Buying Farm Land in Addison County, Vermont

What counts as "primary agricultural soils," and why so much of Addison County qualifies

Act 250's Criterion 9(B) applies to "primary agricultural soils" (PAS) as the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) maps and classifies them under Vermont's own farmland classification system -- categories that include "prime farmland," "farmland of statewide importance," and "additional farmland of statewide importance," defined by physical soil characteristics (drainage, slope, texture) rather than current use or ownership. Addison County's position in the flat, glacial-lake-bottom lowland of the Champlain Valley concentrates an unusually large share of this soil class in one county, which is why a buyer here -- more than in most of Vermont -- should expect this criterion to come up on any larger parcel evaluation, not treat it as a rare edge case.

Critically, the classification tracks the soil itself, not whether the land is currently farmed. A wooded or fallow parcel on Champlain Valley lowland can still carry a NRCS prime-farmland designation, and a parcel doesn't lose that designation just because a previous owner let it go out of active cultivation. Don't assume a parcel is exempt from Criterion 9(B) review just because a listing doesn't market it as farmland.

Onsite mitigation, offsite mitigation, and the VHCB Trust Fund payment

When a project both trips an ordinary Act 250 jurisdictional threshold (acreage, unit count, subdivision-lot count, or the town's 1-acre/10-acre status) and involves primary agricultural soils, the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets reviews it under Criterion 9(B) alongside the District Environmental Commission's broader Act 250 review. The Agency's stated preference is onsite mitigation -- redesigning the project to concentrate development on the parcel's lower-quality soils and preserve the primary agricultural soils intact, often through a permanent restriction on the preserved portion.

Where onsite mitigation genuinely isn't feasible given the parcel's layout, the applicant can instead make an offsite mitigation payment into the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board (VHCB) Trust Fund. That payment doesn't just satisfy the permit condition on paper -- it directly funds VHCB's farmland conservation program, which uses the same trust fund to place conservation easements on other Vermont farmland. In other words, developing on primary agricultural soil in one part of the state can end up financing the permanent protection of farmland somewhere else, a mitigation logic worth understanding if you're the applicant weighing the cost of the offsite path against a redesign.

What this means if you're buying to farm, subdivide, or develop in Addison County

If you're buying Addison County acreage specifically to keep farming it, Criterion 9(B) works in your favor indirectly: it makes it harder and more expensive for a future owner (or a neighboring project) to convert adjoining prime soils to non-agricultural use, which helps preserve the surrounding agricultural character your own farm depends on. If instead you're evaluating a larger parcel for subdivision or a non-farm development that will trip Act 250 jurisdiction, get the parcel's NRCS soil classification and consult the Agency of Agriculture early -- before you've committed to a site plan -- since a design that concentrates disturbance off the primary agricultural soils from the start avoids the offsite-mitigation-payment negotiation entirely. Either way, this review runs alongside, not instead of, the ordinary Act 250 criteria (water and air quality, traffic, aesthetics, and the rest) our Vermont state hub covers, and the town's own zoning permit is still a separate requirement on top of both.