Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Morning, and welcome to the House Environment Committee. We're gonna continue taking testimony on s three twenty five today, and we have Keith Gallagher from BNRC with us. Thank

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: you so much, chair Sheldon and members of the committee. My name is Katie Gallagher. I work with the Vermont Natural Resources Council directing our sustainable communities program. We really appreciate the opportunity to come back and speak with your committee about s three twenty five and act one eighty one in general. My testimony today is going to be focused on the parts of s three twenty five related to areas planned for growth, but we would certainly be happy to come back and talk more about the natural resource specific provisions as well, and can speak a little bit more to that if anybody has questions. Just as a little bit of background, the NRC, as I think you know, was involved with the conversations around Act 181, but has also really prioritized smart growth and development as part of our environmental strategy for the state for decades. And so we come at this conversation about housing and development from an environmental perspective because it is an environmental solution. When we have housing demand, which we saw, I think very clearly during the COVID years, we have a bunch of people coming in who need to build housing. There's only so many places where that can go, and that demand has an impact on the market. And so we need to figure out how we're going to plan for that change and manage that change as it comes into our state. And this is something that people are facing across the country. So that's the perspective that we're coming at this from. I say in my written testimony, I wanted to kind of clarify something that I feel like we say a lot, which is that we want more housing in the right places. And I think, in light of the conversations that we've been having about, we also need rural housing. We need housing for people who live in the woods and who are stewarding our land. And I want to clarify that when we are talking about more homes and more places, what we specifically mean is that, what is it, 30,000 to 40,000 homes that the state has identified that we need and where we can direct the majority, the substantial majority of that housing to places that can accommodate that housing, because we don't have enough land for, for example, every single family home to have 20 acres. That wouldn't work, that wouldn't accommodate our housing needs. So we have these areas that have existing infrastructure or that have soils that can accommodate denser housing, that we've invested a lot of taxpayer dollars, not only in that infrastructure, but in transportation options. That's where our job centers are. That's where our services and healthcare is. And so it's about how do we make it possible for those areas to accommodate more Vermonters, current and future. I also wanna just acknowledge that these aren't just Burlington and Montpelier and Brattleboro. These are the community centers in almost every single one of our towns, and that is laid out specifically, even more specifically in s three twenty five, but was also the intent of Act 181 that we're talking about are small village centers, our hamlets, those areas that already exist, again, in most of our towns. It's not about kind of guiding everybody into a couple places. It's identifying those areas in town where we can accommodate a significant amount of new housing. I think you heard from VAPTA recently in your committee that through the regional future land use mapping update process that they're now looking at 50 to 70% of our projected housing need being able to be accommodated in these areas planned for growth. And I also want to note, and sorry, it's a lot of just background before I jump in, but from perspective, planning is about managing change, but it's also an iterative process. And it's one of those things that is frustrating, I think, for a lot of people, because it never really is done. There's never any really one silver bullets, especially for a state like Vermont that has very unique And so the intent is that this is an ongoing planning process that we hope that people engage in. When we passed Act 181, it was a really exciting opportunity to get back to how do we have locally led democratic conversations about where and how we grow and where the natural resources are that we want to protect and how do we bring those things together? And so that is really what we're trying to accomplish here. All that being said, Act 101 was a really significant piece of legislation. We certainly expected that there was going to need to be some fixes and clarifications. There's a lot of different things going on. I won't go into all of that, but we do support the extended timelines for deeper outreach and to the extent that we can specify the funding that is needed for doing greater public engagement and making sure that those voices are brought into shape, particularly the natural resource provisions, we are very much in support of all of that. But again, I'm focused today specifically on the areas planned for growth. I also want to note, and then I'll get into my recommendations, that we have been engaged in the future land use mapping updates. We actually brought on PNRC's previous executive director, Brian Shoop, who spent many years as a planner throughout the state, as well as Sharon Murray, who also has decades of experience as a planner working with communities. And so the three of us have been able to go through each of the proposed future land use maps and do a deep dive. Our review again has really focused on the areas planned for growth. There's a lot of work there and just want to say upfront that the regional planning commissions have done a really tremendous job engaging their members going through this process. It's very time intensive. There's a lot of specifics. It's very much trying to do a whole lot of balancing. So we want to give them credit for that. We also have recommendations and thoughts more generally about how the process could be improved, but I'm I'd be happy to share this at some point, but I'm sticking here to what is in s three twenty five that was proposed. Okay. So I don't know if I could change my slides.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: There's a little lag, so

[Rep. Rob North]: maybe not. It's not working.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: It's not. You'll have to swipe over and then click on them. It's a three finger swipe. Yeah. There you go. Sorry. No. And then then you'll just have to click. Oh, thank you. Oh, there we go. Okay. Let's see. We are VNRC.

[Rep. Sarah Austin]: I'll promote that. Okay. So the

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: first set of recommendations, most are Let's see. I'll start one by one. So the first one is more of a minor recommendation. In S-three 25, we expanded the interim housing exemptions. Again, as a reminder, these were put into place to ensure that we could move forward with new housing development that would be exempted from Act two fifty prior to the full implementation of Act 181 so that there wasn't a gap. Those were built off of the legacy designations that many Vermont towns have, but were really built around local economic development and revitalization of historic centers. So as we started to use these for the purposes of housing development, it became clear that it wasn't quite the right fit. We needed to go kind of beyond those. That's partly what Act 181 tried to do is to expand that area to say how much land do we need to accommodate that housing. But that's the foundation that we're talking about here. The interim exemption is those legacy designated areas that towns largely adopted for the purposes of revitalization and local economic development. So, S-three 25 expanded the language to also include subdivisions in mixed use development. We are very supportive of including mixed use development because that is one of the foundations of really kind of a complete community where you can shop and go get services in the same area. That being said, subdivisions can be a little bit trickier because the impact of subdivision or the number of lots can be very different. It has a lot more impact than just the number of units for housing. So our recommendation is that we either go back to the original language of the interim exemptions striking subdivisions or could consider adding some kind of specificity to the number of just so that we're considering what the impact is of including that. The second piece is one of the floor amendments from the Senate. This would remove the acreage limit specifically for designated village centers. So these are mostly our smaller community areas and transit corridors, which really only applies to a couple places in Chittenden County. They happen to be kind of lumped in in the same interim exemption category. So there was a 10 acre limit. So it said if you're building up to 50 units of housing, which was the exemption number, it has to be on 10 acres or less. And the impact of that is that it says there has to be some level of density to that development. And this is really important because these areas that we're talking about, again, were really narrow in their geography because they were built for primarily these are kind of main street core downtowns. So we have very limited amount of land. I don't know if you're trying to make

