SmartTranscript of House General - 2025-01-10 - 2:00PM

[Chair ]: Welcome, everyone. This is the committee on general housing, and it is the afternoon of January tenth, Friday twenty twenty five. And we are wanting to hear we have two latest students afternoon. One is Peter Tucker, who is the advocacy and public policy director with Vermont Association of Realtors. And the next will be the Chantel and Housing Trust. So, Peter, let's introduce ourselves to you first. Now we go. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: Alright. Emily [Emily ]: Prouds now, South Burlington Kitchen and I. Nice to see you again. [Chair ]: You. Loyal Watson Kitchen. It's. Hi. I am Elizabeth Burrows. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: I represent Windsor one, which is in West Windsor Windsor and Brownsville. Yeah. That's right. [Chair ]: I'm Mary Howard. I represent Rutland District six. Yep. Gail Peso. I represent Chipman twenty in Colchester. I'm Debbie Dalton. I represent St. Johnsbury, Caribbean, concrete. [Peter Tucker ]: Tom Charlton, represent at New Chester Craft. Great. So the partisans representative from the stunning towns of Newberry, Tops and Antwerp. [Renata ]: You know, I represent the best parts of the Lakes Bay of Essex Town and Essex Junction, the city of Essex Junction. [Chair ]: Great. Thank you. Ashley Barley. Start back from Georgia. Mark Mahali, and I represent Palace Plainfield and Markfield. Peter, introduce yourself for the record, and then tell us what you're gonna tell us about your wisdom. [Peter Tucker ]: I don't know if I have any wisdom. Peter Tucker, I am the director of advocacy and public policy for the Vermont Association of Realtors. I spent twenty five years as a broker selling real estate in in a variety of different areas. Took on the role of advocacy. I'd always been a volunteer with the government affairs committee and then took on the role of advocacy in twenty twenty, you know, kind of a COVID change for me. So it's it's been a a very interesting process for a couple of years, almost entirely by Zoom. And now, you know, being in the state house with you folks has has been great over the last couple of years. You know, our our focus is on the housing, on homeownership and property rights, private property rights. So that's kind of the angle that we come from. And what I wanted to do is give you a little bit of background on our organization, a little bit of update on the market itself and then touch on some of the housing work that we've been working on. So with that, the Vermont Association of Realtors is a is a group of of about eighteen hundred well, let me say, last year, it was eighteen hundred members in our organizations, you know, spread around the state pretty uniformly. It does look like our membership has dropped off this year. It's something that we kind of anticipated as the market cooled a little bit. We much like most of Vermont, we're an aging population. So So a number of folks retiring or, you know, moving elsewhere. But but we are part of the National Association of Realtors. We abide by a code of ethics. You know, the in in Vermont, real estate licensees totaled around two thousand three hundred last year with eighteen hundred of those being our members. So there are non realtor licensed real estate agents and brokers in the state, but it's a it's a fairly small percentage. You know, when I look at statistics, I think that that, you know, we do the realtor association does about three quarters of the transactions in the state of Vermont on any given year. I just wanted to touch briefly on our on our leadership. So we have volunteer leadership. The twenty twenty five president is TG Glaser. He is a a gentleman who actually was president in New Jersey. You know, we have eighteen hundred members. New Jersey has, like, thirty thousand members. But his mom and dad here, he's come to help with them, and so he's stepped up to be our our president for this year. Kathy Sweden is our CEO. That's who I I work with, and our staff is four people. So it's it's not a huge staff. You know, I do my best to get around the state house to to committees that are important, but, you know, it's also a a bit of a challenge. But, you know, we we really try to keep our members informed on what's going on here, and to and to advocate for their, you know, for their business, you know, responsibilities. So I work with a government affairs committee that is at at least one member from each board of of of realtors that we have. We have nine boards in the state of Vermont right now. Some have more multiple members on the committee. It is a good group of people that are are experienced in real estate that can look at public policy and really provide me with the guidance that that I bring to you. [Chair ]: That's your regional boards? [Peter Tucker ]: They are regional. Yeah. It used to be by county, but it's kind of, you know, some have gelled. We actually Addison County is just County is just, has just, you know, kind of been absorbed by the Northwest Board of Realtors, which is Franklin and Chittenden County. So, you know, you'll start to see that, you know, the amount of volunteer efforts that it takes to keep a board going are challenging. Getting new leadership involved is is also a challenge for us. So, you know, we're, you know, we're seeing that kind of consolidation going on. You know, the Houston Association of Realtors is, like, five thousand members, and we're sixteen hundred. So, you know, that that that's something that that just seemed you know, really had kinda had to happen. In terms of the market, what I didn't wanna do, I I went back over. We have a multiple listing service. We have fortunately one in the state, so it's pretty easy for me to to look at statistics. And just, you know, looked really at single family homes and and, you know, what we saw obviously in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one was a huge increase in the number of sales in real estate. It went from seven roughly seven thousand units on single family homes in twenty nineteen to eighty three and eight thousand three hundred in twenty twenty, eight thousand three hundred and ninety in twenty twenty one. And then it cooled dramatically in twenty twenty two, dropped back to about six thousand six hundred units. We are seeing slightly less units now, But the point that I wanted to bring to you is that while the number of units we're selling is going down a little bit and we expected that in the marketplace that median home prices starting in twenty nineteen, dollars two hundred and forty six thousand and have continued to climb three hundred and twenty five thousand in two twenty one and in twenty twenty four up to four hundred and fifteen thousand dollars the median home price that's the middle of all the homes that are sold in Vermont. So the last if I look at a monthly dataset, that is actually kind of come back down to earth a little bit more. I think that the peak of home prices going up is we pretty much hit it. I'd expect to see slight declines. Inventory is up about fifteen percent over a year ago. So that in the law of supply and demand, if you have more inventory, you typically are going to see some relaxing on prices. I did want to share Inventory [Chair ]: has been houses for sale that have not been purchased yet are placed for sale that have not been purchased? [Peter Tucker ]: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Over the course of the year. Right. So and most are, you know, most are put on the market and sold. So it's a it's a it's a flow of sorry. I'm not associated. There I am. Okay. It's a flow that that goes, you know, flows in and out. Let me just get this up. So one of the things that I wanted to offer to this group and it really to to the the part the public [Chair ]: oh, sorry. Can I ask a quick question? Sure. Sure. [Renata ]: For inventory, is it just single family housing, or are you looking at everything that's [Peter Tucker ]: Well, we can look at at everything, but, you know, the numbers that I've been referring to are single family [Elizabeth Burrows ]: I just wanted to Yeah. [Peter Tucker ]: Right. You know? [Chair ]: Not sure. I on this meeting. I'll tell you what. Oh, I gotta wait. One minute until he gets his [Elizabeth Burrows ]: Yep. [Chair ]: Do are you having trouble here? Can you help him out? So that's it. Maybe just exit out to stop share. And then try start again. Yeah. Share that. [Peter Tucker ]: Any better? Shoot. [Chair ]: I'll do it for my Right. Or does she you have does you have the slides. Okay. Peter, let her do it for you. Yep. While she's doing it, Elizabeth, you had a question. Oh, shit. