In the wake of rising housing pressures, flood-risk concerns, and decades of debate around Act 250, Vermont lawmakers have passed what may be the most expansive land-use planning mandate in state history. The package—centered on the framework laid out in 24 V.S.A. § 4302—aims to reshape where Vermonters live, how communities grow, what development is permitted, and how state agencies coordinate those decisions. The result is a single statute that attempts to tackle housing affordability, environmental stewardship, climate mitigation, economic development, transportation design, childcare access, forest conservation, agricultural stability, flood resilience, equity, and more.
It is this sweeping ambition that inspires the nickname used here: the “It’ll Fix Everything Act.”
Though the law predates modern amendments, its most recent expansions and cross-references now form an all-encompassing planning doctrine. For many municipalities, it is no longer just a guidance document—it’s the backbone of every zoning map, development review, growth center designation, and regional plan.
The Law That Tries to Do Everything at Once
At the core of the Act is its list of required statewide planning goals. While other states have similar planning frameworks, few spell them out with such breadth. The statute lays out an entire catalog of aspirations ranging from smart-growth development patterns to renewable-energy expansion, from preservation of natural resources to broad economic revitalization. It calls for coordinated transportation networks, accessible childcare, diverse housing stock, and sustainable forest management. Flood resilience, greenhouse-gas reduction, strong downtowns, and equitable distribution of environmental benefits all find a place within the same document.
Each goal is written authoritatively—municipalities “shall engage” in planning that furthers them, state agencies “shall consider” them, and regional commissions “shall implement” them. The structure effectively turns the statute into a master checklist for Vermont’s vision of how every community should grow.
But it is the simultaneous pursuit of these many goals that makes the law unusual. Smart-growth density is encouraged, yet protection of rural countryside and low-density agricultural zones is also required. Housing should be abundant, affordable, and located near employment centers, but development should avoid flood hazards, wetlands, wildlife corridors, scenic viewsheds, and farmland. Economic growth is promoted, but so is minimizing development pressure. Renewables should expand, but only in ways that do not compromise natural, scenic, or cultural resources. Every goal is paired with another that makes achieving it considerably more difficult..
For planners and local boards, this creates a challenging mandate: make “substantial progress toward attainment” of all goals — and don’t.
Think We’re Kidding?
To understand the breadth of Vermont’s land-use planning statute, it helps to look directly at the opening section. The law begins with a single paragraph that attempts to outline every purpose of statewide development policy — from aesthetics to energy, from tax mitigation to cultural enrichment, from flood safety to architectural design:
“It is the intent and purpose of this chapter to encourage the appropriate development of all lands in this State by the action of its constituent municipalities and regions, with the aid and assistance of the State, in a manner which will promote the public health, safety against fire, floods, explosions, and other dangers; to promote prosperity, comfort, access to adequate light and air, convenience, efficiency, economy, and general welfare; to enable the mitigation of the burden of property taxes on agricultural, forest, and other open lands; to encourage appropriate architectural design; to encourage the development of renewable resources; to protect residential, agricultural, and other areas from undue concentrations of population and overcrowding of land and buildings, from traffic congestion, from inadequate parking and the invasion of through traffic, and from the loss of peace, quiet, and privacy; to facilitate the growth of villages, towns, and cities and of their communities and neighborhoods so as to create an optimum environment, with good civic design; to encourage development of a rich cultural environment and to foster the arts; and to provide means and methods for the municipalities and regions of this State to plan for the prevention, minimization, and future elimination of such land development problems as may presently exist or which may be foreseen and to implement those plans when and where appropriate. In implementing any regulatory power under this chapter, municipalities shall take care to protect the constitutional right of the people to acquire, possess, and protect property.”
This single paragraph serves as the foundation for all subsequent planning mandates, zoning requirements, regional coordination rules, and land-use decisions throughout the state. (seriously, go and read the whole thing)
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One Line for Property Rights
Among the dozens of paragraphs outlining development objectives, only a single sentence addresses individual property rights. Municipalities, it states, “shall take care to protect the constitutional right of the people to acquire, possess, and protect property.” The statute offers no measurable standard for how that care must be exercised. There is no mechanism, test, threshold, or definition attached to the phrase. In practical terms, local boards must interpret it alongside the much more detailed—and far more numerous—planning directives that follow.
This imbalance has become a central critique. While the law clearly articulates what the State wants to encourage, restrict, expand, or preserve, the rights of the individual landowner remain largely undefined within that framework. The effect is a system in which every development decision is filtered through a matrix of statewide goals, while the traditional prerogatives of ownership play only a modest role in comparison.
Regional Control, Local Obligations
One of the most consequential features of the Act is how it positions regional planning commissions. Municipalities are expected to align their local plans with regional goals, which themselves must align with the state plan. “Compatibility,” as defined in the statute, means a town’s plan must not “significantly reduce the desired effect” of its regional counterpart. If it does, the town must justify why its differing elements are “essential” and why “no reasonable alternative” exists.
Municipalities risk losing access to certain state programs, grants, or special designations if their plans fall out of alignment. In practice, that gives regional bodies—composed of appointed and delegated members—considerable influence over local land use.
The statute explicitly says decisions should be made “at the most local level possible,” but the layered planning structure means that local control often operates within narrow parameters set above it.
A Monumental Blueprint
Whether viewed as visionary or overbuilt, the statute remains one of the most comprehensive planning requirements in the country. It attempts to be a housing bill, an environmental bill, a transportation bill, an economic-development bill, a climate bill, an equity bill, and a resource-protection bill simultaneously.
In doing so, it sets up an ambitious—and often contradictory—set of expectations for every municipality, developer, and property owner in Vermont. And for many watching the process unfold, that ambition is both the statute’s calling card and its most contentious feature.
Dave Soulia | FYIVT
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