Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Thank you. Welcome back everybody to the Committee on General and Housing. It's Friday, 02/06/2026. This morning we left off discussing having a walk through with Council of H-seven 57, which is an act relating to manufactured homes and limited equity cooperatives that are manufactured home communities, and our council, Cameron Wood, is assisting us on the walkthrough. We did not quite finish the walkthrough, and so we're continuing it. We had four bill introductions scheduled, Hs eight twenty six, eight twenty seven, eight forty two and eight fifty eight, those will be introduced at a later date, but not today. We do also have testimony on H. Seven seventy two, which is the landlord tenant bill, and then we have a committee discussion about whether or not we should send a letter to our congressional delegation asking them to support a provision that would exempt affordable housing from Build America, Buy America, which we received testimony earlier from Kathy Beyer, but is driving up the cost of housing unnecessarily. So with that, we are going to continue our discussion this morning on H757 on manufactured homes excuse me, on manufactured homes and limited equity co ops that are manufactured home communities.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Take it away. Okay, for the record, Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Council. I'm going bring us back to where we left off last. And I'm

[Speaker 0]: going to

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: pick up with a question that was being asked from Representative Charlton, if I may. So this is the draft amendment and we were on page

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: 10.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That enough there? Okay, so we are talking about, just to reorient back, right, we're talking about limited equity cooperatives, we're not talking about manufactured homes. And we were discussing the provisions that are being included in 8A and B, which would for a mobile home park that is organized as a limited equity cooperative, If it was organized prior to 07/01/2026, the Article III corporation would require that a sublease of the unit can only be done for fair market rent. If it's organized after 07/01/2026, would not be able to sublease the unit unless there was a hardship which was approved by majority vote of the board. Then there was discussion about the current limitation on the subleasing of units, etcetera. The question was about seven, which is the current statutory language. Subdivision seven says, the articles of incorporation shall require that no sublease of a unit shall provide for monthly payments by the subleasee in excess of 110% of monthly payments of the unit provided for the proprietary lease. So remember, these are corporations. Members of the corporation get a proprietary lease to put in one of the units of the building which the Cooperative Housing Corporation is organized to administer for residential purposes. So you as the member have the proprietary lease. Typically that includes a monthly proprietary lease cost to cover things like administration costs, taxes, upkeep of the organization and the property itself. There are restrictions on subleasing those units out, how many, the percentage of units that have to be occupied by members, etcetera. What this is saying, keep in mind, these limited equity cooperatives are designed to support individuals of low and moderate income as their statutory purpose. So this is saying that you can't sublease the unit and the monthly payments for the cost of proprietary lease can only be 110% of the cost. And the question was, if I may try to rephrase, it was about you can only charge 110% of the proprietary lease. Is that inclusive of what you would charge for rents? So think about these as two separate things. You have the proprietary lease costs that you as the member pay. They're your membership dues, we'll call them, if you will, it's your proprietary lease costs. The section says you can only pass that on to someone else at 110%. Can you also charge them a separate rent? I don't know the answer to that question because I don't think the statute is clear. I think one could argue, yes, you can only pass through the proprietary lease costs at 110%. Then you can charge whatever you want for rent. That seems to be contrary to the intent of a limited equity cooperative, which is to serve lower and moderate people. So I think a rational interpretation is this limits the total cost 110%.

[Speaker 0]: Isn't just a point of inquiry, if we're dealing, forget about manufactured home communities, okay? If you're dealing with a limited equity co op that is a building that has got 30 units in it, does your monthly does your monthly payment, payment in the lease, isn't it your rent for the unit? In other words, the unit you see in a mobile home park, you've got two separate things. You've got the land, which is owned by the association, and then you've got the thing in the unit, the box that is owned by the individual. No worries. Well, not always in a mobile home park.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm saying not always for a cooperative housing organization.

[Speaker 0]: You mean in a cooperative housing organization, that's what I'm asking, members can separately own their unit.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: My understanding is there are some that are set up as we've talked about in the manufactured housing community space where there is a cooperative that owns the land and then the member owns the manufactured facility that lives in a lot. But keep in mind, not all these LECs are manufactured home communities. It could be just an apartment building. That's what I'm asking. In that instance, you may not own that apartment. You only own the membership share, guarantees you a right to live in the unit.

[Speaker 0]: And do you separately pay rent?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You would pay whatever the proprietary lease membership fee is. What I'm suggesting is that

[Speaker 0]: for most limited equity co ops that are not mobile home communities, that are a building, that monthly payment that you're multiplying it by 1.1 is a big number.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It could be.

[Speaker 0]: It's the full lease, in which case this would not be unjust at all. In other words, you're just saying to people, okay, if you pay $2,000 or $1,500 a month for your unit to the co op, your unit in this building, can pass that on plus 10%.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Yes, sir.

[Speaker 0]: And that the anomaly is created in a mobile when you apply it to a mobile home park, which has got this split ownership pattern, which is one entity owns the ground, and then somebody else owns the box.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, I think your description is accurate. There could be different scenarios here. My understanding is not every manufactured home community that's an LEC is the same. Some that we have described or done research on, some of them own the manufactured homes that the members just have the same proprietary lease in as they would in an apartment complex, where they don't own the actual unit. Again, a proprietary lease is defined as an agreement with the Cooperative Housing Corporation giving a member's right to occupancy under which a member has an exclusive possessory interest. So it is not a guarantee that when you have a LEC, the person owns the house that they live in. Right. Which means but you have protected against that in this draft

[Speaker 0]: by leaving in seven.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, sir.

[Speaker 0]: And then saying, well wait a minute, if it's not just an LEC, but if it's an LEC organized as a mobile home park, excuse me, a mobile home park organized as an LEC, then these other provisions apply. Okay.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If anyone has questions about that, please feel free to jump in.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: So, am I understanding correctly that if you are on a limited equity cooperative manufactured home community, and you own your home, but you communally own the land on which it sits, if you are making payments on your home to whoever sold you that home, you cannot rent out the home. You can only rent the land that is community

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: owned? No. So, Again, the the corporation owns the land. Right. Right. They could own the building. In some instances, they don't.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Right. So my my hypothetical is that you own the home, but communally own the land, individually own the home and communally own the land. Are we blocking the person who has to make payments on that home when they sublease it? Are they not allowed to

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Current law would block them. Current law says that under, I think, the proper interpretation of this subdivision seven would say if you're going to sublease that unit, you can only charge 110 percent of your proprietary lease costs. And what the chair is saying is for some people that proprietary lease could be rent as you think about typical rents, it's rent that would have to be kept for low and moderate income people, but it could be a thousand bucks, could be $1,500. But then if you own the home, so let's say it's a manufactured home community where you own the house, you're just paying the lot rent to upkeep the property as a whole that the Cooperative Housing Corporation owns, your lot rent could be maybe significantly less. And so depending on what that proprietary lease cost is, depending on what circumstances the housing corporation has been established, that's going to cap, that's going to limit what you can charge in a suburb. I think