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: Actually, two very brief questions. One is, have there been in in that growth time that you're talking about, have there been any unexpected geographical areas of growth? [Peter Tucker ]: You know, I think Chittenden County is always gonna be the lead. Right. You know, and not really. [Chair ]: You know? [Peter Tucker ]: I think that that, you know, it's it's been more or less uniform, you know, or even, you know, what you would expect, you know, not as much activity in Northeast Kingdom and [Chair ]: Right. [Peter Tucker ]: That sort of thing, but no no aberrations that A [Elizabeth Burrows ]: new hot areas. [Chair ]: Yeah. Yeah. No. Right. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: And the other my other question is I noticed in Windsor, Vermont that there are quite a few houses that have gone up for sale, and I suspect that that's because of the taxes. Because of [Peter Tucker ]: The rise of the property taxes. Yeah. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: The people can't afford to live there. Do you have any sense of whether that is [Peter Tucker ]: Anecdotally, yes. But, you know, certainly, statistically, you know, I I couldn't confirm that. Okay. Exactly. Yeah. [Chair ]: Also Right. Go ahead. And I can [Peter Tucker ]: I can work without of this if it's you know? I'm curious. [Chair ]: Made my proof to be the case. Yeah. [Emily ]: Oh, alright. I'll get it in quick. I'm curious about how deep your I can't recall from peers or last year, but how deep your data goes. I'm curious if you've seen if you can tell me if you've seen a rise in private equity ownership coming into Vermont and what you can talk about that if possible. [Peter Tucker ]: Right. We have not. [Chair ]: Okay. And, [Peter Tucker ]: you know, I mean but once again, I mean, that could be just under the, you know, under the surface that, you know, it's not big enough for us to to to zoom in on. I think there are, you know, there are certain folks that are buying multiple properties, especially when you look at, you know, resort areas and then short term rentals. You know, you've gotta suspect that there are, you know, owners that have multiple properties in those areas. [Emily ]: Yeah. I was thinking of more about single family homes and some other states that are looking at some of that information and data. [Peter Tucker ]: I don't think we're big enough to really attract a lot of private equity. You know, that's that's an opinion that's not a fact, but but it certainly feels that way, you know, because we haven't seen any of those big movements. You know? Peter, your slides are up. What would you like her to do? [Chair ]: I should have the the three links you sent me. [Renata ]: I don't know if you had slides [Elizabeth Burrows ]: you also wanted to have. [Peter Tucker ]: No. This is this is really it. I just wanted to to show you. So this is so if you go to let's go to market data. [Chair ]: Oh, [Peter Tucker ]: no. You know what? You may be able to just scroll up. Sorry. Yep. And hit market review right there. So this is called Domus Analytics. It's on the VAR website in the link that I've provided. And it is a tool that allows us to to really toggle, you know, amongst different kinds of relationships. You can check property types. You can go single family home, condos, land. You know, this is this is where, you know, new listings and average active inventory. You can see active inventory up fourteen point five percent. And this is a thirteen month period. You can switch that to year to date. You know, so it's just a a really nice tool, and this is updated constantly by our our multiple listing service that's the the data feed for it. So so for instance you know median sale price three forty five the number that I you know four fifteen that I had set for twenty twenty four was for the entire year And you can see that, you know, it's rise it's it's risen past that number and is now starting to decline, month over month down eight point five percent. You know, and that'll bounce around quite a bit depending on, you know, kind of the frequency of the market. But it's just it's something that's available to the public. You know, we our the backdoor has much more detailed analysis for our our our members to to really dig into things. You know, if you wanted to dig into towns or counties, things of that nature, let me know and I can connect you with a realtor in your area. You know, I've been out of practice for a couple of years and and, you know, I'd wanna have somebody that's an expert in the area, but, you know, they can do that. And, you know, this is a this at least these first three pages are available to the public generally, and I think provides some pretty good market input for every what I wanted to do next, and if you could put either either one of the maps up, I guess, that that I provided here, you know, is is talk about about housing. And, you know, I think that that, you know, act one eighty one, which was the act two fifty bill from last year, created interim exemptions that that really have have helped with housing. You know, in in terms of yeah. So can you just zoom in a little bit? So this map is by an agency of commerce and community development. Know, one of the things I heard the governor say yesterday was, you know, we've gotta really work on housing in these rural areas. But if you go can you zoom some more? Thanks. And I apologize. I'm I think I'm out of memory with my laptop here. I got some work to do. You know, as much as as, you know, big cities and that sort of thing have, have opportunities to create more housing, you know, a a town like East Randolph, that bubble around East Randolph is a is a quarter of a mile that was the interim exemption that we passed that goes through twenty twenty seven. Somebody could build oh, North Tunbridge. I was talking about North Tunbridge earlier. You know, I don't think somebody's gonna build a fifty unit housing complex in North Tunbridge, but, you know, the ability of builders to not have to worry about getting above that that ten ten ten unit, you know, rule that's been an active fifty, you know, so they can continue to build. Not necessarily big projects, but, you know, they don't get to nine units and go, oh, boy. If I go to a tenth unit, I'm an act two fifty. And this is universal across the state. These interim exemptions are in place until twenty seven. I was at the White and Burke development conference recently, and Peter Gill, who's the executive director for the natural resources for the LERB now, but the natural resources board, know, Anthony had a room of, you know, hundred and hundred and twenty developers and and attorneys and that sort of thing. And he said, is anyone, you know, using interim exemptions? And, like, a dozen hands popped up in the room. And I think that that this is a this is a great interactive tool. You can scroll around to wherever your communities are and take a look at it. And every village in Vermont has this opportunity to expand residential development in an area one quarter of a mile around the village. In cities, it's up to seventy five units. In villages, it's up to fifty units. And it's and it's there. You know, it's there through twenty seven. You gotta get up off the mark and start building. And this is something that I'm gonna encourage our members to really talk about in their communities, you know, because we've got this limited opportunity. As it goes down the road, you know, it'll be a more formal area. You know, one of the things we testified to last year in natural resources was the fact that, you know, we're gonna have to really start to consider how we manage river corridors as they go through basically every city in town in the state of Vermont. And, you know, if you're gonna look at those and and not really wanna incent housing in those areas, you're gonna have to expand the communities out so they can be adjacent