Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We are live, correct? Yep. We are live. Welcome everybody to the first day of the second session of the biennial. Today is Tuesday, January 6. Welcome to members of the committee and to interested members of the public. We're starting off the session with an inquiry that we've asked some 20 witnesses, I would guess, to talk about. And the inquiry is not, I'll tell you what it's not, it's not, what's wrong with housing? What's the housing situation? Because we all know what the housing situation is. There's not enough of it, it's too expensive, it's hard to permit, it's hard to finance, we don't have enough money for subsidy, we know all of it. What we asked people was specific to what we do here, which is we legislate, And the question we've asked people is, what of the legislation that we have passed so far has worked? What isn't working? Why? And what should we do? What direction should we go? And we've specifically, I've had a number of witnesses talk to me and say, can I talk about regulatory reform? Can I talk about, and I say yes to everything? In other words, even if it isn't only the purview of our committee, I've said, let's hear it. And these hearings will go on this week and well into next, because some people aren't available. Really, the order of witnesses is a function more than anything of when are people available. We've asked pretty much all of the governmental major players, we've asked a number of representatives of non profit housing people, we've asked the chamber, we have the state chamber, we're having the Northeast Kingdom chamber, we're asking tenant groups to testify, we're just trying to get an approach where we hear from everybody, and if any of you have ideas for people that we really need to hear, who can offer something that hasn't been offered, tell us and we'll get them. We didn't include everybody, so for example, we have someone testifying from Champlain Housing Partners, representing those organizations we didn't ask down street to testify. In other words, we're doing it kind of by sector that way. What we thought we'd do is start with our legislative council, and we've asked Cameron and Ellen Tchakovsky to come in and talk about existing, what have we done? What is the existing law? Looking at what we did, Act 69 last year, and looking at the Home Act and 181, of, Mary E. So is there anything anyone would like to say before we start with Camel?

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Yeah, I just wanted to quickly add that those who have not been invited to speak as witness this week, it's just this week. I fully intend, I think we all intend that they will come knocking on our door if we don't ask them. So we want to hear everyone's voice. I think we were just trying to set up a pathway forward to really understanding where those specific three bills have, where the status is today. But before, we obviously all know each other, but it might be beneficial for us to all introduce ourselves to Miriam, our new legislative assistant, sorry. Yeah, let's do that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Let's do that, and let's start at your end of the table, madam.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Representative Gayle Pezzo, Colchester, District 20. Mary Oh, ahead. I just said welcome. Oh, okay. Mary Howard, Rutland City, District 6. Nice to

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: have you.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Hi, I'm Elizabeth Burrows. I represent Windsor 1, which is Heartland, West Windsor, Windsor.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Hi, again, Replomont, Lamoille, Washington District. Hello, Emilie Krasnow, South Burlington, Chittenden 9. Franklin won. You looked

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: at me and

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: I got nervous.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Where is she?

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Hi, Leonora Dodge. I use sheher pronouns and I represent Essex Town and part of the City Of Essex Extension. I'm just

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: sitting in 23, welcome.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Joe Parsons, it's nice to meet you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, and Tom Charlton again, Chester, Ashland, Windham, Grafton. And I'm Marc Mihaly from Callis, and Washington 6, Callis, Plainfield, Marshfield, and do you want to give us the who who oh, Debbie Debbie Dolgin representing St. Johnsbury, Concord, and Kirby. Thank you, Debbie. Okay. And you want to give us a one minute version of you and where you're from and how you got here?

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Hi, my name is Mary E. I'm the committee assistant for you all this year.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: I was entering here in 2024,

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: decided to come back during some time in the Department of Labor.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Tried to say that France

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: is very amenable, but I'm not stressed about it, and I live in Burlington. Welcome. Thank you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So let us start with one of our esteemed legislative counsel, Cameron Wood. Cameron? Good

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: afternoon. For the record, Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Council. Welcome back. I'm excited to be back, so I hope you all are excited as well. It's been a lot of work over the past few months, so it's nice to see everybody here in person and face to face, so happy to be here. I will take a quick moment to just say I worked with Mary E. For a brief moment at the Department of Labor right before I left, and I think that you all are in great hands having them here. They're great, here we go. I was asked to come in and just kind of briefly touch on some of the things that you all have enacted over the past two years. So I took a look at what passed in 2024 and Act 181, and then just gonna briefly go over what you all did last year and what became Act 69. So I'll pull up my screen and just kind of share the sections at least, but I'll talk really high level, try to be succinct. I will also just comment that as I was kind of going through and preparing for this, there are some callbacks to a lot of programs that you all created in 2021, 2022, and 2023, many of them one time programs in the moment, some of which I think turned into permanent programs, but I'm simply starting this off by making that statement, I don't have the entire picture of everything that exists And the timeframe of just trying to get here and prepare with everything else going on, I wasn't able to go back and review some of those older legislation, but I'd be happy to pull together a list and provide to you all if that would be easy, of some of those one time programs that were created over that time.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think that would be good after you finish all the bills you're working on.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: As you know, sir, better than anyone, I still have drafting work to be done. So, okay, I'm gonna share my screen and let's see if I'm rusty from the end of last session. Miriam, I just sent a request to share, awesome. Okay, so the first thing I wanted to do real quick was just point out that for those who are new and may not be aware, this is your second year, we wrap up every session and then at the end of the session, the bills that you all pass, they have a house or a senate number, when they're signed or they go into law, they're then given an act number And then at that point they get published on our website and then our office actually has to go in and do an act summary for each of those pieces of legislation. So just for anyone public or members of the committee who may not be aware, you can go into the act itself. So for example, I've just pulled up act 181 from 2024. This is a 170 plus piece of page, 170 plus page piece of legislation. So there is a lot of information in here. Unfortunately, Ellen's the one who has to condense most of that down But for you I just wanted to highlight that when you go to Act 181, which was initially age six eighty seven, you can come here to the webpage and there is here a link to an act summary that our office puts together. So if you click on this, it's got very succinct two pages kind of nonpartisan description of what the act does. So just for you all, if you want some reading on some of these acts, if we're not able to cover everything, you can go there. We obviously can provide you with some additional detail or written material if you'd like, but just pointing this out for those who, like I said, may not be aware. So that is that. I'm going to see if I have the same issue I ran into last year with sharing PDF files.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay so

