must watch film by morgan gold

What if a law meant to save Vermont's working landscape ended up turning the state against itself?

In 2024, Vermont passed Act 181 (H.687) was the biggest overhaul of Vermont land-use law Act 250. It promised to fix the housing crisis, protect rural farms, and modernize a regulatory system most Vermonters had given up trying to understand. Two years later, dairy farmers, sugarmakers, loggers, and homesteaders are showing up at the statehouse in Montpelier holding signs that read PRESERVE YOUR OWN LAND. NOT MINE.

The lawmakers who wrote the bill say they're being misunderstood. The people on the ground say they're being erased. Both of them might be right.

I drove to the rally at the Vermont State House to find out why so many of my neighbors were so angry about a zoning law. What I found wasn't the conspiracy I was expecting. It was messier, more human, and harder to look away from.

This is a film about Act 181, the Land Use Review Board, the draft Tier 3 map that triggered a public uproar in the Northeast Kingdom—and underneath all of that, a much older question. Who gets to decide what your land can be?