but but have housing in the in those other areas and that's the the quarter mile circle was kind of a rough way to do it. The planners association is gonna do it in a more thoughtful way looking at topography and whereas you can effectively build residential housing. So it's happening, it started in terms of housing I think that still require local zoning and planning and there may be some opportunity there to help municipalities kind of either through by right zoning or just looking at the way that they do their zoning and planning to be more effective in terms of the creation of housing. So that's that's very important. You know, from our perspective, you know, we're we're really focused on homeownership, but but we've worked hard on housing over the last couple of years because we knew, a, it's a crisis. Well, it's been called a crisis. Some would say we created it by ourselves, so it can't really be a crisis. But but it really is is something that that we knew we needed a lot of rental housing, renters become homeowners. You know, certainly the cost of construction, which Mora touched on this morning, is something that makes building a one off single family home, you know, incredibly challenging, at this point. You know, it it it it will happen. I think it it will happen because now a builder can build in their communities, not feel like they're hitting that nine unit limit and then, you know, having to go through all the app two fifty stuff. But there's still good regulation by the by the local municipalities. [Chair ]: Peter, if I might ask Yes, sir. Is the four hundred and fifteen thousand dollar for the year twenty twenty four Yes. Price, Do you guys collect or have access to data that would disaggregate that in terms of new construction? [Peter Tucker ]: No. Okay. Yeah. I mean, these are the you know, so our our place in the marketplace is exist usually existing homes. New construction, while we do realtors do have certain relationships with builders, many builders have a tendency to offer their properties independently. And we're less involved in the new construction sales than, you know, less than a hundred percent for sure, [Chair ]: you know. Thank you. Yeah. Yep. And can we put up [Peter Tucker ]: the other the other map just really quickly? This this map is great, though. This is really cool to kinda toggle around, and you can click on all the bubbles. Yeah. And this is that's the map that I wanted to get to. So Vermont Public just did this article that shows the interim exemptions that are that have been are in process or or or have been approved for development. And, you know, so you can say I think there's thirteen around the state at this point. And it it really does does speak to the fact that sometimes when you do things, it actually works. And, you know, I I really believe that that this is this is very productive. And these are these are projects that, you know, could maybe could handle, you know, fifteen or twenty units, but now they're saying, hey. We'll do thirty five because we're gonna be underneath that fifty unit threshold, and we can get this thing going. You know, seventy five units in a in a city or town or in this city. So it it really does just speak to the, you know, to the fact that that the legislation passed last year is is having an impact. And and most of these are multiunit affordable rental housing. And that's, you know, what we know. A, we can produce the fastest. It pencils out better when it's a bigger unit, and that's that really has helped these projects get off the ground. And, you know, and it's gonna provide a lot of housing for Vermonters. So, we really feel that's a positive impact. There goes my computer. So I just wanted to also give you a little bit of an update on the regulatory issues that the National Association of Realtors especially has been addressing over the past several years. You may have heard about a lawsuit against the Realtors that we lost. You know, it we did it that this called antitrust? [Chair ]: Was it? [Peter Tucker ]: Yeah. Yeah. It really was antitrust. You know? And and then mister Stitzer, who was the original complaintant, was a seller of real estate interestingly enough because most of this ends up being, you know, buyer changes to the way we treat buyers. And and we had always had this cooperation agreement, which is, I think, was deemed to be antitrust that that said, you know, the seller will offer part of the commission to a buyer's agent that brings a bonafide buyer to the property. I always viewed that as a marketing piece. In other words, if a seller is willing to entertain that buyer then there's a value to that. But it was deemed to be not appropriate. And part of it was the buyers then didn't really have any control over what that fee looked like and was. And I want to step back to twenty nineteen where we entered into an agreement with the Department of Justice to do a couple of things. One, to make sure that buyers agents did not represent their services as free because if they're getting compensated by the seller and the buyers paying for the whole deal, it isn't free. The buyer is essentially paying that fee. And the buyer wasn't able to negotiate that fee and that's that is really what Sitzer Burnett, the court case determined. So in two thousand nineteen, we had an agreement with the Department of Justice. There was a change of administrations in twenty twenty, and the Department of Justice backed out of that agreement. But what we had done in the meantime was to say, look, you know, we will not represent, you know, buyer services is free. We will, we will not sort one of the other things that Department of Justice was after was to make sure that you didn't promote certain properties over others based on the commission that was available, you know, to be fair to everybody. And so we instituted those changes. And then the Department of Justice withdrew from the agreement, but we kept the changes because we knew, you know, I mean, these are things that just should happen. And so that that was kind of happened. We've appealed. It's kinda gone back and forth in the courts. But so suffice it to say that the Stitzer Burnett lawsuit against the National Association of Realtors and most of the big brokers out there kind of took precedent, and that that occurred in twenty two and twenty three. You know, it was a it was a trial in Missouri. It was, you know, it it was a a jury trial down there, and and they found for the the plaintiff. And and, you know, so so then we entered into negotiations and, yeah, actually eventually reached a settlement in twenty three. They required a bunch of other changes, you know, in addition to to to buyer agency that that buyers would be recurred buyers agents would be required to provide a contract to the buyer clearly identifying the amount of of compensation that they were gonna have. In Vermont, we've been using buyer agency agreements for, like, fifteen years. You know, not universally, but, you know, certainly it's there. So in terms of changes of practice, trying to be fair to buyers, to be transparent on the the compensation piece, it all came out of that agreement. It was that agreement was agreed to last year. It was actually the final, court, hearing on it was in November, and the judges signed off on it. So so we made all of these changes along the way. And I think that the especially Vermont Realtors were, you know, already in in in very pretty much our practice was up to speed on all of this stuff. But I you know, there's been a lot of notoriety in the press. This is gonna cause, you know, upheaval in our industry. You know, it's possible some of the folks that that are not renewing their licenses right now are are are part of that, you know, possibly. But, we really feel like we've been doing it right all along that that we try to be clear with buyers about the way the compensation model works. Sellers can still offer compensations to buyers agents That hasn't changed, but it can't be listed in our multiple listing service. And much like the DOJ thing, we can't sort to get a better deal from a from the broker's perspective versus, you know, what what is in the best interest of the buyer. I never even figured out how to sort them that way. So, you know, my my buyer saw what they could see. And, you know, in