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: eye contact.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: I just don't have your slides.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Oh. They're up. Oh, see. Yeah. I can send them after.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: If you like to follow along while you're talking. Sorry. I don't have them.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: I did send my my written testament. Yes. But I can send my slides after. Sorry. Thank you. Very small areas, very limited amount of land. So, by getting rid of the 10 acre geographic limit, that means that you could essentially have 50 single family homes on an unlimited number of acres. It really just kind of gets rid of that, the intent of having compact development in these areas and again, trying to meet our housing demand. I believe that the intent of this provision was to try to address issues where you might have a larger parcel that has physical or environmental constraints. Again, these are very, very small areas, so I don't imagine that there's very many of these cases. If we needed to have a more targeted approach, I think that that would be a better It would be more effective to think about how we could address those kind of one off cases rather than get rid of the 10 acre boundary limit in general. And then the third point here is another floor amendment. This would provide a new interim exemption for priority housing projects. Priority housing projects have a long history or longer history in terms of kind of exemptions from Act two fifty. These have a affordable housing component to them. They've been very effective in helping to develop affordable housing and to bring private dollars into those developments as well. This provision would allow up to 50 units of a priority housing project. However, it is applied to areas that don't aren't required to have municipal zoning and subdivision bylaws, including flood hazard and river corridor regulations. They might not have the staff to manage these types of projects. Again, these are going back to these legacy designations that weren't necessarily meant to or have the capacity to accommodate more housing of this scale. So we're talking about kind of for the first time ever allowing projects of a pretty significant scale at 50 units to have no local review or no state review to either ensure that they are indeed accommodating or including affordability, capital A affordable units, or that they are kind of meeting the other criteria and definitions of a priority housing project. I will say that these projects, because they have an affordability component, had some level of, I would say, of guardrails built in because our affordable housing developers tend to do very high quality projects in areas that have the infrastructure to accommodate these. But again, this would be a very significant policy shift.

[Rep. Sarah Austin]: They can't build floodplains. That's not what you're saying.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Well They could. They could.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Yeah. They could if there's no local

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: But there's no

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Right. Who knows.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: So then if they get flooded out, who pays for the rebuilding? Who pays does the state of Vermont pay for the rebuilding? The developer would still and the building owner would be responsible for the building after it is completed. Yeah. It's not a state owned. Developer would be responsible? No, the property owner. With the property, right. They would often or sometimes with the affordable housing developers and that they might be one in the same.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: With a priority high price Excuse me. A PHP only has like 20% required affordable housing.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Yes. And it's only, I believe, for fifteen or twenty years.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Limited time limited number of affordable units. But there's been some great partnerships that have happened. Don't get me wrong, but it's not all affordable.

[Rep. Sarah Austin]: That doesn't make any sense

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: to me, but go ahead. So our recommendation, if the committee wants to continue to have some level of PHP exemption similar to this, You could think about allowing towns to opt in so that it's not imposed upon them. You could reduce the maximum number of units. 24 was going back to 24 units. The PHP allowance for towns with less than 3,000 residents again historically. Chps kind of operated on a population basis, so that the number of units was based on the population and we could also require a JO from Act two fifty to confirm compliance with PHP requirements. So there are other kind of boundaries that you could put into place if that that was something you were interested in. Okay. Three finger swipe. Okay. So actually, before I move on to the Downtown and Village Center designation, I also included in my testimony a relatively minor piece. This is in section 11 related to the regional plan non minor amendment process. There is part of this new language that allows for tier one B areas or eligible Tier 1B areas to opt in outside of the regional plan. That's a very good change. This is about the language that is intending to streamline the process and the timeline for non minor amendments. We might call those major amendments. I'm not sure. There these, I believe, would ultimately go back to the Land Use Review Board. So again, there's some level of review here, but it seems unclear exactly what constitutes a non minor amendment. And there is a proposed fifteen day advanced notice notification. We're just recommending that that be more in line with what municipal plans are required to do at thirty days. Just fifteen days is pretty low, especially if a municipality wanted to comment on something most boards are only meeting. You know, every other week smaller towns might be meeting monthly so just putting that in line in terms of the timeline would be helpful. Okay, on the downtown and village center definition, this is in section 12. This is a more substantive change. So this is within the future land use map categories. So the RPCs are working with their towns. These are the two core centers of what is considered the four categories of the areas planned for growth. The downtown and village centers are supposed to be those areas that you think of as a downtown downtown or village center where you have some kind of existing mixed use. Maybe there's a historic structure there. Part of what this language is trying to do is acknowledge that we also have some new centers, for example, in South Burlington, or maybe in some of our towns that are experiencing repeated flooding, they're trying to move those centers. So, we want to accommodate new centers. What our concern is here is that by kind of going back in to the definition of downtown and village centers to accommodate new centers and specifically with the language as it passed the Senate, it might have some unintended consequences. And that is because there that these categories are tied to the tier one areas and act two fifty. They're also tied to the community investment program, formerly known as the designation program. This is where a lot of our towns going back to those legacy designations that I was talking about are eligible for technical assistance, financial benefits, certain grant programs and prioritization. This is a really, really critical program. Just kind of as an aside, we often talk about Act two fifty or sorry, Act 181 as an Act two fifty reform bill, which it very much was, but it also had a whole lot of other pieces that are very important, particularly for our smaller towns. The Community Investment Program is really that core piece that is providing that assistance for towns on the ground to be able to get to a place where they might be getting developers into their town to actually build housing or to start a new business there, things that are really core to that community redevelopment. Village, there are, there's kind of a loose definition already for downtown or village centers. Village centers were crafted so that they would be as accessible as possible and that we would bring in as many centers in as many towns as possible. There's again also language in there that is that it is the intent that every town or I think almost every town or most towns have at least one center. So village centers are not required to have municipal plans or zoning or subdivision bylaws. So again, very, very flexible in how those are brought in. They are automatically eligible to be entered into the Community Investment Program. The Community Investment Program has different steps, which is just to add to the confusion of steps and tiers and all the things, but they're automatically entered at step one, but to be eligible for certain benefits. So the concern with the language, and I should have just put it up here, but it removes the requirement that these centers have a historic component and adds language that includes planned or emerging centers without really clarifying what that means. These are all tied back to, as proposed in S-three 25, the smart growth principles. So ideally, there's some level of understanding with the RPCs and with the towns that we're still talking about centers that have mixed use core. But again, without clear definition, what this language currently does is it could say, Oh, here's a strip development that's not really connected to anything, and we're going to make it into a plan center because developer X wants to do whatever or there would bring in areas that are not intended to be part of the community investment program, which I should note has very in the scale of what we are trying to do has very limited funding. And I think there is also on the testimony from VAPTA, an increase from 0.3 to about 2.2% of our land area that would now be included in the Community Investment Program, we're not really seeing the same scale of increase in the funding for the program. So we want to bring all these towns in, but we wanna make sure that those are targeted investments to the areas that will actually be able to leverage those investments that we're making. Okay, so I have a couple of different recommendations. I will also just note before I jump into those part of where my perspective is, again, our experience reviewing each of the regional future land use maps and knowing that there has been pretty consistently differing interpretations of these categories between us and towns and the RPCs and the LERB. And so any place where it feels like the definitions are becoming more vague and less clear feels like a step backwards. So my first recommendation was that because this is a really significant change, there hasn't really been thorough conversation about the potential impacts that we would go, we could revert back to the original definition. There is a sentence at the end of that that was added in that we could leave in there. We could also ask VAPTA and DHCV and the LERB to come back with specific recommendations about how we accommodate new and emerging centers. The language that VAPTA initially proposed to the Senate Committee on Natural Resources I have included in here that provides a little bit more clarity about what we're talking about and still accommodates emerging centers. We could also look back at some of the language that was in those legacy definitions for new town centers, for example, that already, you know, we've already gone through a process to identify what those areas should have in terms of criteria and qualifications so we can look back at that language. So I listed a couple of different things for you there to consider. I also just want to note that section 18 of S three twenty five is related to this as it narrows the eligibility of the downtown and village tax credit program, which is one of those benefits I should have called out specifically. But this narrows it to ensure that it is only applying to areas that have historic centers, or a portion that could be eligible even for a historic designation. Any questions about that? That was a lot. Sorry.