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: this is Act 180

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: one-twenty 24 as I just mentioned

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: forgive me I just want to make sure I get to the right page to begin with. Okay I'm on page 138 so as I said it's 171 pages first I believe 137 pages are primarily related to everything that you all did regarding land use and changes to land use processes, etc. So page 138 is where the housing program sections start, So that's where I will pick up. The first few pages here are some changes that you all made to the VHIP program. And so I won't kind of go line by line unless you all would like me to or unless you want me to stop and kind of look at some specific language in particular. I will mention that you had some minor kind of administrative changes allowing the department to charge a reasonable cap up to 5% for administration, allowed the Department of Housing to cooperate with others to sub grant funds. The primary things that you all did this year for me, hip were you changed it here, this is under D1A. So it used to be or at the time it was that they could only get $50,000 per unit for rehab under VHIP. In 2024, you all expanded that up to $70,000 that additional $20,000 was supposed to go to in the event that they were bringing the unit up to the accessibility standards. And then there's another section in here where you authorized the individuals to use the funds to put in a parking space for an individual with a disability. So that was one of the key pieces that you all changed in 2024. So here's where in section seven, they can create a parking spot for an individual with a disability using the funds. In 2024 was where you also kind of created that distinction between the five year forgivable loans and the ten year forgivable loans. So originally as it was, if the individual received a grant, the individual had to lease the unit to somebody among a certain sub listed population and you will expand it in 2024. But someone exiting homelessness, you added that it could be for youth through an organization that holds a master lease, an individual actively working with the immigrant refugee resettlement program. Then you all added one individual with a disability who is eligible to receive Medicaid funded home and community based services. So my point here is just in 2024, you expanded the populations of people who could be served slightly. And then that's where you put into effect the distinction between the five year grants and the ten year forgivable loans. And if you all remember, you came back to this last year and addressed it. And I'll get to that in just a second. So that's primarily what you all did for BHIP. I'm going to pause because I feel like Rutland may have checked in there.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Just to refresh everybody's memory, the Vermont, the VHIP program is a program administered out of DECD where, well that's where it originates, where funds are available to help rehabilitate individual rental units that aren't up to code now or are dilapidated or whatever and can be turned into permanent housing, rental housing, and it's generally pretty cost effective, that's the interesting thing about it. The question is, how long the affordability provisions are not permanent, they're either five year or ten year, depending. So that's, in summary, what the VHIP program is. Yes? It also, just to point out, one problem that I have with VHIP, is that it's a reimbursement.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Have to have the money to start.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And in most cases, the rehabilitation costs more than the grant. The grant is an additional subsidy, but it doesn't pay for all of it.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, back to 181, so the next section here is a resident services program. So this is the agency of human services shall work in coordination with the HCB to develop the resident services program for the purposes of distributing funds to eligible affordable housing organizations to respond to timely and urgent resident needs and aid with housing retention. I was not with you at the time, I did not offer this section. So I will be honest, I'm not sure what this program is other than what I just read to you on the page. It is a session law provision, so it did not go into the Green Book statute. So conceivably it's a one time appropriation of a one time program, but this may be one that you would like to have BHCB or the agency of payment services if you so desire to come in. Well, we

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: are going to hear from a number of people who might be able to elucidate that.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then there's a definition of what an affordable housing organization is, but it doesn't necessarily change what the charge is under the survey here. Okay, the next section is, so this was an amendment to 2023 action results number 47, which I believe number 47 maybe. Yes, an accolade to housing opportunities made for everyone. So this is a home ownership development program through VHFA. It's a specific program that was provided, my understanding, one time funds to assist individuals here. There's a slight amendment that you all made to that program. And if you want here in a second, when I wrap up, I can go grab that favor and share it with you all. And we can talk about it. But that's what I meant by when I started reviewing this and I see this, okay, you've done something in 2023, it's just going down a rabbit hole to find, okay, it's a one time program where the parameters around it, how much money was it given, etcetera. Okay, The next section you have, you all appropriated a million dollars to the Department of Housing and Community Development for VHFA for the first generation home buyer program, which was initially conceived in 2022 act 182. You all appropriated a million dollars to the Land Access and Opportunity Board through the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. Then we have an amendment to 24 BSA 4,010. This is for housing authorities, and it is it requires that when managing accessible units, when renting or leasing accessible units, those entities shall give priority to tenants with disability. Then I'm gonna keep going, here's where section 93, you all tasked the Department of Housing and Community Development with coming up with statewide and regional housing targets, progress towards those targets, and then requiring DHCD to report back to you on the efforts made of achieving those targets, whether they're kind of sustainable, if they're not on track to meet those targets, why are the targets not practical, etcetera. I mean, there's kind of a lot of detail here in what you've asked DHC to provide, but