a tight market, you know, typically, you're showing what's available. So Here is [Chair ]: just a question going back to one of your slides. Okay. So you have this on your website. You have all this data that Yes. And it comes from your MLS sales? [Peter Tucker ]: That's yes. Sale well, I mean, you know, sales or listings, you know, but it it it is fed by our [Chair ]: multiple listings. Updated? Daily. Daily. Yeah. I like okay. [Peter Tucker ]: I mean, it's not real, real time, but I think, you know, it's like an overnight fee. [Chair ]: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And this is when a realtor makes a sale, they even if they're not a member of your organization? [Peter Tucker ]: Well, if they're a realtor, they're a member of the organization. If a real estate agent If they're licensed. But Yeah. No. There's possibility that some of those sales are not included in this dataset. However, even nonlicensees have access to joining the multiple listing service. It costs them a few dollars more Okay. So what they can be in there. [Chair ]: It's through the MLS. Anyone who participates in the MLS makes a sale Yep. That sale price is put in the MLS? [Peter Tucker ]: That's correct. Yes. Yeah. Please. [Renata ]: So private sales are not? [Peter Tucker ]: Yeah. Typically not. But, you know, sometimes if an agent has been, you know, kind of aware of it, you know, they can enter it as a non you know, to just to keep the data more accurate. I don't I don't think that happens a ton, though. I think if it's truly a private sale, private buyer, private seller, that it doesn't hit our our database. And as I said in my initial thoughts, you know, I we do around three quarters of the the transactions in the state of Vermont. So, you know, so there is that other piece, you know, non realtor members and then private sales. Well, aside from that, it's pretty current. Yeah. And and, you know, over the course of time from year to year, you know, we're looking at the same dataset essentially. So it it it shouldn't it shouldn't vary greatly. [Chair ]: Any other questions for Peter before he concludes? [Peter Tucker ]: Great. And if I may, just a a couple of things that that will be coming before your committee. You know, we in in two thousand nineteen, you know, way back before COVID, before the Stitzer Burnett agreement or both the lawsuit and subsequent agreement. The Office of Professional Regulation started a review of the profession of real estate. They did not bring it to the next legislative session. But if they did actually file it, I believe they filed it with this committee, GovOps and Senate Natural. I know they filed it with Senate Natural. And it's a review of the profession of real estate. What's interesting about it is it truly is a five year old report and does not take into account many changes that we made on our own because we felt like it was the right thing to do and certainly not the changes that that were required at the national level by the this lawsuit. So they may the OPR, the Office Professional Regulation, may wanna have hold a hearing on that. And we'd certainly would like to be part of that discussion. They don't require any legislative changes. So I don't, it's not critically important for this committee. It goes right along with all this this, you know, the Department of Justice stuff and the and the lawsuit, you know, kind of meshes with it. But but it is, you know, kind of outdated, if you will. So, you know, we are we've been talking about it. And and the reality is what will happen is that the real estate commission will take up rulemaking probably in the second quarter of this year. And we've already had discussions with the Secretary of State and the Deputy Secretary of State to say, look, we wanna be helping and and active in this rulemaking process. And we actually have a work group that's been working on it for the past three or four months to to prepare, you know, for rulemaking and the legislative process. So, you know, that's that's kind of the last piece of the regulatory front on our part. But, I just wanted to give you, you know, kind of a general background, you know, kind of what we're up against and what we're seeing. And I think that that, you know, I appreciate the work of this committee. It's been great, over time and I look forward to continued good relationship with all of you. And I, you know, just And I, you know, just thank you for, you know I think I think we've done something to help housing. So That's great. [Chair ]: Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Yes, Anthony. You're appreciated. [Peter Tucker ]: Nice to see everyone. Oh, I've got a new left. Yeah. No. I think it actually was a low power. So [Chair ]: So I think our next witness is with us on Zoom. Our next witness is Michael Monfie, who is the CEO of Champlain Housing Trust. And when Michael joins us, what I'd like to do is introduce the committee to them. Good afternoon. Can you hear us, Michael? [Michael Monti ]: I can. And I, thank you and, for inviting me to participate, and appreciate it. And I I did listen to the introductions for [Chair ]: the last [Michael Monti ]: speaker. Nice. Glad to go around again. [Chair ]: No. I think I think with the permission of the committee, we'll dispense with reintroduction. I if any of you feel compelled to solve your name again. Alright. [Michael Monti ]: Thank you. [Chair ]: Well, we'd like to hear from you, Michael. Please take your name and title for the record and proceed. [Michael Monti ]: Thank you very much. Again, I am the Michael Monti. I'm the CEO of Champlain Housing Trust, and I have been CEO since soon after, COVID started more or less. I have been working for CHT for about fifteen years. And prior to that, I did work for the city of Burlington and the community and economic development office, and I've spent some time in the legislature. And I appreciate, frankly, all the levels of service that you all provide to your communities. I I really I really do appreciate public service. [Chair ]: Michael, for your information, let's see. Four six of us are returning to this committee. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: Five. [Chair ]: Five of us. Is it six of us? Yes. And five of us, including myself, are new to it. K. K. [Michael Monti ]: Well, and and I'll be glad to try to, bring you up to speed about what we do and be glad to also wander off into other areas of housing, housing policy and housing programs. I did provide, your staff with, a PDF, and so I'm not too sure if they are responsible for making that happen or or if I share that. Do I share that? [Chair ]: It's on the website, but if you're going to refer to it, I think sharing your brain would be great. [Michael Monti ]: So I should share it. Yes? Yeah. [Chair ]: Yes. And if you have trouble with that, let us know. [Michael Monti ]: Oh, let's see how it works. Can you see it okay? [Chair ]: Yes. Mhmm. Okay. [Michael Monti ]: And can you still see it? Did I mess it up? [Chair ]: No. No. That's not. [Michael Monti ]: Excellent. K. Good. Good. Yeah. So I I really know I know that being in person is important and appreciate the the allowing me to do this by Zoom. So Champlain Housing Trust principally works in northwest Vermont, and the three counties, Franklin, Grand Isle, and Chinden. But we do have some several programs statewide. And in addition, because of our size, sometimes we are acting and working with a lot of our and supporting a lot of our nonprofit partners and policymakers throughout the state. Here is our mission. What's important to understand is that we everything we do is permanently affordable. That's a very key part of who we are. And also let me say that our board of directors is elected by the membership. We are a membership organization. There and the component of our board is important because a third of our board members are residents, either renters or homeowners, and a third of our board members represent municipalities in the region. And so Winooski and Essex and even the whole Chittenden County as well as Saint Albans City all have some representation, on our board and bring a, an understanding of municipal government, and municipal, needs, to to the board and to our organization. We we sort of think in terms of a housing continuum, and the work we