SmartTranscript of House General - 2025-01-15 - 11:05AM

[Mark Macaulay ]: Live and we're about to have we are live. Thank you. Welcome everybody. Welcome back. This is the House Committee on General and Housing. And today is the fifteenth of January. I'm Mark Macaulay and our next witness is Kathleen Burke, executive director of Vermont housing. Vermont state housing authority. Kathleen, why don't you introduce yourself formally? And then were you in the I don't think you were in the room the last time members of the committee introduced themselves, were you? I was not. Okay. Well, we will introduce ourselves. Okay. [Kathleen Burke ]: Good morning. My name is Kathleen Burke. I'm the executive director of the Vermont State Housing Authority. Thank you for inviting me in this morning. [Mark Macaulay ]: Well, welcome. I'll let you start. Nice to [Kathleen Burke ]: see you again. Thank you. Ashley Bartley, and I represent Fairfax in [Speaker 2 ]: the majority of Georgia. Good morning, Leonora Dodge. I represent Essex Town and the city of Essex Junction. [Mark Macaulay ]: The Barton's, Orange County. Tom Charlton, Evans Craft in Chester in London. [Debbie Dolger ]: Excuse me. I'm Debbie Dolger from Saint Johnsbury, Hervey, and Concord. Thank you. I'm Yell Patson representing Fitment and twenty at Colchester. I'm Mary Howard. I represent Northwood City District six. Hi. I'm Elizabeth Burrows. I represent Windsor one, which is Heartland, West Windsor, and Missouri. Hi. Hi. I'm Sally Elmont, [Speaker 2 ]: and I represent the Royal Washington Washington District, Morristown, Elmore, Worcester, Woodbury, and Small Park. [Mark Macaulay ]: And I'm Mark McCauley, and I represent Kalis, Plainfield, and Marshfield, and Emily Krasnow who'll be with us in the moment represents South Carol. [Kathleen Burke ]: Thank you. Thank you a lot. So, we're gonna be diving into the work that the Vermont State Housing Authority does here in the state of Vermont. Not like the low income housing tax credit program or you know, but but but very integral to the work that you've been hearing that Evernorth does and the work of the nonprofit housing providers around the state. I did prepare a PowerPoint presentation, which I actually copied and, handed out, so you should all have that if you want to follow along. So the Vermont State Housing Authority's mission is to ensure that quality affordable housing opportunities are available to Vermonters statewide. We were established in nineteen sixty eight. [Mark Macaulay ]: April, do you want your slides up? [Kathleen Burke ]: If you'd like to pull them up, that would be lovely. [Mark Macaulay ]: That way, people who are watching the video can see them as well. Thank you. And but you'll have to signal to her when you want their slides changed. [Kathleen Burke ]: Okay. I can do that. We'll just pause a moment and let the slideshow. [Debbie Dolger ]: Okay. [Mark Macaulay ]: Next slide, I guess, we hear it. Yeah. [Kathleen Burke ]: Perfect. So a little bit about who we are. We were established in nineteen sixty eight. We have the distinction of being the first statewide housing authority in the country. Our original charge was to improve housing conditions throughout the state of Vermont. We are not a state agency or a department of state government. We are referred to as a quasi state agency similar to the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. We do not receive any direct appropriation from the legislature to do our work. And I'll add that the VSHA board of commissioners are appointed by the governor and then confirmed by the senate. That is our connection to state government. So we're referred to as an instrumentality of the state, created for the purpose of improving housing conditions, but also as a conduit to receive federal housing assistance from the government. Moving along. [Debbie Dolger ]: I'm just asking one quick bit. What's the relationship with BHA? So sure. The Berlin BHA. Wait. BHA Housing Authority? BHA. [Kathleen Burke ]: Oh, BHA. We are housing partners. We work we collaborate. We work together. We are separate businesses. So I'll just pause there. That's an important question and that Vermont is unique in a lot of ways. Right? One of the ways too is the statewide housing authority and the State Housing Finance Agency are two separate entities. In most states, they're one entity. The Vermont State Housing Authority was created first in nineteen sixty eight, and a couple of years later, the Vermont Housing Finance Agency was created. And so here in Vermont, we have have two, state agencies, one that focuses on finance and one that focuses on housing assistance. We are VHFA is is more like a bank, if you will, and the Vermont State Housing Authority is a tenant facing organization. [Mark Macaulay ]: Go ahead. [Kathleen Burke ]: The core programs of the authority are strongly impacted by actions at the federal level. HUD's section eight and continuum of care programs and the housing programs of USDA's rural development are funded by acts of Congress. [Mark Macaulay ]: And you're, you administer them here? [Kathleen Burke ]: We administer those programs here in Vermont. The Vermont State Housing Authority administers the largest portfolio of