[Speaker 0]: your answer to your question is yes. To give you an example, forget about the building, we're just talking about mobile home parks. In a typical mobile home park, the limited equity co op owns the land, you own the box. Okay, let's say you have a mortgage on the box, a thousand bucks a month, and you pay $500 a month on work, you can rent it out for $550, you cannot include your cost of the mortgage.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Because that's the way it

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: was, this changes. Okay. The way that it's read, it

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: just says the unit provided so we're just trying to read more clearly define what you mean by unit provided and proprietary lease? Is what seven It's

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: going to leave seven the same. So for every LEC

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Yes, no, I see. Yeah.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So but then you're adding this eight which says that notwithstanding that, so for a mobile home part of an LAC only, then the Articles of Incorporation shall require that a sublease cannot exceed applicable fair market rent. So it's getting rid of this 110% cap and saying that for these entities alone, for the mobile home parks that are LACs, you can charge fair market rent.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: I get that. But if the whole problem is that app in in the application of seven currently, if the problem I'm sorry, I'm trying to sound frustrated, I'm bit confused. So if the toll if the problem is that you're currently being limited, like if you're paying mortgage payments, if you're not allowed to charge rent to cover those costs of your units, not the land, your unit, then isn't that just a problem with defining unit?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: So I'm I'm with you.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Totally with you. Payments for the unit provided for the proprietary lease.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Because you own that unit. And so and you become the landlord. Oh, you have

[Speaker 0]: to own the unit in

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: order to join the LAC in the first place. Yes. So you're not paying mortgage.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: There you are.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Yes, you are.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Do I own it? Like, I own my home even though it's on a mortgage.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Right. So But most people,

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: if they have a mortgage, whether they whether it's mortgaged or not, you own it. You own that. So as a landlord, you become the landlord. You're subletting. It really doesn't have anything to do with the co op except for that you need co op approval to be able to do that because those manufactured home LEC do not admit subleasing. But wait, let's simplify here again. Simplify. Existing law says if you're in

[Speaker 0]: a mobile home park and you want to rent your unit out, you can charge a certain amount of money, and that amount of money just happens to be stated as 110% of your ground rent, it has nothing to do with your mortgage at all, so if your mortgage is a thousand bucks a month, and your ground rent is $500 a month, too bad, you can only charge $550, you cannot cover your costs.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: For the ground rent, you can't forget about Well, can't

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: include the mortgage and what you charge.

[Speaker 0]: You cannot charge you can charge 110% an amount of money that is 110% of your ground rent. That's the maximum you can charge.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Right, for the ground rent. No, for everything. Just said it. Ground rent, and that's it under That's how it reads. Current law,

[Speaker 0]: let's say I rent to you, okay? I own the unit. I can charge you an amount of money for rent. That amount of money is 110% of what I pay for ground rent. Period. That's all I can charge you. I cannot charge you any more money than an amount equal to 100% of my ground rent. I can't then say, oh, but that was only ground rent, and I'm going to charge you for my mortgage. No, the ceiling is 110%. Period. That's the law now. What we would do is say, no, I can charge you fair market rent. For under HUD fair market rent. Period. I can charge you that, that becomes the amount I can charge you. And the problem is, under current law, which is the problem you pointed out, under current law, the amount of money equal to 100 of the ground rent is much, much less than what your the actual worth of the house or your cost because you have your mortgage, you have Taxes. Whatever, taxes, whatever.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I don't know what average rent lot rents. Put it that way. Lot rents would be what they are. But I'm just seeing it as an equation where you have, you know, fair market's your top, and there's two pieces to your addition puzzle. What you can charge for the lot rent, charge for your units. So the higher your lot rent, the smaller is left in that addition problem that you're allowed to charge for your unit. So if you have I I guess it could still not cover your costs. Right?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: So I'm confused about what you the answer to the co op is what sets the the lot rent based on what the membership votes for.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Then used separately as a owner.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I I'm saying my math equation is fair market rent, let's just use really easy numbers, is thousand dollars. Mhmm. My lot rent that I can charge

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: It's 500.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: It's 500. Sure. I can only go to a thousand, which means at the end of the day, I can only charge $500 to rent my house.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Even if charging them

[Speaker 0]: I know. A thousand.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: But the 500, I'm just covering my rent. I get I get I'm just taking it and handing it to the next person.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Mhmm.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: And the money that comes to me for my unit

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: 500.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Is $500. That's like, if my mortgage is 700, too bad.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Well, right now,

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: it's $50 that we would be getting.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I know. I'm I'm saying this is better. I'm just saying it it all it's you can still have the same problem where So You know, if so here, you're the amount you're allowed to be charged for your unit could still be less than what the fuck they're buy on the place.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Can we write this so that it's a and b under eight a and a b can solve this by just making it clearer. The seven refers to the lot rent, period.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Right.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Eight a and a b refer to the unit, period.

[Speaker 0]: That's so? No. It refer

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Because sometimes you don't know how

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: to deal $800 lot rent. It still is gonna only go to HUD fair market.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: And it keeps that affordable classification. That's right.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: All you can do is charge the total amount

[Speaker 0]: you can do is charge fair market value. But the

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: higher the lot rent is, the harder it is for that unit owner to cover their costs while

[Speaker 0]: they're away. Correct.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Back up for a second. Back up for a second. These are corporations with membership shares that are designed to be live in membership shares. 80 percent of the units in a limited equity cooperative have to be resided by the member. And they are designed for a specific class of individuals, those who are of low and moderate income. But just try not to stray away into the concepts of the person owns it, and then they can rent it out to who they want for what they want. There's a very narrow scope that we're talking about here. And the other piece to keep in mind too, as we've talked, not all limited equity cooperatives are manufactured home communities, so there's a Are

[Unidentified Committee Member]: you guys suggesting

[Speaker 0]: instead of saying fair market rent, that you wanted to say fair market rent plus your lease?

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Unless there's some other provision for HUD to take that into town. Because what I'm envisioning is Somebody something like goes to rehab somebody who's on a low income goes to rehab for four months and gets behind on their mortgage payments because they can't ask for enough

[Speaker 0]: So you you would like it to say instead of you can rent it out for HUD fair market rent. You want it to say you can rent it out for HUD fair market rent plus the amount of your lot rent.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Yeah, around 100%. And my

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: point to you is you are making it such that you are going contrary to the purpose of who these people are supposed to be available to because you have a fair market rent and then you're going to add the proprietary lease on top of it. But it's designed to go to people who are of low and moderate income who aren't going

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: to be able to afford that. But we're asking the lower moderate income person who's already there to subsidize that in their absence.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, I don't know what you mean by a subsidy.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Well, they're they're they're covering more costs than they're able to recover. And they're not in a position to do that to begin with.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But the purpose of the organization itself isn't a sublease. It's for you to live in it as a member. Right.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: So, okay, but the bank's still gonna want their mortgage while you're in rehab. What do

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you do? Possibly. I don't know that you're you're taking one example of one LEC and we're potentially applying its applicability to limited equity cooperatives as a whole, and I don't know that that's how most of them are

[Speaker 0]: set up. I think in most cases what you're worried about wouldn't happen. That is the lot runs pretty small and HUD fair market value is actually much much larger. I mean, it's conceivable. It's conceivable it could happen.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I only brought it up for me because of section b Yeah. Where we're talking about being able to do it for hardships. Like, if that's literally why you're renting your unit out

[Speaker 0]: is Yeah.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Yeah. Because of a hardship. It's like and to help you with your hardship, you only have to lose $300 a month on your unit you're not living in.

