Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Kirsten Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: Big brother.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right there. Welcome everybody, welcome to the House Committee on General and Housing, and today is the April and Wednesday. We at 09:00, convene jointly with the Senate Committee on Economic Development Housing and General Affairs to celebrate the beginning of Fair Housing Month and take testimony. What we're doing now is taking testimony again on Senate bill, which was referred to us yesterday, S-three 28, which is a housing bill, common interest community that comes from that senate committee that we met with jointly. And it is their sort of I shouldn't use the word omnibus. It is their kind of cumulative housing bill that has a number of elements to it, and we took some testimony yesterday, and we're continuing with testimony today. We will have a little time for committee discussion just to sort of update on where we are with this bill. Another bill we've been dealing with is S-two 30, and we will have committee discussion on S230 later in the year, and then also on Thursday, in aka tomorrow, taking up S89, which is expanding survivor benefits. So now we're on 03/28 and we have a number of witnesses and our first is Kirsten Murphy. Kirsten, have you? I think you've been here, haven't you? Yes, I have. All right, Well, want to introduce yourself and take it away.

[Kirsten Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: All right. Thank you so much. For the record, I'm Kerst Sharpey. I'm the Executive Director of the Vermont Developmental and Disabilities Council. There's also the chair of the Act sixty nine committee that delivered to the legislature the report, The Road Home, which is what I presented to you earlier in this session. Once in this room and then once in a joint, if there are any more detail. I have some slides to share, so if that's all right, I'm gonna move back to pulling up.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Let us know if you need any Oh, we have a new view!

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, from the moment I want to mention to everybody, our normal camera is broken, Our audio is not, so we have a substitute camera, which is perhaps a little different, we'll The do it for the problem is, for those who are on remote, you cannot see the face of the speaker of witness.

[Kirsten Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: He? That's right. Okay. I'd always like to state the beginning and testifying that developmental disabilities councils, there's one in every state and territory, we are created by Congress, we are funded by Congress. So I have special permission to speak on behalf of my council, a public board that is sixty percent individuals with developmental disabilities and their family members. So unlike most state employees, I'm speaking on behalf of my council, and I'm committed to do that without further permissions from the agency of human services that were passed. I am gonna just advance. That's a picture of a Waterbury complex that we expect to see finished this summer. And three apartments in that complex are gonna be for people with developmental disabilities, and they'll receive support through Upper Valley Services. So you will recall that I presented the Road Home to you, and that is a 13 plan for increasing permanent, affordable housing that's service supported and is specific to one group of Vermonters served by the Agency of Human Services. That's the roughly 3,400 people that receive developmental disability services. That is not all the people that Agency of Human Services supports through home and community based services. It is a specific group. And the idea in section, I believe six now of S328 of having an advisory committee to help continue to implement the recommendations in the road home and explore additional resources and opportunities to create or service supportive housing. The idea of having this council was one of the 13 recommendations. So just a reminder again of the problem that the the SAC sixty nine group is attempting to solve. Look at this pie graph. This is how housing situations are distributed among the population And they're following you'll see that almost in equal slices of the pie, 39% live with family members, many of whom are in their 70s and reaching the end of their ability to really offer care to their son who receives these developmental services. And another 39% live in what we call shared living. It's essentially a foster care model. It's been very successful for some people, not everyone, but it is becoming much harder to recruit home providers for that work. And we are underrepresented in some of the models that other states tend to use, living in one's own apartment with or without supports and some sort of small, and we've always had small in Vermont through Quebec. So we are looking to have that pie and we don't know the exact right number or distribution, but it should be more evenly spread among these various types of residences. Some of which can look like within group living, it can look a lot of different ways. It can look like what they call an intentional community where people sort of have a kind of special lifestyle they want to share, it can just look like three friends that want to live together, which is pretty normal in their 20s. That's the problem we're attempting to solve. And today the question is why do we need an advisory committee for that? So let's just review what the bill- Sorry, could I ask one quick question? Of course. That one percent of unstable you have. Yes. Does that take into consideration those living with family members who are perhaps not able to really offer the cares that they Yes. Once It does not. These are people who are in genuine crisis. We did not use to break out that group, but in 2024 it was 25. These are people that are in temporary situations. So they might be staying in a hotel, they might be staying in a bed that they were able to find in what's called a residential care home used by a different service system. They might be in their certain respite beds and emergency beds. So these are not people who are like one of our great families from the Developmental Disabilities Housing Initiative, who she and her husband are in their mid-70s, their son has lived with them for the last four years and her husband had a stroke easily. But that was not considered as stably fast. If you were to throw a dart at the board, kind of give a rough percentage of the thirty nine percent, what do you think we would be looking at for those who really, we need to figure out next step? Unfortunately, the DDSD, the developmental system has never tracked the age of caregivers. That's not data they collect. One of the ideas on the table that I want a committee to make happen is that we start taking that data and that we also ask each family and each individual about specific questions about their housing situation. So I can give you a better estimate. I don't wanna tell you something that hasn't been vaccinated. Well, think it's great just hearing that that's really something that we need that information. And as we go through the things that the bill will ask the committee to do, that level of binary data collection and needs assessment is called in the legislation. Gorgeous, thank you. Because I have some friends who have a child who, parents were a couple and they

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: split up. And so is that one housing scenario I or know you don't know, but it would

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: be useful to have that.