do works both within home homelessness as well as all the way to homeownership. And we play in all of these areas thinking that safety and security and mobility are the key aspects of all housing, and housing is essential. It's a right in some in many ways. And then what we try to do is move people from homelessness into homeownership, certainly into rental housing so that they can no longer be homeless and be, provide be a burden on the community. So this is a representation of that. Me just say that again, three counties, but we do have programs throughout the state. This, a fairly large organization and the shared equity number number of shared equity homes is actually six hundred and eighty four. We work with Habitat for Humanity, and so they've been busy, and I didn't get a chance to upgrade it. Twenty seven hundred apartments scattered throughout the three counties, everything from three duplexes all all the way to four four story buildings, with elevators, in urban areas as well as in rural areas, going from, Ennisburg, all the way, to, Hyattsburg and, everywhere in between. A shared equity homeowners was a key part. I'll I'll spend some more time, on that. An important part of what we have done over the last handful of years is really support commercial spaces, and community facilities. Essentially, often enough, for instance, we have a hairdresser, and we have a we have a a bar, and we have a, you know, a a a variety of different kinds of retail users in many of our buildings, which are in downtown locations. But also we do community facilities. So we have community centers and we have support feeding Chittenden and and a and a range of other nonprofit organizations in our work. Five different loan programs, I'll outline those later. A lot of assets to manage overall. Our operating budget doesn't represent necessarily all the capital work that we do. This is what we need to work and operate, just the programs and the and the rental housing we have and a hundred and fifty or so staff. Here's some of the impact we've had over the past year. Again, three hundred different households were were were, received rental support from us through affordable housing, rentals. But we have a robust resident services program now, and that has been critical to keeping people housed as well as supporting people who may be facing some kind of a condition or crisis of of thirty five different homeowners over the past year and over we'll go over to the shared equity homeownership in a minute, but quite a few number of homeowners every year, and I'll I'll I'll give you an example of of the pricing in a in in a little bit. Community, home education programs, financial counseling and education, a very critical part. Moving people from, rental housing into homeownership is a key part of that. But keeping people in rental housing who may be facing a financial condition is a key part of what we do in financial, education right now. And, again, five loan programs, four million dollars distributed. Now loans are fairly, let's say, patient. You're not paying high interest rates. Usually, they're due at sale or at a very low rate or even forgiven. A very diverse apartment portfolio. We actually operate a couple of shelters, but provide actually the buildings for shelters, three in Saint Albans as an example, one in Colchester, a couple in Burlington. And really our in some cases we're operating a couple of those, but often enough what we're doing is providing the real estate, the buildings, so our nonprofit partners could actually do the work of providing shelter. But you can sort of see a really diverse kind of real a diverse real estate portfolio, not just plain old rental housing, which we have, and with a for a range of incomes, but really a a wide range of different kinds of properties available. And we we think that that's good. It provides, a lot of opportunity and flexibility as well as sort of, diversity for, sort of the range of needs that are out there in the community. Here's just a picture of a new development that's going up. It's a drawing. It's not real at this point. It is the post apartments. What we did is we bought the property from the Vermont, excuse me, of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and are going to replace, and create a new veterans center operated by the Veterans of Foreign Wars on the first floor. Their building was not quite doing it, anymore, And so they needed us to come in and and we developed a partnership where we purchased a bill property from them and are providing them the space they need, to do support and work for veteran center. The other part of the building, actually, the ground floor will have the community justice center, on Burlington located at that. And there'll be thirty eight apartments with a preference for veterans in this building. This is located on South Winooski Avenue in downtown Burlington. Here's another great example of a fairly diverse kind of project here. We have, single family homes, being built right now by Snyder Homes, and we also have a a range of rental housing being developed. I think it's a total of ninety four or so homes of different types and different sizes. This is in Shelburne. This is on five acres of land. Twenty six, you can see twenty six, homeownership units. Those are all gonna sell around a hundred and sixty, hundred and seventy five, maybe a hundred and eighty thousand dollars each, through our shared equity program. And they're they are now building those as well as the rest of the property is also under construction. There were two buildings in the back which we have preserved and saved and some new construction going on on on the road itself. Shelburne has been very supportive of this development. We're very happy with their partnership. Some of you may know or at least seen Cambrian Rise. It's in North Avenue in Burlington. It's done with a private developer, Eric Farrell. We have partnered with Eric before. In fact, often enough, we are partnering partnering with Snyder Homes or SD Ireland or other organ other groups, other developed private developers, and I'm taking a part of this development for for affordable housing. We own one of the buildings here in this location. Now we've owned it for about five or six years. We developed it called Laurentide. It's all rental housing. But our next phase is seventy apartments and homes forty apartments, thirty shared equity homes. They're gonna be built right on the edge of the property. It's a great property. It's the old orphanage owned by the Catholic diocese. It's adjacent to twelve acres of land and a bike path and a waterfront, and we'll be looking to sell those homes as well, for about a hundred seventy five, a hundred eighty thousand dollars each. The the rentals all all of our rentals are gonna be within the simple typical tax credit partnership range. So we'll see things like one bedrooms for eleven hundred, twelve hundred, usually all included in those in that expense. Here's another development in Hinesburg. This has got a range of different kinds of uses. We have rental housing here. We are also providing a a number of, sites for, Habitat for Humanity, which we partnership partner with regularly to create, a single family homes or duplexes in this case or triplexes in this case, and they will become shared equity homes. So they're building the homeownership units essentially at a very good price for us. And with them, we provide the land for them. And then, also, we're doing tax credit apartments. [Chair ]: And [Michael Monti ]: then a a a private developer is also developing then about ten homes on this site. And in addition, there's a daycare center here. This is right off of downtown, downtown in the village of Hyattsburgh, not far from CVU. Oh, CVU is the high school, and was land donated to us by the owner of NRG. And so we've taken advantage of that, and that development is pretty close to being financed. A lot of what we do is service enriched housing. We make sure that people who do come into our housing, can stay and do not can no. Aren't displaced because they may face a range of conditions, in their lives. Either they're working through early mental health issues or other kinds of health issues, and we are there to continue to support them and make sure they stay housed and do not find