[Speaker 0]: You know what we could do? How about this? Tell her the confusion.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I could see, like, means you're allowed to break even.

[Speaker 0]: What if it said, you can rent it out for fair market rent or fair market rent plus your lot rent, whichever is greater. If you want

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: this to apply to all limited equity cooperatives, What I mean is all of

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: them are just mobile home lending? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely just. There's a classification and you have to stay within a certain income level

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: to be

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: able to qualify. And this is supposed to be done on a regular basis. So if it goes above that, you're no longer classified as low to moderate income entity. So once you start adding money, which becomes income, then that creates a problem. They're not supposed to be subletting to begin with. The board would make that decision, and I would imagine if this was changed, they may not make that decision to allow you to sublet, because now you're bringing it into a different class of subletting.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Is the person who the sub lessee, I guess, are they required to have the financial check to make sure they're in the correct

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Each member?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Hold it on

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a member.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Sublease. The sublease. No.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: So how would you know?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Phil Gates could come in and sublease him. That's why you have seven. Okay. Seven says no.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, that's what it's saying.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: It's same way that charge.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm I'm the member, and I have the proprietary leads to live in the unit, and you're charging me this month?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I know. We're keeping it low for somebody who might not need it. You know what I mean? Like, because we're not making sure the sublease fee is over that income range.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: See. Right?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: We're subjecting

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Yeah.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: That unit

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: screened. By the co op. They just don't get the the owner doesn't can't just allow them to move in. They have to get screened by the cooperative also. They need a background check. They need a credit or an English check. They just can't move in. But a credit check isn't what

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: they will say whether or not they're Do they

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: have to match the income levels?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: You look at the income and the credit score.

[Speaker 0]: The credit

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: score doesn't tell you what income level. Do they look at income?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: They look at income and three, two, stubs in last year's.

[Speaker 0]: I'm just wondering if we can get past this section. That's

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: my my only concern is that we are the the portion where it's you can now you can only do this for new mobile home parks for somebody what's the word? Who can demonstrate a hardship.

[Speaker 0]: Mhmm.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Like, if you can demonstrate a hardship, maybe we should let them break you. I don't want them making $2 a month on the unit, but I also think losing it a couple $100 during a hardship or a hardship. Has a hard Part

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: of this,

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: you want the block grant to

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: be able to pay aid if somebody has a hardship and then when they're in the hospital, they go to Florida, because then you have a vacancy in the

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: And you're still out of their portion. Correct. Counsel,

[Speaker 0]: what is your timing? Because we have a witness that we could take fifteen minutes for, but what's your timing?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If I'm moving on past these two things, yeah, for now. Yes. There's two more things that are

[Speaker 0]: here. What's your availability? I

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Sorry about the blood

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: work on Mary chair. Okay,

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I'll tell you

[Speaker 0]: what, let's take a break from this. Yeah, please. Then, is that okay? The court is seeking this witness, then we just break for a minute and have a witness who is testifying, I believe, Maria? That's me. You're here, good. And Maria, is a tenant in St. Johnsbury and she's testifying on Act seven seventy two. Maria, come on up. We'll have the I don't think you've been here, have you? No, I've never Why don't you tell us your name for the record and then we will introduce ourselves to you.

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: Alright, great. So my name is Maria Sussman. I live at 17 3rd Street, Apartment Number 7, St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you. Okay. All right. Debbie?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I'm Debbie Dolgin. I represent St. John's Prairie, Concord and Kirby, and I know you're there. Okay. Hi.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: I am Tom Charlton. I represent at Chester, Jackson, and Joe Parsons, Newbury, Topps and Drop.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Leonora Dodge from Essex Town in the city of Epic Junction.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Ashley Bartley, Fairfax in Georgia. I'm Marc Mihaly, and I

[Speaker 0]: represent Callis and Plainfield and Marshfield.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Saudia LaMont, Memorial Washington District. I'm Mary Howard, I represent Rutland City District 6. Gayle Pezzo, I represent Chittenden 20, Manchester, welcome. Thank you.

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: I ask the question, what would you guys like to know or hear? Because I do have some things written, but let's, it might be better to ask me a question than I can, maybe,

[Speaker 0]: I don't know. Well,

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: both can come.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Oh, okay. So

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: basically what happened to me is that I moved into an apartment in St. Johnsbury approximately two years ago. When I first moved in, most of the things worked in the apartment. I was trying to get a lease, never got one then, but I always paid my rent on time. Well, systematically, everything broke down, the electric, the heating, everything, one after the other, just kept, you know, going, going, going. So I was paying my rent. Then called legal aid and got Rachel Patterson, who became my legal aid lawyer, who's a wonderful person. Without Rachel, I never would have been able to win my case, which took me about nine months, almost a year to win. And I did win my case. And I got a lease and I got most of the things taken care of. They still, I'm still in some, not a legal battle with my current landlord, but I would say I would give them about a two minus on being attentive to my needs.

[Speaker 0]: Questions of the committee? I mean, I've got some, but I'm sure the committee has questions.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Maria, do you know where your landlord is located?

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: Yes, he lives down the street from me, my current one. Okay. Yeah. Was he, he, was the same landlord? No, no, there's more to the story. Well, tell us the rest.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Well, wait, so can we, can I offer, make an offering?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Sure.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: So we're talking about landlord tenant, right? So we're talking about the relationship, what's happening, what's working, what's not. Right. And so just so you can frame what you're gonna share with us around what your experience has been with your landlord and why it's relevant to the bills that we're

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: gonna be taught.

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: Is that helpful? That makes sense. Okay. Don't know what you're talking No. What I don't know is what you're talking about here at this meeting because this all happened very quickly that I yeah. Okay. So I don't really know what all is going on here. The floor is yours. Okay, but my experience was horrible at first. And you know, have some basic knowledge about, let's just say, I studied what Vermont tenant laws and landlord laws revolve around. So it wasn't like I came into it not knowing anything about how I should proceed. But again, to reiterate, without the help of Rachel Patterson, I never would have been able to even attempt to win a case like this. Plus, when I first called her, I explained to her, do I even have a case to win? She said, yes, we work together. At that time, my landlord then, not now, but then, this was like I said about, now it's about eighteen months ago, he was a very irresponsible, terrible landlord, really a slumlord. He had hired a management company, which was even worse than his, than him. So I had a management company to deal with that didn't do anything for me, a landlord who never called me back. Well, after a while, he, the landlord, decided to take his own life. This is all true. Okay? And that mean, you know, let him do what he wants, but he was I I don't I would say I didn't like him. Not only didn't I like him, but he was horrible to me. And so, you know, the fact that he took his life, well, that's his business. But anyway, after he took his own life, his wife sold the property to my current landlord. And he's better, but not perfect.