[Kirsten Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: That's the actual, so now that we have two case management entities that oversee this system as opposed to 15 separate agencies, it is gonna be a lot easier to work with the case management entities to collect that information. It's a very short presentation, so I'd like to just complete the review and then take some questions. All right, so the bill says that in a very wordy way, that the purpose of having a supported housing advisory council is to align the folks that work on human services and the folks that work on housing to get them together, working together, aligned. And it suggests an 11 member advisory council. This almost exactly mirrors the composition of the Act 69 group that produced the road home. And what I wanna say about this is two things. One of the really, I think really smart things that the legislature did in setting up this committee initially under Act 69 was to put people in the room that just don't get to problem solve together. Having a representative from the treasurer's office was huge. Having a representative from the Housing and Conservation Board really working closely with representatives from the agency of human services, surfaced all kinds of areas of confusion around things like the wooden chart and what kinds of licenses group situations need and how that has a bearing on what the VHCV people would think about in terms of where they want to invest funds. So it was a really productive group of people to have together. I'm anticipating a question as to why there are two seats for members of the parent group, the Developmental and Disclosed Housing Initiative, and two for Green Mountain Self Advocates. That wasn't a recommendation in the road home. That is because when people have the least access to government resources and understanding how government operates, you are at a disadvantage in those kinds of forums. And so I convinced the committee that it was really important that those groups were given two seats so that people felt more comfortable bringing forward their lived experience and bringing that to the table. The duties line in report or in the law, the bill talk about reporting annually to you all, the four committees of jurisdiction, the House of Human Services, Senate Health and Welfare, and then Senator Clarksons Committee. And these are pretty broad bullet items, but I'll just sort of give you some examples. Administrative and programmatic reforms. There are lots of recommendations in the road home that don't travel through the legislature and yet need a cheerleader to make sure that they happen. So some of them have to do data collection. I mentioned the licensure issue, which there's already a subcommittee I'm chairing to be working on recommendations around some revisions to licensure. There are some issues around opening up existing housing section eight waiting lists and encouraging this population, which has not always been encouraged to get on those waiting lists, not by the housing authorities at all, but often by people in their lives, their parents or caregivers or workers. So there's a lot of work to do that we can be able to report to you annually the progress toward those recommendations. The needs assessment is exactly the data collection that you asked about earlier. That has to get done by next November. I want to be able to come to you and give you a very fine grade. Look at exactly how much we're talking about in terms of housing and what counties we're talking about and what the timeline for that really looks like. When the Act sixty nine committee was working, we had about ten weeks to do our work. There was not time to do that data collection. There are other activities that we didn't have time again in that ten weeks to explore fully some of the programs that we might be taking better advantage of through, say, Department of Commerce and Community Development, put some help in doing that there that we just didn't get a chance to fully explore. So he imagined bringing forward other recommendations and then looking at recommendations for future legislative actions. I would not be surprised if we came back to you next session with some requests around licensure changes. One of the things just

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to keep in mind, if you can, it's always easier for us if recommendations come in in November than if they come in in January.

[Kirsten Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: I agree, yeah, that makes total sense. I mean, was kind of, we worked so hard to get the road home to you by November and really have appreciated the amount of uptake the legislature has had with that. I think in part because we weren't bringing it to you in January. So I don't know how this lands in your committee, some lawmakers are a little sensitive about creating more advisory committees. I think this one is really important and I agree that we may overuse them a bit in state government. But this problem is It's not going to go away. Are relying for 78% of our residential settings are in our least stable models. We have to start addressing that incrementally. This is an opportunity to really, for you guys to direct human services and housing professionals to work together and step out of their silos, and that is critical. The 13 recommendations, and I dare say future recommendations, all work together. So you can't pick out one thing and only do that. So having coordinated leadership is really important. And then there will be some need for public funds, and we need to be accountable, those of us working on this issue, I to you, the also want to say that we want to work ourselves out of a job on this council. It came up in Senator Clarksons' committee and I said, Yeah, a requirement to sunset at some point, we could live with that. But I promise you, whether you ask for it or not, we want to be out of a job in five to seven years because we need to solve this problem. So we look forward to digging into the work and then saying it's something. And that pie looks like a better distribution. That is what I have for me today, and I'm happy to answer questions if that's okay with the chair.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Any questions? Yes?