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: this is where it stems from, is this section. Is there anything, question for you, is there anything in Act 181, which is two sessions back, that requires regional planning commissions to disaggregate those housing goals by town? I mean, I know they're doing it, but I just don't know if it

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: was in 01/1981. I do not recall that, let me back up, I don't recall, I don't know. That may be a question for Ellen, she may know the answer.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Is Ellen coming? Okay, great.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so again, you have as part of the statewide housing needs assessment, DHCD creating these statewide and regional housing targets and then providing information back to you all on, as I mentioned, ongoing progress towards meeting those targets. Then here we're on page 49, section ninety four and ninety five, we have a few appropriations. You provided at the time $400,000 to the Office of Economic Opportunity to grant to Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity for a rental housing stabilization services program, which was initially created in 2023. And then you have a tenant representation pilot program, a million dollars appropriated to agency of human services to grant to Vermont Legal Aid for a tenant representation pilot program. That's a program where legal aid can represent individuals who say tenants who are facing eviction in I believe it's Lamoille, it's limited to two counties. I believe it's Lamoille and Washington Counties. And so that is an ongoing pilot. They received the pilot program passed in 2023. They didn't receive funds for it. They received funds in fiscal year 2025. So they're in the middle of a two year pilot for that program. Also, there

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: is a bill that will come to us if it isn't ready, I don't think it's on our wall yet, about that program, appropriate more money. I don't think it has money in it yet, but it would extend it statewide. It's not that legal aid can't represent people statewide, but that bill provides funding for them to do that specific line of funding for those two counties and only those two counties.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You also appropriated $2,500,000 to the Vermont State Housing Authority for their rent arrears assistance fund, which was established in 2023, which provides support for individuals who are obviously in arrears for their rental payments. Then we get into landlord certificate. So again, prior to my time with you all, so I haven't gone back and listened to the testimony or anything to that effect, but what I recall from last year, there's been discussion about creating rental registries statewide and how do you get access to that information and my understanding is you all determined as a body that possibly using the information that's collected as part of a landlord certificate was maybe a more feasible way of getting to that information. Last year, yes. Well, you all made this change in 2024 and then last year you cleaned it up a little bit. Yeah. So what I'll get to, I'll just wait when we talk a little bit more about it with what you did last year, but this is initially what was passed which added all of these fields into the landlord certificate, which you all then cleaned up last year and kind of narrowed down a little bit. But this is where it all stems from is initially in 2024. So that's what all these sections are. You have the changes to the landlord certificate, then you have where there were some amendments to confidentiality of tax records because landlord certificate is part of somebody's tax record. And so that's where all of those sections kind of stem from. Then here, page 154, moving into kind of section 100 and beyond, you have changes to short term rentals And this is where you've added a definition of short term rental in title 20, because you then subsequently gave the Department of Public Safety, Division of Fire Safety, the authority to provide guidance and rules governing health, safety, sanitation, and fitness for habitation for short term rentals. So you put the regulation of those entities under the condition of fire safety. So then we're moving into flood risk disclosure. The next few sections are really related to the disclosure of information regarding the sale of real estate and when somebody is renting either through a house or an apartment complex or through a manufactured home in a manufactured home park, training myself, you all put these disclosure requirements in when those locations are within certain FEMA flood zones to disclose to the buyer of the property or to the renter that the property is located in a flood hazard area. If you all remember, you made some minor tweaks to this last year. And so we could talk about that. I assume I set the time if you'd like, but this is where all of those disclosures are. So I'm not going through these section by section unless you all have questions or want me to stop, but all of these are related to, as I mentioned, both sale, rental, manufactured home parks, etcetera. Okay, then we get to what's listed on the page is mobile homes. You have amendments to the manufactured home improvement and repair program. So as you can see here, section 106, this program goes all the way back to 2022. It was amended in 2023, further amended in 2023, now further amended again in 2024. Last year, if you all recall Act 69, you made this a permanent program and we put it right next to the VHIP program in statute. So there wasn't really a lot of substantive change last year in the language of the program. And I don't know that there's really been a ton of significant changes in the program language over the years, it's really just some minor tweaks, but you all kept on making

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: This program remind us, what's it do?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It essentially it's providing money if I recall and pull up the specific languages here, I'll wait until I get to Act 69 actually because that will be what you put in statute, but my recollection is the language is you can, money can go to an individual who owns a manufactured home to help address habitability issues within the home, but it can also go to an individual or entity that owns a manufactured home park to either remove a mobile home that may have been abandoned or is unfit for dwelling to also prepare specific manufactured home sites, whether it's fixing a slab, putting in a slab, addressing utility hookups, etcetera, etcetera, to try to make those homes available for living.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: And it's not a home contact. It applies to anyone in any mobile home community, manufacturer one community. Okay

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: next section, you all appropriated money, a million dollars appropriated from the general funds for this purpose. Okay, moving in on page 161 here and I'm at so I might try to speed up just a hair. You have sections related to age restricted housing, so in these next few sections what you all added here, I'm just going to kind of point to this language here under B, you created a right of first refusal for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board to have the right of first refusal when age restricted housing goes up for sale.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Mr. Chair, you have a question? Please Let

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: me just take go back to the program appropriations.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes ma'am.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Infrastructure mobile home repair is some of 1,000,000. Wasn't that lost to 2,000,000?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I will double check while we're sitting here, I don't remember what you all approved, I know you appropriated funds for it last year, I believe it was

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: I think it was 2,000,000,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it was 4,000,000. This bill, it was 1,000,000,000 at 2024. Okay. But it was

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: I thought it was 4,000,000.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But well, started in 2022, it was amended again in 2023, we can check on the funding history. I can get you a breakdown here.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Yes. What is age restricted housing?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Is that senior housing, or is that only young people around? I don't remember anything about that,

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: do you remember?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's housing that exists for individuals over a certain age. I

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: know this bill was two years ago,

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: but it's over a certain age?

