Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Like sticks?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, but we have more than that. So we have actually,

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: because we have We're live.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We're live. Okay. Thank you. Welcome everybody back. It's still Wednesday, January 21, and this is, if you're wondering, the General and Housing Committee. What we're doing now is hearing from hearing about six zero two, eight six zero two. As I explained this morning, eight six zero two is a bill that's both it's largely about fact two fifty and land use planning, and it has been assigned to the environment committee, so it's not we don't have possession of the bill. This is very much what happened with the large housing bill last year, the administration's bill, although there was a little difference in that, for various reasons, I won't go into it, it took a very long time to turn it into a bill. And meanwhile, months ahead of that, there was a text which thankfully was shared with us, and we took pieces of that text and put it into a housing bill. And here, similarly, there is material that may be of interest to our committee on housing, and some of it may find its way into bills. And in fact, Tom and I, in our bill on rural finance, have already, in a draft, included art of the what's it called? The housing Oh, right. It's got some sexy name that I don't know who's responsible for that, but I won't say it. So we're going to hear from the author of the bill in the house, Patricia McCoy, who's our August minority leader, and also Alex Farrell. So, Patricia, welcome.

[Rep. Patricia "Patty" McCoy (House Minority Leader)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Since I think your first appearance, maybe, in this year.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: This year,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So welcome, take it away.

[Rep. Patricia "Patty" McCoy (House Minority Leader)]: Thank you. For the record, representative Patty McCoy, I represent Rutland 1, Botany, IRA, and share the town of Wells with Representative Pritchard. Thank you for having me in today. As the chair just mentioned, this bill is now in the Environment Committee, and I appreciate your time listening to it because there are sections of this bill that should be within the purview of general and housing. So I'll just begin. I'm going to just tee it up, and then if you don't mind, I'm going to send it over to Commissioner Farrell and head back to my joint transportation committee meeting. Over the past several years, the governor and the legislature have approved hundreds of millions of dollars in housing investments. Yet Vermont still faces a severe housing shortage. It's clear we need to do more out of the investments we're making. Permitting appeals and zoning policies remain far too redundant, costly, and burdensome. To make the most of the historic dollars being thus far, we must make it faster, easier, and cheaper to build in order to increase housing supply and bring down costs for Vermonters. That means treating this issue with the urgency it deserves. We can't nibble around the edges, and we absolutely cannot make it even more burdensome for Vermonters to build housing in rural states, parts of our state, because rural Vermonters deserve affordable housing as well. The Governor's omnibus housing bill, which is H602, will increase the pace and equitable distribution of home building, while lowering the cost, risk and burden of development, especially for small scale and new developers. This bill takes important steps. I believe these efforts are supported by the vast majority of Vermonters. I hope we, in the legislature, take it seriously as well. We have listened to special interest groups for several years. It's time we listen to, support, and begin the work that Vermonters are clinging for, and work that will make a real difference for Vermonters. Thank you very much for listening to my short little speech, and I will now turn it over to Commissioner Farrell, who will get into the nuts and bolts of the bill. And I really do appreciate you taking this on, even though it's not living in your committee yet. You don't get to go

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: before I allow people to ask you a question, realizing, of course, that we are going to get a subject matter expert

[Rep. Patricia "Patty" McCoy (House Minority Leader)]: in Yes.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Thank you so much. And I believe there is also a it's more of a comment. I believe there is a companion bill that Leader Beth put forward downstairs. Is that as well? And did that, sorry, I didn't look. Did that go to their environment committee or did that?

[Rep. Patricia "Patty" McCoy (House Minority Leader)]: I believe they had a natural resource. Oh, sorry. Right. Yeah. Natural resource. Okay.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: So that's over there too. Yes. Okay. Thank you.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And it's identical. Is it identical?

[Rep. Patricia "Patty" McCoy (House Minority Leader)]: Is it identical? Yes. Okay. Mean, the database is pretty much the same.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes. Got it.

[Rep. Patricia "Patty" McCoy (House Minority Leader)]: Thank you. Okay. Thanks so much, really.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Anybody else? Wait. We can't let her go. Come on, you know,

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: guys. Have the transportation in there. Well, that's right.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm just trying to make her snailish.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Oh, yeah.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Anybody else? Okay, Patty. Thank you very much.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Thank you

[Rep. Patricia "Patty" McCoy (House Minority Leader)]: so much. I have a burning question.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Is it about the banana?

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Are there still melting mints upstairs in transportation? Okay. And,

[Rep. Patricia "Patty" McCoy (House Minority Leader)]: Joan's donuts are up there. Mary.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: They must be stale because they're closed. They're gonna smell.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: They're gonna I that's where I have to say on appropriations. I I The treats. Well, I was never really a doughnut fan. I'm sorry. I'm just not. It doesn't do much for me until Jim brought in Jones Doughnuts. I could not believe convert.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: They are my I pay for better advertising.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: They're so good.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. I'm gonna get a kickback. Okay. So our next we're gonna have Alex Merrill, commissioner Alex Merrill, Commissioner of the Department of Housing and Community Development. Alex, you're on. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: For the record, Alex Barrel, Commissioner of the Department of Housing and Community Development. In case anyone needs evidence, this job has aged me. That's a younger interview. I

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: did notice.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Know it's your kid. You

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: people have had five years with me. He's only had six months.