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I have a question. In talking to some of my constituents at town meeting day, we were discussing the eight zero two Homes program, which I'm sure you're familiar with, right, about these pre designed

[Kirsten Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: She was asking whether they incorporated universal design. And I said, well, that's a great question that we have talked about. And she brought up the fact that it just behooves our state to make sure that we think in terms of an aging population. So a lot of the conversations we have already had. But I'm thinking about specific to this conversation right now of a shared living model or a family shared provided model. Do you have any input or would part of that design process benefit from your contribution in conversation I about

[Kirsten Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: think I see where you're going here. Yeah. Yeah, it's a slightly different problem, but a related problem. Think, well, off, Vermont is a little odd in that people with the most complex physical disabilities like cerebral palsy are not served in developmental services. They are in almost every other state I can think of. So they're served in the choices for care program. There has not been as much research on the housing needs of that program. And I do think that ought to happen, but the committee we're talking about today, that would not be under their. I think a great opportunity is that if it survives the budget process, there is a full time position written into the house side budget for housing specialists for Gayle, which they desperately need. And that position will oversee all of those home and community based service programs and could really have some impact on studying some of the gaps around design and the needs of people. I mean, we have some wheelchair users and other people that need special design. And I love working with housing conservation board because when they invest in something, they insist on some of those important features. So I think that that's important and I think this committee could maybe have a little impact on that, but it has a slightly different charge, but there are opportunities and it's really important for us to keep working on that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you. Are there any other questions by members of the committee? Kristen, thank you very much.

[Kirsten Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: You're very welcome to the community.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Our next witness is Peter Tucker. Good morning. Nice to

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: see everybody. Peter Tucker, I'm the director of advocacy and public policy for the Vermont Association of Realtors. I think most of my comments are tied to the bill. Would you like me to put it up on the screen so I can It wouldn't hurt

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: if you put up the portion that you're concerned with. Yep. There's a lot in the bill.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Yep. I mean

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And are you working with the version passed by the senate? That's correct.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: I'll be honest with you. I mean, I think you heard on section six kind of, you know, the appropriate information that you need there.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Too big now. Get

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: it by the size of these guys.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You need a little help?

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: How's that? There you go. Yeah, better? Good. So right and we can read all that great. So Peter Tucker with the Vermont Association of Realtors. You know we've been working on housing bills with this committee and the Senate Committee on Economic and Housing for years And I think a lot of progress has been made. Just a couple of minor comments and then I'll get to section four. When we first looked at this bill in our Government Affairs Committee, I have two members. One is a select board member in small community and other is upon the planning commission and the municipal plan section and the language that the committee had initially to describe, what the housing needs targets was pretty significant. And my guys who are both volunteers were kind of like, if this is coming our way and we're gonna have to do all of this work in terms of housing needs assessments that, you know, that many volunteers may not have the capacity to do that. The committee reduced that and, you know, we appreciate that. So I think it just goes along with the regional plans in terms of housing needs assessments and that should work out just fine. Peter, one

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: of the things you might wanna do is take a look at what we put in July because, I mean, our natural inclination would be to put our language in here. Yes. In July. Yep. Look at the language in July. We don't know yet whether the vehicle will be this bill or 775, but I'm just saying without speaking for the committee yet, our natural inclination would be when both this bill and our bill dealt with the same thing, be to put our language in this bill. Okay. So you want to I'm just saying, you ought to look at seven seventy five and be prepared to let us know, you know, where you are on that. Yeah.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: I mean, I've definitely looked at seven seventy five, but I'll I'll do that again.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Okay.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: You know, I I knew that that, you know, a lot of elements are common, some are different, and, you know, what what's gonna prevail is, going to be kind of the making of the sausage at the end of the day. So between the two committees.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'd like to think of it as prime rib but anyway.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Prime rib. The maker of prime rib for