[Speaker 0]: Did you let's start at So the when you moved in, there were a bunch of appliances that didn't work.

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: Not appliances, more like my electric would go on and off in different rooms. I couldn't take a shower after a while because my whole ceiling in my bathroom fell in, needed all replumbing. Let's see, my kitchen sink was on the blank constantly. I would go into a room. The lights would go out. They'd come back on. Let's see. The heat would sometimes work. Sometimes it wouldn't. The place was falling apart.

[Speaker 0]: So did you complain to your landlord? Yes.

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: Well, I didn't complain. I first, he wouldn't answer my phone calls. Like I said, there was a management company that he hired after I moved in. They were even worse. They never got back to me. Finally, the secretary of that management company did text me back. It took her about five months to get back to me even. I never withheld rent because I know you're not supposed to. And what other questions do you have?

[Speaker 0]: Okay. So you talked to the landlord, tried and not successfully, and then the management company took him a long time to get back. Correct. And then you finally you didn't withhold rent, but Never. Filed a lawsuit, Legal aid filed a lawsuit for you in And your what did you win? Here's what I won.

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: I won a lease agreement, which I was going for in the beginning, but they would you know? I won a lease, a year lease. I won back about $1,000 for all my pain and suffering.

[Speaker 0]: Did you win, were they required to fix the apartment? Yes.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Got it. Can I ask? Please. So you're saying that the prior landlord who no longer owned the property had to pay your current landlord to fix your unit?

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: No. No. Say again? I'm sorry.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Can you Did your unit get fixed before your new landlord moved in? Before your new landlord bought the basic over?

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: Yes. The basic problems were fixed. Okay. There are still problems, but the basic problems were handled. Yes. Okay.

[Speaker 0]: What are the remaining problems?

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: Well, they need to update my electrical system and put in a new, the electrical systems from 1928. The original fuse box that's in my kitchen is from 1928, and it doesn't work right. And so they have to come in and and replace that. That's one thing. I've got a chipping red paint that's chipping, they've got to come in and paint. And that's pretty much what's left

[Speaker 0]: here. Questions? By the committee?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Yes. I'm almost speechless because of what you've gone through.

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: You couldn't have the health department? I did everything a person could possibly have. Was very selective.

[Speaker 0]: You called the health department? Yes, did. What happened?

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: Well, that was when things really got better for me because, again, my lawyer, Rachel, she guided me through all this. Once he came, it was around the same time when the then landlord committed suicide. I know this all sounds crazy, but it's all true. The timing was good for me. I know that sounds strange, but that all so so when the health inspector came in and saw what was going on in this whole building, which actually is not just my unit. There's other problems in this whole building. He started putting up, you gotta fix this notices in the hallways of the elevator so everybody could see it now. So now it became, I guess I was the only resident and tenant in the building that took any legal action. I kept asking people if they're apartments and they said, Oh yeah, we have problems. But nobody was willing to go in on it with me,

[Speaker 0]: so I went on it alone with my lawyer. Yes.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Why do you think that was?

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: Oh, why wouldn't they? Yeah. I think the basic reason is people don't wanna take the time and they're afraid, and who knows why. I don't know why.

[Speaker 0]: Did the inspector come because you you already filed the lawsuit when? I

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: had started it, yes.

[Speaker 0]: And was it your lawyer who suggested that you call the health department?

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: Well, I was gonna do it anyway, but she said that's a good idea. We would talk often, Rachel and I, on the phone and every step of the way I would say, Do you think I should do this? She'd say yes or no. I mean, it was my idea also, but I wanted to get her opinion and she said, Yes, that's what you should do.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Did you ever worry that there was

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: a risk that they would condemn the building and you wouldn't have

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: a home? Yes, I thought about that.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: So now that the repairs have started in your place, have any of your neighbors who said they had problems, have they had their problems fixed now that they're seeing things are changing?

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: Yeah, I don't really know, to be honest with you, because I realized that there were so many problems within the building, and there still are, that I kind of got to a place where I have a job and I mean, go to work, I work part time, sometimes full time, and I live alone. So it kind of got to a point where I had to just take care of myself and I just didn't worry anymore about what's going on with them. Because it was all time consuming, very time consuming.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Yes. When the health department comes, do they just observe your dwelling or do they look at the whole building?

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: Well, when they came a couple of times, they just observed my apartment. He may have gone downstairs to check out the electrical system in the basement, because there's a basement with many fuse boxes. He might have done that. I'm not sure if he did or he didn't. Okay. Yes.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: I have another question. Does anyone in the building, you don't just speak personally to your, to your situation, your personal situation, but does anyone in the building get, any kind of federal dollars like a voucher to be able to pay part of their rent with that?

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: Yes, there are people that get vouchers. And are there any

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Is there anybody within that program that could have advocated? They could have, I mean,

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: I asked around a few people when all this first started and they really didn't want to get involved. They could have, but they didn't want to get involved, it seemed to me, so I stopped asking.

[Speaker 0]: Other questions, yes? Is it fair to

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: say that a lot of times people won't be aborted because they're afraid if it's uninhabitable that they will lose their homes? Did you feel that way ever? I never felt that way,

[Maria Sussman (Witness)]: but I'm sure other, you know, here's another thing, I never felt that way. There are, the building is mixed with both elderly, it used to be a 55 plus building, used to be, but it's not anymore. And so there are people of all ages, however, there are a few really elderly people, I could count five or six of them. I'm sure they don't have the wherewithal to start a case, even if they wanted to. Does that answer? It adds

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: to it though. Thank Any

[Speaker 0]: final questions for this witness? Well, that's quite a story. Thank you for taking the trouble to come all the way in and testify in I person, I appreciate think we all appreciate it. Thank you. You are welcome, thank you. Are now coming back to the Mobile Home Community bill, and we were in the midst of grilling our counsel, and I think you're going to continue that interaction.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Okay.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You're back to seven fifty seven then mint draft 1.1. Okay. Okay, so we were talking about limited equity cooperatives. We were talking about the changes to authorize different charging for subleasing for a limited equity cooperative mobile home park. How about this? I'll mention the last two things that I want to bring up to the bill for this amendment. Please. And then back over to you with where you would like to go, Mr. Chair. So a few other quick things to note about the amendment. Initially the bill as introduced had some section language here under B, which was about this is page 11. The secretary of state must treat them or register them as nonprofits. If you recall, we discussed you had the Secretary of State's office in here. I removed that section, and I have some language in a separate document that I want to run by you. I haven't received sign off from the Secretary of State, but I think it accomplishes what you all were discussing with that office of trying to accomplish. So I'll get to that in a second. But it was removed from here, just acknowledging that. Subsection B was here in a slightly different form. It has been somewhat reworded to say that a mobile home park organized as a limited equity cooperative shall be treated for the purposes of state funding and grants as if it were incorporated as a state nonprofit corporation for a public purpose and public benefit under the laws of the state. So this is for state funding and grants. As you all talks amongst yourselves, my understanding is the desire here is to ensure that when these entities are applying for state funding and grant, they're not having to jump to additional hoops by nature of the fact that their business organization structure may not reflect nonprofit with the Secretary of State's office.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I'm just remembering our conversation at that time about it was kind of because it doesn't say it's a nonprofit right there, or some of them even say for profit, I believe I heard.