federally funded section eight rental subsidies in the state. We also support the development of affordable housing by awarding project based section eight vouchers to communities. And so I wanna make the nexus to Kathy's earlier conversation. She showed, Central in Maine as a project that's being developed right now in Windsor. Our agency has made a commitment for section eight project based vouchers for that property. So the the property is then able to serve extremely low income households and and folks with special needs. [Debbie Dolger ]: Yeah. Right. I just have a very quick question that I'm because due to ignorance. [Kathleen Burke ]: No. Nothing is [Debbie Dolger ]: Section eight subsidies are a HUD program. Mhmm. Do they require services to be attached to them? [Kathleen Burke ]: Some do. So and and others don't. Section eight is a term that's used very globally, and it speaks to a form of rental assistance that is provided by Housing and Urban Development. Under that umbrella, there's many targeted programs that Housing and Urban Development makes available to public housing authorities to apply for and to administer which our agency does. I'll just call out, last week, I shared with you all a fairly lengthy narrative of the work that we do that describes the various programs in detail, so the nuanced detail that you're asking for that describes those programs that may require services or if the program may be targeted to a non elderly disabled household, for example, or youth that is are exiting foster care. I mean, those are all programs that we administer under the umbrella [Debbie Dolger ]: of the section eight rental assistance program. But you don't administer the you just provide the mechanism for the support. You don't provide the support. Right? [Kathleen Burke ]: We we do administer a family self sufficiency program, which is a program that, again, it's described in the narrative, but it's a program, by which we work with families, to assist them in becoming economically self sufficient and so work with them around education, job training, job search, those kinds of things. It's a five year program. The benefit of the program largely is that as families participate in the program, they can accumulate a savings account or an escrow account. So as they're as they become more successful and their rent contribution goes down or goes up and the subsidy goes down, that difference, that savings and subsidy goes into an escrow account or a savings account to benefit that family. And this is a program that we've been administering since the early nineties. It's about two hundred units large, two hundred families large, and it's not unusual for a family to graduate after five years with a savings account of twenty five thousand dollars or thirty thousand dollars that they then can take that that those funds and apply it to a a down payment. Or, there are no restrictions on how the how those funds are used, but that's an example of a program that that we do administer to benefit families and helping [Debbie Dolger ]: them achieve self sufficiency. I'm just trying to understand. One of my towns has a has complained about or some of my constituents in one of my towns has complained had complained about section eight housing, not about having the vouchers, but about a lack of the wraparound supports. And I I'm just trying to understand again, forgive my total ignorance in this area. But so when I when HUD says, here's your vouchers. Go ahead and hand them out, and there's, you know, different types of vouchers. They hand out only the vouchers, and the state comes up with the funding for the support and the people power of the support. Is that right? Typically, absolutely, that is the case. That's a a very doesn't come up with it. Or doesn't come up [Mark Macaulay ]: with it. [Kathleen Burke ]: But it's a state's responsibility. Yes. It's that three legged stool that we've we've talked a lot about over the the course of the last few years. Right? So our agency is providing the rental assistance. Often, we do need services. Many of the programs and in communities, affordable housing communities that we develop, there is a an agreement with a local service provider to provide services to the community, but that's under the terms of a memorandum of understanding. And so, affordable housing providers have to to to develop those collaborations and relationships. And then, of course, we need the housing. [Debbie Dolger ]: But I'm I'm just trying to figure out where the onus is. Is the onus on the state to provide the funding for Yes. [Kathleen Burke ]: Okay. It absolutely is. Okay. [Mark Macaulay ]: Is I know we're we're gonna run out of time in ten minutes. I see you've got slides, but I can't resist a question. [Kathleen Burke ]: Oh, no. It's this is education. [Peter Gregory ]: This is [Mark Macaulay ]: in the slide that you awarded project based section eight. Am I right? You guys don't contribute to the capital stack. You say by section eight, you'll be guaranteeing less. Right? [Kathleen Burke ]: And it's operating income to the property. Yeah. And it absolutely. And so just to again, while it's fresh in your mind, director Winters was here yesterday and he showed you three