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: this. You

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: know, the section three about the treasurer's use of funds, we've been very supportive of this bumping it up to 12.5%, I think safe. The treasurer actually is going to be on our broker meeting tomorrow, more on the baby bond initiative that he has going because we want our brokers to kind of understand that. But I am going to ask him about repayment plan, right? Because I think, you know, when you make a loan, you know, how it's coming back to you is is certainly important. Section four is is really what you ask me to comment on today and here I am. Common interest communities. So, when I started selling real estate in 1997, that I was down in Killington and that was the very first year of common interest community. A requirement of any many of to provide documents to their bylaws, their budget, that sort of thing. I think I sold five different condominiums and five different projects the first year and none of them had a clue how to how to create that document for the public. They're like, we don't have to do this. I said, well, actually do and so so from a common interest community perspective, you know, I've been involved for a long time. You know, homeowners associations are are a little bit different animal and I think a lot of this language was aimed at homeowners associations, but the reality is that underlying that is this concept of common interest communities that need to manage their affairs of a group of folks and make that work. The concern we have here especially with condominium projects and the underwriting guidelines of Ready and Fannie Mae to make a loan for a condominium, a conforming loan that can be sold in the secondary market. There are requirements and we did a lot of, there's a condominium questionnaire if you're trying to finance a condominium that requires information about how many units are leased, how many units are for commercial purposes, and if it's over that threshold, it doesn't meet the underwriting guidelines. And I know Chris Dele was in here yesterday and he and I have talked about this as being probably the major concern here. The unintended consequence of allowing rentals, leasing of residential units, sub leasing, and for commercial purposes could potentially make that particular project not eligible for conventional financing. If it's done by the condominium association as a covenant or a bylaw for their association and they made that decision. We're just not going to allow rentals, things of that nature. I think that works. This is designed to be a statutory change that would allow or would require all condominiums to allow those rental units It could impact financing, not for the folks that are there, but for the next guy in line trying to buy a property in that particular project. Accessory dwelling units, I mentioned I came from selling condominiums and I'm trying to think about how you'd bolt an accessory dwelling unit onto the 3rd Floor Of Mount Green At Killington. For homeowners associations, I thought that that was a very practical place to be. Section six on the supportive housing, go ahead. Before you leave section, do

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: you have proposed language changes or you're just alerting us?

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: I'm alerting you and so this is a report and so I guess making sure that the Legis Council is aware of the concern and looking at that. You know, I'm not the financing expert. Mister Gayle is and I guess what I'd like to do is is go back to him and see if there's, you know, some recommendations we can make to ledge Council as they prepare this report for you and happy to be involved in that process. So, I don't have anything specific at this point but you know, Chris would know the thresholds, right? Like how many units if how many units if they're rented would then, you know, create this financing issue. So, you know, I need to do a little bit of background work with him to see what what we could recommend but it would be to let council because they're the ones creating the report.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, I can see, for example, if you go back, go a little, just a little, no, it'd be the introduction, but just go over the next page, yeah. What

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: page? I'm sorry.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Common interest community report. Okay, right there. Yep. Just go down, see if you can get the next two or three lines. Right here. Right there. Any, instead of just saying legal, it would be legal, financial, and lending issues.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Right.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Something like that. You're telling is there's more than legal issues.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Yeah, is, it is really.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's maybe that way to do it. Okay, alright.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Yeah, let me talk with Chris and then provide some specific language there, but I think that that certainly should be addressed. That is our big concern and should be addressed. Thank you. So

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm sorry I interrupted. You're now going to section six?

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Section six, you heard it. I don't have any additional comments for this particular section that you're looking at today. I think it's, wholly believe that you're in good hands with the agencies involved. Wanted to go municipal zoning. Adding manufactured housing to this section of the bill just seems to be maybe a little bit more appropriate. Permitted Let's see. I'm sorry. Let me just get to D. Right. Shelby, you know, that that that the duplexes shall be a permitted.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Is a you know, even though it's two words, it's a it's a significant change, right? I mean, if it's permitted, then, you know, it would not be reviewed essentially. Would just be allowed. So, you know, so the chair is, you know, interested in kind of buy right zoning. I think this is a step in that direction just addresses duplexes at this point in time but but is is I think it's a consequential change to the, you know, to the underlying legislation. And then section eight, you know, this was interesting, you know, involved in the discussion about, you know, eliminating state permits. I know that the committee, the senate committee was concerned that municipalities be allowed to manage their their wastewater systems and you know, the real reason I wanted to to pull this up is because oh and this adds a fire district and I'm only dealt with a few fire districts but there are fire districts that have water. You know, certainly they have water and they also and very often have wastewater. They're a subdivision or a separate fire district away from the town a little bit. So I thought that was useful. But the municipalities have plenty of ways to manage their wastewater. Know, flood areas identified with service limits, served by water and sewer, mobile home parks, you know, so all of these things are tools of the municipality to manage their wastewater systems. And I think that that is a, you know, they have plenty of ways to protect their system to make sure that they can handle whatever increase in capacity. You know, as we're trying to get more housing and get, you know, use the systems that are in place more effectively, This language, which is already existing, gives the towns plenty of opportunity to manage their systems. Yep. And then just last, the designation of towns and new town centers. Know, one of the things we realized as we're doing this transition with the Act 181 is that the definitions that were previously, you know, pretty useful mostly for historic preservation and that sort of thing didn't apply to the three new town centers we have in the state of Vermont. So, including those in these in these you know, these areas as well as the historic preservation identification, you know, downtowns and things of that nature just made sense. So that allows for, you know, kind of equal people viewing regardless of whether it's historic or not. And that's kind of what I had. I appreciate the opportunity.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Committee members, do you have questions of Peter? Peter, thanks a lot. We look forward to hearing if you have wording wording sections. Yeah. Right on it. A section. Let us know.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: And also take a look at seven seven five and make sure that, you know, they see how those are or how we think they should integrate and happy to come back and have that discussion.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The major difference I mean, there's wording diff substantial wording differences. But functionally, the difference is we we moved we essentially said that if a town couldn't meet its housing goals, targets, and needs to, the same kind of language, explain why, that that doesn't go in the plan, it goes in a report to DHCD rather than in the plan. Okay. Okay, alright. Okay. Thank you. Great, thank you. Is George gonna be on Zoom?

