 250 jurisdiction applied everywhere based on the size of the project. Act 181 created a way for towns to achieve Act 250 exemption based on the location of a project, but it gave the duty and authority to map those areas to the RPCs, with a review and approval process at the LURB. This is a new process that I and other lawmakers hoped would relieve state regulatory requirements and create new opportunities for housing and economic activity. I am hearing from homeowners, farmers, business owners, and local officials that the TRORC draft plan would do the opposite. We may need to make more changes to ensure that the new mapping, state approval, and Act 250 exemptions are done fairly, transparently, and in a way that supports and protects local, citizen-led planning.
If you want to talk more about any of this, please reach out. And if you’re not sure where to direct a comment, a question, or a concern, I’m happy to help you find the right door. My legislative email address is monique.priestley@vtleg.gov.