communities that they recently developed in the town of Hartford. All three of those communities, we have substantial rental assistance commitments for. Okay? So [Mark Macaulay ]: Okay. [Kathleen Burke ]: And and we can get into the granular of that, but I would also go as far as to say that there are situations by which if we don't make the commitment for a projects project based voucher that the project may not get over the finish line. [Debbie Dolger ]: Right. [Kathleen Burke ]: So moving along in the spirit of time, on the next slide, in addition to the the federal rental assistance programs that we administer, we also administer several grants on behalf of the state of Vermont and these funds typically run through the Department of Housing and Community Development or the Agency of Human Services. Again, we don't receive a direct appropriation from the legislature. Examples of those programs that we're administering now is our Rent A Rear Adj assistance fund, which finally was funded as part of the last session. Our Landlord Relief Program, that is a risk pool for landlords to incentivize them to rent to families with subsidy. That doesn't have to be a housing choice voucher. That could be a Vermont rental subsidy, any type of subsidy, but to incentivize owners, to rent to families with subsidy. And in turn, if there are damages caused by that tenancy or unpaid rent, then the risk pool will help compensate the landlord for those costs. This program was funded by the legislature two years ago and, will continue to have funding through this year. Likely, we'll be back asking for continued appropriation next year. Our mobile home improvement and repair program, again that's a program that we administer in partnership with the Department of Housing and Community Development. Our rapid response mobile home infill program, which is a new initiative that where we have partnered up with the agency of transportation to rapidly infill new mobile homes in existing mobile home park communities in the state of Vermont. We administer a grant for the Department of Mental Health called the housing subsidy plus care. That's a rental assistance program that operates like a Section eight voucher, but is targeted to individuals that are exiting institutions who are seriously mentally ill exiting institutions or who are at risk of being institutionalized. And then we administer a small grant for the Department of Health as a transitional housing assistance grant, And those funds essentially are targeted to another program that we administer for BHCB, the Vermont Housing and Conservation. Now I think so. Different lingo, different world. Our our HOPWA program, housing opportunities for people with AIDS, that is a very nuanced program. The transitional housing assistance is provided to folks that are on a waiting list, who are waiting for that permanent housing voucher, that HOPWA housing voucher. [Mark Macaulay ]: K. Let me just ask you. So because you what I'm hearing is guys know how to relate to renters and where they're assisted. And so you have various state programs where they're essentially contracting with you to run programs [Kathleen Burke ]: for you. [Mark Macaulay ]: That's right. And but your core section eight stuff, who pays for the administrative part of that? Is the section eight money, little piece of it come to you for administration? [Kathleen Burke ]: Sure. That's a very good question. So we receive an administrative fee for administering the housing choice voucher program. And the way that that administrative fee is earned is for each housing unit that we lease or each voucher that we lease. And so for each voucher that we lease, we may earn a hundred dollars a year in administrative fee to offset the cost of administering the program. K. That's a very simplistic explanation, but the only way that we earn administrative fees is if our vouchers are leased and we're assisting our families. [Mark Macaulay ]: Thank you. Go ahead. [Kathleen Burke ]: K. In aggregate, the Vermont State Housing Authority touches over eighty five hundred Vermont families with rental assistance benefits. Now I'm gonna move on to something that is, is very impactful, and and needs to be brought to the attention of this committee. If you don't already know, there was last week an article by Vermont Digger as well as seven days that was socializing concerns around reductions to the housing choice voucher program budget. And I would say the articles were specific to that program, but, you know, there are concerns with the federal housing budget in general, and what this congress may elect to do. So socializing for this group, what that may mean for Vermont. So, again, we're we continue to operate or the government operates under a continuing resolution that is due to expire in mid March. At that point in time, it's my hope that we'll have a spending bill, that congress will pass a spending bill and we'll know what our budget is, for this year. They could also elect to extend the continuing resolution, and kick the can down the road. When there's an extension and a continuing resolution, essentially our budgets and our housing programs continue to be funded, but based on the prior year's appropriation. Okay. We