By Stephen Mills
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MONTPELIER — Vermont’s mayors were at the State House Tuesday to make cases for reform to Act 250 and Tax Incremental Financing legislation to spur downtown development and affordable housing.
They’re also asking lawmakers to increase weatherization programs to tackle climate change, and get behind a 2% local options tax for commercial cannabis to help fund after-school and community programs for youth to reduce substance abuse.
Formed in 2013, the Vermont Mayors Coalition includes Anne Watson (Montpelier), Lucas Herring (Barre), David Allaire (Rutland), Miro Weinberger (Burlington), Kristine Lott (Winooski), Jeff Fritz (Vergennes), Tim Smith (St. Albans) and Paul Monette (Newport). Six mayors must concur on any recommendation for the VMC to take a position.
Only Watson, Allaire, Weinberger and Lott were present at a news conference at the State House on Tuesday.
The mayors were in agreement about the need to spur downtown development and affordable housing programs by supporting a major overhaul of Act 250, Vermont’s 50-year-old land use law that is being reviewed by lawmakers.
The House Natural Resources Committee last month voted 6-3 to approve changes to an Act 250 bill, H.926, that would exempt development in designated downtowns and growth centers.
“The proposed changes to Act 250 make the process more logical and less duplicative for cities that already have a development review process,” Watson said. “This will keep our downtowns alive and thriving.”
Allaire added: “Act 250 exemption for designated downtowns is huge for Rutland City as we continue our revitalization efforts.”
Weinberger described review of Act 250 as “perhaps the most important legislative issue” before lawmakers this year. He also said the exemption for development in designated downtown areas was important to reduce costs for developers by removing a second tier of development review in municipalities that already have a development review process.
“It goes to the heart of municipalities having the ability to make decisions that add to the vibrancy and the economic success of cities that add to the ability to create new homes that is such a critical issue for so many Vermont communities,” Weinberger said. “It goes to the heart of whether cities can take action that allows us to fight climate change and investment in development of our historic communities.”
The mayors also spoke in favor of a House bill, H.642, and a Senate bill, S.191, to create additional support for Tax Incremental Financing, or TIF, districts that use school property tax revenues to fund infrastructure improvements to attract developers of commercial and housing projects.
“This bill does a couple of things,” Watson said. “One is that it fixes some technical aspects of existing TIF infrastructure that would make it more streamlined for municipalities to pursue. And then it also expands opportunities for new communities to access TIF through small, single projects, so that the increment on a particular project can go just for the infrastructure for that particular project.
“So, this is going to expand the number of municipalities that have access to this important funding mechanism, which is going to enable significant private development and help keep our downtowns alive and it’s going to make TIFs more usable for municipalities,” she added.
Allaire referred to his time as a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which had previously supported TIF legislation to promote economic growth and housing programs in the state.
“I have been a big supporter of the TIF legislation and encourage broadening the opportunities for communities and making the process simpler,” he said. “We would like to open that up to many more communities. We think it’s a benefit for everybody.”
On a commercial cannabis market, the VMC proposes that a local options tax could fund after-school and community programs to reduce the risks of youth substance abuse – something Republican Gov. Phil Scott supports.
“There’s a myriad of ways that we can build that connection in our community, locally, to support our residents, support youth and work on prevention of substance abuse, and a local options tax would give us the investment to do that, locally,” Lott said. “We have a partnership prevention entity in Winooski. Speaking with them, speaking with the school, what we find is that it’s critically important for youth to have opportunities to connect with their community, with adults in their community, and to have pro-social programming available to them.”
Allaire noted that he had participated in the governor’s Opioid Coordination Council the last couple of years and Rutland has Project VISION, a successful program to address substance abuse in that community.
Allaire also pointed to the Icelandic model of creating after-school programming to combat substance abuse by youth.
“It’s been very successful in a lot of countries around the world, in Iceland, and in Chile,” Allaire said. “I think the governor has picked up on that mantle and is trying to address that going forward.
“But if there was a little bit of funding to support those efforts, that would be very beneficial to everybody in the state,” he added.
On weatherization projects, Allaire spoke in favor of encouraging lawmakers to support efforts to lower heating costs, meet the state’s emissions reduction goals and reduce its carbon footprint.
“(Rutland) has undergone a significant weatherization project in City Hall,” Allaire said. “It’s a 100-year-old building that was quite expensive to heat over the course of a year.
“We’re an aging population and we need to do everything we can, incentive-wise, to encourage people to come in. We think weatherization of these older properties is an important step to do. So, we want to encourage the legislature to continue down that path,” he added.
Although absent from Tuesday’s mayoral event at the State House, Barre Mayor Lucas Herring said he favored changes to Act 250 and TIF to encourage more investment in downtowns and reduce the duplicative development approval process, adding that he also supported weatherization programs.
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