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Think it's over 55. I

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: think there's some for over 55 and I think there's some for over, I think it might be 62.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: No, no, 55.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: There's no young age restriction?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Not that I'm aware of. Do you know whether that's in policy or in practice? For age restricted over a certain age or? Is the restriction in policy or in practice?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Here's what I know. I know that you have certain entities that operate housing for individuals over a certain age and I know in statute in Vermont law, for example, it's not, remember when we all discussed public accommodations and the unfair housing practices section, you all have amended that a few times over the past few Last year, we added citizenship immigration status into those. So there are specific exclusions in the unfair housing practices section for example, to say that if you're operating housing that's aid restricted for individuals 55 or I believe it also says 62, that's not considered discrimination. So you all, as a body, have determined that it's policy or it's good policy to ensure that there's housing available for those individuals. And so you're saying that it's not discrimination to limit housing for those populations of people. So by implication, for me, if I'm reading that, if I were to say I have housing but it's only available to people in the 20s, that potentially could be considered a

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: child's But

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: the law does, the definition according to our statute does not name an age, is that right? Says age is the practice.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right, what I would want to do is while we're talking, as soon as maybe Ellen takes the chair, I'm going pull up Title 33 Chapter 72 and A Chapter one fifty one. Thank you. So again, this section you gave, the HCV right of first refusal for those properties when they come up for sale. And this section is long, it requires specific notice periods, it requires specific timeframe in which the individual who's selling the property has to allow the HCV to provide offer, what's a good faith offer, etcetera. There was a provision that you all put in here in the residential rental agreements chapter regarding notice for rent increases for age restricted housing. And then you have a few reports at the end. So you have the land bank report that you all got last year. You felt that there wasn't enough information there, so you asked DHCG to come back to you with some more information in Act 69. You have a rent payment reporting report, rent payment reporting report. This was from the office of state treasurer where they came back with a report on how to implement a pot with what they call a positive rental payment reporting pilot program. So it would be taking rent payments that tenants are making and reporting that information as part of the individual's credit report.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: They did, just so everybody knows, they did come back with the report. We put it in our housing bill last year, which went over to the senate. The senate bill that came to us, I don't know if it had it or not, but somehow in the last minute scramble, it got lost.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It also, they were asking, the treasurer's office was asking $100,000 and I think the $100,000 was removed and at that point they were asking if the post was removed as well. You have the landlord tenant law study committee, of your, two of your members were participants on and I believe you all got a debrief on that from John Frey at the beginning of last session, very well put together report to review it, happy to come back and talk about it in detail, may be appropriate depending on how you all

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think your time will come. Yes. Okay

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: and then there was an appropriation to the Natural Resources Board and that's that. So what I'm going do is I'm going to very quickly just pull up Act 69 and go through it with you all for what you did last year. And then I have a few things I will look at while I'm sitting in the room when Ellen takes over. And as I mentioned, what I will do separate from this is I'll get you all a list of some of those one time appropriations that were made prior to 2024 programs. Act sixty nine first section, VHIP, there were a lot of administrative amendments that were made to this section, like for example, this one you made it to where, DHCD is granting funds through other third party entities, also potentially nonprofits. And so we're saying that when they're providing those reimbursement loans out to individuals, they're not considered licensed lenders. So a lot of administrative changes to the program like that throughout, but the big things that you all did in this were, you expanded the populations of individuals who could be served again. I mentioned we expanded it in 2024. You expanded it again last year to include individuals who were displaced due to a natural disaster or to entities that hold a master lease or any of these populations that are already mentioned, individuals exiting homelessness, immigration refugee resettlement, individuals with a disability, etcetera. And then the other big thing that you all did is, you remember in 2024, you made it to where whether you're doing a five year forgivable loan or grant, or you're doing a ten year forgivable loan, you were required to, the landlord was required to rent that property to somebody who was within these populations. And the argument was, well then why is anybody going to go for the ten year loan? We're always just going to go for the five year loan because the restriction will be lifted sooner. So it was changed to say, but this was in act 69. This was so this change that you all did last year was actually to go back to what it was before the change in 2024 which is if you're going to do the ten year loan, you have to rent the unit out for fair market rent established by FUD.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: FUD fair market rent, by the way, is generally on the, quite the low end of fair market rent. It's not as low as many subsidized projects, but it's not, it's at the low end of fair market rent.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Two other things you all did, you created the minimum set aside, because you made that change, said at least 30% of the funds have to be set aside annually for the five year forgivable loans or grants. And then if those funds aren't used up within nine months, they can then become eligible for the ten years as well. And then the other thing you did was you created some annual reporting from the departments to provide information to you all on the number of units that are funded, the number of units rehabilitated through each of those different avenues, and then for the properties that are coming up on the expiration of those lease limitations, what happens to the unit afterwards. I will highlight, I noticed this after the end of session, maybe a piece of cleanup you all want, maybe not. We did you all, I didn't draft it, you all didn't include what date that report should fall on. So it just says annually, they have to give you a report. If you want it at a specific time, it may be worth it to go in and specify. You have the manufacturing home improvement repair program. As we mentioned, it had been in session law and kept getting amended and amended every year. So last year you all put it in statute. Section three, you created the Vermont Infrastructure Sustainability Fund. This is the fund with the bond bank to provide funding to municipalities essentially tied to the development of new housing, it was a revolving fund. You have the section four is on page 12. The VHFA revolving rental housing revolving loan program. So this is one of the programs that was created in 2023, which created a rental housing revolving loan fund. And it is to provide here, this is where I'm looking at right here, provide subsidized loans for rental housing developments that serve middle income households. So there are specific parameters throughout this section about what the loans are for, how much can be financed for each project, etcetera, etcetera. If you all remember there is a cap or there was a cap on the annual increase in rent, so it's right here at the bottom of page 12, top of page 13, the developments that are created using that fund, the annual rent caps could only go up by 3% and DHFA was saying that is becoming very challenging in the current environment that we're in. So you added this or an amount otherwise authorized by the agency. You have the State Housing and Residential Services Planning Committee report. If you all remember, this was a committee that was created to specifically create an actionable plan to develop housing for individuals with developmental disabilities. So that committee met, they did release a report at the 2025. So I'll point that to you all to go find and read if you would so choose. I believe that you all had been coming in to discuss that as well I think this week. Okay, so then we did some of the tax department housing data access piece. So this is if you all remember kind of part and parcel of the landlord certificate piece that we were discussing from 2024. This requires the municipalities to give to the tax department and extract of the assessor database also referred to as the CAMA system for each town. And then you made some amendments to the landlord certificate that we just kind of discussed. It took a lot of the, I can't say a lot, it took some of the information that you all requesting out of the landlord certificate and replaced it with this information here. So there were just some minor tweaks to what you all were requiring them to provide. This is the land bank report that we talked about, THCD coming back to you November with kind of further developing land bank reports that they created and providing you all with specific legislative language on how to create regional or statewide land banks. That was due this year? This year meaning 2026. Oh yeah, okay, that's what

