Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Elise Schambacher]: Good

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: morning. Welcome to the House Environment Committee. This morning, we are continuing testimony on s three twenty five as it passed the senate. We are gonna be this session will be taking up changes that were amendments.

[Unidentified Senator (licensed civil engineer; sponsor of Section 4 amendment)]: Senator. Good morning. Thank you for inviting me here to speak about s three twenty five. I thought just before I get into the bill itself, I just give you a little bit of my background and understand my thoughts on on this bill is I'm a licensed civil engineer with nearly fifty years of experience practicing in Vermont. Over that period, I have presented projects before every single district commission in the state, the Water Resources Board, the Environmental Board, the Environmental Court, and the Public Service Board. I've worked on and in front of numerous local planning commissions, zoning boards, DRBs, the whole gamut. And I've worked on very small projects up to very complex projects like the Edweed Fish Hatchery in Grand Isle, where I was responsible for obtaining all the different permits required for that state of the art hatchery, worked on projects like the Circumferential Highway, the Bennington Bypass. So I have quite a bit of experience in this arena. As it relates to s three twenty five, and more specifically, the amendment that I put forward in section four of the bill as it was passed by the Senate, this original section would have allowed until 01/01/2030 for the subdivision or construction of 50 units or fewer of housing in a village center or within onefour mile of its boundary without a permit provided the area is served by public water or sewer or soils and that are adequate for wastewater. And the community has permanent zoning and subdivision bylaws. What my amendment did or or proposed was to remove the requirement for zoning and subdivision bylaw. But keep the rest of the requirements. So why would I approach such a a change? It was approached by the town of Williamstown. And Williamstown does not have permanent zoning or subdivision bylaws. They have voted them down several times. The village area of Williamstown is served by public water and sewer. They had a structure in the middle of their village area that was in very poor condition, and they had taken that down and they were proposing to build some housing units in its place. The developer had gotten a number of the technical permits for the housing approached the district coordinator to find out whether they would need an act two fifty permit to move forward, and the answer was yes. At that point, the project stopped, and and they had no intentions to move forward, because of the time delay, the additional cost, and it would move the projects from basically what they were hoping to be affordable housing to increase costs that would put them out of the range that they felt that they wanted to move forward with this project. So that's what started my amendment process. And in looking at it, I didn't want to just signal out something for the town of Williamstown. There are a 125 towns in Vermont that do not have permanent zoning or subdivision bylaws versus a 137 that do. So it's almost a fifty fifty split. And if we are really serious about trying to address housing and we feel that removing the Act two fifty process from housing and village centers is one of those ways to help spur housing growth, then we shouldn't eliminate 50% of our towns from that opportunity. So I put the amendment together, obviously, with Ledge Council. I presented that or forwarded that to the Senate's Natural Resource Committee and then came in and testified in front of that committee. From there, the chair, Senator Watson, approached me and she thought that the idea had merit, but she felt that we needed to do a little more with the language. To make it a little more compatible with some of the other approaches that they've had taken, and so she and I met afterwards and we went through the amendment and we added the language that you see in the bill currently, which is to require the housing development to have 20% of mixed income or mixed use. And so that was kind of the place that we got to and agreed upon. So the way that the process went down is. The bill that's was presented at second reading. I presented my amendment as originally proposed on the floor, And then. Senator Hinsdale presented an amendment to my amendment, which was the language that you see here in the bill. I accepted that amendment to my amendment, which then was voted on by the full senate and passed as you see it written here. That's kind of the history of, how we got to what's in the bill.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Yep. Thank you for that. And can you just remind us the page number of the as passed the senate version, Chittenden?

[Unidentified Senator (licensed civil engineer; sponsor of Section 4 amendment)]: I believe it is on page seven of the bill.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: So the number that, thank you for that. It was a very helpful orientation to it. I guess a couple of things. One is that we have heard a different number on who, but it is over 100 towns without zoning and subdivision bylaws. And I guess each of you have been following the events here in our committee, and one of the big things we've been hearing is respecting our rural communities. And I guess I think about towns who don't have zoning and subdivision bylaws. I don't know what's happening in Lewandstown, but the people there have voted them down for one reason or another. And I feel like these are communities that may or may not know but have been using Act two fifty as a backstop for development review for a long time. One of the things I'm interested in is learning more about them, But I have concerns about pushing something like this onto all of them without any engagement with them. Can you comment on that?

[Unidentified Senator (licensed civil engineer; sponsor of Section 4 amendment)]: Sure. Understood. I can't speak for all of the towns, obviously. But if you actually look at it and you say, I mean, the 125 is what's listed currently on the act two fifty site as one acre counts. So that's where that number comes from. And if you actually look at and start to look at the 125 towns, you'll find that many of them do not have public water or public sewer. So they would not fit into this, exemption anyway. And the other thing is if we look at it and we go, so if in fact they did have zoning and sub subdivision bylaws, what is the real item that is being protected? It's aesthetics, basically. Because all the other technical permits still apply. Still need a water wastewater permit. Still need a storm water permit. Still need a construction storm water permit. Still need a wetlands permit. Still need to deal with rivers and streams. All those other technical permits still apply. So the real issue if we're looking at site plan review access permit, you still need to get a local access permit or a state access permit. So so really it comes down to the big issue with aesthetics. And if I'm a home builder, I wanna build something that's attractive because my objective is to sell those units. And so I'm not about to go in and put something that isn't going to be attractive or blends into the area because I wanna sell it, and I wanna sell it quickly because holding on to it just costs me more money. So I'm gonna try to do a good job. And I've worked with many, many developers over the years, and most of them try to do a good job. There are some bad ones out there, I will admit. But, you know, we really wanna try to do something that pushes housing, and this is only for a very short period of time. So if you think about it, by the time that we get out of session here, you've almost cut this year away. So we're really talking about a three or four year period that this applies to.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: And do you know how many towns have this situation of public water?