[Rep. Rob North]: Representative Norris. Thank you, chair, and thank thank you for testing testimony here today. So what what in your mind would be the unintended consequence of opening up that definition of village centers to enable development in town plan identified? This is if if still within town plan identified, new emerging village centers, providing aid for them to do that, what I'm sorry. What not understanding what the adverse consequences are.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: So this because village centers don't actually need to have town plans. So that's that's one piece is they they don't need to be necessarily identified. Again, I would think that in practice Oh, okay. That should be how it happens. Most towns do have a town plan. I think the challenge is really that because these funds are so limited and the program was built over years to really try to identify where they would make the most bang for the buck, that we would be spreading the funds too thin and not leveraging those areas that are most ripe for investment. And so we could have, just to the Department of Housing and Community Development can provide really clear examples of where that funding has been able to make a difference in terms of revitalizing a center. But those definitions, I think, have really been honed in to, again, really make sure that we're using the best use of those dollars. So it's not so much of I think if there's the communities know where they want to grow and where they want those centers to be. And so it's more of how do we get those to a place of working together to ensure that we're all kind of on the same page of where the state should be investing money.

[Rep. Rob North]: It it seems to me that the the newer, more flexible definition kinda answers the the concern that representative Austin was raising. Because the older historic districts tend to be in more dangerous areas, like right down next to the river or whatever, floodplain type areas, and maybe they wanna move it away if it's not a historic building.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: And so

[Rep. Rob North]: it seems to me to answer some of those questions, I would think we would want that, to make sure state investment programs are oriented toward safer places.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Yes, and I absolutely agree. And I think, again, in this language, there's two kind of key pieces. One is the changing it from traditional and historic to traditional or historic, And then there's the planned and emerging centers. And I think the planned and emerging centers gives it maybe a little bit more heartburn for me where it's just less clearly defined as to what that means. If we're just talking about how do we accommodate new centers, again, I agree that that is something that we needed to do, and the Act 181 didn't really totally capture in the future land use definitions.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: You have to be aware of time.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Okay, almost done. So this is a quick one. Yep, mocking distance. So this is also in section 12 within the planned growth area and village area definitions. This was a change, and there's been a lot of discussion about kind of what the right way to do this is. The usage of the term walking distance is meant to be as a way to have a good metric. This is very common in kind of planning lingo. It was changed to multimodal and compact. Just want to kind of flag that this might weaken and confuse the standard again when we're kind of already at a place that not always being on the same page about how to think about certain areas, especially in our rural areas where it is true that we might have limited pedestrian infrastructure, but how do you kind of look at an area and say, is pedestrian oriented. It could be an off road path. It might be something that's just not a sidewalk, and that's fine if that's what we're trying to accommodate. But there again, hasn't really been a lot of conversation about what those impacts of changing this definition that is more commonly understood and has kind of more of a metric in terms of distance to what multimodal means. Okay. Yes. Sorry. Representative Chapin. Yeah,

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: this is very curious to me, especially because it didn't say multimodal transportation, it just said multimodal, which actually isn't even necessarily related to transportation. I found this concerning and vague. But I also see some of the concerns about walking distance and that being ambiguous about so, especially if you consider different people's abilities to walk. So I'm wondering if you've seen in the planning world just some actual distances, like it should be within a mile or something a little more concrete and equitable. Yes.