[Kirsten Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: There waiting for me testifying. I hope not.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thinking that you're busy too. Our next witness is George Damas or demon. I'm he'll tell me how to pronounce it. George, welcome. Hello. It's Before I massacre your last name, you wanna introduce yourself?

[George Demas (General Counsel, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: George Demas, and I'm the General Counsel at Vermont Housing Finance Agency.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Back. Yes. So you want to give us your testimony? Sure.

[George Demas (General Counsel, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: This is specific. Topic and the agenda is sections four and six. I did want to sort of give a plug to putting back in the original section two with the down payment assistance language.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Does the committee rememb let me just interrupt for a minute. I'm I'm reminding members of the committee that there's a difference between the bill as it left the Senate Economic Development Housing Committee Yeah. Amazingly, and the bill as it left the Senate after Senate appropriations headed by my senator got its hands on it. So, what George is proposing is that we look back at what left the Senate houses, you know, Senate Economic Development Housing Committee, right, George? So you want to just mention what that is and any change that you would advocate?

[George Demas (General Counsel, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: I wouldn't advocate any changes. The idea is to extend our ability to sell state housing tax credits and use those funds for our down payment assistance program, which know more Collins, our ED, has provided you all with plenty of, testimony on the benefits of that program. And, the issue that we found, especially in the last few years as interest rates have been going up, is that people aren't refinancing their original loans. So the deep the down payment assistance that we've been giving out hasn't been getting, you know, sort of repaid so that it can get then relent to to new people. So we're asking for an additional five years of ability to sell the tax credits to generate the cash. And then, hopefully, at that point, we'll have gone through a market cycle of up and down, and we'll be back hopefully in a in a lower interest environment with people with higher interest loans, doing the refinancing, which would then generate repayments and help really prime the pump for that. Of the things

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: sorry, go ahead, Elizabeth.

[George Demas (General Counsel, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: No, I'm sorry, go ahead.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We have a couple of questions here.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Elizabeth. I

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: just have a very simple question. How long has this been going on? Is

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: this a year long trend or

[Kirsten Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: a five year long trend?

[George Demas (General Counsel, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: The the trend line with respect to refinancings? Yep. It's really been the last five I mean, since the, interest rates really hit hit up in the last, like, four years. I mean, we had obviously, interest rates were going down, down, down, and they were extremely low and lots of we we used up a lot of money because there were such a demand for mortgages, and it was really busy. And then the last three or four years with the interest rates going back up again, the refinance business has just sort of stopped. People aren't refinancing out their high their low interest loans for new high interest money if they absolutely don't have to.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Just to remind members of the committee. So they sell tax credits. BHFA sells tax credits in order to provide the funding for the down payment assistance program, and the idea is that these loans, which are they're zero interest loans, aren't they? Correct. They're zero interest loans, but they are repaid when you refinance your house. And the idea being that that way, the fund would sort of replenish over time. And what he's saying is, well, people aren't refinancing. So because they got that fund down.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Rate. They don't wanna send Right.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Right. I'm in that spot position myself.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So I any other questions on this issue before George moves on? I have a question, George. Sure. Last year in the housing bill, we unsuccessfully tried to fund the first time buyer no. First generation buyer program. Mhmm. Have you guys lost your ambition to ask for money for that?