all know that housing costs increase, housing assistance payments increase, and so in essence, you know, you're looking at the reduction in program. But what's really important for you to understand is HUD socialized in early December, that based on bills going through Congress that PHAs should, evaluate their programs and they should plan as if we will receive ninety seven point five percent of what we actually need to administer the housing choice voucher program. That same letter and I don't really like to talk about this too much but I think it's a hard reality, is that in that same letter they socialized or it could be as low as eighty eight point eight percent. That's significant. If if the housing choice voucher program budget is funded at that ninety seven point five percent, what that means for the state of Vermont, and I've socialized this with all the public housing authorities in Vermont, so this is a Vermont aggregate number. Over the course of the remaining months and calendar year of this calendar year, we would need to remove approximately seven hundred families from our housing choice voucher program in order for our budgets to come in line with our spending to come in line with our budget. So, what that means is, you know, seven hundred fewer families receiving rental assistance. It means vouchers, new vouchers are not being offered to waiting lists. You know, I don't think I need to draw the nexus to the implications that this issue has. And also back to your question about administrative fees, for our agency, if we have to take five hundred vouchers offline over the course of the year, that's fifty thousand dollars. That's a position. And so now you start to see the the real life implications of this. So I urge the committee to to to really stay in tune to this issue and also just and I'll leave this point. I know that we're we're running out of time. This issue also is impacts our ability to make commitments, project based voucher commitments to, for example, seven forty seven, the projects that director Winter shared with you yesterday, Riverwalk, and so on and so forth. It's so moving on [Mark Macaulay ]: You had a question. [Speaker 2 ]: I very just how can two and a half percent [Kathleen Burke ]: bring seven hundred fam like, how many families are we funding? Is it ninety seven point five percent more than seven hundred? Like in the aggregate, Vermont right now is assisting about six thousand families Okay. With the housing choice voucher program. You have to keep in mind, ninety seven point there the ninety seven point five percent is what they're funding based on what the agency needs to to to operate their program today. And typically, housing costs increase over time. Right? Landlords increase the rent, taxes increase, insurance increases, so there's a need for rents to increase. And so that's family's number is taken response to that, the subsidy, the average subsidy that our agency is making for one household, had increased ten percent this year, increased ten percent the prior year, ten percent the prior year. And so housing costs and housing subsidy costs are going like this, but Congress isn't adequately funding the budget based on what's actually needed. And so it it creates a downward spiral in the program and creates issues for the following year as well. Again, very nuanced, and I'll have the opportunity to come back and get into the weeds of this, but say the way that our voucher budget is funded on a year to year basis by by congress is based on what our spending was the prior year. So if we're taking if I'm taking five hundred units off my program, that means that Congress is gonna fund five hundred fewer units the next year. [Mark Macaulay ]: Got it. We're Samia, go ahead. But then we'll all have to ask you to wrap it up. [Kathleen Burke ]: Okay. No [Mark Macaulay ]: problem. I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll hold on. [Kathleen Burke ]: You can always reach out to me, and I would love the opportunity to come back and talk with you. I'll leave that We may [Mark Macaulay ]: have that happen. Thank you. [Debbie Dolger ]: Okay. What was that number of how many families or Seven hundred. Seven No. Six [Speaker 2 ]: Six thousand total. [Debbie Dolger ]: Thousand. Yeah. [Kathleen Burke ]: Okay. And then just wrapping up, just sort of establishing what our legislative priorities are for this year. I mean, certainly, you know, in keeping with, the other folks that you've already heard from, full full funding for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and the good work that they do. Continued funding for our rental arrears prevention program. This was funded last year. This will run out of money this year, and it's, based on our current spend. We're likely to run out of money in September, but I strongly advocate that we continue to keep that operational and keep families in their housing. Again, base funding for the mobile home improvement and repair program and continued funding for the mobile home infill program. And then the the slides that follow are just detailed information about those initiatives that we're requesting continued appropriation for. So I think this is a good place to stop. Happy to entertain