themselves homeless in the community. Here's an example of a we've over the last oh, ten or so years, we've bought about ten different hotels and converted them to other uses. This is the former Handy Suites across the street from Saint Michael's College. This particular property had thirty or so rooms in it with kitchens. Some of this was converted to offices for steps to end domestic violence. The rest of the twenty two apartments are now serving people who face domestic violence, and are victims of that, them and their families. And this is a great, example of where we are engaged in sort of buying the real estate, improving it, making it ready so that a nonprofit organization could be able to actually serve the people they serve, often enough at a price that is much, much more affordable, because of the work and how we do it. We operate the POTS community. The city of Burlington built it. We operate that. We expect that that's going to continue to be operated by us for the next few years. Decently successful in moving people off the streets and into some safe environment. An example of some existing property that we bought, this is recovery housing. This is in Essex. This is at, fortieth and Allen. And we work with the, the group names escaping me that is does recovery housing here. And so we have about thirty two beds and and two buildings where people who are recovering from a drug addiction or alcohol, can live in a community and support. And, this is an example of a building we bought from UVM and converted for that use. Here is the old North End Community Center. On one side, it's a old Catholic school which we converted, which now has a childcare center and event hall and a family room and a children's theater and Associations of Africans Living in Vermont, which provides support for refugees in that in that building. And that we've done that now about three or four years ago, maybe five. And on the other side is the O'Brien Community Center, which is a building that is operated by the city of Winooski, which we're gonna be purchasing from them. We're gonna be redeveloping that whole property, creating a dental clinic, community health center, as well as expanding, the library. Right now, well, City of Winooski, probably for the city of its size, is the smallest library in the state of Vermont, and we're gonna be making a brand new one and improving that dramatically. These are the five loan programs, that we have. Home repair for homeowners who are very low income. We work with the state of Vermont on that one. Manufactured housing down payment loan program. Again, this is throughout the whole state of Vermont as for manufactured housing loans. And we're work we have been doing that since Irene. When Irene happened, nothing was nothing was impacted here in Chittenden County, so we stepped up and said, let's do this program. It's been decently successful over over this over its ten year period. The VHIP program, which you're familiar with, last couple of years, we've been working on developing housing better housing for farm workers. The homeownership equity program provides assist additional down payment assistance to people of color. And I could spend more time talking about that if you wish. Shared equity homeownership works pretty straightforward. Basically, through land lease or covenants, we control the resale price. So when we sell you a home for a hundred and sixty thousand dollars hundred fifty thousand dollars, let's say, but it's worth four hundred thousand dollars, when you go to and sell it, you don't get to keep all the money on the resale. You get a percentage of the money. What that does is allows us to both build wealth for the individual families, but also provides an opportunity for the next homeowner to buy and own an affordable home. Many of the owners [Chair ]: question about that. She's trying to understand how that works. First of all, let's say a unit costs five hundred thousand dollars per year. Yep. And you're gonna sell it for I'm I'm rounding numbers just to make it easier. [Michael Monti ]: Yes. You're gonna [Chair ]: sell it for a hundred and fifty. Yes. So alright. So where does the where does the three hundred and fifty thousand come from? That comes from all your sources of income? [Michael Monti ]: We have gotten private donations. It comes from, comes from, state tax credits. It comes from Vermont Housing Conservation Board and some of their grant sources. And so we will take we've also used, over the last year and gonna use again, something called the new market tax credits, which is a federal program. And so we'll bring in a variety of different sources to take the five hundred thousand dollar home, in your example, down to a hundred and fifty. And then, basically, that doesn't accrue to the new home to the homeowner we're selling it to. We hold on to that, essentially. Right. And when we go and let's say that homes goes and sells for six hundred thousand dollars, the new homeowner will get twenty five thousand dollars appreciated value. We'll keep the seventy five thousand dollars to keep make sure it stays affordable. We will sell it then to the next person for instead of a hundred fifty, maybe a hundred and seventy five thousand because of other costs associated with increasing, you know, values. But, essentially, it keeps that home affordable. We retain, essentially, the subsidy, and the individual still walks away with, you know, the an appreciation as well as the mortgage payment they made, as well as we take into consideration any major capital improvements that they made to the property. And so most of our homeowners walk away with enough money to go ahead and buy another home in another location. [Chair ]: So in that example, five hundred, one fifty, you if the house sells for six hundred [Michael Monti ]: They'll walk away with they'll walk away with twenty five thousand. Twenty five thousand dollars of that hundred thousand appreciated value. [Chair ]: That appreciated. [Michael Monti ]: So yeah. And so that hundred so that hundred and fifty thousand, whatever they we whatever they paid down on their principal, you know, like any rule of thumb, the real estate guy could have told you this, and rule of thumb is you wanna hold on to your home for three to five years before you actually sort of make some sense out of the initial cost. And so so our typical homeowners are holding on to the homes for six or seven years, and then, you know, again, taking down some of the principal value that they had, and appreciating gathering that as well as the appreciated value. The the good thing is is that you don't have to sell your home either. And the second the rather good thing is that we don't ask you about how much money you're making. If you make a lot of money, that that's great. If you're making less money, we're sorry about that, but that doesn't impact us in any way. We don't ask you questions. You could you could your children could live in it, you know, after you pass on. And it really has all the benefits of homeownership other than the fact that we have this shared appreciation that happens because we made it available to you in the first place. [Chair ]: But you can't get a second you can't pull a second mortgage out. [Michael Monti ]: We could we'll work with folks around that, depending upon how long they've been in a home, and and we'll and we will we will look at that with them. Do [Chair ]: you have [Michael Monti ]: another question here? If you own a home for three to five years, you're not getting a second mortgage as well, typically. But, if you have the home for a decent period of time, we'll work with you on that. We also have loan programs internally for our shared equity homeowners that where they can come to us to, you know, perhaps make some repairs and, get other kinds of improvements to that property. So we work with our homeowners in our own within our own portfolio. [Chair ]: You have another question here, Renata. [Renata ]: Thank you, Kevin. I I think that this is a really tried and true program that that works for so many people. I'm curious whether the sort of monthly payments are comparable to rent, or is it much less or much more or about the same? And then my second question is whether this model, whether you think that it can be applied in the rest of