[George Demas (General Counsel, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: We always have plenty of ambition. I I think that, the focus is this year on the extension of the down payment assistance. Most people who are first time homebuyers also qualify for the down payment assistance as well because that's also targeted to, go along with our normal lending programs, which target first time homebuyers. The first generation is a grant. It's not a loan. And so that is specifically additional money for people who are deemed to be first generation and therefore not have access to sort of a generational, wealth, support basically from parents who have equity in homes that can provide some extra money for them help them out.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So you're kind of emphasizing this year the down payment assistance. Yes, go ahead.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: And still, I'm just trying to still wrap my head around like what the future will look like if we do this now. So is your thinking that if we're providing loans for the down payment at the current sort of high ish, I mean, not not historically

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Grand history portrait high interest rate, mortgage rates as opposed to most of the holdings we have or most of the loans that are outstanding are at the 3% mortgage rate holders, right? That those folks who are borrowing at the 7% might be more likely to transition out of their homes and therefore repay the loan? Are you trying to start anew, basically, with this new reality that because the way that the program was envisioned originally, it's so unlikely to work the way that you envisioned it just because of the mortgage rates?

[George Demas (General Counsel, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: I think that the intent is just to deal with the fact that the market hasn't we've had this spike in interest rates. And the interest rate is cyclical, right? I mean, there were much higher interest rates a while when I first bought my house, for example. But then they went way down, and now they're back up again. And there are periods where people refinance or don't. And right now, we're in a no refinance area after having used up all the money we generated previously because there were so many people who were getting mortgages and we were putting out the down payment assistance money. So what we're hoping here is that it gives us funds to continue the down payment assistance program at a level that we can practically. And then over and during the time period, hopefully, interest rate markets will again start going back down again. People will be refinancing again. People who were had the 3% mortgages, I mean, they are going to sell their houses and have life circumstance changes and need to refinance for other reasons other than interest rates. So I mean, money does come in. It's just that it's coming in much more slowly than we needed for it to have a really functioning program right now. And so hopefully over time with another buildup of five years of new DPA loans, we'll have primed the pump so that we'll have a more regular sort of payback coming in to help support the program going forward, you know, and not have to come back for another five years worth five years from now.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That's the hope. Other question. You get it?

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Yeah, I'm just worried that interest rates won't go down. Well,

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: there have been periods of very high interest rates for long periods, but it has been cyclical. Alright, so any other questions before George moves on from the down payment assistance program, which again members we will not find in the as past version we've had, we find it in the other version. George, go ahead. Okay.

[George Demas (General Counsel, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Okay. And then the next section that sort of I have heard some testimony on, and I just wanted to throw in our 2¢ on the common interest community section four. The issue for us on that is both that for our mortgages that we provide our tax exempt bond financing for that all those mortgages have to meet secondary market requirements and basically Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rules. And there are lots of rules relating to how loans can be made into condominium projects. In addition, for lower income purchasers, who are using both our, tax exempt bond program and who also might be getting funding from say BHCB or some other source that is also providing supplementary support, shared equity homes and things like that. We are all required to put our own sets of limitations for our own compliance requirements on making sure that the units are primary, residences and also limiting the use of the unit for commercial purposes. And, so it's not necessarily just a secondary market problem for low end for support programs for lower income purchasers. It is also just a compliance pro, issue for us that we wouldn't be able to would limit our ability to provide assistance to buyers into condominiums if we can't have enforceable covenants about maintaining the unit as a primary residence and limiting, commercial use of the unit. And I think that, your suggestion, chairman, regarding the way to tweak the language of what topics are covered would be really helpful. And I'm sorry, I saw a

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: hand up. I apologize. Well, I think that we'd have to even do more than I suggested. I think we'd have to have reference to financial lending and also funding compliance or compliance for funding sources. Something like that we'd have to put in there to signal to the committee that they have to look at that stuff.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Debbie? I just wanted a better definition of what they consider commercial use. Is it running a business out of there, or is it renting it?

[George Demas (General Counsel, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: George? Well, running a business out of there would be a commercial use. So for example, I mean, the idea of having a daycare, I mean, that is a commercial use. And I under, I mean, obviously the need for daycare is huge. And we understand the reasoning for wanting to not put any limit the restrictions on that as much as possible, but, that it would be a commercial use that would be difficult to reconcile. I mean, limitation is 15% of this floor space can't be used for no more than 15% of the floor space can be used for commercial use. And if you're in a 900 square foot condo, it's hard to limit a home daycare even with a few kids to 15% of

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: the space. So it'd be difficult for somebody to comply with that requirement. So what you're saying is, is there a problem, George? If you have a building and let's say one of the units is a daycare, let's just say that, obviously not 15% of that one unit, the whole unit is a daycare center. Well, then that unit couldn't be the mortgage on that unit could not be financed, but would it mean that the whole building would be threatened?