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I thought. Haven't got On the fifteenth.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They're giving you a written update on January 15. Okay. But the final report is due and I believe it's November 26. Yes. Okay, housing and public accommodations protection, we just mentioned this a second ago, we're getting into where you all added citizenship and immigration status into public accommodation protection and unfair housing practices protection. In the committee report, they also, committee conference, they also included this which was in some way part of what you all had passed and slightly different in the Senate version. But in the residential rental application section, it says that in order to conduct a background of credit check, a landlord shall accept any of the following an original or copy of an unexpired form of government issued identification, individual taxpayer identification number or social security number, and the landlord or landlord's agent shall not require a social security number for the completion of the application or refuse to accept the application due to a lack of one. Move through these sections here, you get to page 26 LERB study, you all moved up the date for the LERB study report that was initially due January 15, you moved it up 01/15/2026, you moved it up to 11/15/2025.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It was in fact submitted although a week later so, but it was submitted.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then for brownfields you made some tweaks here, you wanted to prioritize the development of you know brownfield cleanup for residential areas, You ask for a report on how to improve the process for cleanup of brownfields. So this is the priority section, secretary prioritize review of remediation for a site that contains housing or planned construction. Here's the process improvement report. And then you get into tax increment financing, is where you all created the community and housing infrastructure program. I believe you all are having a joint hearing on that this week on Friday. So left those are not my sections.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: While we're still there, do we know, Miriam, is it three committees or two?

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: There'll be three, it'll be amazing.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's three committees, we'll be hearing that. So we'll be

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: stacked up in Room 11. Yeah, all our buddies.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You all made technical changes to the smoke and carbon monoxide alarm section. Is it. Thank you. So like I said, what I will do is I'll go back, I'll make a list for you all, some of those programs that have been exist in the past two years and get back to you all to the point of time.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Great, thank you. You. Our next witness, Caledonia Tchaikovsky from Legis Council, is going to talk to us about, if I am right, the Home Act as it relates to housing and the parts of Act 181, arcane parts of 181 that deal with the tiers and how they relate to housing, is that fair? Sure. One of the things I am just saying to the committee, one of the things that, and the public, one of the things that we have to work with here is that almost everything that we will do to improve the housing situation either implicates another committee of the House or is within the jurisdiction of another committee of the House. And this is something we are just working our way through, but they include, of course, ways and means for money, they include environment for Act 181 for land use and regulatory stuff, and Act two fifty, as well as important economic development at STORE, for CHIP, and tax increment work as well. Human services has everything to do with homelessness, and in fact, just for your information, not as part of the series, but we've asked representative Wood, Theresa Wood, the chair, to come in and just talk to us for an hour about homeless. I just think it's important, what we're trying to do is break down, if you will, the barriers a little bit, one way to do that is with knowledge, that's one of the reasons Ellen's here, to talk to us about two acts, which really never came before this committee, I don't think, but are nonetheless really important for us. Ellen, take it away.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Ellen Chittenden, Office of Legislative Counsel. Yes, that's a good segue. I was going to remind you that while I am not technically the housing attorney with the Office of Legislative Counsel, in the last few years, especially the areas of law that I work on have been implicated in your work on housing. And so I work on land use, which includes municipal zoning and Act two fifty, among a couple other things. And so what I have provided to the committee today is the text of Act 47 of 2023, which was also called the Home Act.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I've also provided the summary. And then I did the same for Act 181 because I have only a window of time and Act 181 was 171 pages and Act 47 was 76 pages. And so both of those bills focus largely on housing. There's quite a few things and Cameron hit on a few of them, but I'm going to do my best because there's quite a few things related to municipal zoning and Act two fifty changes related to housing. So I don't have my laptop. So I was just gonna try to run through the bullet points. And then if there's something you wanna focus on, we can find it in