any questions. If folks have questions, you can certainly reach out to me. My contact information is here. Mhmm. And thank you for allowing me the time. [Debbie Dolger ]: Thank you very much. Thank you. [Mark Macaulay ]: So our final witness for this morning is Peter Gregory. Peter, do you wanna come and have a seat? Were you in the room when the committee inter just introduced itself? Yes. Actually, I was. So Can you state your name and title for the record, and welcome. [Peter Gregory ]: Thank you very much. Name is Peter Gregory. I'm executive director of the Two Rivers Adequiche Regional Commission, headquartered in Woodstock. We've served thirty small towns in Northern Windsor, most of Orange, one town in Rutland, and two in Addison. So it's a relatively large region. So thank you very much for inviting me here, and congratulations on your chairmanship, chairman Ali. I was under the impression that you wanted a housing perspective from my area. I know you're gonna have all the regional planning commissions or a few in, I think this afternoon to talk globally about what regional planning commissions do. So I won't get into those details. But we are a political subdivisions of the state. We're not nonprofits, so we are a governmental entity. And we work on the housing, issue in, one specific area, primarily. We've had some wonderful speakers in, in the last few days. We work with each of those folks. They are the subject experts in what they do. I'll just talk a little bit about what regional planning commissions do on the housing issue, specifically in my region. So awareness and understanding of the the issue, the problem is certainly a a key role for us. We work in partnership with, Twin Pines and Vital Communities and other nonprofits and housing developers, to raise awareness of the issue and how it relates to the economy and job creation and job retention. As a regional planning commission, we do hire, professionals, and they find it difficult to find housing. So, it's it's something that affects us as it does all private sector employees as well. Local and regional planning and regulation is certainly what we do. The regional plan, which we're required to do, has addressed housing in all aspects of it for a long time. We participate in regulatory proceedings in support of housing projects. We have also worked very diligently with our communities on updating their town plans and their bylaws. And those are the foundations in which developments have to navigate. So it's important for them to be thoughtful in their work and to understand what they need to do to expedite the production of housing. As some have indicated, the scale of housing is really an issue in a lot of our towns. We all talk about the need and the crisis and the economy and all that. It's quite a different story when you're out in a planning commission, you know, at seven o'clock at night when it's snowing, and you talk about how you need to come up with more housing. Nonetheless, we have those conversations and try to scale the work that we're doing with the size of the community. We've done visualization programs with Rochester, for example, where we can say, you you don't think there's any room for any housing outside the footprint in your village? We can show with the computer that you can infill a number of units that they don't believe would fit. And it's it's eye opening. So they think, oh, maybe we can do something. So that's the kind of awareness and and work we do with our communities. The the work that the legislature has done over the last few years, I wanna thank you all. You did address a lot of local regulation. There's more to do, especially on appeals, which I'll touch on briefly in a minute. Last year, the balanced Act two fifty bill was definitely a housing bill. The interim exemptions are in place and are being used around the state. And fairly in my region right now, there's a new development proposal of twenty to thirty units that would have had to go through act two fifty and will not have to. So it's working as intended. All the regional planning commissions are working on the regional plan maps to further expand village boundaries and set the state up again for easier permitting at the state level and more housing production. One area I would would like to point out is is I think the next area for the legislature to investigate is state permitting over the Agency of Natural Resources and the Division for Historic Preservation. All good people, all good programs. But there certainly should be a review of those areas to see if the timelines are right, if the staffing is adequate. This administration over the last number of years has been reluctant to add staff to make things work. I don't think they're properly staffed, in my opinion. And I would like to suggest that the legislature take a look at that because we complain about the speed at which permits are granted, but then don't provide the agency with the the resources to do the work we expect of them. Brownfields development, a brownfields assessment and cleanup, something the regional planning commissions have been very, very involved in. The RPCs have brought in millions of federal discretionary dollars directly from EPA. And