[Unidentified Senator (licensed civil engineer; sponsor of Section 4 amendment)]: I do not off the top of my head.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Representative, Pritchard.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: You. Do you recall what the vote was in your amendment?

[Unidentified Senator (licensed civil engineer; sponsor of Section 4 amendment)]: It was a voice vote, so, you know, we didn't do a roll call vote. And it was it was not a 100%, but but unanimous. Unanimous.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Representative Chapin.

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: I appreciate the pickle that Williamstown and this project are in, and I understand how frustrating it must be for folks who want to build housing and are struggling to pass those bylaws and moving towards this process that we've set up in Act 181 that would allow more municipal oversight and less Act two fifty oversight as that transfers to municipality. I don't agree at all that aesthetics is the only thing that's left. I spent fifteen years supporting agricultural businesses and the working landscape across Vermont and Ag Soils is one of the 10 criteria in Act two fifty that I don't believe was covering any of those other

[Unidentified Senator (licensed civil engineer; sponsor of Section 4 amendment)]: That is correct. But you're talking village centers.

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: Yep. In my experience, there's a lot of agriculture around our village centers. And particularly Primax oils and village centers are often in the same location because they're in floodplains. So I guess I just

[Unidentified Senator (licensed civil engineer; sponsor of Section 4 amendment)]: build in the floodplain.

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: The piece that's concerning to me is that is that without so and then flood floodplain protection is yet another criteria that I think would really get lost out of those 10 criteria and 22 sub criteria and active 50. I think it's a lot more than aesthetics.

[Unidentified Senator (licensed civil engineer; sponsor of Section 4 amendment)]: Floodplain, You won't get a bank loan to build in a floodplain. So chances are developer is not going to build in the floodplain because they need financing.

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: So just there are other land use trade offs.

[Unidentified Senator (licensed civil engineer; sponsor of Section 4 amendment)]: But a lot of them are covered by other

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: It's not the the tax blues, if they don't have that active 50 backstop.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: No. Well,

[Unidentified Senator (licensed civil engineer; sponsor of Section 4 amendment)]: I'm disagreeing. There are some risks, but we have to also look at what we're trying to accomplish and the benefit. We can always throw up obstacles.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Alright. Thanks for your testimony. We we have a lot of people here. Thank you very much. Thank you.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: Thank you. Thank you.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Senator Matos. Morning. Morning,

[Unidentified Senator (Chittenden North District; transcript labels as 'Senator Matos')]: sir. Matos. I represent the Chittenden North District in the Senate, Milton, Fairfax, Westford, and a little sliver of Essex Town. My amendment that I put forward. Deals with tier one be and as I'm sure you're all aware that area is slated for for housing growth for projects 50 units or fewer and my amendment just in the interim period just in the interim exemption period, which would be out to 2030 strikes the 10 acres rule so currently. Act 181 if the parcels over 10 acres you cannot build your 50 up to 50 units on it without having to go through act two fifty And my thought process through that is we have areas in the state where we want this housing built. Vermont doesn't have perfectly flat square 10 acre lots to be able to put put your housing on look out the window we go up the side of a hill there. So there's some projects up in my area that have slightly larger tracks of land and can't utilize all that land. Being able to have a parcel that's over the 10 acres in a tier one B area that has town water, sewer, More often than not, has a lot of development around it, I know in the Essex area there's you know entertainment spaces around it there's housing development around it. The parcels are in just like in Milton, there's parcels that are still larger. They're over 10 acres where we want to concentrate this development. And it kind of aims at right now in Act two fifty, if you're doing a subdivision that's under 10 lots, you're going to be creating sprawl. So if currently you have three twenty acre lots next to each other, you're going to have to develop under those 10 acre lots on each of the parcels. Whereas if this amendment were to go through, Senate, you can all those parcel or all those units on one of the 20 acre parcels to create more density and not have sprawl happening. Basically what it does is it eliminates the 10 acre rule for the tier one B tier one A, there is no acreage rule. As I'm sure you you folks are all aware, there is no acreage rule for that up to 75 units in the in the tier one a. So tier one b would just strike just in the interim exemption period, the the 10 acre rule there.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: So your can you orient us to which amendment is yours? What where is it in the bill?

[Unidentified Senator (Chittenden North District; transcript labels as 'Senator Matos')]: That would be page six, believe, at the bottom, and it rolls over to seven. It starts on five and rolls over to six.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Page five. It must be about page five. Five rolls over to six. Page

[Unidentified Senator (Chittenden North District; transcript labels as 'Senator Matos')]: five rolls to six. Yep. And the amendment would look a little weird in the senate because I I actually did my amendment, and it cut off John's amendment. So I had to come back after and reconsider my vote on the whole entire bill, and then we had to put a new amendment of mine in that incorporated John's amendment. So that's what's in the bill is mine and John's amendment, senator Benson's amendment. Excuse me. But, yeah, bottom of page five, top of page six just strikes the 10 acre in the interim exemption period.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Right. So there you're you were using one a and one b. There's no one a or b in the interim. So orienting us to the area that you are you're doing village centers. Really can't tell right now in the bill. And you've added subdivision, taken away the limit on the 10 acres. Right. That's kind of intriguing also. Why?

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: Why did I?

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Because if you could subdivide, you could get to 10 acres.

[Unidentified Senator (Chittenden North District; transcript labels as 'Senator Matos')]: Right. And that'd be an added cost and also one less unit. Because when you subdivide, you'd create a unit.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Right. Well, the intention of this section was to encourage dense development.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: Right. Not large lots subdivisions.