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: And so walking distance, I'll say, this is I believe this is defined in statute, but walking distance in terms of like the planning world does accommodate people who are using a wheelchair or other mobility devices. And it generally is referred to as either a quarter mile or a half a mile. So there is a distance kind of specific to that term. And that's where multimodal can be a little bit more flexible. And we don't also have a good statutory definition for multimodal transportation either. So that's why I agree that there's some walking distance might not be the right term in this instance, but we're trying to also accommodate more rural areas that it might be a little bit more complicated, but feel this might just need a little bit more conversation. Thanks for your testimony. You're very welcome. I have one more that I will just note for you all and that is the report on discretionary review of housing, just recommending a couple ways to improve that by including more planners and nonprofit developers who have deep experience in municipal regulations. It also kind of speaks very much to the negative impacts of discretionary review and just want to make sure that we are also taking into consideration the value of why towns might have discretionary review in the first place. Thanks again. Thank you very much. Yes. Please.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Alright. Next up, we have Roy Weinberger from Let's Build Homes.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to be with you. For the record, I'm Rob Weimer. I'm the executive chair of West Bell Poems. It is the first time I've spoken to this committee in this capacity. I was here years ago when I was still the mayor of Burlington, but I did, if I can work the screen right, was hoping to share just a little bit of introductory information about Let's Build Home since this is our first time here. And we did just send updated slides to Kat just in the last few minutes, and so, hopefully, you'll be able to follow along in a moment in addition to what you see behind me. So Let's Build Homes launched just a little over a year ago. It's a organization that is really committed to a focus on housing supply. We perceive short Vermont's housing shortage, which has been documented in formal state reports, most recently the 2024 housing needs assessment, is a very acute and significant shortage that is driving severe pain for Vermonters within our housing markets and is so acute that it is rippling over into all of our other sectors as So this is when we we talk about housing. Housing policy is also a health care policy. It is also education policy. It is also revenue tax policy. Many of the challenges that you are grappling with here in the state, we think, would be addressed by solving and improving our housing shortage. We've built a coalition around that purpose. It now has more than 900 Vermonters that have signed on to the coalition and and more than two seventy different organizations that are really very broad in geographic scope. It's from throughout the state and very broad in terms of their missions. I think this distinguishes this effort from some past housing initiatives here in Vermont. Have most all of the major employers in the state have signed on. The hospitals, the utilities, Middlebury College, Vermont State Colleges. AARP representing older Vermonters has been a strong partner, but we also have youth groups. Vermonters for people oriented places, a Chittenden County group of 20 and 30 concerned about the housing crisis are part of this as well. We are very focused. I'm moving quick. I'm almost done with the intro stuff. I'm gonna go.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: You wanna cover, but I just am curious. Are you a membership organization? People are paying a membership? Who? You're not a membership organization.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: Are the nine of We the people referenced here. People who have signed on to a sign on letter that is on the on the on the on the website and voiced their support for basically the agenda that you're gonna hear hear about this morning. So And the contributors are the businesses? Who's Our contributors are are are listed on the website as well. They include our our largest funder is a national philanthropic funder known as Arnold Ventures that is a major contributor to the housing abundance national movement. We have many growing number of state philanthropists and corporate sponsorships that are providing local funding as well. These two charts from the housing needs assessment anchor a lot of our thinking, lot of our work. The chart on the left shows Vermont's piece of housing growth over going back to the 1980s and shows a precipitous drop in the rate of our housing growth in that time. The chart on the right shows our housing production through 2024 versus the green graphs on the right are what the state targets are for housing production. So you can see we are well below that. And the 2025 numbers I have a representation of later, we continue to be well below the state targets. A few slides very quickly from the Vermont futures, which kind of further frame our thinking and concern about where we're at. Since and this this is, again, Vermont Futures Kevin Chu slide showing how when we dropped off in our housing production rates, we also saw a real flattening for the first time since the World War II era. We saw significant flattening of the population, a real deviation from growth that Vermont had experienced for steady growth that Vermont had experienced for a significant period of time. And when we stopped building, that's when the demographic challenges that I think there's so much debate and focus on in this building began to really shift and worsen. So there on the left, again, the Vermont futures slide showing the state's demographics around the turn of the century. Twenty five years later, after much reduced growth rates, you see the fat part of the graphs really moving down into the older demographics, the number of children declining. And to me, it's very clear that's a housing story. We saw this in Burlington when we studied it there. When you have a housing scarcity, which is what we strongly believe we have, I think the proof of that is in the sky high, record high housing prices that Vermonters are currently facing. When you scarcity have of any goods, when you have a shortage, there's a competition for those goods and the costs go up. And with respect to housing, it's quite clear that you often have younger households competing against older households for the same property. Saw that with a study in Burlington very clearly. And when we went through a long period of not building, we saw at the same time a major shift in the demographics within the downtown, younger households being pushed out by older, wealthier households, people who are at a later point in their career earning higher incomes, having accumulated resources. We think that's what's happening here from a statewide basis as well, is younger households are being pushed out. You know, that's why we focus so strongly on on supply. We think this is the only comprehensive way to address our housing affordability issues. Strongly support Vermont's historic efforts that we believe the state has done an exceptional job at of funding permanently affordable housing, developed an incredible group of world renowned affordable housing nonprofits, many of whom are part of the Let's Build Homes coalition, active members. And we support continued government investment in that kind of housing. We think we need a broader understanding of the housing challenge, though, to comprehensively address it. We need to care about homes of all shapes and sizes for all of our neighbors. And that's that's that's the case we're making, and we think when you care about overall supply, that is the way to you know comprehensively address this issue. And make progress on these other social, economic, and demographic trends. Supply focus works. There's a lot of debate about it. I think there's a lot of skepticism about it, understandable skepticism. This is a report from just a few weeks ago from a very trusted source, the Pew Charitable Trust. They looked closely at Austin, which is a city that has gone all in in recent years on this housing supply vision. And there's the headline on the left, there's the stats on the right. At a time when the rest of the country has seen rents increased 10% since 2021 while building about 3% increase in homes. Austin has taken a really different path, 10.5% increase in homes and actually a reduction in rents. And you're seeing this in other. This has been less well documented, but there's growing stories of this happening in Minneapolis. Happening in states that are more like Vermont too. There's a lot of pride and discussion of the Montana miracle because of the major focus on housing that that state has made. New Hampshire has, just in recent years, made a big housing push as well. So, we believe these strategies work. I would like to, as much as possible, anchor this discussion in Vermont data. There's limited data, but we have been working hard as this debate has sharpened in recent months to really understand what is going on in Vermont. We have a new study that is up on our website. We've just published it that we think does speak to some of the decisions you have to make in the weeks just ahead. We're calling this the housing production analysis. Here, it's up and we welcome scrutiny and colleagues from other groups kicking the tires and we want to know if you know, we've used what we believe to be the best available state data. And here's what it says. This is rendering the housing production numbers in different way. Looks at, so going back to this map, we've done analysis what of the homes that have been built since 2021, there's geospatial analysis for. The state knows where these projects were, and we can tell whether they have been inside the interim housing areas or outside of them. The interim housing areas, you know, the feature of ACT 101, which is currently still in effect, it's slated to disappear soon and be replaced by tier one. There's every reason to think that the tier one maps, when we finish them and we get them right, when the issues that have been raised by VAPTA and others are addressed, they will probably be very good the inter marriers are going be very good proxies for the the permares. There will there will be some changes, but they seem to be quite similar. The the stats in terms of overall land area are almost identical. So it's the best thing we have now, and and I think what the patterns we see in it, there's every reason to think this will hold true when we get to the permanent maps without a change.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Representative Chapin. Just to clarify sorry.

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: I've gone on to your next slide. Sure. I'm just curious if this data that you're looking at in this analysis is just for new construction or does it include rehabbed buildings coming online as new housing or things that were short term rentals going to long term rentals? Is it all inclusive, or is this just about new construction?

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: It's a great question. And to make sure I get that right, let me follow-up with you. Is from the state. It's the way the state collects this data, which I think is very focused on new construction, but I I wanna be certain that I'm getting that right. So we will make sure we we send a communication following up confirming that.

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: Thanks. And if as a part of that, you could find out if and how they track those other things, that would be