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: the act or we can also have

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I wanted it balanced because I know you have another witness after this. So there's gonna be a lot of information. So starting with Act 47, this was called the Housing Opportunities Made for Everyone or the HOME This is in 2023. And in the summary, the first two and a half pages are things that I worked on related to housing. So this had a lot of changes to zoning related to housing and largely was encouraging things other than single family residential units and encouraging density. So first, in residential districts with sewer and water, a municipality cannot require more than one parking space per dwelling unit. They can require 1.5 parking spaces for multi unit dwellings in areas without sewer and water if there isn't other parking within a quarter of a mile. So parking was the first big change. That also comes up in Act 181. So limiting how much the municipality themselves can require. Developers are therefore allowed to do more if they would like to include more, but some towns were requiring quite a few parking spaces either based on bedroom or based on the house size. So this limited parking to allow for potentially more units to fit in a smaller area. A big change was municipalities must allow duplexes or single family units are allowed, and municipalities must permit multi unit dwellings of up to four units in areas of the town served by sewer and water, unless the town requires more units to be built. So this didn't fully end single family zoning, but it was a significant blow to the concept of whole swaths of a municipality being only allowed to have single family units. Now the town is required to allow more types of units. It requires towns to subject accessory dwelling units to the same standards of review that single family home goes through. So they couldn't use stricter criteria for ADUs. Municipal zoning cannot prohibit motels or hotels renting to those using housing assistance funds. So can't interfere with some of the programs that the legislature established with using assistance funds in hotel rooms. In residential districts served by sewer and water bylaws shall establish building and lot standards to allow five or more units per acre. And no dimensional standard for multi unit dwellings can be more restrictive than those for single family dwellings. So trying to require towns to allow more units per acre and not requiring different standards for those types of units than for single family homes.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: This is where? The five units or more?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This is in residential districts served by sewer and water.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So is there I'm not sure I fully understand. So, if a district in a town is served by sewer and water, one in any area that's residential, have to allow up to four units per acre.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Five units, correct. Yep.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: They have to allow up to five units per acre.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Separately, if there's sewer and water, they also have to allow multi unit dwellings with up to four units in them.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Can I ask a question? Yes. It's a very specific question. Okay. So a town cannot restrict if it's five or less, but a neighbor can appeal?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Appeal what? Let's say the character. So that comes up a little bit later. In certain areas, they can no longer appeal character. Yes. Depending So on the situation, a neighbor could attempt to appeal a permanent application for a multi unit building. But if it complies with, they challenge it if the building lines up with what the bylaw allows. They may try to challenge it based on something else, like character or something, but another provision of this bill also talks about whether or not the municipality can change how many units are in the building. So yes, if the application complies with what is allowed in the statute, an opponent may not be able to appeal or they could try to appeal and then would lose.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: But it would still have to go to court if they Yes.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: If they have standing, it would have to go to court. If it's consistent with the zoning and the state law that she is summarizing, they would have to find another basis for the appeal such as character or something else.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, yeah. And procedurally, someone could attempt to file and have the suit dismissed on summary judgment, or there could be procedural motions to prevent it from even going forward if it's in compliance with the bylaw. So getting into that procedure is

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: a little complicated, but we can. Okay, thank you. Yeah. It's an opportunity. I like those.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So if you're looking at the summary, I'm down on the sixth bullet point. In residential districts served by sewer and water, affordable housing units may add up to an additional units up to 40% of the density. So this is a density bonus. If you're building affordable housing in these areas, you can add an additional up to 40% and that can include an additional floor.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Anything else?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then I do keep referring to sewer and water. There's a process established in here for municipalities on how to particularly define that per municipality. And it's come up a few times because the definition is quite long and addresses the many different variations towns have, but they are allowed to either rely on in part what it says in the statute or define further in their own bylaws, what it means in that town as served by sewer and water.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Is the density bonus above and beyond the four units?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, or whatever the town has established.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, okay, thank you. Yep.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Next, there is a provision that establishes that towns are limited in what aspects of a homeless shelter they can regulate through zoning, and that includes that the bylaws can't limit their daily and seasonal hours of operation.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Can you repeat that please? Sure,

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: so there's a provision that limits what aspects of a homeless shelter a town can regulate through their zoning. One of those limits is that they can't regulate daily and seasonal hours of operation. And I can read you the rest of

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: the list, or I can

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: give you the site if you wanna look at the list, but there's a list of things that the town can only regulate for those structures. They can't go through their full zoning review for them.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Thank you. Yeah.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Next, there was a requirement that town had to give specific information to the Department of Housing and Community Development when they adopted new zoning bylaws or updated their bylaws. Then the department could then update their database and build a database of what the existing zoning bylaws were, are and currently are in other towns. Next, so under one of the appeal provisions for municipal zoning, it prohibited the ability of appealing the character of the area if it was an affordable housing development, and specifically, if it was the any 10 persons, or now any 20 persons, that specific group cannot appeal character of the area of an affordable housing development.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Is it either the 20 person rule for any development or any housing development, any affordable housing development? Or is it in other words?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If they're using the any 20 person provision to appeal, that group of people cannot appeal an affordable housing project based on its character in the area.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, so it's both. In other words, to be clear, if the appeal comes from someone who claims that they're an individual that is claiming under that other section that's sort of like agreed, they're not limited. Correct. It's the 20 person, 10 person then, now 20 person rule.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, there is an additional limitation that residential units in one of the designated areas cannot be appealed for the character of the area as well.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Residential unit in what designated area is it?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't have it in front of me, I believe it's any one of the five, but I'll give it to you, it's in one of these things, I'm probably going to show you.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: These are pre