[Speaker 0]: They used to say for profit, now they call them business organ business.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: And business

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Yeah. Equity sub tier of a sub section. Yeah. And it was kinda like I mean, we basically function as a nonprofit, it's not in the name, so we'd have to jump through extra hoops every time we want to apply for funding, that's for nonprofits.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: We also made some consistency at the time when the list itself, some said nonprofit and some said profit, and they were the exact same model.

[Speaker 0]: But then when we realized what was the underlying purpose of all of this, it was to get it just what's in this section.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: My question is, mean this is, I don't remember the number, 19 out of 200 and some parks? No.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Out of 238 parks.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Are there other

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: business organization style parks that truthfully act I mean, they function in a way that you consider a nonprofit who are going to continue to have to jump through hoops every time, and we're only grabbing a little bit of that 230.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: So the private, it wouldn't affect it. It has

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: No. No. I'm just saying

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: The nonprofit owned by the state?

[Speaker 0]: There's only, I think, answer I don't know the numbers, Jorge. I think there's only three kinds. There are limited equity co ops that are manufactured home parks. There's state owned home parks. Non profit. They're non profit. They are non profit. They're organized as non profit. They're owned by the state. I just told you everything I know about them. And Maybe more. And then there are

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Sorry.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I I'm just wondering. We got 230

[Speaker 0]: I don't think there are other types of other sort of quasi

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Yeah. I'm just wondering if others are structured in a way, even if they're for profit, where you'd say the structure that they've created for their for profit part is pretty nonprofit.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. I I get you, and I don't know.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: But they're not at

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: this point, they're not eligible for any of these grants.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Yeah. I know. I'm just saying we're grabbing a small section. I'm wondering if there's a larger section within that 200 and everything. I

[Speaker 0]: think the answer is I think not. I think it's either your for profit Non profit. Or your nonprofit, or your this. Yeah. But I don't know.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: And just I want to say this because I don't think it's been set enough. When I set out to propose this bill, it's about new builds. We have to fix the problems in existing stocks so we can move on to new builds and they don't run into these same exact problems.

[Speaker 0]: Okay, counsel.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, the other change, so two things remain. Sub So B, like I said, it was there, it's been slightly changed to try to accomplish my understanding of the discussion with the Secretary of State's office. What is removed, the next big change is what you don't see in this document, which is there was a section related to storm water impact fees. You all remember that Michael had come in and spoke to you about those storm water impact fees. That section has been removed entirely.

[Speaker 0]: And I'm responsible for that because even I just I think everybody knows, I'm very concerned about going over to the environment committee on an issue which is so part of a huge issue that they couldn't address. And I received contradictory information, but finally the ranking member consulted with me at the request of the speaker. And at the moment, the feeling is better leave this issue to when they can deal with the whole issue and not try to take it on now. My concern is that this bill, like a number of our bills, has a rather, you know, is going to have to visit other committees and I don't want it to go somewhere where it will be. Hung up because of so that's the that was the reason, so it's just gone for now. So the remainder

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of the bill remains the same. Why don't

[Speaker 0]: you just very briefly tell us section four, is that?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So this is just addressing, this was I'm just refreshing our memories here.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Yep, 100%,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This 100 was the section that would be Ellen came in and spoke to you about this wanting to clarify that for municipal zoning if they're allowing year round residential development they'd have to allow mobile homes modular housing and prefab housing. So this is here at the bottom of lines twenty and twenty one. And this applies to all mobile manufacturers. Municipalities and would apply to all manufactured housing, this isn't limited to co ops or mobile home. And it doesn't say that's the allowed it says it has to allow molecular prefabricated or mobile home housing. And

[Speaker 0]: section five is the same in the sales and use tax exemption, it's not limited, it applies to all manufactured housing.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The rest of these tax sections, it talks about changing, getting rid of the kind of sales and use tax from transferring all manufactured housing over to property transfer tax, that's not limited to mobile home cooperatives. And then you get to the end, so I believe this starts at section seven on page 13. This isn't my area. This is John Gray's area. But I did confirm with him that the provisions that would exempt limited equity cooperatives from the property transfer excuse me, if you go down to I believe it's page 15 would be excluding limited equity cooperative mobile home parks from the property taxes. That is limited to mobile and or manufactured owned community limited equity cooperatives. And it is

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Sorry. Can you say that again?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. I started off, I think, prematurely on the wrong section. First pieces of all of the sections related to taxes, it goes from no longer treating the manufactured homes as a sales and use tax, treating all of them as property transfer tax that applies to all of the manufactured homes not just limited equity cooperatives. But then you get down here to page 19 and you're excluding from property taxes the real property owned by the mobile home limited equity cooperative. So that didn't need an amendment. It was already narrowly tailored to just the limited equity co op that are mobile home parks, so there was no change in what's based on So what was

[Speaker 0]: there are tax provisions, all the tax provisions apply to all mobile homes, except there is a provision that exempts the property owned, the ground, owned by a limited equity co op mobile home park. It exempts it from property taxes because that property does not have a value, it cannot be transferred, except If you

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: recall, if it ever is dissolved and then sold and then pay off its debts, any of the remaining assets have to be transferred to either a nonprofit or another limited equity cooperative. So its value is limited in that way. It's not going to be sold for any profit at some point in the future, I. E. It's limited by those restrictions. Questions,

[Speaker 0]: Gayle?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: So but that does not mean that the homeowner is not paying tax on their unit.

[Speaker 0]: Right, they have to pay taxes on

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: their everybody. Property tax. Property tax.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: They do, yeah. Property tax, not a

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: sales user. Property tax, as they are now. Yes. So right now they're paying for their property and they're paying for the co op. So it's almost like double taxing.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Really? Because I get taxed on a house and my land.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. But the thing is, it's not their land. It's yeah.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's yeah. I

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: will make my point once as a I have thought of this section, which is that if we are talking strictly about the person in the unit, that person never sees the value of the land their unit is on regardless of the structure of the park.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: But they're not taxed on it if because it's not owned by the county. Right?