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: Okay. Great. Great. Thank you. I think the findings are are interesting, and they are new. This is not something that we have seen in any of the other discussion about act one eighty one. What you see in this graph now is the projects that are inside these interim areas. So these lines on the map that was created by ACT 181, these interim areas, the projects that are inside that are mapped in orange at the bottom of the graph, and the projects that are outside, and you can see some of those as well on this map. This is just an excerpt from the Northfield area, but we have the whole state map this way, and you can see it on the website and play around with it yourself. The green shows the projects outside the Tier one areas. That's what the actual data says. There's reason to think that 2025, there's reason to hope that that is incomplete data. I have talked to the housing commissioner directly, and 2025 will be really interesting, right, because that would be the first full year with the interim areas in place for the whole year. And I hope when all the data is in, it shows a real shift from what's there, but that is what is in there currently. On the right side of the graph, the shaded side, these are essentially the projections that I heard the NRC speak to earlier that VAPTA has made about what the hope is for ACT 01/1981, that there will be that the bulk of our future housing growth, the whole concept, I think, in a lot of ways of ACT 101 is that we want to encourage more housing growth in the tier one areas and the housing growth areas and discourage it. We certainly want to incentivize it inside was the thinking. To meet those goals, that's what's represented on the right. That's a sixtyforty split on the right. So let me say this as clear as I can. Currently, this is same graphs by numbers. Currently, since 2021, 40% of the new housing production has been inside the housing growth areas, inside these interim housing areas that will become Tier one, 60% has been outside. Is What saying is they hope and they are working with municipalities to achieve essentially the opposite split, that 60% of future housing growth would be in the tier one areas and 40 would be outside. You know, that's a real change and that's one of the key points that I want to make to you. I'll come back to that in a second. Here's just while I'm moving through the slides. This is another interesting finding of the graph, which is that within the tier one areas, it is mostly multifamily housing that is being built. And in fact, almost all of the multifamily housing in the state is being built in the tier one areas. Outside of the tier one areas, it is mostly single family housing being built and very little single family housing is being built in the tier one areas. This analysis leads us to these conclusions, which I share for your scrutiny and consideration. It seems to us we have a lot of work to do to meet the state's housing targets in absolute terms. We are producing less than half of what the state total housing production numbers goals are. We are not producing those houses currently in the split, in the pattern that Act 181 desired. It's our strong belief that simply creating an Act two fifty exemption, which is a big deal, and we believe that all of the reports you have heard that these interim housing areas are working in some sense, that there have been new projects that have started as a result of this change, that there are projects that have been expanded once these were created. We believe that it is a powerful motivator to have an Act two fifty exemption. We do not think it is a sufficient motivator in and of itself to achieve the state's goals of the majority of housing development happening within them. We have some other ideas, big picture conceptual ideas about what needs to happen, and they are in a sense already in S-three 25, or least they partially are. There needs to be a streamlining and improvement of local zoning and S-three 25 speaks to that. I'll come back to that. We have been calling for some time for some prioritization of financial incentives in tier one areas as well, I know that's really beyond probably the scope of this this this committee, but I think to really make this work. Certainly a lesson I learned as mayor, the government needs to be using all the tools at its disposal to drive these outcomes. Regulatory is one powerful tool, but certainly financing infrastructure, those are powerful tools as well. They should all be aligned around these Tier one areas, and aren't currently. Our sense, and I was concerned to hear the testimony, our sense is that Tier one areas are unlikely to be big enough in the direction we're headed. I'll speak to that more in a moment. A final point, I think important point that is even if we achieve this flipping of the current patterns and we get 60% or more of the the future homes happening within the tier one areas, If we take seriously the housing targets, we still have many homes, thousands of homes that need to come from outside the tier one areas, and that leads us to some conclusions about S 03/2025 as well. To keep moving. We think it's great. Really want to and I mean this very sincerely. I very much appreciate this committee immediately took this bill up following crossover. If this bill does not pass, if S three twenty five does not move forward, it will clearly be a major step backwards from the housing supplies perspective for the state. I know there have been some calls for outright repeal of Act 181. That is not our position. We have concerns about tier three and the road rules. I'll speak to more in a moment, but we strongly support what you attempt to do. I've often talked about it publicly as a real breakthrough for the state that we now have these tier one areas that are mapped, legal, housing growth areas are on their way to being that. For the first time in the state's history, we have some level of political and legal consensus about where we want growth, and that is a big deal. We defend that consistently. And it's important to, if we're going to keep making progress with that important breakthrough, S-three 25 keep moving forward. So we're very grateful that you've taken it up right away in such a comprehensive way hearing from so many voices. We do have concerns that tier three and the road rule, if they are allowed to take effect later this year as scheduled, we think they will have unknown impacts, unstudied, unanalyzed impacts on on new housing supply, we're very concerned about that. Let me say a little bit more about what we support in the current version of s three twenty five. Think it's clear, as I think what has been you've heard multiple times that more work needs to be done to get the tier one housing growth area maps right. We support the extension to 2,030 of the interim housing areas that's in there. In fact, guess while I'm there, I will say if we are going to have another four years of life under these interim housing areas, there are some fixes that should be added to this that are not yet in the bill. Specifically, makes no sense to me that a substantial percentage of Vermont's water and sewer infrastructure, you know, don't have nearly enough municipal infrastructure in the state. You've heard that many times. The infrastructure that we do have should be within the any place we do have that, that should be an interim housing exemption area from my perspective. In many communities, significant elements of that infrastructure and if there's interest in this from the committee, could provide some maps on this seeing if the infrastructure was left out. That should be fixed. There was language developed on the Senate side to make that fix. It could be ready for me to review very quickly. We think that should be done. We support the work led by VAPTA and the Vermont League of Cities and Towns to clean up the land use category definitions, the four definitions that are within these interim housing areas. That is important work, but there is a real problem right now that municipalities and the RPCs are going through enormous effort with lots of public engagement and public hearings there, getting onto a map. What they see should be the tier one areas. They're still very small. These are total Kuntz, amount

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: of land area is right around you know two and a half, 3% is where the municipalities and and the rpcs are coming down.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: Then these maps are going to land use review board and the Land Use Review Board, which has the final say, the final pen, they are taking a scalpel to these Tier one areas. They are cutting them back significantly. The Rutland County map, a full third of the tier one areas were carved out, is my understanding. Then Chittenden County was about 10%. And this is a very concrete known issue that these land use categories seek to fix. I heard the testimony that maybe there's some further refinement and consideration, maybe some more debate needed on that cleanup, but there's no doubt that that some change is needed or we're going to have these already small areas cut back even further. Again, to remind you, if we want single family housing in these areas, I think almost certainly these areas are going to need to grow. I know some communities very much want to use, particularly flood impacted communities, to use the tier one B category to create. To go out into new areas that haven't been developed in the past, because they want to get away from the rivers. And they want to build seeing on Plainfield they want to build single family homes there. We need, in the next bullet there, a faster way to expand Tier 1B boundaries. It's important that we do that. VAPTA has estimated it will take a year to make any change, with a lot of work to make any change to the maps once they're set. This would create a faster pathway. We strongly support that.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Just get to it.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: Better clarity. Is a kind of niche issue, but potentially very important issue. This gets into 1A. There's a real hesitation from municipalities to sign up for 1A because they are being required under the past. The current Act 1A1 language requires one a communities to enforce all existing act two fifty permits baptized recognize that as a is a problem and has the language the current version fixes that we support that. And finally, this is a big new topic and one that if you want full justice to would have to come Schuchard: for further discussion another time, but the. I think in the long term, what might end up being one

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: of the most important elements of.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: Respect to the housing growth areas is that includes a step towards clear and objective standards in local zoning. TAB, In these areas, and let me say just a little bit more about what I mean about that the the S three twenty five has in a study group two important concepts. It's got the eight zero two homes, the governor's eight zero two homes program, which would create sort of buy rate housing for preapproved prototypes. I got, you know, I will share with you. I am impressed by how much desire there is around the state. The public just likes these prototypes. When I'm out around the state, which we do a lot talking to people about housing, they like these prototypes. The governor had proposed, the administration had proposed that the state take some action and a bill that got at least created called S-two 67 to actually create, to do some level of state preemption to make it possible for this program to not just be in a study phase, but to get built. That didn't go anywhere on the Senate side yet, so it's in here in this bill as just a study. I know there's a lot of frustration from some about that. Is existing language for you if you wanted to consider adding it to S-three 25 that would accelerate that further. Similarly, Let's Build Homes has been championing a new concept of by right housing in zoning so moving from a discretionary review to. Zoning that is based entirely unclear and objective standards, and This is going to come back when I speak to tier three in the road role as well. I just want to take a moment more on this. This is a real change in the way we have traditionally done land use planning in Vermont and in much of the country. It's a hot topic in national discussions. The Biden White House had a whole series of events on discretionary review and noted how much time and cost discretionary review was adding to housing production. Just since the session here began, a DC think tank known as EIG, which is a bipartisan think tank, a lot of support from both sides of the aisle. They came out with the idea of a federal incentive for to move away from discretionary review to buy rate housing. This is still just a concept, but I mentioned it here to just try to convey the way in which this whole debate about housing, this is being seen as a central element of it, to move away from this discretionary review, can take months, years. It is the discretionary review that results in the appeals that have that whole separate problem and concern about. This is a big topic, and we appreciated that the Center Natural Resources did include a study on these brute zones. Move to clear and objective standards would be a voluntary program at the municipal level the way it's envisioned. There's a study committee there. We were named as one of the parties there. We would welcome other groups and other perspectives being named to that as well.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Can I just pause you for one minute? I know you asked for more time.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: Yep.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Clearly, you need more time. And we have a couple of folks visiting from out of town who aren't always here. A couple of folks scheduled for this morning. Could you come this afternoon? After the floor, we don't have a lot going on. So either you or the league or would be great. Okay. So I think we've opened that up a little, and then I just need to check with you because you're scheduled for ten. Can you stay a little