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: existing limitations on the use of character of the area as an appeal tool. Yeah, okay. Oh, it might be on page two actually. So maybe we'll get to that in a minute. So on to page two of the summary, this act allowed towns to give their administrative officer authority to approve minor subdivisions and decide if a hearing was required for a minor subdivision. So in municipal zoning, you have the zoning administrator, and then you also have the panel.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The DRB.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, it's the DRB or whichever structure a town uses. The zoning administrator is basically the quickest way because it's basically them just signing off on the permit. And so this is allowing towns to define what is a minor subdivision, because it doesn't specify, but for them, what is a minor subdivision? And then the administrative officer can just issue that. And that's a significantly quicker process. So then the second bullet point on page two says that this act also clarified existing law that the character of the area cannot be appealed in decisions for certain type of housing, but other elements of the decision may be appealed. So you did work in this bill in Act 47 to clarify what exactly, which types of housing character of the area could not be appealed from. And so it's for residential development in a designated downtown growth center or neighborhood development area. This is an, there cannot be an appeal of a residential development in one of those areas based on the character of the area. Okay, next, it also established this concept of by right zoning, which meant that when an appropriate municipal panel, the DRB or some towns have it structured differently, the panel that reviews zoning permits, they have to provide justifications if they're seeking to adjust any dimensional requirements in a housing permit. So the statute lays out that if an application for housing meets the standard established in the zoning bylaw, the town cannot require fewer units or a smaller lot coverage unless they can justify why that is necessary. So it either requires the town to approve the permit or provide a justification for why that is not going to work. So attempting to allow the developers to get the development they are seeking to build.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So, for example, most zones, not all, but most zones, like in my town even the three acre zone, has setbacks. Front setbacks, rear setbacks, sometimes side setbacks. So a town can't increase those setbacks for a specific development unless they have a justification for it. Right.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right, and one of the examples for justification is a national or state, a federal state or other town limitation, like if there's a wetland on the property and you need to shrink the size of the development because there's an outstanding other law that would require that. So that's what an example would be. All right, so still on page two, requires additional detail in the housing element of both the regional plans and the municipal plans. This is just to help get more data and get more specificity around the housing targets and what the total housing investments may be needed for those areas. It removed the ability of rural towns to require changes to bylaws be adopted by the Australian ballot. There was a distinction created in the statute between rural towns and urban non rural towns. This gets rid of that. Any town can still choose to use it, but it eliminates that distinction between rural towns. And then it allows the Department of Housing and Community Development to use up to 20% of the municipal planning funds for administration of the planning grant program. Can

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: can you

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: just back up for a second to the rural towns might not change their zoning Sure. Based on Australian ballot. Does that mean that at town meeting you could have a voice vote, just not Australian ballot?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm having a hard time remembering off the top of my head. It was removing a very small distinction between rural towns and non rural towns.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So let's see if I

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: can find it quickly. Okay, so I think this is in '24 VSA 4442. So this is on routine adoption of bylaws. So a routine adoption of a bylaw, bylaw amendment or repeal shall be adopted by a majority of the members of the legislative body at a meeting held after the final meeting and shall be effective twenty one days after the adoption unless by action of the legislative body it is warned for a vote by the municipality by Australian ballot at a special or regular meeting. Did you

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: just say unless borne by us? Yes.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So it allows the use of Australian ballot.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. The legislative advisor, the city council or the select board can make that decision that they want to put it to the full public, but they have to make that decision. It struck the difference because there was further language that allowed that a rural town may elect to require that the bylaws, amendments or appeals shall be adopted by Australian ballot.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I'm getting really confused. I

