Meetings
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[Chair Marc Mihaly]: It's like some road. Oh, anyway, everybody, welcome to the House Committee on General and Housing. Today is Tuesday, 04/14/2026. We're gonna briefly discuss s three twenty eight, which is the housing omnibus bill from the senate, and there's a section there, and we're gonna hear from Alex Farrell, who is the commissioner of DHCD. Then we're gonna have the floor and the caucus of the whole, and this afternoon, we're gonna come back to s two thirty, the omnibus labor bill, and then again back to three twenty eight. So, welcome.
[Commissioner Alex Farrell]: Thank you. Thank you, mister chair. For the record, Alex Farrell, Commissioner of the Department of Housing and Community Development. To pick up where the chair left off, I have been in discussions with Chair Mihaly and Representative Krasnow and Rep Charlton about language to insert a section requesting a report of my department really to look into this question of private equity purchasing single family homes. I saw the bill earlier in the session that had been introduced that, as I understand, is still on the wall, but the the goal of this is to advance that effort to better understand what other states are doing, what the federal government is doing, and what scaling this to Vermont would look like. Given that I've discussed this with the chair and representative Krasnow, I'm I'm happy to undertake undertake this. I'll I'll issue the the the blanket caution that my department is understaffed at the moment and will be shrinking later this year as a result of limited service positions expiring. That said, we're still happy to take this on because we know folks are eager to see this advanced and work to continue on this over the summer. We will gladly take that on.
[Chair Marc Mihaly]: Questions for Commissioner Fair? Alex, thank you so much.
[Representative Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I had something to say.
[Chair Marc Mihaly]: Emilie, please proceed.
[Representative Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I'm not driving, but I'm a passenger so I can talk. I'm on my way. I just wanna say I really, really on record, I know I've told you, but I really appreciate your willingness, your office willingness to take this on and continue these conversations. And I'm very grateful for your speaker of collaboration. And I look forward to seeing how things come out and just really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
[Commissioner Alex Farrell]: Thank you, representative, I appreciate that.
[Chair Marc Mihaly]: Great. Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much.
[Commissioner Alex Farrell]: Thank you.
[Chair Marc Mihaly]: We will adjourn now in order to go to the floor, and we will return at 1PM here for a discussion of