[Rep. Rob North]: bit? Great.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: I don't wanna interrupt.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Thank you. Okay.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: I appreciate that. Thank you. And I'm I'm I'm rounding the stretch and headed headed for home here. But but what I have left to say is about, I think, the issues that you've taken the bulk of testimony about. I don't think, know, we have some new and unique perspective on that that I hope is and believe is going be helpful to the committee. So we did, as perhaps you're aware, weigh in on this debate as it's escalated in recent weeks. Did not it was not our focus early on. As I think others have said, we're very focused on these tier one housing growth area issues, but we have been persuaded that they're by the numbers and by the voices that have been speaking out that there is a real concern and what is going on with tier three in the road rule as well. And you know those concerns again are we can't mean the housing targets from tier one alone, I think that's very clear. We don't know how great of an impact tier three and the road roll will have on housing production outside. Certainly, certainly these new rules, they are certainly very broad rules that potentially apply to a lot of Vermont land, depending on the final construction of them. They clearly will not apply to all housing production outside tier one. That's not what we're saying, but we are concerned that we don't know how much could be have new new friction. How significant is that friction? Listened to as much of the testimony that you have received as I have been able to. Well, it's an amazing process that you all go through, and it's awesome that you are able to hear from so many voices for such a long length of time. I have not heard all of it, but I have heard some people, like the testimony you received yesterday, raising very serious concerns about what Act two fifty review means. And I also saw the testimony you received at the beginning of your session that's suggested that for most projects, the review ends up being a fairly modest or even minor experience. I would think it must be hard in your position to tease out where the truth lies and how to think of this issue. And I'm not going be able to completely clear this up for you because it is a fact free conversation to too great of a degree. We don't have a government report saying this is the kind of costs and impact on these households that are now that would now get caught up in Act two fifty for the first time, you know, partially with that can't be studied yet because it's never happened right we've never had single family construction as we've never had a trigger at the single home or the 200 square foot addition level before so we're in a new area so part of this is unknowable. But another part I think was avoidable and could be avoidable in the future, and I would urge the committee to think of this because I think this happens frequently. We have sought and never been able to find a state report that when trying to estimate the costs of regulatory processes looks at anything beyond the permit fees. The permit fees get quantified. That's easy to quantify. But in my experience, and I should say before I was the mayor, I

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz]: wasn't affordable

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: housing developer. The permit fees are just the tip of the iceberg, literally, in the costs that a project faces when they are going through a permitting regulatory process. So I would really strongly encourage that going forward, anytime we're trying to get a handle on what is the impact of new regulation going to be, that these other costs be considered as well. People have tried to do this. Neil Ryan, who you heard from yesterday, has a very detailed and thoughtful blog post where he estimates Act two fifty review at costing tens of thousands of dollars, maybe even pushing $100,000 frequently. Now, point was made that, well, a lot of those the point was made very strongly that those are costs. It was suggested that all of those costs would need to be incurred anyways if you were going to go ahead and build a road and build a septic system. And there's a certain amount of truth to that. However, it is definitely not the case that all of those costs there are some costs unique to the Act two fifty system that you have to put a lot of effort, often with legal assistance, often with the help of a design and other science professionals to complete the application. That is a cost unique to the Act two fifty application process that almost certainly would run-in the tens of thousands of dollars. Then to the degree that it is true that these costs eventually will need to be bit incurred to build a new house. TAB, They it is a big deal when they are incurred are they incurred when you know you have a permit when you know you're able to go forward and build that house? Or are they incurred before that moment when you do not know what you are ultimately going to be allowed to do or where you're ultimately going to be allowed to build? If there are state scientists who are going to tell you move the house because we're concerned about a deer yard, then you have to redesign that road and you have to incur additional costs. And more than the incurring additional costs, is that risk, which anyone who has developed and built something, risk is a very alive and real thing. We are introducing new risks to people who might just want to build a home for their grandchild. And then finally, I think what is missed by only looking at permit fees is the exposure the new exposure with an act two fifty permit to other parties stepping forward and raising concerns. In some cases weaponizing the act two fifty process against the the landowner and bringing into play for the first time in these settings discretionary review and the uncertainty of that. Me just give you one example that to me was very poignant. The same you guys have you guys in a way, maybe you haven't thought of it this way, but this legislature has been working on this discretionary review issue. Passed a in the Home Act, you said municipalities can no longer look at character of their neighborhood tests when deciding whether or not to approve a housing project. That aesthetic concern is no longer legitimate for stopping projects in municipalities. But this is a brand new form on the Land Use Review Board website for people seeking party status for an Act two fifty process, the only example listed on why you might want to file for party status is this. I will be able to see the project from my living room windows and will be adversely affected under criterion eight. Is quite striking to me at the same time that we are working to make our municipal systems more predictable and straightforward and objective. We are about to it subject rural landowners to this whole new level of subjective review that can be, know, and if someone takes up the kind of invitation on this form to make an objection like that, then I think, as it was acknowledged, you are no longer in a minor process. You are now into this major process that suddenly could easily be a twelve to twenty four month process and also could lead to future appeals that can make it go even longer. So, in summary. We're very grateful that you have taken up s three twenty five so quickly and are putting so many resources and the committee's resources towards it, we think it will be a real setback for housing, if this bill does not move out of this committee. Are to boil down our recommendations, we think that it is important that you take the steps that will allow the tier one areas to be as robust as possible to keep them from being cut cutting back further as has been happening and you know.

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz]: I

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: heard the testimony about you know, I think we need a new mindset and the way we think about this. Are talking about two and a half percent of the state, maybe if we're fortunate, being available for housing. If a community wants to expand areas and go a little bit farther out, I think there should be a presumption that they have the ability to do that. There should be a very good reason from the Land Use Review Board to say no to that. These communities do not come to these decisions about growth lightly. I I was at Essex Town hearing, or my colleagues, I wasn't actually felt like I was there, but I actually got a report of it. My colleague was at the Essex Town on Monday. They decided not to opt in to the Tier one area because of concerns about growth. I mean, that is a very strong feeling out there of communities not wanting to meet the state's housing targets, being concerned about the state's housing targets and growth. If a community actually says they want to do this, we should allow them. We should say yes to that. We should greenlight that. We should prioritize the local decision making. That's not the way it's set up at all right now we've created a we very intentionally, as I was told, you know by a Senator we want the Lord to have the ability to say no, I get that at some conceptual level, but there needs to be a change in the balance. We need to move towards by rate housing. It's in the bill currently. If there's any interest in making it stronger, we would love to talk to you further about that and provide legal language very quickly that will allow you to go further. And then finally, given the housing supply concerns that have articulated, we have come down strongly. And when I say we, this is a board level decision. We have board members from across the state. It's a very well our board is up on our website. You can see who they are. We have come down very squarely in favor of repeal of the road rule and either a significant narrowing of tier three or repeal of it as well. Thank you for allowing me to go through so much.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Thank you for your testimony. Do members have questions?

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: Representative Austin?