[Unidentified Senator (Chittenden North District; transcript labels as 'Senator Matos')]: Right. So by getting rid of so if you have a parcel that's 20 acres in a 1B area, it's 20 acres in size, you can if the 10 acre rule is struck for the 1B area, you can build your up to 58 units on that because we don't have perfectly flat lots. Have terrain, you have areas you can't use, and this would allow for a developer to build on that single lot instead of having to subdivide off that land, Which would take more unit away because it would create a lot and then you'd have to go further on down the line. What it would do is just make it easier for a developer that wants to create housing in areas that we feel we would want housing in which would be that tier one B area and. Be able to utilize the lots we have and not if there's multiple lots side by side and not building nine units on each lot to stay at act two fifty because the lot is over 10 acres.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Members have questions. Representative Pritchard.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: Again, was was this vote done with senate senator Benson's also? Were they combined or were there separate votes?

[Unidentified Senator (Chittenden North District; transcript labels as 'Senator Matos')]: Originally, they were they were separate. Senator Benson's went first. That passed. Mine went second. It passed. Then just a little background. My amendment, because it came after senator Benson's, it actually struck language that was in senator Benson's. So then we had to do a combined amendment afterwards to add both

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: of them back in. And was that a roll call or a voice vote? Voice vote. Voice vote. Was that unanimous?

[Unidentified Senator (Chittenden North District; transcript labels as 'Senator Matos')]: Yeah. From what from what I heard. The ayes and nays. Yeah.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Representative. Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thank you. This is it's an interesting proposal,

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: and I understand what you're

[Unidentified Committee Member]: trying to do. It does seem like it's in tension with, the other side of coin where you could have a large lot that is all perfectly buildable and the developer could come in and put a relatively small number of units that could be several acres each that would fill it up and that really would be sprawled. So it seems like on one hand, we want to your bill wants to your amendment wants to help us be dense. But on the other side, it seems like it would also open up the opportunity in other places for exactly what we're trying to avoid. And I'm wondering if you have ideas on how we could fix that so that we don't have this tension anymore.

[Unidentified Senator (Chittenden North District; transcript labels as 'Senator Matos')]: Yeah. I mean, I understand the the thought there, but from from a development standpoint, there's no there's no money in roads. There's no money in creating that sprawl because your infrastructure is such a high cost in a development that you have to pass on to your consumer, which is the home buyer, is you want to be able to construct these in more dense areas. So by providing if you have a parcel that is 20 acres and you can build on a certain portion of it because of hills and low lying areas, maybe a floodplain, what have you, you could still build up to those 50 units and be able to create that density. Because at the end of the day, building a road, running your sewer, running your utilities, whatever it may be, all your storm water, you don't want to have to spread all that infrastructure over, you know, say it's a 20 acre lot. You want to try to condense that down in the the buildable area. So I my my thought is being able to utilize the portion that's buildable on these larger lots and then saving that green space.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Representative Chapin.

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: Thanks. It's great to hear where this came from. So it's really helpful to have you in. Yeah. Thank you. So I'm still struggling with this. So I'm imagining 50 acre farm parcel currently in farming right outside the village within that quarter acre, quarter mile distance being turned into 20 units across 50 acres. And I hear what you're saying that from from your perspective and a developer's perspective, there's not a lot of value right now in sort of spreading that out. But we just heard from well over 100 rural Vermonters that they have the capacity to put in 800, 2,000 foot roads with their own bare hands and they want to do it. So I guess maybe certain developers wouldn't go that route, but I think certain people would. So what we're hearing is there is a lot of pressure to build on some of these sort of flat farm land. You've heard me just say, I spent a good portion of my career supporting agricultural community and understanding the pressures on that land and how important having farmland is for our future. So protecting our agricultural principles. I'm just really I feel like this, like you just said, relies on the private sector to discourage the spread out sprawl development as opposed to land use regulation. And so I guess I'm just I'm struggling with that because I think in some scenarios what you're saying will come to pass. But in some scenarios we could see something very different. We this just seems there's just something that allows non density here that wasn't there before.

[Unidentified Senator (Chittenden North District; transcript labels as 'Senator Matos')]: Well, would would be in an area where we want that right that tier one B areas where we want that housing and and you'll hear from from some folks that. Are in that area where there is all this housing and that's what this bill would would go towards is where we want the housing so it isn't sprawled out into that rural area. It wouldn't be in a in a tier three area. So having having the 10 acres removed utilizes the lands that we have in those village centers, in the areas where we have this development. Hundreds of homes around some of these areas already, and there's prime location to put put these homes in. I think it'd be a big benefit to the state so we don't create that that sprawl out to the rural area. And, you know, you drive around you drive around my hometown of Milton, you got a bunch of nine nine unit developments because it stays at act two fifty. Or you you'll have a project that bumps up, and then they'll have another phase however many years down the line because you can only do within that five year time in a five mile radius and up to 10 units. So we want to get that housing. We know how many houses we need in the state over the next few years. So getting that housing in the area where we want it, I think, is crucial.

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: So I'm just I'm still trying to get at the essence of the issue you're trying to solve, because I think this is too broad. I mean, I can't support this. It's too broad, and it allows for undense development without any municipal or state oversight around land use in prime ag soils within a within a quarter mile of every single village center across the state and well before one be ever exists. It's, it's a significant amount of prime ax wells that this opens up. So I guess if the the is the problem related really to avoiding subdivision to get down to that 10 acres? Or can you give me another example of exactly the kind of development we want to allow? And I see that some of that we have another person on Zoom.

[Unidentified Senator (Chittenden North District; transcript labels as 'Senator Matos')]: If you want, if you want to hear some examples, we have a couple of folks that that have some real life

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: examples. If

[Unidentified Senator (Chittenden North District; transcript labels as 'Senator Matos')]: that works works for you.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Yeah. I'd like to move on.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: So if members have further questions One one specific question for for senator Matos. Thank you. Yes. Okay. Would would you be opposed to a a slight modification to your amendment that did take into account protecting ag soils and and requiring a minimum density of the development? There's a minimum density. Isn't there a density requirement already that it was specifically? That's that's what the 10 acres was intended to So

[Chad Simmons]: the so that's the thing about like, if you'd applied to

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: the one b's, they don't exist yet. Yeah. And there's exempt areas. Right. The exempt areas, no. Yeah.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: Okay. Yeah. That's what the 10 acres was implying or kind of a roundabout way of

[Unidentified Senator (Chittenden North District; transcript labels as 'Senator Matos')]: Yeah. If we can make something work, that's

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: I'm always open to suggestion. Directly specify the minimum density requirement and directly protected ag soil, but you would be okay with.