[Rep. Patricia "Patty" McCoy (House Minority Leader)]: What about

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: me? Too long. All right, I'm going walk through in more specifics H-six zero two. Hopefully, you'll allow me just a moment to give a little context. So this bill does build upon other bills that have been introduced earlier in the biennium, sitting in a fixed environment and then set aside some natural. So those on this side, H-four 12 is one of those. I'll flag that. Components of H-four 12 were incorporated into other bills, passed into law, so we're grateful. There are some elements of that bill which have been brought into here, but there are others that we would still be advocating for, but just to say our focus right now is H-six zero two because there are a couple of pieces that I'm really going to focus on here today that we think can move the ball forward in important ways, particularly in aligning our planning. Also, just want

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: to flag that you're going to

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: hear other proposals from partners that the administration has been engaged on. While they might not be included in H-six zero two, they are efforts that we're supporting. There's significant internal work happening right now, largely as a result of some of the analysis dictated by the governor's executive order requiring that agencies undertake various task forces and permit modernization efforts. That is happening sort of behind the scenes, but again, the logic all built upon the same elements that we decided to incorporate in H-six zero two. Also, the last piece that I'll flag here is that there are pieces in H-six zero two that are really teeing up future proposals that we'll come back to you with if we see success in the ways that we think we will a result of parts of H-six zero two. So, that's part of a longer term vision, including, as I know some of you have already heard about, some of our vision around off-site construction. Pieces of the bill that I'm not going to get into today are the first nine sections, which have to do with Act two fifty. You can see here a lot of these are just consistent with what the governor's been saying since the original discourse on Act 181 around repealing the road rule, extending the interim exemptions from 2027 expiration to a 2030 expiration so that more communities have time to sort out their maps and their 1B. Want to change tier 1B from an opt in to an opt out. That's pretty basic behavioral science that just will occur if more of the communities to participate. Then tier 1A, we have a couple very specific ways to make it easier to administer tier 1A if a community choose to undertake tier one a, and make it easier to become a tier one a community, firstly, with that first little point allowing the RPC to be the contractor.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Alex, let me ask you just a basic question. It probably reveals my ignorance about Act two fifty.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Why

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: If we feel, which I think the administration does, that we need more time to consider the maps, etcetera, tier three needs more time, more debate. I'm not sure I understand the relationship between that and just extending the exemptions. In other words, wouldn't we need to tell them to do wouldn't we need to expressly call out delaying certain processes? I mean, I get that if we delay the processes, then we have to extend as much as we delay the processes, but don't we have to actually tell them to do that if we wanted to do that?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: The mechanics 181 for actually poor planning, in our view, whereas there's going be a gap between the time that these interim exemptions expire, some at the end of this calendar year and then a couple few months later, and the time where tier 1B and 1A applications are approved. You're going to have a period of time where there isn't an exemption at home. We're So gonna see likely in 2027, in part of 2028, a slowdown in home admissions are sold. But wouldn't you like, for example I agree.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm not saying I endorse it or don't. Sure. Yeah. I agree. But don't you logistically like, let's say you wanted to extend the deadline for the maps. Wouldn't you need to extend the deadline for the maps, not just extend the exemption? Sure.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: I don't think there's at this time, it doesn't sound like there's a need to extend the future land use mapping process. Not so not tier three, not rural. The future land use mapping process sounds like that's running on time, should finish by this calendar year.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And tier three?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: The administration positions that tier three should also be repealed.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Oh, okay. Alright. So that's why that's not done. Got it. Okay. Got it. I just didn't understand the logic of it. But that's since the road rule and tier three, if they're gone, then you don't need okay, got

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: it. Yeah.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: And isn't there I am nerdy, like the most nerdy, but sometimes nerdy. And I saw that there's a bill that was introduced yesterday or today, I guess, about tier three. It looked like a rural caucus coalition. Is that something that you're, remember how you said you had some coalitions with different sprinklings?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Sure, this isn't something we directly engaged in, but we'd be supportive of the elements of that bill that I'm aware of are delay the implementation of tier three and inform property owners who could be impacted. We'd be very, very supportive. Think in any case, broader public engagement in education or implementation is going to be paramount. You can see us incorporate soon in our processes.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Thanks.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Thanks. Thank you. I'm not an Act two fifty expert or land dwell. I know something about certain types of land use, Act two fifty. A bit more context. Again, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this because you heard from me on eight zero two Homes, which is the third phase Homes For All. Just know that this is the logic that's being built upon. This is the effort that we're leveraging to expand Buy Right House. There are two ways to go about Buy Right Housing. Well, no, I'm sorry. There are many ways to go about Buy Right Housing. You will hear discussions in this building, this session about two ways that those are advocates for Buy Right Housing. One is through this method where we're really trying to enable builders and small scale developers by giving a clear path through the municipality to build at a small scale. The other that you'll hear from Let's Build Homes, which we are supportive of, we think these are complementary efforts, is really giving the municipality a tool, which is these overlay districts model zoning, giving the municipality the tool to enable BuyRite. Both of those things can work together because not every municipality is going to have the capacity to undertake a root zone, whereas we're trying to create something here that every single municipality can benefit from in Vermont and builders, specifically builders in every municipality.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I have a question just for the sake of those who don't understand,

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: say what Rite means? Sure. It actually can be interpreted in a lot of ways. The idea of Bi Rite is that there are regulatory parameters set so that if you meet these very specific parameters, you essentially don't need to get a house permit. It's approved from the zoning administrator, and so that can take the form of, in some communities, they take the approach of form based zoning. So, New Skies had a lot of success with form based zoning. So, developers know if they meet many very specific criteria, they will just get their billing permit, and there's not discretionary review. So it doesn't go before a developer review board, where there's sort of a negotiation as to what the project will look like. The way it's proposed, as long as it meets the criteria, it's the way it's approved. Form based code is not easy to administer, especially in smaller municipalities. So in a way, you can look at this, our eight zero two Homes effort, as a way to enable that same form based code logic across the state so that each municipality doesn't need to go through the logistical effort of creating a form based code. Did that get right to everybody? Answer questions? Okay. So we'll dive into the specifics of this Buy Right Housing proposal. So the initial phase of eight zero two Homes is going to be at least 10 construction ready designs, full construction plans. Those will be launching in December after a substantial public input pilot with three communities. The plans themselves will be launched for anyone to use statewide this December. That is happening regardless, as essentially an option for anyone to undertake.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's done without legislation. Exactly. And it's just under your discretion, right? And when you say pilot in the three communities, that pilot is What's done in the pilot that's done by the end of the year?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Sure, good question. What we're asking these communities to do or participating in the pilot is there's an exchange. What they're giving us is their input and their community members to tell us what they think the designs ought to look like. We're going to go broader than just these communities, but we're trying to use these neighborhoods as sort of test cases. In exchange, they are agreeing to adopt all of these designs pre approved. So essentially what I described before, they will be the first three communities to just say we are voluntarily adopting these as pre approved designs. In Manchester, for example, we've already connected with a builder, a gentleman named Bill Drunzik, who's done a lot of great middle income housing in Manchester, and he wants to do a case study. And he will build a neighborhood entirely from what will be these designs in Manchester. In other communities, say Hartford, we'll do test cases that will be more infill focused. So enabling builders in the area to add a two or three unit building on a lot where there's already, say, a single bank or another building, so that true infill.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's Manchester, Hartford, what's the third?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Essex Junction. Essex Junction also tees itself up better than infill. As a what? As infill housing. So we're trying to give folks the ability to see what this will look like in practice before it rolls out more broadly. So, what this proposal does in sections eight, nine, and 10 is it establishes that DHCD has the authority to designate what these 10 designs are. It does not restrict us to 10 designs. We can add designs. The requirement that's in here is that DHCD, if we add a design after this initial public input page, we must hold public comment period and we must pull public hearing. We would envision that anytime we were to add a design, would envision that likely being a six to twelve month process because we want to hear from builders, community members, potential residents, and municipalities. That, I think, really covers the concept. I do have the bill up if folks want to look at specific language, or I can just take questions about the concept and how it will work in practice.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Questions from the committee. So, I guess I have a series of questions.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Okay.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So there's a design, let's say a duplex. What happens in a community that isn't one of these three communities?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: So without