[George Demas (General Counsel, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Well, no, because you can have residential properties that also have commercial space within that. And that's divided up in certain ways. And again, the mixture and all is there are Fannie and Freddie rules about all of that. But for our purposes and our tax compliance purposes, no. Our tax exempt bond compliance purposes, no. The fact that a commercial space exists within that same complex would not be an issue.

[Kirsten Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: Yeah, couple

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: of things. One, was gonna, so I think I've talked about a lot in our committee. This section was really important for me to to not have the things that were in as introduced. And so I appreciate your testimony where I live. This would have been a huge problem for my condo association if these kinds of unlimited renters, daycare, etcetera, went in and my board, you know, with transparency, I went to my association and talked to them about what was being introduced because I think it's important. And they were like, Well, what if we didn't have a state rep, like, on our board? Like, how would we have known? I was like, I know. So, like, I think when you have an issue that sometimes is for one constituent, like someone who wanted to have a daycare, but it really is important to look at things for the whole state and how that could impact and have negative consequences. So, I'm really grateful that this section was stripped and that now we'll be studying it more. But it would have brought our rates up tremendous amount. And, you know, as a lower income condo owner in my community, my neighbors would have been really impacted negatively by something like this. So I think this has to be looked at really carefully, and there needs to be extensive testimony about unintended consequences. So, I'm really glad that it's not in there. So, thank you, George, for your testimony on that piece. It really could have been really harmful for where I live.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: George, there more?

[George Demas (General Counsel, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: And then I think for us, unless you still want to talk about section four, our last note is on section five. I know that you all had, Joan Goldstein from Vita in yesterday, and, I think Chris Diele mentioned it as well. We had some suggested language to tweak the language that ended that actually started with the committee and and that they ended up with and and I don't know that it was intentional but, we had and I think Joan had sent you all the proposed language that we had agreed on for changing that. The concern is sort of there's two concerns with the language that is there. One of them is that because of the way that we operate and Vida operates, our language is more specific because we want to be very clear as to the things they do and the things we do and how we all work together. And so it's a little more wordy, but it was wordy for a reason. Also, we're concerned with the language, for example, saying that the authority shall not finance housing developments that utilize funding issued by the agency. That actually is kind of broader than the language that we have. And it would I mean, we do have projects where both VITA and VHFA have provided funding because VITA is dealing with the commercial side, and we're dealing with the housing side, and it all works. And we didn't want to have that either. And our language was intended to make the limitations solely with respect to the particular eligible purpose definition there and not to try to limit the other eligible purposes that VITA can use its money for. So I

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think we we I think it was in Pittsburgh, the simplification was made by legislative council without the understandings that you just described. You may hear directly from legislative counsel. It would be Cameron Wood Okay. Who'll be talking to you. So you might expect that, but I think that we understand. Was not just remember as a committee yesterday, I remember we heard testimony from VITA itself similar to this saying, we kind of liked the language we agreed on, we have deals where BHFA does the housing and we do the commercial together and we don't want to eliminate that, and so I went to the chair of our economic development committee and asked Chair Marcotte to run this down and he talked to both to two legislative council, and we realized it was just inadvert. So we're gonna work on that.

[George Demas (General Counsel, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Great. Well, thank you very much, and we appreciate your time.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Any questions of George by members of the committee? George, thank you very much, and thanks for Thank the

[George Demas (General Counsel, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: you. Appreciate it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Follow what we're doing.

[George Demas (General Counsel, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: I will. Thanks.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: When is is Myra back?

[George Demas (General Counsel, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Mora is not back this week, but she is doing well, and we're hoping to see her, you know, in the next, next week or the week after. So

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Great. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. Alright. Send her our regards.

[George Demas (General Counsel, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: We will for sure.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you. Okay. Bye bye. So our next witness is not available right now. That was gonna be Samantha Sheehan from the League of from my League of Cities and Towns. So the next thing on our agenda is committee discussion on this bill. On my side, all I want to say is we will quite possibly be having more testimony on this bill, and also, I have talked with Chair Shelton of the Environment Committee because I think there are a couple of sections of this bill that primarily lie with her committee, not ours, and so I don't know at this point how that's gonna happen. I think what it means is probably we voted out and it either goes to a flyby in her committee or they actually take possession for the sections that go on with them. But where we have to head next is for a session when Cameron is here and we instruct him how to mark up this bill. That's what comes next. We tell him what changes we wanna see, then he goes away and marks it up and it comes back to us. Yes, Emmett. I just wanna