then the state of Vermont has also backfilled with a lot of state dollars in assessment and remediation. Those are good investments. They help not only housing, but other commercial and and job creation development in our downtowns. I mean, there are a lot of environmental crises all around the rural areas. We can't deal with them all, but we do prioritize housing and downtown redevelopment. So I would respectfully ask that this committee weigh in on the brownfields portion of appropriations in the coming year. Continued investment, even in these tough fiscal times, I think, is essential to keep the pipeline open for development in our downtowns and bring these properties back to productive use. I think we've heard a little bit about how infrastructure investment has not kept pace with our desires to increase density in our downtowns, whether it be housing or anything else. Federal government is not one that we can rely on entirely for investments in infrastructure. So I think if there is a proposal, from the administration or elsewhere to invest in water, sewer, type investments in our downtowns to enable more dense development, that's what our communities need more than anything. They cannot, on the property tax, deal with that. Even when some are talking about wanting to do something, they cannot fund that. They they can barely fund the repairs and then some of the lack of investment in their existing systems. [Mark Macaulay ]: And then if if I could [Peter Gregory ]: get into a couple of statutory changes, the state has kind of preempted local zoning in some aspects. And but yet the communities still have to go through a bit of an onerous process to actually update the bylaws that they need to update. So we've got some language that, if interested, I would provide that would smooth the adoption process at the local level for changes that have already been required as of state law changing. Appeals. I'm sure you'll hear a lot about that. I'm sure you already have. Our district commission appeals act two fifty plus local zoning appeals. I think there are some ways at looking at making appeals less palatable for those that appeal by putting some cost back on those that appeal if they are unsuccessful. We see that as [Mark Macaulay ]: a huge problem, and I I know [Peter Gregory ]: you've heard a lot a lot about that. Then there's tax certainly tax policy that other committees will be looking at, but would be certainly within your wheelhouse sales taxes for affordable housing projects, reducing or eliminating those. And and just helping regional planning commissions be the entity that automatically is there for our communities to help our towns. So I've got some of the details that if you're interested, I can certainly share at some point. But, I didn't wanna be redundant in what you've heard from other witnesses, but just give you kind of an overview of what we were thinking, what we're doing in our region. [Mark Macaulay ]: Peter, how you have more detail how what's the best way for you to provide it to us if not in live testimony? [Peter Gregory ]: I can I can write it up in a a presentable fashion and and provide it to the committee? [Mark Macaulay ]: I think that would be very useful because we're gonna have to be operating at that level. [Peter Gregory ]: Right. The session has crept up on me, and I meant to have this underpaid. But I will get that to you very shortly. [Mark Macaulay ]: Questions for Peter? [Debbie Dolger ]: Thank you. Nora. [Speaker 2 ]: I am curious about the cracks losses that the state would face if we were to, say, adopt, you know, this sort of an elimination based on, like, a carve out if you're doing housing development. How how do we proceed? Like, I know it's not entirely we're not ways and means, but before I advocate for something like that, I would like to know, you know, just like I've saw on transportation. I've seen one, you know, losing a gas tax means for, you know, our roads and bridges. And so I'm just curious if we are about to see this huge growth in building and we're giving everybody who builds a tax break, What what what's that gonna look like? [Peter Gregory ]: Well, it's a very good question, and certainly one that we thought of as as a staff suggesting something like that. But whether it's a direct appropriation or a tax expenditure, it does affect the bottom line and and ways and means and finance and appropriations will be dealing with that and balancing. So what is the priority in the state? What should we be investing in? Should we invest in something differently? It it may based on our needs, we may not be able to afford that. But these are ideas that if, from your policy perspective, deserve some attention and some airing, I think that what the committee would need to those committees of jurisdiction would need to hear that this is your priority. See if you can make it work based on all the other pressures that fifties. [Debbie Dolger ]: Thanks. Well, to what degree do RPCs work together? [Peter Gregory ]: We work together very closely. We meet on a monthly basis. So we know best practices. We work on behalf of each other, and you'll hear more about that this afternoon. But we also work across state lines. I'm on the the