[Rep. Sarah Austin]: Hi. Thank you. That was great testimony. I'm I'm just wondering, looking at the futures report, which at least that and other economic reports like Art Wolf and stuff like that about the urgency of replacing our workforce, our aging workforce and our demographics of no growth, no net growth in our state, no birth rates are lowest in the country. So I'm feeling an urgency in order to not make Vermont, not have Vermont be unviable. So 13, I believe it's 13,000 new residents that we need to bring into the state in order to hopefully stop the damage. The housing, I'm just wondering is the housing quotas that we're, you know, implementing or wanna implement across the state, would that meet the need for those work, hopefully new workers or at least new citizens. I think

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: I understand the question representative. Do wanna say, let's be clear. Heard these target, what the state has is housing targets. I think it's important that we understand them as targets, not something more mandatory like quotas. Are not really mandatory in respect. Is the housing target sufficient? Yes, I think it is. Housing target, the near term housing target of you know. Creating 30,000 new homes by by 2030 that would essentially be a doubling of the housing production rate that we've we've been on, which is an ambitious Michael and let's be frank, it will be very hard to achieve that goal by 2030. You look out a little farther than that, and I have experience having seen in Burlington, did over a twelve year period focused on this issue by some measures quadruple our housing production rate from a very low rate to one that is starting to get towards the community's needs and goals. So I think, yes, I think that is a ambitious, but ultimately, somewhere in that time period achievable goal, and I do think it would address the worst aspects of current housing shortage for sure. I think we have a lot of work to do to get there is one of my points, and I'm glad you feel the urgency of it. I think it is an urgent issue. When I see people sleeping outside in Burlington, we screened a film last night called Fault Lines. It's showing here in Montpelier next on the fourteenth. There's a direct relationship between the homelessness issues that we are facing, record homelessness rates near the highest in country, and how little vacancy we have, how the tightness of our housing market. So for some of our neighbors, there is enormous urgency to this matter. And I think when we're making decisions, we should remember that urgency and we should on the side of helping those neighbors, not taking what I think has been our historic approach of being just very we've erred on the side of being more restrictive. When there's a toss-up, I think we have to go the other way, given the situation we're in.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: North and then Satcowitz.

[Rep. Rob North]: Thank you, Jerry. Thank you for this lot of good data.

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz]: Just a quick question to

[Rep. Rob North]: make sure I understood one of the last things that you noted in your slides there. Make sure I understood it correctly. Yeah, think you said Essex opted out of Q1B because of fear of it limiting their growth. Did I

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: understand that?

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: Sorry, I was just probably muddled in how I said it. They did have a divided vote and a three-two vote. They decided for a second time not to opt in, and certainly there were a significant number of town residents who came out and said they were concerned that not having Act two fifty review would lead to problematic growth and that they understood properly how the law works, that this would be removing Act two fifty review if they opted in, they didn't want to do that. Then he didn't want to do it explicitly out of concerns about growing too fast and and, you know They did or did not? I believe well, certainly, the people who came out and opposed said don't do it, their motivation was to hold back the construction of they they are concerned about development, and they articulated that that yes. Exactly. Why exactly the three select board members voted against it, you know, there was some confusing debate, and so, maybe but okay. Representative Satcowitz. Yeah.

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz]: Thank you for this. Agree that the housing problem that we're having now is urgent. It seems also clear to me that it's not going to be solved soon. This is a generational project, not a one or two year project. And so, you know, the and the housing targets that the numbers that we're seeing posed by you and others about what kind of housing we need to meet the demand seems to far outstrip our ability to produce that kind of housing. And maybe we'll get there, but again, would be a very long process. And so I might I wonder about how we balance creating incentives right now versus how this will play out over a long period of time. And the future is know, we can make predictions, but it's really rather uncertain. Like, we might find that these housing targets are way too low, or we might find that they're way too high. They're educated guesses at best at the moment. So I wonder how we balance, you know, trying to think intelligently about how we accommodate future growth with not setting ourselves up to have that growth actually proceed in a way which we don't want. We've talked a lot about smart growth, about having growth proceed in a way that makes sense, which keeps our communities walkable and compact, that we avoid, you know, sprawling communities, which aren't good for our environment, that that aren't really healthy places for communities to thrive. And I feel like we are not paying enough attention maybe to what's going to happen in near term versus how these policies that we're talking about are going to affect us over a twenty or thirty year or longer period. And I'm worried that we have a disconnect there between our immediate needs, which are very real and very sharply felt by so many of us with the needs that are going to happen over a much longer period of time, which are not as strongly felt because it's all more in the future. I just wondered if you have a comment or a feedback. It's not really specific question, but Oh, I understand the question. My concerns.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: No. I very much understand the sentiment, and and I think you expressed it really thoughtfully. I appreciate it, and I I understand that tension. I I guess a couple reactions that I do have to it is that I I certainly agree that we are where we are now because of many decisions made over a long period of time. I think we you it is I I agree at some level that we have years of work ahead of us to fix this and and get this right. At the same time, think it's important to be a little bit you have constituents. I used to have constituents that are expecting progress on this issue in a timeframe that is relevant to them. They want change now, and I think the Pew study that I cited there shows how it actually it is possible in a fairly focused time period, change there was just since 2021, I believe, that study. There really has been a measurable impact in in the change in the change in trajectory on housing prices in that community that is being felt, and that is being real. I sense that in Burlington at times when we were a large project would come online There would be a real you know suddenly I would have property owners complaining that they had to work harder to get tenants and you saw some discounting on rents. So I guess I just want to push back a little bit against the idea that this is such a chronic and long term problem that we can't make an impact in the short term. Think these decisions that you are making can help the people who are being negatively impacted quickly. As far as The second half of your question, though, was how do we make sure that taking these short term actions were creating long term problems? This came up a lot in the municipal context as well, where we would grapple with making a zoning change. As was mentioned earlier, planning and land regulation is not something we're ever done with. It continues to evolve and change. Think it is if we were to take actions today that we start to see really troubling trends. There's the possibility of future action tomorrow. This isn't the end of the conversation. You're not giving up your right to take further action in the future when a compelling need arises. I understand that the concept of force, the concern about force fragmentation drove the road rule in some ways. Think it would make sense to me if at the same time that you're stepping back from the tier three and road rule because of the concerns that have been raised, greater definition of what is exactly the force fragmentation concern. Mean, a point was made yesterday by one of the environmentalists that all we really know is that there's been partialization. We don't really have any I don't believe there's been any good numbers shared with the legislature about how much force has actually been lost, how much force fragmentation has actually taken place. Maybe that should get further study going forward, and you're not giving up your ability to take other types of action there. Some of the NRC's really strong reports in the past have said, I've had long lists of tools available to the state to address forest fragmentation, the road rule being just one of those. So I hope that's a response. If you're worried about stepping back on these things because of what could happen, you have future agency, and I think further study in some of these areas would be a warranted thing to do if you do step away from those regulations to respond to these calls. I hope that's responsive.

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz]: Yeah. No. That that that's helpful. I I guess I just in in terms of these conversations, what I haven't really heard is is talk so much about what the real tension is and what we might be giving up in terms of, you know, and how that plays out over the future. You know, it's I just feel like we haven't been talking enough about the balancing act that we're trying to Yeah. We're always trying to, you know, follow when we're talking about planning. Let

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: me I would like to say one more thing. I I appreciate I think you're that's a I'm I'm with you. Want to be clear that this root zones concept, which we really didn't get into, think speaks to a really important part of the strategy, at least Let's Build Homes wants to pursue as we go forward. If we succeed and there's a question if we're succeeding per the data but if we succeed at inspiring another period of housing growth in the state, I think it's really important that that growth learn the lessons of some

[Rep. Rob North]: of the

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: development errors that this country has seen for the last, you know, since in the postwar period in the air and the automobile era. I the new house housing should be built in ways that are not just building isolated apartment buildings. So we are we are building housing in neighborhoods that are beloved, that are great places the way so much of our historic fabric are great neighborhoods in great places. There's certainly attempts to do that in ACT 101. Think that's a lot of the thinking around what the tier one is isn't is getting at that I think we need to go farther with that and, in fact, the the root zones proposal. Is a hope that we could come up with a model code that would be accepted by municipalities across the state that would help ensure that when we are building new housing, it gets built in a way that is consistent with these sort of planning New England planning principles and creates more of these beloved places. So we are trying to think, I think in that direction and want to be a partner to you in that. And very last thing I'll say is, let's remember when we're talking, we are not What is before you is whether new environmental regulations are going to be put in place everywhere outside of tier one. All of the existing protections, which are many and are substantial, remain in place. The discussion now is not about rolling back any of those. So I think you could take this action without concern that you are you know, making a major retreat.