[Unidentified Senator (Chittenden North District; transcript labels as 'Senator Matos')]: And I know we have zoning that you can only put so many units in Milton, how many units per square feet that you can put and all that. So

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: The thing is that changing state statute, with one example, gets really conf confusing and conflating things for other towns because our towns reach a very broad spectrum.

[Unidentified Senator (Chittenden North District; transcript labels as 'Senator Matos')]: Yeah. I mean, it's not one or two example. It's I bring examples because it's examples, not the whole entire spectrum. But

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Right. But we're changing state statute here. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Thanks for coming in. We need to raise the other people that we're going to hear from today. Thank you.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: Thank you. Next

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: up, Colin Frisbee.

[Colin Frisbee]: Good morning. Thank you for your time. I am an example of what Senator Matos was just talking about. We have a property in Center Road in Essex that is 26.93 acres. We will be developing less than 10 acres of them, but when we went to act two fifty to try to get a preliminary ruling, they would they say, because even though we're developing less than 10 acres because of wetlands and slopes and all those things that we would not apply inside of these column act one eighty one rules. And so the then you could subdivide, but if I subdivide and I own both parcels, then they both get counted for act two fifty so that you to try to keep people from doing the slim shady on the whole act two fifty piece. So just subdividing doesn't work, then I need to either sell it to an adjacent landowner or some other piece. And in my case, it's a bunch of land that is not developable. It's going to remain green. It's gonna have the walking paths and all of those things. So you just add a whole bunch of time, expense and energy to it. Would so from our perspective, there's a whole lot of help that can be done by removing that 10 acre limit. We are actually in support of what senator Matos, I think, was just talking about as developers. The infrastructure costs, if you'll buy the land, I'll do if I'll buy the land if you buy the infrastructure because the gentleman who's about to follow me probably will tell you that the the infrastructure piece costs a lot more than the dirt does in today's day and age. So I'm not looking to put in a whole bunch of extra road or things like that because of the economic realities and trying to provide affordable housing for from honors. Need to have the ability to keep those things tighter. I think a density provision in here certainly would be a lot more workable and more usable to us in the field than the acreage requirement. The acreage requirement has become very challenging when we've met with act two fifty and with the town to try to figure out how to do it, and you get into some crazy timelines because I have to give away the land or get rid of the land before I get permits so that it's not there when act two fifty considers it. But then I've just gotten rid of a bunch of the land, and I don't have my permits yet. So I don't know that I can actually use the land for what I'm trying to use it for. So it creates the 10 acre cap creates some real logistical challenges. Our density, but the town Essex is actually after us to increase their they're worried that we have too much density. So we're I I understand that you can't shouldn't make good law based on examples but here is an example of why the Matos amendment is helpful and I think helpful to other folks like us that are trying to get housing where we want it in the state of Vermont.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Thank you for sharing your story with us. I'm curious about why it's not a growth area for Essex. Why is it not is it not already in an exempt area?

[Colin Frisbee]: It is in the exempt map, but it's because it's above 10 acres. It doesn't fall within these rules for the act two fifty exemption.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: No. I'm but, I mean, like, it's not in a historic one of the designated areas that would be more a one a area in the future.

[Colin Frisbee]: It is on the it is on the map that has been released. I am not fluid enough in the different, categories of what Essex has described this. I know this is our property parcel is on the exempt parcels list from the the the mapping that came out with the act one eighty one. So I don't know the correct characterization of that.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Okay. Mean, can follow-up? I guess I'm

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: just curious about, is it have to do with the mixed use development amendment?

[Colin Frisbee]: Ours is not mixed use. It's all residential. Essex Town is not a town that had signed up for the tier one a portion going forward. I don't know how all those things relate. I just know that the 10 acre portion of this has been determined by both the town and the state Act two fifty as something that is germane to our situation.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: And did you say that the town is not interested in the density that you're proposing?

[Colin Frisbee]: There's been quite a bit of pushback trying to get us to reduce our density. There's been some folks in favor of the density. We're proposing 34 units on just under 10 acres of developable land as we have tried to draw it so that we could get down to less than 10 acres should we need to do the subdivide and redo piece that'll just add a bunch of time and money to the project and make the homes more expensive.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Okay. Alright. Thank you for your testimony. Well, you can just stick around for a few minutes too in case we have more questions for you. Absolutely. Next up, have Chad Simons.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: Greg.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Sorry. Greg, come back.

[Greg Tetreault]: Morning, madam chair and members of the house environment committee. I'm Greg Tetreault. Got my partner here, Amy, works for us at GW Tetreault Construction. It's my daughter-in-law, but but that's a that's a good thing. So so I'm here to urge you to remove the 10 acre threshold and to seriously reconsider how Act two fifty is affecting housing development in Vermont and the American dream. I've had a development sitting for about eight years now in Jericho, right in the town center. In that time, I've incurred $751,310 in cost just in permits, lawyer fees, taxes to the town, getting through the zoning process and interest on loans. I've also had to borrow nearly a million dollars from one of my other companies just to keep this project afloat. The the reality is act two fifty along with the 10 acre rule has held this project up far longer than it should have been held up. If we'd have been able to move forward earlier, the money spent on carrying cost and fees could have gone into more homes, more apartments, and a stronger community. That would have created more local and state revenue, helped support school budgets, and provided housing for multiple families. Instead, these delays have added cost after cost. Those costs do not disappear, and they are passed down to the end consumer for the project, making housing even less affordable for Vermont that the people are who are trying to get people to stay here. I respectfully ask you to remove the 10 acre restriction and allow projects like mine and others to proceed without unnecessary delay. Vermont needs housing. I believe we've got a study that says we need 24,000 to 36,000 by 2029, and it needs investment, and it needs a process that supports building rather than blocking it. You know, I I think about the working people in this state that work with their hands, and, you know, we're it's very hard for them to stay here and get started, and we need those people to stay here and and be a part of our economy, have children and live here, retire here, and, you know, we need more housing to make that happen, and I think we all know that. So I have a project in Jericho that's 15.5 acres. We were under six and a half acres of disturbance for phase one of this project. And, like mister Frisbee said before, we went through the act two fifty, and they said, well, you don't qualify because of that. So, you know, and this is right in the town center. The town is very active in trying to get this project going also, and, they've actually been working on it for over twenty years to get somebody to move. So, you know, we're trying to, but act two fifty is a lot of time, a lot of money. We we spend a lot just to get through the zoning. We have all our permits, all our storm water, sewer, everything we need to apply to act two fifty, but, you know, it's it's added cost and time if we go that route. So, you know, I'd rather not, and that's why we're waiting to see if the legislature will will will help us out to to get this moving.