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: So the it doesn't go to the the

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: park or if I sell my unit, I'm only selling my unit. Right? I never

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I never realize the value of the

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: landowner, not the unit occupier, pays the pays the property taxes on that land. But here, the owner and the the owner of the unit is paying property tax on the unit, just like in your scenario.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Exactly.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: But the cooperative

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Yes. And in that case, it is Being the private home park owner is putting that into their cost of the

[Speaker 0]: lot rent. Their taxes, yes.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: It's a very

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Okay, no, that's not true. That's not true. Because when you're paying your lot rent, that does encompass what you're paying for the co op property, but you're also paying your property, your personal property. You're shaking your head.

[Speaker 0]: Let's take these two side by side. You have somebody who owns I own a mobile home unit, a manufactured home, in an LEC. Joe owns the same manufactured home in a for profit park. Both Joe and I pay property taxes on the value of our manufactured home, period. That's all we pay. Correct. The for profit homeowner, excuse me, the for profit park also pays property taxes on the value of the land they own, the equity co op would pay property taxes on the value of the land they own, it just has zero value, because unlike the property owned by the for profit landowner, he can sell the park and sell the land and have a value, it has market value. Because of the Oregon nonprofit, not the nonprofit, of the LEC status, they can't sell it for anything, so it's valued at zero. Now, across the state, listers don't know what to do, so some listers list it at market value, as if fair market value, as if they could transfer it, they don't get that they can't transfer it. Some listers like Tri Park get it and charge them zero. The reason they charge them zero is because it's not that they're exempt, it's that they value it at zero, because they understand that. And everything in between. And so the purpose of this section was just to regularize the way that LEC's are taxed. Recognizing that the LEC that's organized as a manufactured home community that's organized as an LEC, it's land. The land owned by the LEC has no value. No market value. And you can't borrow despite I don't think no. You can't can't borrow against it. The individual can't borrow.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: The co op can.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: The co op can.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: The co op can.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Right. But not the individual.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Right. They can't borrow. That's why it's really hard to get refinanced as well because you don't own the property.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I guess that throws a wrinkle in it. The limited equity co op can borrow and use the land it's collateral. Borrow against it?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: They're using the income of the

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: members because that's the only income that you actually have coming in, it's the But not the value of the real property. So my understanding, it's not my area so you may want to talk to other people with better expertise, the property has it is worth something, the limitation is if it is ever dissolved and sold, anything that remains, you own the cooperative housing, you sell the property for $20,000,000 it has a value, but at the end after you pay off your debts and you pay the members their ownership fee, their share, then anything that remains must go to a nonprofit or another limited equity block. So the public purpose is restricted there.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Elizabeth, did you have a question? I did.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I was looking at it from a different angle, which was the payment of property taxes, and if the purpose of an LEC is to keep the housing affordable, and there is an affordability limit on the LEC, then isn't it moved because the income levels of owners would be at a level where they wouldn't owe property taxes.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Not necessarily. You mean if they own their own home somewhere else?

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: No, no. If the income levels

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: are limited for the people that live

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: on a

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: condo. We have to find

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: your eligibility sensitivity in Vermont. So wouldn't it be moot anyway? Because they would likely, if they were part of the LLC, they would likely fall under the equal sensitivity guidelines in the first place? When our towns send out the property taxes bills every year

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: to pay for our education functions,

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: There is a level of income sensitivity that I think this year, for example, it's $127,000 for a household. So if you fall under a household of four and earn less than $127,000 you get income sensitivity. But

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: that's a separate unit that doesn't have to do with the co op because the co op is a business. So just to give you an example, and I'll use Castleton, the value of the land was 363,000. When they got reassessed, it went from 1,600,000. So that gets divided amongst the amount of units that are, they can't afford that because of their income sensitivity. The only advantage there is now that raise their homestead eligibility, but it's not by law, that's not how it's really supposed to be done.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Okay, so then that brings up my next question, or it begs another question, which is the homestead status is for the unit and not for LSA. Which is why the property tax should remain solely with I'm with you. Why property tax collection should be home solely with the unit because that's where the homestead is anyway.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: And it's almost a sixteen ten. Correct? As far as how it's how our LEC should be taxed.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Right.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: That's how it's just right?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: The secondary question to that was the second part of my thing was in your example,

[Speaker 0]: Castleton? Castleton. Castleton.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: They are now exempt from 1.6, does that just fall on the rest of the town, like, as if it was town absorbing land?

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Yeah. And

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: now the taxes are the same, but we're just narrowing down the number of people that have to pay for it.

[Speaker 0]: That's true of That's true. All nonprofits. Yes. Right. So for example, when I was dean of the law school, we didn't pay taxes. So, the town now what we did is negotiate a separate agreement with the city because we wanted to pay for our fair share. You know, we had to, and that's true of all cities that have like monculiar bitches all the time because they have to provide services to all of us, but the state doesn't pay taxes.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Can I piggyback off? Because another part of that also that needs to be considered is that entities, they pay municipal taxes and they pay ed taxes and they get no services whatsoever. No municipal services.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: It's just like a private road would though.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Well, look, yeah, they look at it as I

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: don't get any municipal services on my private road. Right. But I still pay education taxes and taxes. I guess I want to piggyback off of Joe's question, if that's okay, is so now the entire, the other individuals in the municipality are taking over that tax burden for a choice that other people have made that they had no say in. So like I'm saying like joining a co op is a choice of the co op. I guess I just don't understand how it's not a choice. It's not

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: a choice because the law says when a private entity goes up for sale, that it has to be offered to the people that live there. So under duress, because you don't have really but two choices, actually three. You can buy the property, but the whole entity has to buy each lot, which is not affordable right now, it would be $45,000 or you become a nonprofit or you can become a limited equity cooperative. Otherwise, in that eighteen months, you have to move out. You only have eighteen months to make a decision whether you want to go to the closing table, how you can do this or you must move your unit because usually it's developers that want to take it over or it can be someone that wants to have a mobile home park.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Do we know how often that happens?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: How often, which part of it happens?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The HDHCD has that information.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: They have that information and one of the other problems with that is it's very hard to get financing if you're small because people don't, bankers, lending institutes, that was another part of what I wanted in the bill is maybe some subsidy because somebody just bought one in Shelburne because they couldn't become a co op. And the nonprofit, whatever it is, they didn't want it, it's too small, it was only like 14 units. So, you all want to duress, you have to make a choice at that time, what is it that you wanna choose?