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz]: Yeah. I'm I'm really yeah. There's definitely definitely in the context of this conversation, but, you know, you brought up much bigger vision during this, and that's what I'm I'm really more responding to is how do we proceed down this path in a way that that really balances those things? And I would very much like to hear more about some of these ideas that you have about how we go down that path in a way that leads us to a place that I think almost everybody would find healthy and that we know of.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: I look forward to that. I think we're out of time for it today, but thank you for

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: I guess I have a question for you. I guess I'm I I don't know. I'm I I really appreciate your presentation and all the work and data that you've given us. Very, very thoughtful. Lots to think about. But I go back to the demographics are the demographics, and they're affecting all the states. The real estate market is very elastic and does respond to demand relatively quickly. It does take time, and we have The demographic challenges have created those challenges that we have for that quick response. But we have I'm struggling to understand how there's markets around our country who have built more houses more quickly, and they've had you know, we had a real estate collapse in 2008. We were not as affected by that, in part because we have had more modest growth over the decades. And I guess I don't understand exactly how more housing in other markets hasn't actually solved the homeless issues or maybe even the starter home challenges. Think I'm at a loss there, and then I'm always haunted by this 40% number, which I realize is distributed differently across the state, our housing stock, of our single family homes being second homes, And the effect of that on communities and the viability of our, in particular, our rural communities, which have more of that, and how do we fold that all together is really challenging, but it's part of this. And I'm just not sure that building more homes will really get to some of those other challenges.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: So I appreciate you voicing those questions and concerns. I think many Vermonters share those. To respond to at least one aspect, there's very strong data out there that's been studied in many places numerous times that makes it clear that homelessness is first and foremost a housing problem. We very often think of it as something driven by other social issues, But the the studies are clear that places with the tightest housing markets measured in terms of the lowest vacancy rates, measured in terms of restrictive supply are the ones that face the highest homelessness rates. And it is not the case, for example, that places like the Appalachian Region that has the highest drug use issues see highest homelessness rates. It's housing that drives homelessness. So places that have made very different choices than Vermont and then our municipalities are seeing very different outcomes. They are seeing housing costs at much lower levels and they are seeing in migration as a result, it is striking the degree to which when the maps get redrawn after the next census, blue cities and states may actually lose a substantial number of representatives because the tendency in Democratic areas I say this is a proud Democrat. Not proud of this part, though. Our states and cities have higher housing costs. They have more restrictive housing production rules, and there's actually a shift in population to red states as a result of those decisions that's going to actually likely kind of could impact the balance of power countrywide. The demographics in those places look very different. Don't agree with the idea that housing policy does not drive demographics. We've seen it. I'd be happy if there's interest. We saw that explicitly in Burlington on housing studies that we did, lack of building leading to demographic change in our downtown. That's what I see in these statewide numbers as well. We stopped building, and when we stopped building, the demographics shifted dramatically. The rest of the country we're, what, second oldest state in the country now. That has been a shift, and I think it's a shift driven by our housing policy.

[Rep. Larry Satcowitz]: Thank you.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Okay, one last question, then we have to take a break.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah, thank you. I appreciate the presentation. I guess I'd like you know, we've we've taken a lot of heard a lot of good testimony over the last couple days. And part one perspective we've heard, obviously, is is from from yesterday, got some good perspective on the rural outlook of some folks. And they were clear, and they were specific on a couple things that they're really concerned about. The road rule in the tier three. They gave specifics as to why, and they stated a position, repeal. I'm glad to see from NGOs that you've taken a position. I guess I would like to if you can support a repeal, and if not, what what specific things harms or whatever do you think it would it would cause by not repealing it? And I didn't get the chance to ask the same question. And I would like Katie to answer this to a place. What is your position? Do you support repeal or do you not support a repeal? Let me, I appreciate, I'm

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: concerned here that maybe I would be leaving the room without having made this clear. Let's build homes, my personal position, let's build homes, our organizational opinion, which we communicated in writing to the leadership of both chambers and we published publicly is that last box here. We believe the road rule should be repealed. We believe tier three should either be it is clearly way too broad the way it is being defined now. If somehow this session before the end of the session, that definition could be narrowed dramatically, we might be open to considering that. Short of that, we think the tier three concept should be repealed as well. We do not support repeal of the rest of Act 181, which I don't think there's serious conversation about. I think there's consensus around- There's

[Unidentified Committee Member]: a lot of good pieces.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: Yeah. So we

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: support

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Let's Build Homes; former Mayor of Burlington)]: the pro homes elements of Act 21. We support the steps in S-three 25 listed. We listed them out earlier in the slide deck. We support those elements of S-three 25 that attempt to strengthen those areas. We're concerned to hear some testimony saying we should push back further. We think if anything, we should go in the other direction. These tier one areas gonna need to be bigger. I think that's been my gut feeling for some time. I think when you look at this analysis we've just released, certainly if we want these tier one areas, these housing growth areas to produce single family homes, they're gonna need to be bigger. And S-three 25 creates a pathway to make them bigger. So I

[Unidentified Committee Member]: think that's really important. Thank you. Katie?

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: For the record, Katie Gallagher with the Vermont Natural Resources Council. I think it's probably safe to say for VNRC that we do not support a repeal of the Bird Rule of Tier three at this time. But I will say that we are talking with different folks about different potential options. I don't have anything specific to share at this point, but I can say that a lot of, we are certainly hearing the concerns. And as I, part of my intent in my opening was to communicate that our intention has never been to make it more difficult for rural housing to happen or for people to build on their land, it's simply to protect those natural resources. And so if we're facing unintended consequences, and even I think some of what has been communicated is just the fear of the unknown and the process of not knowing exactly what is happening or what could happen, we're very much empathetic to those concerns and are interested and eager to work through what could be a solution for all

[Unidentified Committee Member]: of the people. But why would you extend the fear of the unknown?

[Katie Gallagher (Vermont Natural Resources Council)]: So I think what we're hoping to do now, when we were in the Senate, the answer, so to speak, was delaying, and our feeling was this is already going through a process through the Land Use Review Board. We felt that many of the concerns that we were hearing were already going to be addressed through that process. And I think what we're hearing now is that's not enough. We don't trust the process. We don't know the land use review board. We need a little bit or a lot more clarity. And so what we're talking with folks now about now is how we can add more clarity at this point.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: I do have to interrupt. I'm sorry. We got to take a break and respect the next witnesses. Thank you so much for joining us this Thanks to everyone for questions. Take a five minute break and come back seven minute break, come back at ten minutes to the