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: Thank you for sharing your experience. I guess I have a question for both you and the previous presenter, and I'm just trying to hone in on maybe something a little bit more narrow that gets at the problem. I'm wondering if it's really about the parcel size versus the site. Like you just use the word disturbance. You also said it was a phase one. So I'm guess I'm curious if we were doing something that was just around the parcel doesn't have to be 10 acres or less just the project area. And this isn't my area of expertise. I'm just brainstorming here, but would that get at the issue and Greg for your just curious if there's a phase two, you know, does that go over that 10 acres and just maybe a little bit more about your ultimate vision for that project?

[Greg Tetreault]: Yeah. The project has different phases. Phase one is six and a half acres. The rest of the project will be developed at some point, and it may have to be by somebody else unless, you know, things change. This is an old mill yard. And when we bought this property, it was full of junk and cars and milk stuff. It was just total source site for the town, and I I understand where you're coming from with the agriculture piece that's so important to you, and, you know, and I I think maybe there's some way to to get through that so so you're happy with it. But, like, we're in the center of town. It's never been agriculture. It's always been commercial. I don't know about mister Frisbee's project, but I wouldn't think there'd be a farm in Essex Town anymore, and maybe it was at one time, but so I think just removing that acreage is is the best way to go, and the other thing I wonder about is a lot of this has town water and sewer. I feel like if we've got a permit for a leach field that'll cover this project like mine, I don't think we need town water and sewer. I think you need one or the other because, you know, a leach field can be sizable. It would be hard to drill a well, but I don't think we need both.

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: Thank you.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: And the point about why is the mixed use development in there?

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: I'm not sure that was part of my amendment. It might have been sounded natural, but

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Alright. Thank you, both for your testimony.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: You.

[Greg Tetreault]: You're welcome.

[Colin Frisbee]: You're welcome. I think that, to sorry. The to answer the previous question, I think in our case that anything that had the density, and I think it would work for mister Tetrault's as well, but where we were demonstrating that we were having a certain density so that we weren't doing the three acre lots or something. I I think a density rule to address your concern seems like a much safer way than an acreage rule. Acreage is an interesting thing and in Vermont, Senator Matos touched on this. We don't have these big 10,000 an acre squares that we lose a lot to protecting our natural resources on our steep slopes and our wetlands and our streams and all those other things. So those tend to transition from actual acres to developable acres. And sometimes, I think that I think the density seems like the as we've been sitting here, like the best way to protect.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Yeah. Thank you for that. Alright. Now we have Chad.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: Good morning, committee.

[Chad Simmons]: For the record, my name is Chad Simmons. I'm the executive director of the Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont. Our mission is to ensure that everybody has the fundamental right to housing. We're somewhat of a unique coalition of organizations. We merged two years ago with two separate organizations to focus on both homelessness prevention and response as well as the promotion of affordable housing. We have a currently a little over 60 members across the state ranging from legal justice, social services, faith based organizations, housing developers, and nonprofit shelter providers. We're here today as, to, talk about an issue that's very important to our members, and that's around manufactured housing communities. Manufactured housing communities make up about 6% Vermont's housing stock, and they're one of the best ways to promote naturally affordable housing. In 2022, the legislature commissioned a task force that identified a number of key areas in which the state could promote manufactured housing communities to meet our housing needs. One of the key areas of need was infrastructure, specifically around around water and wastewater. And this, we'll be talking a little bit more on and focusing more on resident owned cooperative owned and nonprofit run manufactured housing communities. And those organizations and those groups and those communities really have very limited capacity and capital to pay for the infrastructure needed. A lot of the infrastructure, as you'll hear in a few minutes, is dates well before the 1990s and even in some cases the 1950s and 60s. So, my colleagues Liz Curry and Ela Chapin Bacher are going to, get a little more into the weeds for request to include, a very narrow, exemption, from Act two fifty in a certain in a couple of certain instances. And so I just wanted to introduce our organization, the manufactured housing communities that we represent, and then pass it off to Liz Curry, who I believe will be starting.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Thank And all in the in the committee as well. One second. Any members have questions for Chad before he steps aside. Representative So the CHIP program wouldn't help these houses in terms of infrastructure? I mean, is

[Chad Simmons]: The CHIP program, I can let, Liz and Elise, talk a little bit about that, but, that would potentially help. These the specific exemptions that we're looking at or for projects that, need to meet, federally required processes, NEPA, the National Environmental Protection Act. And so they'll get a little bit into, how that interplays with Act two fifty. But I can let Elise and, and Liz talk a little bit about the impacts impacts of chip and how that could be a potential vehicle for financing the infrastructure projects.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Thank you. Question. Alright, Liz Curry. Good