board of the Upper Valley Lake Sunproe Planning Commission and vice versa. Andrew Winter from Twin Pines is on my board. So you you can't, learn from one another unless you're actively engaged, and and we have been for a long time. [Debbie Dolger ]: So what if you have a regional planning commission that is not functioning properly, can the peer RPCs influence the one to kind of correct that? [Peter Gregory ]: Well, I have to assume that you're referring to an RPC in another state because [Mark Macaulay ]: Of course. [Peter Gregory ]: I hope so. But it's a serious serious question. The RPC is based on direction and an offer from us last year in act one eighty one, the act two fifty slash housing bill, have an independent study of the regional planning commissions going on right now. And that'll be in the legislature within, I think, a a month or month and a half. Okay. It should identify gaps in service and quality of service and consistency. It's been one of my personal interests for a very, very long time to ensure that we support each other in making sure we have consistent product, we meet our timelines. But it has to be in partnership with state agencies. And I have to admit that there are times where certain state agencies are reluctant to say, you know, Fred's not, you know, timely on his reporting. And they don't talk to the director. They don't talk to us and stuff. But it it's a partnership that needs to happen to ensure you're getting the best value for the investment that the state makes in us. [Debbie Dolger ]: Well, I was just wondering, like, with a lot of, local I'm not even talking about planning commissions, but planning commissions are part of it. There's still local volunteers Right. Doing it. Some are lucky enough to have expertise, and many aren't. So it's sort of a sometimes I wonder about the self policing or self evaluation that goes on with local planning commissions and also regional planning commissions? [Peter Gregory ]: Well, we don't do any policing of the local commissions, but we are there to provide the support they need Mhmm. As well as all state or local boards and commissions. I've been on the Saffeta River since nineteen eighty nine, and I have not seen it as bad as it is right now as far as their the town's ability and capacity to deal with what's being thrown at them, whether it's floods, retirements, pay. We've got towns, you know, poaching road crews back and forth, you know, town managers, revolving doors. It's it's a tough time out there. Mhmm. So we just we just try the best of our ability to meet the needs of our towns, and they change constantly. There's turnover. People give up. Being in public service is not always a a fun thing, especially if somebody who've been on school boards. I mean, it can be brutal and unfair. So people are saying, hey. You know, I've got children. You know, I can't do this. I I give a call probably once a month from a town saying our zoning administrator left. Can you help us? Can you pitch in for a few months? [Mark Macaulay ]: Mhmm. [Peter Gregory ]: So we're looking strongly at shared services, different models of how the regional planning commissions can be configured to better serve our community. [Debbie Dolger ]: So Will that be in the report? [Mark Macaulay ]: It will be. Okay. It will be. Absolutely. Yep. [Debbie Dolger ]: Will we be privy to the report? [Peter Gregory ]: I will make sure we will make sure that we have, I think, maybe six committees of jurisdiction that were named in the legislation, but it'll be available widely. And I'll make sure, given your question, that this committee gets that report. Thank you. Yeah. [Debbie Dolger ]: Thank you. Mhmm. Thank you. [Mark Macaulay ]: Other members of the board committee, any questions for Peter? I'm here. Just one offline if you have time. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Peter, it's a thousand thank yous for taking time with us. I had a feeling that we'll be talking again. No, please. I I'm happy [Peter Gregory ]: to be here. Thank you for inviting me. I will follow-up with the the specifics that I mentioned. I'll get that to your staff for the [Mark Macaulay ]: week and then the report will come in [Peter Gregory ]: the committee when that's Thank you. [Mark Macaulay ]: Thank you. Excellent. Yes. Thank you very much. Members of the committee, we we adjourn for the morning. We're gonna break for lunch. At one PM, we have a hearing in which the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board is coming in and also, Charlie Baker, who's the executive director of the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission and is involved in the organization that represents all of the regional planning commissions. And Catherine Demetra, who is chair of that group, which is the Vermont Association of Planning and Development Agencies. They'll testify. Following their testimony, which is we've allocated substantial time for At two forty five, we're gonna have a chance to meet with our two ledge council. Cameron Wood, who specializes in housing. And Sophie Stapney, who is ledge council for labor. And then three we have a we'll have to manage our time. Forgive me if I

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