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You know, I have a field, and the field is zoned residential of some sort, rural res god. I mean, there are so many different zoning designations, and I decide I like this. I don't automatically get to skip my design review board. Right? You I'm not in Manchester. I'm not in Hartford, and I'm not in Essex.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: And in the scenario, you're saying without this legislation?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No. What's this legislation contemplate?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: That's right. So this legislation contemplates essentially making what's happening in those three pilot communities, making that effective across the state. So those three pilot communities are no longer the only ones doing that as of 07/01/2027, if this is enacted. So take any community, you still need to, it still needs to be zoned residential, still needs to be zoned to the unit count that you're seeking. So in your duplex example, essentially anywhere that there it's zoned for single family or duplex. However, you still need to comply and you'll see in the language as with anything that's in this sort of exempt from municipal zoning list, still need to comply with things like setbacks and other municipal regulations that have to do with the site. So, it would really be that there's no discretionary review by the development review board of these designs. I'll say in many municipalities, this initial phase of 10 designs that are four units and less don't go through that discretionary review anyway. So there will be many communities for which this is not much of a change, except that now builders have an open source design to work from, so they can skip a lot of steps fast.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes, Elizabeth?

[Rep. Patricia "Patty" McCoy (House Minority Leader)]: How many

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: of the 10 building ready designs include universal design?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: I don't know how many now because we don't have the designs yet. I'll point to the toolkit where that is an intentional component of these. So, me use an example that I've shared with you all before. I want to see if it's included here because I know Okay, I'm sorry that I'm just going to have to point to one of these because I don't have plans, but this right here is an example that I've shared with you all before. This is a three unit building. You may walk by this, by way. Think it's a single family element. It's a three unit building, and these two units are two floor units, so it's difficult to make those fully accessible. The unit in the back is single floor, universal design, and it would have a rear ramp entrance. So the goal here is that we can still comply within vernacular and the character of these neighborhoods where this would say fit into a neighborhood where most things are two stories rather than some of the designs which could technically be, but allowing there to be, let's say, in this case, the unit that's around back that would be fully accessible. Other examples where we've been able to accommodate that is, say, a three story that's stacked. So the first unit you can easily make accessible, whereas maybe the upper two might not be. So not every unit in all of the designs will be personal design, will be fully accessible. Trying to make it so that that can be accommodated in these infill sites.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: So just to be clear, do you have any internal rules or requirements about what percentage of your designs must include universal design versus accessible or visitable or whatever, but at the very basic universal design?

[Rep. Patricia "Patty" McCoy (House Minority Leader)]: Sure. We didn't go through any rule making,

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: so there's no rule related to it. It is absolutely going be part of the process. The toolkit's a good example of how we chose to prioritize that, largely in partnership with some of our partners who helped us understand how to make that work. We've also made it clear. I need to go back and look at the RFP. We've made it clear to the vendor that that is priority for us. The vendor of? The vendor who's creating the design. So it's usually The architect.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Just want to note for the committee, there's just an interesting legal aspect to this. We have a lot of situations where people come to us, and if anything's going to happen, it requires a change in the law. So it has to come to the legislature, but there are all kinds of other ways of making things happen that don't require changes in the law. For example, sometimes there's changes in just administrative regulations. So, for example, in the landlord tenant bill that I'm putting forward, there's something to do with funding a program that's existing that helps with back rent. And I was thinking that maybe I would put, people are talking about making it more accessible to more people. But I discovered that the law that created it is one sentence long, and that it was not created by us. The real fleshing it out came at the department, the Vermont Housing Agency, V

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: I think it might be VSAJ.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: VSAJ. Vermont Housing Authority.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Vermont State, I always have trouble with these initials. Vermont state housing, I know it starts with a V, right? Anyway, so that didn't have any law, it was just all done by them. And so it's being renegotiated between them and other people. Then there are programs that don't require either a regulation or a law, and this is one so far. In other words, everything they've done, that book, everything they've done, they did because they have a general, they've done under their general authority, and they've moved it this far, they made agreements with three communities, those agreements didn't come to us, and they don't have to come to us. They made agreements with three agencies that were voluntary. The agencies, I mean, the towns voluntarily undertook all of this and are working on it, and those agencies will have to change their rules to make it so that once these 10 designs are approved, they're as a right, they don't, you know, all you do is you come in and you get a building permit. You don't get, you don't have to go to the design review board and get a permit. What's happened is they've carried it as far as they can carry it without now a change in the law, and so they've always been very forthright with us and come and given us preview of their designs and showed us their design book and given us multiple copies, which are sitting in here of their design book, but now is the time where they're coming to the legislature because they need authority. Other words, if they're going to extend it statewide. And I would only ask, is it could you give more detail? Is it all communities and all towns in the state, no matter what Act two fifty zone there, Act 181 zone there in, etcetera. You want to describe the breadth of this?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Right. It really differs the municipality's residential zoning, and so the only constraints on it would be whether the municipality has zoned something to say two, three, or four units in this case. Something, if a district is zoned single family and duplex, the three and four units would not be mandated. So there's not forced up zoning here. It still does defer to the zoning district.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And its location.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: That's right.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And if it's residential under the Home Act, it has to allow duplex, right?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: That's right, And this one to four unit was intentional for a number of reasons. I won't go into all the reasons that it's simplest possible for new developers to undertake this, but financing four units and less is much, much more straightforward. Insurance, you can get personal lines insurance for four units and less rather than commercial insurance, and the HOME Act made in many cases, more units less, much more straightforward. So municipalities have already adapted most of their regulations to accommodate that.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Is but it applies statewide to every one of the towns to the extent that they have residential zoning. That's right. And if they have no zoning?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: That hasn't been contemplated. Let me let me come back to my general counsel.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Are told by certain experts who've appeared before us that there are 90 towns that don't have zoning. Wanna identify 100. A 100 and that's the the you wanna identify yourself, please?