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: make a comment, like what Emilie was saying about the whether it's homeowners or condos, you know, the bylaws, you know, it's like they're all different. We're in a condo situation and our bylaws say, you cannot run a business out. I mean, you can do rentals and all that, but you cannot run a business. So our insurance that we get, if somebody started running a business out of their condo, the insurance that we have on our association would not cover any incident if there was one that would happen there. So, just wanted to say those bylaws dictate so much.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, insurance companies do as well. Even if you have a rental, if you have a house and you rent it out, if you rent it out more than x days a year, it becomes a commercial project and then there's a different insurance requirement, etcetera, And it can affect rental units as well. So that's all I have to say at this point. Yes. We're just in discussion Yeah. At this

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I just am really grateful that those pieces were not in there when it came over to us and they're really troublesome. And so I'm very happy with how this worked out. And I think that there's some suggestions that I'd like to look at through the testimony you've heard with a few tweets. But other than that, I think it looks pretty good to me. It's not a huge sweeping, you know, but yeah, a few tweaks and see what the committee decides about what we can serve with some of language changes after it was stripped. But again, the biggest issues I had with the bill were taken out before it arrived. Oh, and one other thing, sorry. I did connect again with David Hall from the Secretary of State's office about the resource center. But, I will be, providing I don't want to speak for him, but they are open to that, so I'm going to go to Cameron and present some language to the committee for that piece.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Different than the bill that we

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, because after hearing the a little bit. It might not be like, we're gonna play it with after I want the secretary's chief's office to have it work the way they like it, right? So that's a little different than It might be.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The bill we passed. We didn't pass. That we is it on our

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Still on our wall? Right. Yeah. Okay. And and the senators, after we mentioned it the other day, didn't seem like that was so horrible. So, basically, to remind folks would be a place within the Secretary of State's office website where it would be like a tab that had information, not calling it maybe resource because

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Like a link to the logs.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yes, exactly. Because as you mentioned, everyone's is different, but it's just like the log we have and if they get updated. So it's just a place with HOA information.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Would that go? Okay.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: So that would if we were to

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: We could put it in there.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: We would put it in there. So I'm gonna go to Cameron. Again, just that it doesn't cost any money, but I spoke with David today about it, so Yeah, I would have

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: remember, everybody, we are nosing towards, we're not there yet. We're My inclination, just subject to the committee's thoughts and desires, is going to be that we put into this bill all the language that we did on stuff that relates to what this bill is. But eventually, within the next month, Senator Clarkson is gonna sit down with me and we're gonna have to decide, well, which do we use? Do we use this as the vehicle or do we use our bills as the vehicles? And partly, it's not a question of House versus Senate. I'm not talking about differences where we disagree, I'm talking about just logistics, where they don't have the time that we do. They have two committees, so they don't, you know, they only can meet in the mornings, and so there's stuff they don't get to. So we send a bunch of bills over to them and they may not get to them, in which case they'll let them die, and so in that case, we're gonna dump stuff in here and just have to agree on that work it out, and that lies ahead. But for the moment, that's where we are in this bill. Are there further thoughts on this bill? The only other thing that we have today is we're returning to after the floor, we will come back here.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: To discuss.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: To discuss two And thirty, the labor I asked Sophie to be here. What I'd like you to think about and be prepared to talk about is we have taken testimony on extreme heat. Not extreme heat, extreme We have to decide whether or not we want to tackle this or we want to leave it out of S two thirty, And I want to know the sense of the committee on that. We don't have to have a straw poll or anything, but I don't want to make instructions to counsel to proceed with this unless the committee really wants to go ahead. So, that's what we're going to talk about after the floor. Okay?

[George Demas (General Counsel, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: I

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: don't hear a lot of

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: like People are fired up.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, I don't do.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, no, so I won't be working.

[Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: If you're

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: not asleep, then we're asleep.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I'm gonna reach out to Cameron and get the adjusted HOA information page language. So I'll present that. And then, I have one witness who I'm gonna, but I have someone that I think would be really great to talk on the housing bill that wasn't able to in the Senate and I was approached, so I think they'd

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: be great. Yeah, and also I don't know why do know why Mary and Samantha said that she is not available?

[Kirsten Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: Conflict? Scheduling to have not worked out.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Okay. So she'll be back.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: But, yeah, I have an expert on HOA stuff that would love to come in, and so I'm gonna add that to the

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Great. We're going to have to reword this. Right.

[Kirsten Murphy (Executive Director, Vermont Developmental Disabilities Council)]: Comments, thoughts? Early lunch, I think.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Oh my goodness. Alright, we will reconvene after the floor. I don't

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Floor's not long.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The floor isn't that long, so we'll reconvene after the floor and tackle the issue of what's next for 02:30, particularly with the big issue for us is the extreme temperatures issue. Okay? Sounds good. And I don't want people to say, yeah, let's go ahead, or like, no, I hate it. You have to say why.

[Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I have lots of glasses.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: What's your room? After both. No. After both.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: After four. We