[Speaker 0]: Also though, in response to the concern that the members of the community are picking up the taxes, all of the residents pay taxes on their lots. Mhmm. So we're just talking about the common land that is owned by the coop, and the common land that's owned by the co op are the streets, the sidewalks Everything. But not So, I suspect that much of the value is so the only difference between a subdivision and a co op is that in a subdivision, there's taxes that's paid on common areas, whereas in the co op, taxes are not paid on the common areas.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Well, they are. We don't don't want them to. Yeah. Right. But I wanna ask Ashley something. And you are a private entity. If you have a water break and the street needs to be excavated, do you have to pay for that? All of it. Yes, Okay,

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: yep. Because I live on a private road. I don't get plowing, I don't get any of that. I still pay my property taxes. I still have to pay everything, but I live on a private road. So the municipality is not gonna service anything for you. Or

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: the cables and wires coming up to your house. You have to actually pay for yourself for why we don't have cable. Because it would have cost $100,000 to get the wire to come up to our house.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Right, if she was an HOA? We have to. Yes, but you have equity. If you go to sell that, your home, you have equity, correct? But what if

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I never sell my home? But

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: it has value. You can borrow one eventually.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: You're not gonna live forever. I'm sorry.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: A little better I'm though.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I don't think I'm ready to vote on this bill. I think we all have a lot of questions. I know Marc has a meeting, so maybe this should be tabled until next week.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. I think that what we need to do, it's clear that I have to go in ten minutes. It's clear that we need to think about this or talk about it more and answer questions. Although I think it's mostly at this point discussion. I would be curious to know, I don't know if you can find out between now and next week. My impression is that I'd like to know in a typical part how much of the value lies in the houses and how much lies in the common land.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: That's, in other words Money wise? Yeah, just like, you know So one sold for 11,000,000, one sold for 12,000,000, another one sold for 5,000,000. The houses themselves, depending, each house right now, the market value on manufactured home is really very high. In the three that I know of very well, they're selling from 68 to 190. So that's right now.

[Speaker 0]: I guess what I'm wondering is really how much are we're talking about the common area. And I'm just wondering how much of that really is. I suspect most of the values in the house.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Can I, before we split, get an understanding of what when we say common areas, it's not like the playground and the roads? It's the land. It's at all the land. It's the lots. The common area all the land's owned by it. Right. It's not like the common areas. Right. My lawn isn't the common area, but it still is land that's owned by Limited Equity Co.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: It's it's owned by the Collaborative.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Yeah. So I think the com using common area. That's right. You're right. It's all

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: the land.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: All the land.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Yeah. It's all the land. Right.

[Speaker 0]: I mean, the purpose of this, and the reason that all these institutions that are favoring using manufactured homes as a way of reducing, as a way of promoting a form of housing that is affordable to people. The reason they want co ops is because if you tack the underlying land, it's just going to be passed on to everybody in the form of extra rent for the lot. So the co ops have lower rent for the lot, which means they are providing low income housing, and that's what's really, that's the policy issue right there, and that's why they do it. That's why we think an appropriate approach to this is to exempt them from property tax. We could go another route, which is simply we could instruct, do everything we could to instruct assessors statewide that they had to understand that the value is zero, the effect would be identical.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I would be in favor of working to assess them properly.

[Speaker 0]: Right, which is zero. It's the same thing.

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I don't think it's zero. I think for me it's not zero.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: By 1610

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: I don't think there's any land on planet Earth that has zero value.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Well It has zero value to the people that reside

[Speaker 0]: there. Every

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: park does.

[Speaker 0]: But What?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: Every park does.

[Speaker 0]: I guess this is a policy issue, because under that theory, then all of our nonprofit institutions should pay taxes on their property. They don't now. Churches should.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: That's where What about churches?

[Speaker 0]: About do they all

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: pay property taxes?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Okay. And also the massive property owners who create a nonprofit so that they could put their

[Speaker 0]: their properties.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Nonprofits meaning 503C or family of trusts.

[Speaker 0]: Let me do the nonprofit industrial complex. Okay, well, I think we have stated our difference.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I'm not

[Speaker 0]: unsympathetic, but think it's the policy question. What we'll do is work to schedule a plan for this next week, take it from there. And we have one more issue which you are going to take over, right?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: So I'm just reading it and then you'll say yes or no?

[Speaker 0]: Right, okay, I'll tell you what, I have time to introduce it, I have to walk out. I'm gonna go get a file.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Do you need me to pull this discussion?

[Joseph Parsons (Member)]: No, I just turned it on then. Okay.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: You Thanks, Mary. You like the ride.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: You. Have a good weekend. So

[Speaker 0]: when Kathy Byer from Champlain Housing testified, One of the things that she said that was really contributing, one thing you could really do as a committee that might help contribute to lowering the cost of housing was to support efforts in Congress to exempt affordable housing from the Buy Americans the BABA bill, that is, Buy

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: America, Buy America Act. So,

[Speaker 0]: we asked her to draft a letter to tell us what she meant. The letter had to go through a change because now what happened is they took that provision. It was in the Housing for the twenty first Century Act, and now it's been taken out, and we're asking the congressional delegation to support efforts to put it back in, a provision that would Exempt. Exempt housing costs from Requirements for And with that And so the reason that we're bringing it to you now is the bill is under consideration next week. And so if we're gonna do this, really want to get it out, or we don't do it. And with that, I'm turning

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: the meeting to you. Alright.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: So my question is, would you like me to read this out loud to you, or would you all like to singularly read it yourselves?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Just read it to us.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Alrighty. Dear members of Vermont's congressional delegation, thank you for your longstanding commitment to affordable property in Vermont and your continued support for federal policy and investments that strengthen our communities. Your leadership has been instrumental in expanding housing opportunities and meeting the needs of families, workers, and seniors across the state. Despite progress, Vermont faces a worsening housing shortage and rise of construction costs. As state legislative leaders collaborating with developers, municipalities, and housing organizations, we are seeking solutions to ease the cost burden while ensuring long term economic health for the entire state. We are increasingly concerned about the impact of the Build America, Buy America Act on affordable housing development. Although well intentioned, BABA requirements have added cost pressures and delays, making them especially challenging for projects with limited financing. We are writing regarding the Housing for the twenty first Century Act, H. R. 6,644, which incorporates key elements of the Home Reform Act and demonstrates bipartisan commitment to addressing housing supply constraints nationwide. We appreciate the bill's emphasis on flexibility, program modernization, and increased housing production. We also note that the updated bill now directs HUD to evaluate BABA's impact and issue updated guidance within ninety days. However, we are concerned that the provision to exempt certain home funded affordable housing from BABA requirements was not retained in the current version of the legislation. BABA was not intended to broadly apply to affordable housing programs, although it was designed to strengthen domestic manufacturing for traditional infrastructure, its application to HUD funded housing has created unintended barriers that undermine housing production goals, especially in rural states like Vermont. We respectfully urge you to support restoring a targeted BAVA exemption for home funded affordable housing in any final version of the bill. Fair statutory relief would provide certainty to the state developer and communities and remove a significant barrier to delivering urgently needed housing. A targeted exemption would maintain BABA's core intent while ensuring federal housing investments are deployed efficiently and at scale. A economy depends on a healthy housing sector. Advancing the Housing for the twenty first Century Act and addressing the unintended impact of BABA on affordable housing will help ensure that the federal investments provide the greatest benefit to Vermont communities. Thank you for your continued leadership and partnership on housing issues. We welcome the opportunity to discuss this further with you or your staff. Sincerely, Chair House Committee on General and Housing on behalf of the Vermont House General Committee.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Thoughts? I guess the only thought I have is if we don't vote unanimously on this, is it from the whole committee? Or just the chair. Or just the chair? Or do we want to put

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: our individual names? Yes. The name. I vote. It should have housing in the name, of course. At least it doesn't have finance. House of Vermont House

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: General Committee. So we could fix the name. General and Housing Committee.