[Samantha Sheahan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: I'm Samantha Chan from the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. And my understanding for your question, Mr. Chair, is if there's no zoning, no municipal permit is required. So this intended project that's in either zone may or may not be subject to Act two fifty jurisdiction, but these can be built now in 109 municipalities without a permit.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: There would be nothing to trigger it, unless you build 10 or more units and trigger that to the

[Rep. Patricia "Patty" McCoy (House Minority Leader)]: Or the road rule. Or the road rule. Right.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, I'm sorry to interrupt you. So, it applies statewide, and the only caveat is, for some towns, doesn't matter because no permit would be required anyway.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Which would be the case today.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Anyway. And so okay. Any questions so far? This is our chance, guys. Shoot. Alright.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: You

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: might want to, I guess one other thing, comment. I know Tom raised this issue, and we're undertaking we're going to be looking at manufactured homes, and we're going to be looking at off-site prefabricated homes. Does this interface with them at all?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: It doesn't need to, but I'm glad you mentioned that because I just to harken back to something that you heard me say when I was talking about eight zero two homes a couple of weeks ago, At least these initial 10 construction ready designs and plans, each one will actually have two sets of plans. One for traditional site built, stick built homes. The other would be off-site plants so that they could be created as modular. But that reminds me of one other thing, and I'll you know what, I'll bring it up on my screen because I do want to talk a little bit about the mechanics of essentially the list that we're adding to them to say that these may not be further recognized municipal level. And I'm going to veer off of that point for just a moment to make a broader point about construction types.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Got Okay. To make it bigger, we can't.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: That's fair. Okay. Let me

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But get to where you want.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: How does this look?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Yes.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Okay, so this Title 24 right now, this is essentially a list of things that local zoning may not restrict. Now, again, to the comments I made before, the municipality may still restrict things like location, size, height, but you may not enact zoning that would prevent these specific functional uses. So this is a list that already exists, and an aspect of our proposed legislation is to add to this list.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's section what? Forty four? Thirteen.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Yeah, 44, 13. So, an aspect of this is to add. You can see some of the recent additions over the last couple of years. These were robust conversations. There's a lot of trade offs when we decide to add something to this list. So that's something that we're very cautious about. But you can see emergency shelters and hotels and motels to be converted permanently for affordable housing developments. These are things that were added with the intention of trying to make better use of some of our spaces and also meeting this emergency moment we've been in the last few years. And so functionally, would be adding to this list a new category, which is specifically DHCD's new catalog also. It's giving a new authority to DHCD to specify signs that will be included, be protected by this list now. There has been contemplation of adding to this list construction types so that basically a municipality may not restrict homes based on construction sites. You may not restrict based on something being a manufactured home or off-site construction such as modular panelized. There's been some pushback. I'm not going to advocate in any direction in this moment. What I'm going say that's something that you all may want to contemplate down the line after you look at off-site construction. And again, I'll flag the distinction between the definition of manufactured home, which is what we think of mobile home parks, and then other off-site construction such as modular and panelists.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You know, it's important just for your information, we haven't sent you, the bills haven't been actually introduced, but Gayle and others are introducing the mobile home bill, it has in it a section that I believe does that with respect to manufactured homes. Sorry, I didn't say the M word right. Manufactured homes. But I don't think there's anything in a bill that I know of that does it for off-site modular.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Yeah, agree.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Although, it sounds like indirectly, if an off-site modular line was added to follow one of your 10 off-site plans, that would be included, right? That's right. So some off-site modules.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: And I don't even know of a municipality that by district restricts modular right now. I'm only flagging it as consideration. Right. But I have been hearing about this bill for a while, and so I'm very excited to see it.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And and also, there's a bill that's being introduced that Tom Charlton, myself, and Ashley and others are on that looks at rural finance and in there is with the treasurer's assistance and aggregation of ways to aggregate orders of off-site modular housing. And what strikes me is the compatibility between that and what you're proposing in that it would facilitate going to a manufacturer of off-site housing and taking one of your designs and asking for 40 of them.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: That's right. It would also, as I understand, as I've seen the language, also facilitate, say, very small towns, essentially pooling resources to place a full quarter. A municipality could only guarantee, or a developer municipality rather can only guarantee placement of two, but a collection municipalities might be able place an order for 20. They could, as I understand it, place a bulk order as a group. So something we're very supportive of in large part because it is a a logical continuation of something that we've been working on peril. So they do really go hand in hand. Thank you.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Oh, wait, you've got a question.

[Rep. Saudia LaMont (Member)]: I just wanna say it out loud just to make sure that I'm following. So the ten ten models, two different design venue options that people will have options to look over. There's gonna be a pilot in three areas, Manchester, Hartford, and Essex. And then on July 1, if enacted, other areas, if they meet the requirements, we'll be able to mimic and use the same model with similar zoning if they're within one of those 109 areas. Is that accurate?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: So let's set the 109 aside for now because essentially the 109 number refers to municipalities with no zoning. So everything's by right. I'm being a little cheeky when I say that, but that's basically true.