the state, because obviously most of these examples are, I mean, it's called Champlain Housing and it's mostly Chittenden County, but, you know, I'm sure that a lot of folks would love to see similar similar programs outside. Right? [Michael Monti ]: Yeah. I appreciate that. And a couple of things is, one, there are about twelve hundred shared equity homes around the state. So there are are shared equity homes in other locations in the state, and probably Central Vermont has the most many of them, but they do exist throughout the state. And, we certainly so it can be replicated. It can be done. [Chair ]: Great. [Michael Monti ]: The market they they it works best in a market which has is a little stronger, I would say. But I would say that many of our many of our renters many of our homeowners will pay less in homeownership cost than they do in the current rental market. And often enough, when we look at a property, for instance, we have converted duplexes, three bedroom three and a half three bedrooms, one and a half bath garages, really nice homes. And we converted those from rental housing to, which we bought from a private developer, to homeownership, and our costs were less under homeownership. But you're still actually generating wealth, because you're right you, you know, you own some level of depreciated value in the future, and you're you're reducing you know, you're paying off your principal payments. And so you're actually actually returning you're making you're doing well financially. And we find that at this point in the market, we are beating the market rents, certainly in Chittenden County and probably in other parts of the state as well. I think you'd see the same same thing happening. So it's it it the issue really to moving into homeownership is that, you know, you have to have good credit. So we work with people and then making sure that their credit can be good. We do like to see people have some amount of down payment assistance, so we know they have some skin in the game upfront. Not a lot, but a little bit of money. And so we and so and and frankly, you know, it's a popular program. We have a waiting list. We have we sold thirty five, homes this year. And the great news is once we start this once we build up this portfolio of homes, we are selling thirty five to forty homes every year. And as we add another we'll be adding another twenty six over the next year. So we'll be selling about fifty five or sixty homes over the next year, and that's that's a pretty numb that's a pretty large number of moving people into homeownership. I can continue. [Chair ]: I have a Go ahead. We have a question. Go ahead. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: A quick question, and it's it's from I was just looking up what I heard either you or you I think you said it last year about the pods program. And I was just looking at last year, at this time, I think it was, an eight month waiting list for the PODS program. And I wondered whether that had improved at all since last year. [Michael Monti ]: Hasn't improved. Our I think moving into when the city had the idea of creating the pods and we met took over management of it, the idea was that nobody would stay in the pods for more than six months. And so therefore then an eight month waiting period would be silly. Of course, you'd just be able to have the turnover you needed. Truth is that we have no place to move people, and we didn't have many places to move people. It took really many nine months to a year before we started to be able to do that. And, you know, it has happened. There has been turnover, and you folks have moved in. But the waiting list, I think, is still pretty long. I haven't checked it lately, but I remember at some point, it was about eighty or so folks who wanted to get in. And it's been slow moving people out of the pods. It's not a failure of the program necessarily. It's really a failure of the of the market in terms of our ability or anybody's ability to create additional places for people to move to. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: I think that has the waiting list gotten longer [Chair ]: than eight months? [Michael Monti ]: I I'm I'm not I haven't really thought of it in terms of months. So I would have to say that I would I think the waiting list is there's at least three times the number of people waiting as there are pod rooms. And if people are moving out nine months or a year, you could sort of see that, in fact, it's a a long waiting time. What what it has done is it has gotten people off the street. People are safer, and they are more secure. It really, instead of it becoming sheltered, has become more transitional housing for folks with a lot of support and services. And interestingly enough, I just got an email from one of the neighbors. You know, the people who are neighbors to the pods weren't happy about the pods being there. One of the people from the pods moved into the the the affordable housing next door owned by the O'Brien Brothers Mackenzie House. And I got a note from one of the residents of the of the Mackenzie House saying, thank you so much. I see what you're doing now. It's appreciated. The level of support the level of, the level of support you have given to this individual to be successful is paying off. He's a great member of our community. It just takes some time some time for the folks who are moving into the pods, some amount of time for them to be successful in regular housing. I can't see you well, so I'm gonna move on from shared equity. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: No. That's fine. That's fine. Thank [Chair ]: you. Alright. [Michael Monti ]: I I don't know if you need me to actually talk about the various factors influencing the market. I think you probably know that now. These are the factors that we know are influencing the most vulnerable folks that we have. And this is causing, I think, some of the some of the crisis that we do have in terms of homelessness right now in Burlington. From a macro market forces, these are the things that we see in terms of impacting the market. These are the things that we know about that are creating conditions which are making it difficult for creating more affordable housing just on a market level. So I just wanted to share those two particular slides with you. And with that, I could end it. I could take the slides off, and I could see you if that's okay. Unless [Chair ]: I think that's okay. Thank you. [Michael Monti ]: Okay. Great. Alright. So I'll stop. And any questions? I know I've used up my half hour. [Chair ]: Any further questions? I have a feeling we're gonna get from CHT again. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: I have one more question. I don't know if you can answer it. It's just a but I wonder whether you have any sense of whether the mental health and substance abuse problems faced by people who don't have permanent housing, whether it's a cause and effect thing, whether whether people are homeless because or to your mind, you know, caring for these people and helping them get, you know, on their feet. To what degree is the mental health and substance abuse factor caused by homelessness? [Michael Monti ]: So I I it's a great question. I can't I don't again, I don't have necessarily real data. What what I would say is that you can't get better unless you have a home. Almost impossible. Right? So [Chair ]: Right. [Michael Monti ]: So you may you may go into being homeless because you have made poor decisions or you have bad executive functioning skills, and and as a result have become homeless, and then your mental health deteriorates, and then you may in fact find solace in taking drugs. And that it seems to be something of a cycle that we see. And I would I would say that it's I I would say that if I talked about homelessness a decade ago, I would give a larger number of folks who are economically homeless. And I think that's still actually the key issue here. It's economic issues that are creating the homelessness, meaning there's not access to to affordable or lower income housing. But I would also say that many people don't become homeless because they lost their job just solely. It's usually a range of other things that are creating that condition. We didn't have a robust resident services