[Liz Curry]: morning, House Environment Committee. Thank you very much for your time to discuss our request. As Chad said and was curry, I have a private consulting practice called Common Land Solutions. Elise Schambacher is the director of Addison Housing Works, one of the state's nonprofit organizations that delivers affordable housing of all types. We'd like to discuss with you the duplicative and the impacts of all the permitting processes on the mobile home park infrastructure redevelopment projects that we work on. We're members of the mobile home community subcommittee of the Housing and Homeless Alliance, which is a group of state and nonprofit and independent entities that all work on redeveloping mobile home park infrastructure and also like on the mobile home replacement and infill program that is run on a DHCA and and just a collection of those of us who work in this sector. To respond to your question about CHIP representative, CHIP is intended to create a project based district that funnels financing to create new affordable housing. So it's not an appropriate tool to use for existing housing. The statute requires new units and it creates a separate district and has a different purpose in the housing spectrum. For existing mobile home parks, we'd just like to walk you through a little bit of the work what we do and why the permitting processes can be more efficient and more affordable. And I'll let Elise start by introducing herself. And we also have a PowerPoint here that describes just the sector broadly. I'm sorry, I can't see the PowerPoint in the room, but on slide two, it just gives you an overview of mobile home communities in Vermont. There's two thirty eight, 67 are owned by nonprofits and cooperatives, housing nearly 34, 140 households. Most of them are low income. Most mobile home parks residents have incomes well below the statewide median of $78,000 And there is also another entity that delivers infrastructure redevelopment services to parks. It's called Cooperative Development Institute, and they help residents purchase their parks only to fill the gap left by a lot of the nonprofits who were buying parks and found that they just could not keep them in the black. They just had too many infrastructure redevelopment needs and their property management costs are very high. So the Cooperative Development Institute was created to kind of fill the gap in nonprofits needing to take a break from buying mobile home parks. Just also wanted to mention in Vermont, in case people don't know, we have a law that sellers of parks have to offer the park to the residents first when they're buying the park. And that is why nonprofits and co op step in during that right of first refusal period. And that's that's how these purchases have occurred. So on the next slide, I'll just let Elise go ahead, introduce yourself and can go from there.

[Elise Schambacher]: Good morning. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you. I had the opportunity last year, so I believe most of you, are, familiar, at least somewhat with Addison Housing Works. As Liz mentioned, we're the nonprofit developer and manager of affordable housing for Addison County. We have over 800 permanently affordable homes, which is sort of typical to other regions. But what's a little bit different is that, over a third of our portfolio is actually lots for manufactured homes. We have nine parks with 340 homes. It's a very affordable homeownership opportunity for households that, on average, are earning under $50,000 annually. We serve working families, seniors, people with disabilities on fixed incomes, and that's really critical because those folks can't afford lot rent increases to finance infrastructure debt. And as Chad mentioned, most of our infrastructure is very old, going on 60 years old or over 60 years old and is really well overdue for reinvestment. So that's why this issue is a critical bottleneck for us. I think, Liz, did you say everything you wanted to about CDI and common lands?

[Liz Curry]: Yeah. There's a couple more slides, probably too many, that describe our organization so we can jump right into the the context for why we're here today. It it still bears repeating that when nonprofits and residents buy their parks, they inherit millions of dollars of deferred infrastructure maintenance and repairs. Many of them have extensive problems with the service lines that go to the home breaking, leaking. Many of these many of the infrastructure was created without permits. Or even if there was permitting, many cases owners have added homes to the park without going back for permits, and there was just a lack of regulatory infrastructure to address all of that. So being the nonprofit sector and the COOP sector, we use federal and state funds when we assist parks with infrastructure redevelopment. In so the state revolving fund out of Department Environmental Conservation is a very important source that comes from EPA. And then the Vermont Community Development Program from Department of Housing and Community Affairs is another critical source that comes from HUD. Both of these sources of funds, because they are federal, require an environmental review process before we can use the money. And that's the same environmental review that municipalities have to do. Anybody that uses the state revolving fund has to do this rigorous environmental review process. It's called the National Environmental Protection Act, environmental review. Before we can even go out to bid, we have to complete this review. It has 18 criteria that include criteria that Act two fifty doesn't even have. It includes of the criteria that Act two fifty does have. Plus it includes other things like toxic contaminated soils, abutting properties and whether contaminants have traveled onto this property. So it's very comprehensive and we always have to go through that process before we can put a shovel in the ground, go out to bid. Then when we are ready to go out to bid, our state permits that our engineers apply for go through another layer of review that includes things like the wetland staff, the rare and threatened endangered species staff, streams review, Soils. So all of those things are overlapping between the federal criteria and that state permitting process. We are hitting all of the criteria for existing mobile home parks that Act two fifty hits. I And just want to go back to that point about existing mobile home parks. We are specifically talking about existing mobile home parks where we are replacing infrastructure. We are not proposing anything new, not adding any new infrastructure. We are literally opening the ground where the existing infrastructure is and either putting new infrastructure next to it because removing it is very expensive, Or in some cases we are removing it if the project can afford that. But we are not intruding upon new areas of the park when we do this. Yet we are still we are getting adverse jurisdictional opinions from Act two fifty that cite many of the same criteria we have already met and that will not be disturbed again. The disturbance happened when the infrastructure went in the ground initially. And in some cases that was covered by Act two fifty. So we are coming along and making a bad clean and drinking water situation better. We are bringing health and safety improvements that bring the park into compliance with current codes after they've contended with boil water notices, leaking pipes, raw sewage on the ground, terrible conditions. So we're just there to replace what exists. I think we have a couple examples. Elise, do wanna talk about Lyndale?