[Rep. Saudia LaMont (Member)]: So that means including outside of that area.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: That's right. So now let me just a point of clarification to Chair Mihaly's point earlier. There are two things happening. One that will happen no matter what, which is that once these designs become public, any municipality anywhere can opt to adopt these as pre approved. So that can happen regardless of whether this is an act of law. Only thing

[Rep. Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Once the designs are made public?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: That's right.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Because there's nothing, let's say I come from callous. I do. There's nothing that stops callous from looking at that book and just deciding to put in their code that those are as of right.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: And when they're when we

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But it's not required. Yes. The law they're proposing would mean that regardless of whether Caledonia changed its code or not, effectively what would happen is everywhere there's residential zoning, those 10 are in there. As

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: of 2020 07/01/2027. So we wanna give sufficient time for those to

[Rep. Saudia LaMont (Member)]: What if there are complications with plan once, like, the plans are not out yet? So reviews the plans to make sure that they are effective? And how does that happen?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Yeah. So, I'd say authority to vet and create plans as it's drafted here, arrests with the Department of Housing and Community Development with coordination from basically upfront coordination with Division of Fire Safety in the State of Vermont so that their approval is included in our designs right up front. However, the legislation requires We cannot add something to that list unless we have a public comment period and hold a public hearing. So that's when all stakeholders and municipalities are probably the folks that we would go to first because their input is really paramount. I'm not just saying that because I can see the LCT out of corner of my eye here. That's really the opportunity for them to share their feedback.

[Rep. Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Well, I would just say, like, if in theory, if, like, the designs were put out and then they were built and it was like, oh, well, act like, in actuality, it's something was different. Oh, Like, say, like, let's say something didn't go according to, like, it didn't play out in reality based off of the plans. What does that like? And how does that get mitigated?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: This is a great question and something I would love for this committee to contemplate. And what I I hear you asking is, is there some sort of a de minimis variance allowance within these plans? Something that Chair Mihaly has referenced before. I think that would be a great change. I need to ask General Counsel to what extent is already our General Counsel drafted. I need to ask him to what extent that's already contemplated in the language. But I think that's a really great point that an explicit, maybe some explicit authority to DHCD that there is some de minimis allowance variance from these plans. I think that makes great sense. Thank you.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Other questions?

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yes.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Please, did you have one Elizabeth?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I do, but it's about section 11. Okay.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's about what? Section 11, which we're not there. Alright, go ahead then, And we'll come back to it. Tom, did you have a question?

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Just to know, might be a question. Active 50, in these 10 acre towns, there's 109 that don't have the zoning, they do active 50 triggers at a much lower threshold than those counts, so the size of the number of units being put up might trigger that anyways. That's right. Don't if that's something that would

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's not more than nine units, right?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: I believe in a 10 acre town it'd be six.

[Samantha Sheahan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: It would be nine or point.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Okay, so you know, this is I guess you could say this is diagnostics of this, depending on the type of development that's happening, whether it's neighborhood, you're building multiple or a single infill site. Single infill site, the port you fly under it no matter what, but there are always other triggers. For example, it could trigger a wetlands first, so there's other state permitting that wouldn't necessarily be by right as part of anything contemplating the way this is drafted.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. So It's an

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: expansion of Yeah.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So in any case, if someone if someone has a single a lot Right. That isn't very big, that's on residential, and if the if this bill became law, regardless of what town they were in, that if it had zoning, someone could come in and build a house that's one of these 10 designs, whether it was prefab, off-site, or not, stick built, and all they'd need is a building permit. But on the other hand, it's a land that's, let's say, they want to subdivide into five eighty five lots or something, they would still have to comply with not only the town subdivision ordinance, also wetlands, all the state permits, etc. Haven't dealt yet with the state permitting issue. Is it fair to say that that is the subject of the ongoing process contemplated in the governor's EO for continuous meetings at the the secretarial level?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: That's right. That's right.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And those are happening?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: They are through two parallel efforts. One that's continuous regardless of any specific effort, and then another sort of cabinet led effort with staff from many agencies, multidisciplinary teams, living permit modernization. Those are happening in parallel, and that was more of a sprint. An initial report was shared with the governor's office December 1. Some of the contents of that report have been shared with the House Environment Committee, and it may benefit this committee to hear pieces of that, to hear how the administration is thinking about the future of permitting in the state to make it more accommodating of the applicant, not state processes.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That is interesting. I mean, we're Everything in this committee involves other committees. But it would seem to me that just we'll talk about it, but we may want to hear about that. I actually personally consider that to be the most important part of the E. O. I know it's not the controversial part, and this is often the case, because I consider the state permitting process to be one that really could be susceptible to major change, and that is going to take a lot of thinking. And is that process, are those meetings ongoing every week, every two weeks? How serious is process?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: That process, I believe now it's just, it's only weekly now that the report's been submitted, but for a period, it was many folks, for many agencies meeting several times a week. It was a significant undertaking to get that initial study and report completed. But it built upon work that had been done really since 2017 with some updating since we've learned classes. But it's impressive what they were able to do within just a couple of months. Okay. Great. I yeah. I think it would be great for this community to hear from those folks.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's not a written report that's been made public. Right?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: I don't believe the report itself has been made public.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Good to go. You're going ahead.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Alright. Section 11. So this is where we are seeking to build on the good work of this committee and Representative Krasnow to incorporate housing targets, not just the targets themselves, but also the measuring and reporting on those targets. In the Home Act and Act 181, While our initial report might ask for some small language changes, it is not because we don't like it. We've actually found tremendous value not only in the exercise of measuring our progress, but figuring out where to get data has opened a lot of new doors for us because it's enabled us to work with other agencies who have data that has benefited us. You all also passed a law or passed some language last year that we had asked for to allow us to work with tax department to use CAMA data, which is grant list data for municipalities. Again, that always existed, it's already there, the municipality is already doing the work. This allowed TACS to just tap into that data so that that can feed into our housing dashboard. So the point of me teeing all this up is that we now have a tremendous amount of data. We've used that data to set targets And at a statewide level, we're planning to those targets. At a regional level, we're now planning to those targets, specifically in the future land use mapping. Act 01/1981 dictated that regional plans must accommodate a substantial majority of their housing targets as a result of that process in essentially four future land use areas where growth is encouraged. The shorthand is the Tier 1A and 1B areas, but not solely those because you could opt out of Tier 1B and still have those future land use areas. It's now at the state and regional level. Section 11 of this bill seeks to now bring that alignment all the way through to the municipal level and require that this be included in municipal plans. A lot of municipalities are already doing this.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, it