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: know, because I can't remember exactly why we made this change. I just remember that it was, I can get back to you because I think it an odd distinction between something for only rural towns as opposed to for any town. If you could, I really would appreciate Thank you. 4442.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: All right, we'll get back to that.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So that's the end of the municipal zoning changes in Act 47. Then there were a few Act two fifty changes. And then a few of the changes that were made in Act 47 are then changed by Act 181, which is where a lot of the big Act two fifty changes happened. So the first bullet point under Act two fifty on page two is that it changed the jurisdictional threshold for housing units within designated areas. And I'm gonna skip over this one because this was repealed by Act I.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Actually, was gonna say, we've only, I think I wanna, we have a one, a 02:30. Yeah. We have Mike Piche coming at 02:30. I'd like to allow seven, eight minutes for a break, so we've got essentially ten more minutes, so you might think about, I encourage you to think about going to one hundred eighty one unless there is something special in the Home Act that has survived.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. Was a few different things changed that were then adjusted in Act 181, I think, for Act two fifty, other than There was this provision added to Act two fifty about towns could use master plans, which is another faster way for Act two fifty permits to get issued. Don't know if that is any longer being used. Other changes in Act two fifty that happened in Act 181 are sort of smaller than that.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: What's the heck?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Turning to ACT one hundred eighty one-twenty twenty four, a lot of things changed in ACT 181, not all of them specifically related to housing, but the Act two fifty system is overall going through a lot of different changes. The administration system of Act two fifty, the board changed. It went from the Natural Resources Board to the Land Use Review Board. That board has become permanently staffed. So it has five full time members who are overseeing the Act two fifteen process and working on a lot of the other work you gave them in Act 181. So some of the things that related to housing. Act 181 created a new jurisdictional system for Act So Act two two fifty, the state land use and development law created in 1970, it set jurisdictional triggers for what needed a purpose. It was broadly large construction based on the project type and the size of the parcel. So it lists in the statute the type of project it was going to be, residential, commercial, industrial, governmental, and then based on the size of the project, that would determine kind, whether or not a permit would be needed. Act 181 changed that dramatically to say the location of the project and the physical elements are also relevant to the determination of whether they need a permit. So on one end of the spectrum, we have tier one broken into tier 1A and tier 1B. Those are the settled areas, the compact settlements that are the centers, your downtown centers, your village centers, those areas identified as where development should be encouraged and where development has already happened. And so less Act two fifty oversight is needed there because the towns themselves are doing oversight of the building and construction that happens. So Act two fifty jurisdiction is going to be removed from those areas once the system is in place because the municipal zoning system is going to take over fully. On the opposite end of the spectrum is tier three. Those are the critical natural resource areas. Those are areas where any construction will trigger the need for an Act two fifty permit. Those are still being defined by the board, but tier one and tier three are actually going to be a fairly, probably small portion of the state. The rest of it is going to be tier two. And in tier two, very little is changing as to whether a permit is needed. It's gonna be largely the system that's been in place for the last fifty years with the exception of the road rule. So the new thing there is that in tier two, the construction of a private road greater than 800 feet or multiple private roads or driveway greater than 2,000 feet will trigger the need for an Act two fifty permit. Previously, it was mostly only buildings that triggered Act two fifty or other different types of commercial operations. So as part of this jurisdictional system, all of the regional planning commission, regional plans and their maps are being updated to use consistent terms across the entire state. Those will then also feed into the town maps and both the town and regional maps will identify what areas are gonna be tier one and which areas are gonna be tier three so that everyone is on the same page and that this creates a whole statewide map so that people then know where these areas are and what their jurisdiction opportunity under Act two fifty will be. Specifically So related to housing, tier 1A, once those areas are delineated, any construction within them will be exempt from Act two fifty. They will still have to go through the municipal zoning process. For tier 1B, up to 49 units of housing will be exempt from Act two fifty per project. And they will also be covered then by the municipal zoning permit. While all this is going on and determining these areas, you created a number of temporary Act two fifty exemptions related to housing. So these are in section 31 of Act 181. So there were exemptions created for hotels or motels that are being converted into affordable housings. They're exempt from Act two fifty. There's also an exemption for accessory dwelling unit construction, and then converting a commercial structure into housing with 29 or fewer units. That's until 07/01/2028. Additionally, until 01/01/2027, there's an exemption for 75 units of housing or fewer in new town centers, growth centers, and neighborhood development areas if they have zoning, water, sewer, or appropriate soils. Exemption of 50 units or fewer within one quarter mile around village centers that have zoning and subdivision bylaws, sewer, water, or appropriate soils. Or 50 units of housing in urbanized areas along the tran route, and then an exemption for all housing within downtowns that have permanent zoning and subdivision bylaws, sewer, water, and appropriate soils. Yes.

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Would you be able to create a document that has all the exemptions made in Act 181 specifically and what their sunset date is? I was just thinking that.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sure. I mean, I think whatever page I'm on has them. So, what page are you on? I'm on page four of the summary document.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, that would be So, just to highlight something for the committee. What? These exemptions apply for areas that have water or sewer or quote, appropriate soils, end quote. Appropriate soils means soils that would allow the necessary septic system to go.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Sorry, yes, the statute does say more about that, the summary is shorter. So

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: we're going off specifically the summary document and, okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, we're about out of time. Is there something you'd like to highlight in the remaining two minutes?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think that there is actually another exemption. I think there might be one other exemption that I missed for housing. Yes, sorry. It's at the bottom of page three. There's another exemption. In Act 47, you did establish an exemption for priority housing projects. So prior to these two acts, was this concept of priority housing projects. Projects. These are housing projects that are located in the designated areas and that have at least 20% of the units are affordable as defined in the statute for at least fifteen years. And there was a cap on the number of units that could be exempt based on the population size of the municipality. What happened in Act 47 and then was extended further in 01/1981 was that the cap on the number of units of priority housing projects was removed. So currently, there is no cap on the number of priority housing projects that can be built that are exempt from Act two fifty if they're located in a downtown, a neighborhood development area, or a growth center. It also extends that area to a one half mile around the designated center and they have to have permanent zoning subdivision bylaws and sewer water appropriate soils.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Didn't it also eliminate the 20% requirement?

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: No. And was that or or and? Downtown and Growth Center or downtown or Growth Center? Or, is it or?

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: In some situations, they actually might be the same area.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So these are all exemptions from Act two fifty? Yes. They're not exemptions from any of the zoning local zones? Right. So in the Home Act there's a lot of requirements that what local zoning has to do to increase density, and in Act 181 there are exemptions from Act two fifty.

[Ellen Czajkowski (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Act 181 also does have a series of municipal zoning changes. They're not as many as 181, but they are also municipal zoning changes as well.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, I think what we'd like to do, thank you so much, Ellen, I really appreciate your coming and providing this succinct summary to the committee. And

[Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: I'd say welcome back, but you've been here all I'm always here. Right.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, and we look forward to having you here more. Great, she said. Let's take a break everyone and come back just before 02:30 when our next witness will be Marc Mihaly.