[Elise Schambacher]: Sure thing. And, you know, I think Liz's cases that she described are very straightforward. And, the the, requirement to get a j o and then have it be adverse is, I think, pretty pretty clear to see how that's, redundant and not adding environmental benefit. In the Lindale project, we, were working in a new area of the park. However, the ask to accept a NEPA clearance to satisfy act two fifty, I think, is still something that makes a lot of sense for the reasons that Liz said. We went through multiple environmental reviews to make sure that what we were doing, it was, you know, in the existing park, but in an area that didn't previously had infrastructure. We received a finding of no significant impact. And and not only did we do that once for rural development, we went through it again for EPA funding that we received and, again, for state level ANR funding that we received and that layered on a lot of a lot of requirements that were redundant to act two fifty and, in some cases, went beyond act two fifty. So we had to go through an additional you know, the process. We had an existing act two fifty there, so we needed a a j o, which determined a minor amendment was necessary. And, you know, while the project was ultimately able to move forward, it added cost, risk, and time to the project. I believe that permit was about $25,000 for a $3,000,000 wastewater system. And we only have I mean, the critical thing for Addison Housing Works is that it's basically just me in terms of development staff to work through these projects, and we contract with an with an engineer. And you've probably heard engineers are we don't have enough of them in Vermont to do all the work. It's incredibly hard to find an engineer to do the work. It's expensive. And every layer adds up and can determine whether a project moves forward or not. And I'll come back to that a little bit later with sort of the second aspect of what we're asking for.

[Liz Curry]: So we'd like to just discuss another example. Windy Hollow Mobile Home Park, is in Castleton, is a park I've been working with since 2021. We've replaced two septic systems with community development money, did an environmental review because of HUD. And now we are we've been trying to replace the water system for four or five years. And just to add a little more context, when we put these projects together, we have to do a budget upfront and go and get grants and loans with that budget. And because they are public sources of funds, it takes a long time to secure them. And then the engineers get working and they do their investigation and their design, which takes another year or two. So we're talking like we've already gotten the money. Three years later, there's very little opportunity to go back and get more money. So in Castleton, have 44 households. The engineers completed their design for USDA funded water system, which required an environmental review. And USDA determined that the environmental review was in the category called excluded, which means it has no adverse the project will not have adverse environmental impacts. Then we went into the state permitting process and the state permitting staff and DEC determined that the project requires no wetlands permit. It will not have adverse impacts on wetlands. There are no impaired streams impacted. The construction permit will not will have erosion controls to address the concern about erosion. And there are it's a whip or whirl habitat, so we will not be cutting trees between April 1 and October 1. Those are all conditions in the state permits. Nonetheless, the district coordinator just gave us an adverse jail requiring an expensive minor amendment saying that the project has potential adverse impacts on wetlands, streams, erosion and rare threatened and endangered species. She would not consider any of the information we brought forward to show that while her concern was the potential impacts, we'd already done these review process to show they would not have impacts. Her job was just to say, kind of like, I'm not an engineer. I think there's a potential for impact, so you're going to have to go for Act two fifty. And as Elise said, you know, that adds 20, sometimes $30,000 of cost. So on top of it with a budget that does not include that cost, we we have nowhere else. We have nowhere to go to get that money. The residents will have to raise lot rents On top of the lot rent increases, they have to raise to borrow the state revolving loan fund debt to replace the system. And they had USDA grant and loan debt. So it's putting these residents up against the wall when they're already raising lot rents. They can't tolerate much more than a 5 or $10 lot rent a month. Many of them are living on Social Security fixed incomes, you know, and these were working class, the backbone of our state, these folks were. And they're bearing the financial burden of this unfair overlapping permitting system just to replace their infrastructure, to have clean and safe drinking water and wastewater. So now we're looking at it at a scenario where we can't go out to bid again this year. We have the USDA grant and loan ready. We have an ARPA grant from Department of Environmental Conservation, which expires in August 2027. And this adverse JL means that now we can't go out to bid when we were all set to do that and all set to go into construction this summer. And yet again, if folks are going to have leaking pipes, boil water, burning out pumps from their old system, not functioning well. So that's the story with Indie Hollow. The story gets worse. Many parks around the state are facing the three acre rule, trying to comply with that and getting adverse JOs because of storm water infrastructure that they're trying to put in. Windy Hollow got an adverse J O. We split the request because initially they gave us an adverse J O on the whole water system and storm waters infrastructure. I just said to DC, what should we do? And they said, just split the request so you can just handle one separately. So we will have an adverse day out just to comply with three acre stormwater, and we just delayed it because it's just so difficult to work through these issues. We couldn't tackle them all at once. And three acre stormwater is a compliance issue that, you know, they may or may not be able to comply on time because they're just their backs are up against the wall. And we're working in dialogue with DEC, but we just can't They just can't tolerate all of this. All of this regulatory burden all at once, and they just don't have the money. And it ends up that we end up going back to the housing grant sources to get money because that's the only place they have to go. And then we compete with the projects that need to develop new housing for the state. So they're just in a terrible predicament. Elise, you want to take this one?