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: already does. That's right. For a lot of municipalities, it just worked out that the timing was such that they had the targets, they were doing the future land use mapping process, so they're able to, in updating the municipal plan, it was able to just be incorporated. What we've done here is we want to basically give the municipality the opportunity to tell us that yes, their regulations in their plan already can accommodate the housing targets. To be clear, municipality can't dictate that homes be built. They can foster an environment that enables enough homes to be built with enough area and sufficient zoning. If however, they find that target they've been given, they can't accommodate, then they're given the opportunity here to identify the constraints. This mirrors largely in the logic of the language that you all laid out for the Department of Housing and Community Development. If we are finding that the state is not meeting its housing targets, You all have asked that we demonstrate why, identify the constraints and propose remedies. That's essentially what we've done here for the municipality. So the municipality may say, Tier three has substantially affected our ability to build because we're a small town and it just happens so that we won't be able to accommodate the House of Paris because of Tier three. That would check the box of this section. So now we essentially this providing regional plans, regional planning commissions, and the state with more information about what our constraints are. We suspect a lot of municipalities will tell us that there are infrastructure constraints, and that we as a state essentially need to step up and support them in making investments that they want to make to make more housing, but they don't have the ability right now. That's just a suspicion we have because of our, we do have a good working relationship with a lot of communities, and we hear that quite often. Thus, CHIP last year, the money bond bank. So this is not just an opportunity to align statewide, regional, and local. It's about information. It's about us understanding what's preventing Vermont from achieving the things that we all agree we want to achieve.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I know we have Elizabeth, so let's go. Elizabeth, you had a question on

[Rep. Patricia "Patty" McCoy (House Minority Leader)]: I do.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: What

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: if they don't? Where is the accountability?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: There's no penalty built into this. It's really bad information for municipalities to be able to outline what their constraints are.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: So will the municipality or will the municipalities understand that that's the actual goal?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Will they understand?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I mean, that be communicated through the RPCs? I see. Will they receive information from the RPCs that says this is a requirement, or will they receive information from the RPCs that says this is our goal, and these are the secondary and tertiary goals?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: I think that's a really good question. And I hear you asking a bit about process, but also about education. So from the department's lens, we would likely undertake some sort of an educational campaign, but likely within our grant agreements with the RPCs, we would include that they educate the municipalities about this new requirement in the municipal plan.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Did you just say through our grant agreements?

[Rep. Patricia "Patty" McCoy (House Minority Leader)]: Is that what you said?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: That's right. That's right.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Can you explain that a little bit?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Oh, sure. I'm sorry. The Department of Housing and Community Development annually has grant agreements with the regional planning commissions. We provide funding and you oversee a good portion of their activities. They're funded through the property transfer tax, so that flows through our department. They're large part sub grantees of the Department of Housing and Community Development. So we're given an opportunity to give insight into their work plans every year.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Okay. Yes, I have a number of questions from that, but I can ask you offline. But then going back to, so through those grants, they have to adhere to the requirements of the grant in order to receive the

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Let me step back.

[Rep. Patricia "Patty" McCoy (House Minority Leader)]: Okay, thank you.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: We work with the regional planning commissions. The function of that generally is our grants to the regional planning commissions. This is a separate component, which is essentially a new component of a municipal plan. The regional planning commissions are largely the technical assistance which So the condition of the regional planning commissions is just that they, for many communities, You can see that there's a lot

[Rep. Patricia "Patty" McCoy (House Minority Leader)]: of technicalities.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I'm not distracted at all. For

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: many municipalities, the Regional Planning Commission is the technical assistance to ensure that they are compliant with their municipal plans plan. And so with this, they would likely be advising any municipalities as to how to make sure that they comply with the suit component. There's a lot of, I'll say, release vows in this legislation that makes it, I'm going to say, fairly easy to comply with this because the municipality could, for example, simply say, we don't have zoning. However, we've identified that wetlands and state permitting constraint us. I'm thinking of Alberg. I grew up in Alberg. Wetlands and state permitting will constrain us from meeting our targets. So Alberg's targets will be very low.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Okay, and just so that I have my mind straight on these relationships, but the municipal planning commissions also make up the regional planning commission part, right? Are commissioners

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: A municipal plan is developed by a municipality a regional planning commission as part of their regional planning process, they will look back at the municipal plan. If I go any further into this, you're going to have to start asking the LCT or VAPTIC questions because this is the extent to my knowledge. I'll say one of the divisions in our department does elect municipal plans so that we have updated information on, say, municipality, and so many things like that. It's really just keeping a catalog of municipal plans. We don't go any further in terms of regulating them or dictating what's in the municipal plan. We keep essentially a catalog.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: So you just keep track of the plans, but you don't analyze the plans and how they relate to each other,

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: We don't have that charge. Regional planning commissions, to some extent will do in that regional planning commissions will seek to make sure that municipal plans jive with and flow into the regional plan. And Act 181 really sought reinforce all of this by aligning planning all the way through from municipal to state level, which is why, for example, the future land use mapping process, which is a component of the new regional planning, It was largely at least supposed to be led by municipalities. The municipality had a lot of input into what their map would look like and what was submitted to the Land Use Review Board. The Land Use Review Board is now the ultimate authority in approving these components of the regional plan, land use components of the regional plans.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Okay, thank you. You're welcome.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I have something to say. I love it. Put a pin in it. Let's pass it. Even if we don't get the other bill, I think this is very important. I watch my own city council meetings and they we had our plan and whatnot, but I really think this is going not I think this is a good way to go deeper and granular to really get the tight data. I think that we should put some sort of talk in it to put it on something if we I think there are some really good pieces in your presentation and that we should be, trying to figure out how to incorporate into the work that we're doing if we don't end up getting, the entire bill. But, I like this a lot. And everywhere I go, people always are excited about that dashboard and it's great. And one of the original concepts was to have a private right of action. If the places couldn't keep up with their housing goals.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Nobody vetoed that.