program internally at CHT five years ago. Meaning, we had a few folks who were doing that work, and it was good work. But now we have twelve. And and seeing that, in fact, what we needed to do was do more to support people. And that's just the folks who are not working in homelessness. Those are the folks working with people who are housed. So I see a rising health care, I would say, concern. And when I say health care, I think of mental health as well as substance abuse disorder as issues that need to be addressed. We're we're doing whatever we can, but it's been the systems out there are not as strong as they could be as far as I'm concerned. And, frankly, we could use better systems of treatment. And as I say that, if you talk to any drug expert right now, they're saying that there is no systems of treatment for the kind of drugs that are now on the street, meaning that they are resistant. If you did heroin, you did methadone, and you can move through heroin addiction. That is that exist for some of the drugs that are currently on the street, and that's that's been the difficult issue. You can't take someone, put them into treatment easily, and get them to being, perhaps sober or safe. That doesn't mean that people can't do it. It can be done, but it's really, really hard. And this is what I'm told, really, really hard of the conditions that we have right now. And it's certainly hard if you're on the street. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: I I mean, I I I having worked with homeless people now, like, thirty years ago, and so it's been a while, but it was a different different, scene and different causality back then. And so I I guess what I'm asking is, would a better investment be in upstream in mental health and rehabilitative services, or would it be a better investment? I mean or both, obviously. Yeah. Because the problem is the problem, and we have to deal with the problem, obviously. But but would it would it alleviate the problem more to put make an investment in those factors, which were more, of the cause thirty years ago? I I just don't know whether it's more now because of the cost of housing or because of the same [Michael Monti ]: I mean, there are some fairly, well, respected, books out now which basically say that, we can have the same conditions like this in markets where there's a higher vacancy rate and the and the cost of housing is less and is less there's less homelessness as a result because there are choices that people could have if they're homeless. They have other choices and they can be housed and still maybe have those same issues of mental health and, you know, and substance abuse disorder issues, but at least are housed. And the thing is that with there's no room in our market at all. Zero room for that. You have to solve that and get people into housing, and it and it simply doesn't exist in the market that we have. So so so I I'm I'm trying not to avoid the so direct question, which is, yeah, housing what we always say here is we have we need housing and services right away. We need housing, and we need to be able to get people to be healthy and permanent. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: Of course. Of course. [Michael Monti ]: Yep. And and, really, this there's no other there's no no other choice about it. You can't just do the health services, the mental health services, and not have a house for people to move into. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: Of course. Of course. Yeah. That that wasn't what I was asking. I was just thinking about you know, I I think about the state's responsibility in mental health as far as [Michael Monti ]: Yeah. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: People who have become mentally ill because they are homeless, because of something that we have done as a state, and what responsibility does the state have for because it is I mean, compounding all of those things together is a much bigger problem than each of those disparate for for an individual. [Chair ]: You know what I think I would suggest, given that it's almost ten minutes past Sorry. Sorry. Don't don't apologize at all. I think I know we're going to have CHT back here, and I know we're going to have to have some specific discussion of special needs housing. And at that time, Michael, I mean, I think what you're hearing is people wanna talk about financial trade offs. Do you put your money here, or do you put your money there? Yeah. And that's what we face. And so both isn't always the answer that will work for us. But if I might suggest that we wind up now, is that alright? Yep. I know [Michael Monti ]: I got nowhere to go to mister mister chair. I have nowhere to go if you wanna spend the rest of [Chair ]: the meeting. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: We We [Michael Monti ]: could order drink we could order drinks. We could order drinks and and stay a little longer. [Chair ]: I think I would like to remain chair of the committee. Okay. Fair enough. Michael, thank you so much. [Michael Monti ]: Appreciate it. [Chair ]: And I know we'll be hearing from CHT in the near future. [Michael Monti ]: Okay. Thank you very much for the opportunity. [Chair ]: Thank you so much, Michael. Thank you. Thank you. Before we go offline, everyone, it's for your first of all, have a good weekend. I hope you enjoy yourselves in some way and rest up. On Tuesday, we have the floor at ten. And then at eleven, we will convene. So what? We have to change this. Oh, we do? Yeah. At ten thirty after the floor, we have the sexual harassment training. Thank you. Stand. What's that? Okay. I I went from Yeah. The The speaker sent [Elizabeth Burrows ]: out email. [Chair ]: Okay. Good. And you were actually reading. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: I know. It doesn't really happen. [Chair ]: Okay. So it looks like is that that sexual harassment training It's about in committee or [Renata ]: is it No. It's on the floor. [Chair ]: Oh, it's on the floor. Remember. Okay. So we'll just have to adjust. So the ten o'clock is the floor, then that training, and we'll know then when we're gonna reconvene here. [Elizabeth Burrows ]: And do you have an idea of what the themes are gonna be for next week? [Chair ]: I think, first of all, we're gonna want we we have a need for a chance to meet with our alleged counsel, to meet with security people. In other words, that kind of housekeeping stuff is gonna happen. We're gonna finish up, like, with Gus Selig from the HCB, we're gonna finish up what I would call our sort of broad brush introductory. And then we're gonna start hearing in what I would call housing production, which are problems that, you know, just getting right to the question of how do we produce more housing. And we'll be hearing from Twin Pines Housing Trust, another housing trust. Kathy Beyer, who is at EverNorth, which is a developer but a syndicator too, will be talking to us. Well, that that's what she's gonna that's the whole thing. She's gonna explain syndication. We're gonna have one more person who should have been here this week, but part of the introduction, which would be Kathleen Burke. She's at the Vermont State Housing Authority. And then we're gonna get a little bit into some of the land use and other barriers. Peter Gregory from Two Rivers out of Quiche and a number of people from the regional planning commissions, rural areas of the regional planning commissions. Well, that's so far. That'll take us for the first half of the week. Thank you. Does that answer your question? [Elizabeth Burrows ]: It does. I just wanna be able to go back through the last few years and look at so I can ask questions about Good. The progress that's been made. [Chair ]: Well and all of this will probably by Monday, we'll probably be revising. Odali and I will revise, rather, by you guys. And [Renata ]: The agenda as it is right now is posted on if you would like to [Chair ]: It's just not entirely accurate because of the sexual harassment training. I put that in. You updated. Okay. So we're fairly far along. It's not there. What time is the training? Ten thirty. Ten thirty. Right? Right? Probably right after the floor. Let's so thank you very much to concludes the hearing for today. And.

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