[Elise Schambacher]: Sure thing. So just to, bring it back to you know, I know these examples, get pretty pretty in the weeds pretty quickly. But overall, it would be very helpful for MHCs to be exempted from act two fifty when replacing existing infrastructure in kind when a federal NEPA review, has already been approved by a state agency as it would in the cases that we just described. The next piece is a little bit different. It would make existing mobile home parks automatically eligible for tier one designation for towns that opt in. And this would cover the ability so, you know, once we've spent you know, Addison Housing Works has spent, I don't know, $600,000 on wastewater improvements, and we have another sorry. $6,000,000 on wastewater improvements, and we have another 4 and a half million in the pipeline in Starksboro right now. So, you know, we're going through all this and investing all this money. And, in some cases, we as we have at Lyndale, we actually have more wastewater capacity at Lyndale than we need for the existing homes, and we have an opportunity to expand workforce housing within the existing footprint of the park. And that is a case where I think it makes sense to consider making mobile home parks eligible for tier one b designation to be able to unlock that potential to expand workforce housing where it makes sense. By nature, MHCs are dense. They're dense residential development. They have infrastructure. They can accommodate additional homes. It costs about $100,000 to buy a 900 square foot two bed, two bath home in a manufactured housing community, which is just an unparalleled opportunity for our workforce to be able to afford homeownership. And if we are going to move forward with adding homes at Lindale, we, again, will be subject to we'll be using federal funds. I don't think we'll be using CHIP, just to come back to that question. I think CHIP is great. I think it is going to be more powerful on that million dollar home in Stowe that has a million dollar grand list value versus $100,000 mobile home in a park. I mean, right? It's just like 10x for infrastructure that costs the same amount, whether it's in a mobile home park or in Stowe. So we will probably be pursuing federal funding to extend this infrastructure and do the engineering and do the site work. We will have an EAPA review, so we will be very carefully assessing the environmental impacts of any expansion, but including MHCs in tier 1B eligibility designation would just, again, remove that duplicative permitting structure and cost and make it easier for us to develop where it makes sense. And just to show you why I think it makes sense is this little circle here is centered on Lindale in Middlebury. You draw a circle, and it tells you the population in a three kilometer radius. And we have almost 1,000 people living there, but it's not eligible for Middlebury to include in its village growth area under the new Act 181 rules because it's not mixed use, it's only residential. And I understand the rationale for wanting to see mixed use. I'm just here to offer my opinion that I think in a housing crisis, it makes sense to really allow residential development where there is residential development. And other towns that are eligible for a village growth area, for example, Shoreham, you draw the same circle around Shoreham, you come up with a population that's only a little over half of what's already developed at this residential node in Middlebury. As I mentioned, we have excess wastewater capacity there that could serve an additional 40 households. The town has owned this land for an additional 17 units. I wish they would also come up to to 40. And again, it's just one more step in a process that is already going to entail going through the local permit process, going through a storm water permitting process is actually probably gonna be our biggest hurdle to develop out here. Of course, we're gonna do wetlands, but we have a delineation. So we we know that we can develop responsibly within the existing park And at a time when we just have such a dire need for workforce and affordable housing, I think it makes sense to make this as easy as possible. I think that's all I have.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Thank you all for your work, first of all, and your testimony today. I understand the ask. I I did I just, am reminded, however, that this isn't to say I'm against your proposal, with the federal situation being what it is and NEPA being taken apart pretty much maybe as we sit here, I'm not sure it's actually a backstop for state regulations and that protect the environment at this at this point. In our in our history, I understand your examples have already gone through existing NEPA processes and have presumably done their environmental due diligence. But I do think that we can't really rely on federal regulations right now.

[Elise Schambacher]: Can I respond to that?

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Yes. You may.

[Elise Schambacher]: I think really narrowing in on on what the ask is, it would only be exempting when a NEPA review is present. So if that federal backstop goes away, then there would no longer be an exemption for replacing existing and then Act two fifty would kick in. And then on where Tier 1B is concerned, the Tier 1B eligibility for a town to opt in still requires a robust local zoning process that covers the Act two fifty criteria. So there would still be that mechanism in place for like an expansion at Lindale if NEPA were to go away.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Well, yeah, we we're gonna review some of stuff. Yeah. And NEPA's maybe not going away, but it's significantly watered down at this point. So I don't I don't need to debate it. I think, we understand you're asking. And do you did you bring this to the senate?

[Rep. Ela Chapin]: This is the

[Elise Schambacher]: first opportunity we've been invited to bring it in.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: I can respond to that. We have talked to senator. We did not have a chance to testify in the Senate, but she is aware of this ask and she suggested that we bring it up here.

[Liz Curry]: May I also just add a little piece about that existing permit process? So yes, if NEPA weren't present, we would do active 50. I would also just add that those environmental criteria are controlled by the state permitting process as well. There's When we go through state permitting, the permit application goes to streams, goes to wetlands, goes to rare and threatening endangered species, goes into erosion control slopes, etc. So that layer two is in effect.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Do members have questions? Representative Pritchard.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: Yeah. Hi, thanks for your testimony. I'm just trying to this, this would be how in Castleton is, is this located just by the Amtrak and it sits between the two Route Fours, Old Route 4 and New Route 4?

[Liz Curry]: It's on River River Road in what used to be Blissville. Okay.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Okay. Alright.

[Liz Curry]: To the west of Fairhaven.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: Westville Road by Fairhaven. Okay. Alright.

[Liz Curry]: By the courtyard.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: Yep. Okay. Thank you.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: And do you have, by any chance, draft of just like a summary of this you could give us?

[Chad Simmons]: Yes, we did. We did draft some language that

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: we could share with the committee if that would be helpful and again, the the proposal is just a narrowly exempt existing manufactured housing communities in these instances, so

[Liz Curry]: Replacement you would just get infrastructure.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Yep, and were the examples you cited already under an Act two fifty permit?

[Liz Curry]: Yes. And, you know, I would even say that as a compromise, the administrative amendment would be fine, but we get kicked into a higher level category. So the administrative amendment, you know, is just another paperwork exercise, but so much cheaper and does not cause delays. We would just plan on doing that, which we had planned on because we knew this was covered by Act two fifty initially. But then when you get kicked into an adverse JL, it's a whole other ballgame.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Right. Representative North.

[Rep. Rob North]: Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to express gratitude to Ela, your group in Addison Housing Works there. In fact, very familiar with Lindale because I just purchased a home in Lindale for my daughter and her husband to live there because we can with the lot rent plus the small loan to purchase the place, that's about half of what rent would be in the area. But we are also very familiar with the rather significant increase in lot rent that just occurred because of the issues that you're talking about. So, was about a 10% increase in lot rent. So, yeah, that's my my my 18 year old daughter and her 18 year old husband are dealing with that right now and, you know, we're working their way through it. Greatly appreciate the work that you're doing, trying to keep things as affordable as possible, and we'll do our best here to to to support you in that.

[Elise Schambacher]: Thanks, Representative North.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Alright. Well, so the sooner, the better on that language would be appreciated.

[Rep. Chris Pritchard]: We'll get to you today. Right.

[Chair Amy Sheldon]: Okay. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you We're very gonna take a break until 10:30.