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, we didn't do that. But anyway, I like it. And yeah, I mean, I think it comes with education too, though. So in South Burlington, we happen to have an extensive, you know, group of folks who come and make presentations, but I think the Regional Planning Commission folks, can inform the municipalities about about these pretty pretty well. So I like it, and I wanna snack it.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: If I might ask a couple questions. I also like the concept. I'm trying to wrap my head around how we would do it in much of Vermont.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Sorry. Is

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: there any appropriation in this bill?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Well, I'm sorry. There are appropriations in this bill, sections 12 through 16, but they're not consistent with the administration's budget. So they were put in as placeholders, not meant to indicate what the administration is advocating for. There's not an appropriation to enable this component.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in many towns, it would seem to me that this would be an effort of some substantial technicality. A town's plan or its own has certain areas designated that permit residential, but nobody's ever tried to estimate how much residential could be built on those sites. No one has ever gone into a site and said, oh, this is 10 acres, and it could accommodate this many houses. So someone would have to do, with a planning background, would have to go in, because there's no requirement, for example, just to pick a state in California, the general plan of any town for the last thirty years has been a requirement that it estimate all of that, how much housing it can accommodate given its zoning and how that meshes with the regional bodies allocation of growth to their town, etcetera. But here, that requirement doesn't exist in the law at the moment. So, all of that calculation by, I presume, a planning professional would be new. And most towns that I am familiar with outside of Chittenden County don't have planning professionals if they're small. So who pays for all of that?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: The regional planning sorry. I'm starting with the word regional planning commission, not to answer the question who pays for that. Okay. I'm gonna answer the question around The regional planning commission's already had to do this, this exact calculation, as part of the future land use mapping process for

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: each town. They've calculated how much each town can accommodate.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: And there had to be some methodology, exactly the type of calculation you're talking about, how many homes could be accommodated by what we're planning in x community. That was required as part of their future relations mapping process. So there is information that could be the basis for communities that say, don't have any staff, which is the majority of our municipalities. So I'd say that would be a starting point. As far as any community that wanted to take it further beyond what Regional Planning Commission could already supply them with, we do have a municipal planning grant program. I'll say that it is oversubscribed most years, so I don't want to give the indication that everyone who applies for municipal planning grant would get one. We're able to fund almost all communities, but not every single community.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So towns so for example, my town of Callis would talk to its regional planning commission, look at at its capacity from that. So that means that the regional planning the regional planning commission, the I guess what I'm saying started with a top down approach, right? They were given for their region, you guys disaggregated the overall state housing need. You disaggregated that into counties. Regions. Or regions that match the RPCs. You gave that number to the RPC. Their obligation was to sprinkle that out to the town. And they did that somehow, and you're saying that in doing that, they are aware of the actual capacity of the town? Not its obligation, its capacity.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Right.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Then why do you ask the towns to do this when it's already been done?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Essentially, so I'm gonna clarify a piece of that. There were two components. Yeah. Setting the housing targets and then looking at geography to establish that a substantial majority of those units could be accommodated within regions drawn in the future land use mapping. So that means they had to go through that second process, which is an evaluation of how many units could fit within an area, not just the first part, which is establishing essentially this allocation targets. While that's just a substantial majority of the units, not somewhere in the municipality all could be accommodated, they did that calculation. So somewhere there's at least a basis.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So in other words, for Caledonia, I'm just going to invent numbers. Let's say Caledonia, I don't really don't know what they were, but they are, which probably says something. But let's say that their obligation is 500 units. Somewhere in the bowels of my regional planning commission, there is a knowledge set that knows that although my obligation is 500, all I can do is accommodate is two fifty. They know that.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: There's some there was some calculation, some methodology that went into making that calculation.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So if they know that, why are you imposing on the towns the obligation to reveal it when you already when the RPCs already have?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: It's a different question. If the RPCs were asked as part of the future land use mapping process to accommodate a substantial majority, this looks at all municipal regulations and says, your regulations accommodate your house targets. So not just your future land use areas, it goes beyond this because there will be residential zone areas that aren't in those first four future land use areas, and we need to ensure that the housing can be accommodated everywhere, even outside of, say

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But if it is outside, then does the RPC know what it can accommodate?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: It would have to, right, because it had to have the full number in order to know what a substantial majority would be. So I'll share, this is going back to sort of the first half, right, the setting of the targets, not the assessment. But, and I again, I will apologize for using Chittenden County as the example because I realize

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: we only have one Chittenden County. No, two now. No, three? Three? Three, yeah. Oh my goodness.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Three Chittenden County people here.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: There's other reasons to apologize for that.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: But they just very cleanly have the methodology spelled out, so it's easier for me to display. In Chittenden County, they took into account what the rural nature versus the urban suburban mix of a community in distributing their housing targets, and so that's why Heinsburg has historically produced an average growth between twenty twenty three of 16 units. And then their middle range of their twenty five year target is 26, so it's still an increase, but it's taking into account what have they done and what could they do based on their makeup. The second part of that then was the future land use mapping, which I don't have their future land use map in front of me right now, but that did have to do that. But I want to come back to something I said earlier. This isn't intended to be punitive to make municipalities go through this process. That's why there's several release valves in here. This is about we want municipalities to

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: understand

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: that the State is looking at these housing targets and we want them to actually just incorporate them in their zoning. So this component of the municipal plan is not, I think, the be all end all. The fact that we have them reporting on it in the municipal plan isn't the most important part. The most important part is that they're now going to recognize the state is looking at these housing targets. And in an ideal world, the municipality might actually change their zoning because they look at this and say, we do need to up zone or make some modification or rezone a certain district in order to accommodate our housing targets. That is an ideal outcome. Another ideal outcome is the municipality says, we've done everything we can. This is a constraint that we have. They are very welcome to say they don't have a specific calculation for what the number of units are that we're missing out on, but we can tell you this is the constraint.