[Speaker 0]: I,

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: How do people feel about how we really haven't had testimony on Baba?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I I wouldn't be interested. I don't

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: think we have We've had one person come in

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: and talk to us about it.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: And we haven't we certainly haven't discussed it. We've we've

[Speaker 0]: So

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: what would happen if it wasn't a unanimous? So I think,

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I don't know, I don't think something like this takes about.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: So I think if it wasn't unanimous, I think everyone could just sign And it not sign it if you don't agree? Is that what you're saying? I don't think, I mean, I have a rules book in my desk,

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: but this is like an unofficial thing.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Yeah, I mean, when we write letters on behalf of organizations, if it's not a unanimous thing, then it's just individual.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Yeah. So

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: I asked that, I guess, right out the gate, but should have first started with like, so yeah, some folks may feel like it hasn't been discussed, but I feel like I have heard since last session testimony that leads me to believe very strongly that this would kill our housing infrastructure, our new construction, because we keep hearing that the prices are going up and up and up and up, and there are elements of building a new house that require imported things that are simply not made in this country. And I definitely heard people say that. I definitely heard people say, we don't make heat pumps in And this

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: this would

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: basically stop us from building a house because we can't put, I mean, unless we wanna do a coal beaded

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: house. I think Deborah had a question.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: No, we've heard that the manufactured homes come out of Pennsylvania. I know there's a window company in Ohio that is built in America. They just sell out of Ohio. They bypassed it for the living. Not every house has to

[Speaker 0]: have a heat pump. I

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: think it's so the issues in building and construction area in the Northeast is steel, most of your passengers from Halasnow.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Lumber? And And our proximity to Canada, where

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Well, but the reason it's a it's a laden question. It's not simple. The reason we don't have lumber mills here is because the Canadian government subsidized their lumber industry, undercut them, closed all the two mills in May.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: And that we never had the trees that are best for building.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Oh, we we've got trees there. You see them on trucks headed because of it all the time.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: No. They've been treated here maybe, but they probably come from New York State. For some building, yes, they're cabinet making and beautiful countertops.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: My word is that

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: the building not very heavy.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Can I ask the question because I don't know the answer? This is going to sound so silly. Are we talking, is it I don't know the answer? And so again, I'm like, I don't know, I need to look into it. Is this big A

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: or little a? Do you know the answer?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: What do you mean big A?

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Affordable. So what leads me to wanna sign this is that we heard from the person who is in charge of getting the dollars to build, and they know what they need to buy to build, and they are concerned that something that had already existed, an exemption that had already been the way that they've operated, suddenly is going to be, that exemption is suddenly going to be removed. And this is going to be a new requirement that they used to not have to do, that other non profits yep, sorry, go ahead. I keep hearing I'm trying to

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So there

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: was a provision for affordable housing in the draft. In the current version of the draft, it's been taken out. Yep. This is us

[Speaker 0]: So they're hoping putting it back in.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Yeah. This is us expressing expressing our our request to to put it back in. So that they don't have a new a new pressure.

[Speaker 0]: Well, they already have it.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: What's I

[Speaker 0]: mean, we already

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: have the tariff pressure. Well, we don't follow. Right?

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: We don't have the the the final product, like having to build the

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: what?

[Speaker 0]: Yeah.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Sorry. Bubble?

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: What? No. I don't know what

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: we can't look at each other.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: We're not laughing, so stop looking at each other. But, yeah, sorry, go ahead.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: I mean, the costs are higher. Yeah, this would make up. I don't know how much higher it would with the tariffs already in place. Because right now, if you can get it's going to cost you much closer to the same to buy these materials and the elastic tariffs in place now in place. I don't know if it's gonna go up. I don't like I'm not saying tariffs are good. Just saying I think the damage is already done. I think Bob was gonna undo it.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Yeah. But I think it's gonna be

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: that way. It won't stop. No.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: It might not. Maybe they're going to Bob might not stay there either. Who knows? Well,

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I guess one question is, even if it doesn't make any difference, what difference would it make if we I mean, does it really matter whether we if we don't sign, we're making a statement that we don't want that. If we do sign like, if we what difference does it make whether we sign or not sign? That is my the real ultimate question. What difference does it make? Does it really harm us to when when the real question is where the money is coming from and how much money involved all that stuff, ultimately, the question before us is, does it really matter whether we sign or not? But I think making a statement either way. It's not gonna change anything either way. It's just asking for this to be added back in. It's and it's still not changing the state of affairs.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: But it's not making a statement by making the request for it to be added back in? I mean, that is making a statement.

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Oh, we're not making a statement against VABA. Think the intention is if we can keep housing a little bit more affordable than the realm of affordable housing, make that exception, please.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Yes. Right. Yeah. So as they consider BABA, if you're gonna consider BABA, whatever the form and whatever, please make sure that this is part of the consideration. And as far as we're not weighing in on Baba, and we are not weighing in on whether Baba will actually make a difference or not. And so my question is, is there really a reason not to include our names

[Unidentified Committee Member]: on it? Is there a reason not to?

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Yeah, I see what you're saying.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: My original question was just, I personally, Ashley Bartley, for Ashley Bartley, not even my constituents, I'm fine signing onto this. My question for the committee was, does anyone feel like they need more information?

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: I did.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Don't think it really meant. To me, it doesn't really meant. It's not gonna make a difference, and so I'm willing to sign.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think with your tools

[Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: that we're trying to work through right now, I wouldn't wanna give it a lot of time.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: You should do that. Okay. So then my recommendation to Marc, It sounds like most of us are comfortable signing. We have some people who are not here, and maybe we'll have Marc just touch base with them. Maybe just on Tuesday have like a yes, no, and then if it's not unanimous, we'll just individually sign. Do you feel comfortable with that?

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: I think that's great. I'd rather we can hooking into it, see what you need

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: And to do, figure it

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: then we'll change the name. Or don't. Or don't. Yeah, or don't. But you can at least say you have the time to look

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: at it. Right. Put me

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: on the list of people who is willing to sign.

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Me too.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Just need

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: to look at the rest of people

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: from our house, general and science.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I know what I'm like, That

[Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: was hilarious. I think we are good to be. No adjourned. Will you turn? In a second.