[Rep. Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Yeah. I just wanted to just comment, I guess. Seems like you're creating a more clear off ramp bounce, which I like because one of the biggest concerns of where I represent was these housing targets are the future club for what? Because we have already through our RPCs, we have, you guys do your town plan. You know? Well, they'll be along with it. And, sorry. Yeah. We really don't like that. So you're not available for these grants anymore. So it doesn't really feel bottom up at that point. So just another clear offering to be like, hey. Yeah. I know we have water and sewer, but our sewer's in New Hampshire. We plummet over there. And our water just had, a fuel truck spill next to the wellhead. So we've been trucking water for fun things. Yeah. So I know on your map we have sewer and water. Right. Do we really?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. So that's interesting. So you one of the things you might get is a map for if we ever have the money, what we would do to enable the growth through more infrastructure.

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: That's an important point as well as, Rev Parsons made the point that a map somewhere might show that there is a public system. Those maps are not ANR would be the first to tell you, we do not have reliable maps of where our water and wastewater systems are or their capacity. So improving our understanding of that benefits all of our planning across the board. I'll maybe build on one other point that I heard in there, which is that I have heard folks uploaded the idea of using these to be punitive towards municipalities that don't meet these targets. The reason this is structured the way it is, is I don't like that route simply because it could be placing blame on a municipality that doesn't actually have the tools or the ability to meet these house priorities. I want to provide municipalities the chance to either make a change to accommodate them or say we can't.

[Rep. Patricia "Patty" McCoy (House Minority Leader)]: Elizabeth? Thank you. Did you ask a question? No?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: In case I missed it, is there an interplay between or among regional planning commissions? Do you go and get into a I know you have your future land use targets. I know you they there's RPC interaction with you. Is there an interaction among RPCs about oh, wow. So I just looked at your thing and it said that one of the towns has the same number of housing as my town, just as an example, and its goal is 26. And our town's goal is 500. Are there RPCs saying to each other, Oh, wow, maybe we are out of scale, or, you know, oh, that's in either direction, that seems really high, that seems really low. Do they all go out to lunch? What's the interface between them?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Yeah, RPC is an outlet. Start my answer by saying, I think it'd be great for you all to hear from BAFTA, which is the Association of the Regional Planning Commission, because they can tell you a lot about their process, especially over the last eighteen months or so through Act 181. But they did develop joint methodology so that at least components of the regional plan and the way they go about administering the regional plan would all have commonalities in the same underlying methodology. They very much took that into account. What level of granularity they went into? I don't know. I encourage you to ask the folks from FAFTA. They do coordinate very closely.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Are there other questions? So

[Rep. Saudia LaMont (Member)]: I'm just curious, because this is an environment and energy, so it's not our bill. What are their feelings on this? Is this something that they're gonna take up? Like, or do you have any ideas on what those conversations look like?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: It's unclear whether they'll take it up. Last year's bill and previous years, we weren't invited to share in that committee.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. You were not invited to testify. Because they didn't take it off the wall. That's right.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yes. So you were here last week or the week before, and I asked you if the administration would support VHIP being moved to, oh my gosh, base funding, thank you, dear Lord. And you said you were not at liberty to share at that time, but for the record, can you now share what the administration feels about BHIP?

[Commissioner Alex Farrell (Department of Housing & Community Development)]: Thank you, Vice Chair Bartley. The administration Talk about a softball. I would very much like to see BHIP in BASE. I'd encourage this committee. I know you all are experts in You know Vihaly very well. Your colleagues down in probes have some information, but maybe not all the information. So they'll probably be inviting our team in more. But I'd encourage you all to hear from Sean Gilpin and his team, and the entire housing division of Vermont could fit on that bench right there. And a good portion of them will likely be lost if it's not put into place. And I'm not trying to say that a program state government should be made permanent simply to stabilize staffing in the housing division, but I am making a broader point about BHIIP. We have 1,200 covenants out there for BHIIP units that need to be administered one way or another, and that staff is who does that right now, and without permanent funding, that staff goes away. That's substantial detriment.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: For your information, I wanna I I have a couple of questions before or pieces of information to exchange with the witness. But before I do, are there other final questions of this witness on the subjects he's been talking about? First of all, just so you know, there's this desire in the committee actually to explore more about the current status of VHIT, and we will be trying to arrange that with you, where exactly the staff you're talking about will want to come in. I think there's an interest in what's changed, what do the regulations look like, what are their specific questions about what they require, the budget, you know, those the VM issues will be there. I do have one other question, but I'll ask it of the representative of VLCT. I'm assuming it's correct that VLCT will develop or has developed a position on this bill, six zero two?

[Samantha Sheahan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Yeah, we have expressed position on components of it.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right. The land use, those

[Rep. Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: include And the the land land use.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The housing components that we've been discussing.

[Samantha Sheahan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Yep. Like for example, for two years, we've supported base funding for EHIP. Right,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: but I mean on this whole section 11 and those others, you'll have a position. Is that position, but I assume, if it's not taken off the wall in the environment, there's no place for you to express the position, or will you just put it out there?

[Samantha Sheahan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Oh, we're expressing it. I'm expressing it at 01:30 in house agriculture. We have serious concerns with Act 21 implementation that

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: are well aligned with the administration.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But this bill, section 11,

[Samantha Sheahan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: the municipal plans, we do not oppose the language to justify the administration. It's achievable, and I guess not to testify on the fly, but they share the suspicion that the common constraint will be infrastructure. Another common constraint will be conservation, existing conservation easement. And then the other will be state regulatory regimes, primarily Act of 50

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: and the roadblock. Okay.

[Samantha Sheahan (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Yeah, so with that critical second half of Section eleven, four demonstrate why we can support it.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Yes. I have to say, I think a lot of the work that we do here, a lot of it is founded in statistics and data, but the other part is those of us who are in the building, we're here because this is what we do. Think that a lot of our policies affect all Vermonters, and they don't have the ability to come in and testify. And by moving forward with this and understanding why we're taking out assumptions and we're able to move forward with municipalities to really figure out what their pain points are and start to gravitate towards solutions that are really dedicated to those specific issues. It's not just throwing spaghetti at the wall anymore, or throwing money at a problem. It's specific policy decisions that we can make from this type of data, so I'm really excited to have this conversation.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you. Any other questions before we break? We're due back at 01:00 where we will be hearing about the impacts on what's going on in the federal scene on labor. Thank you, commissioner. It was a pleasure as always. I'm sure we will see you again.