Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Welcome everybody to the House Committee on General and Housing. Today is Friday, 04/24/2026, another cold spring day in Vermont. We're doing two things before lunch. We're gonna finally, I believe, act on s two thirty, which is a miscellaneous employment bill that came over from the senate, and then we're going to continue our look at issues around accessibility in terms of understanding more about universal design, and we're gonna hear from two witnesses today. That's our morning. After lunch, we'll come back here after lunch for what I think is gonna be a pretty brief markup of s three twenty eight, which is the sort of omnibus housing bill. It's just one change, and we'll have counsel with us to do that. And that's, and then we, I think we should adjourn by early afternoon. So, on S230, I think I'd like to put a motion on the floor at this point, if I might.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: So, I guess I will make the final decision.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The TA would I just put it on the

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: move that we vote favorably with amendment on S two thirty and after leading to fair employment practices, draft 6.1 version eight. As seconds.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You know what I learned? I don't think we need a second, but

[Rep. Leonora Dodge (Member)]: this You're doing anyway. That's just our thing.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, that's right. So is there any further discussion on this bill before we call the question? Well, madam, would you we have rep Howard with us, but she's by video. So rep Howard, I guess, I'm going to ask our vice chair to call the to actually call the role if it's okay with you.

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: Yes, please.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Great. Brett Bartley, it's a yes. Brett Burrows? Yes. Rep Charlton?

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

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Rep Dodge? Yes. Rep Dolgin? Yes. Rep Howard?

[Rep. Mary E. Howard (Clerk)]: Yes. Rep Krasnow?

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

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Rep Lamoille? Yes. Rep Morrisons?

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

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Rep Pizzo?

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

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: And Chere Mihaly?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yes. I you said no.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I've been thinking about that all the time.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, since Joe didn't vote no, I almost voted. On

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: vote of eleven zero zero, we are moving s two thirty.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So I think I'm assuming it should it'll probably be before Well, it depends when you get it over there. If you send the email before lunch, it might be on another Wednesday. Yeah, Wednesday. Okay. It's okay, it's already ready. Alright, so now we are going to move on to universal design. Do we have Sarah? On Zoom. She's on Zoom already? Yes, loading. She's loading. Thank you. Nora, thank you for your patience. Of course. So, the committee has, I would say, been looking into and hearing testimony on universal design, and that includes slowly coming to grip with the meaning of such words as accessibility, adaptability, and visitability, for two reasons. One is the possibility that we might include language in three '28 of some sort, and the second that we just wanna know. This is stuff, if this committee doesn't fully understand it, nobody will, so we should we should do that. I will also just repeat that I've asked our counsel, Cameron Wood, to get us material concerning the definition of those concepts, visitability, adaptability, accessibility in state law or regulation as it currently is. And our first witness on this is Sarah Landerville. Landerville, if I'm saying it right? Executive director of the Vermont Center for Independent Living. Sarah, I don't think you've have you testified before this committee this year? No. No. Well, I think we should introduce ourselves starting with you, Debbie.

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: I'm representative Debbie Dolgin, and I represent Saint Chomsbury, Concord, and Kirby.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: Hi, Tom Charlton, Athens, Chester, Drafton and Windham. Joe Parsons, Newbury, Thompson and Brock.

[Rep. Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Leonora Dodge, Essex Town and City Of Essex Junction.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Ashley Bartley, Fairfax in Georgia.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'm Marc Mihaly. Welcome. I represent Caledonia, Plainfield and Marshfield.

[Rep. Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Good morning, Saudia LaMont, Lamoille Washington District.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Morning, Sarah. I'm Elizabeth Burrows. I represent Windsor One, which is Heartland West Windsor in Windsor. I really love your screensaver picture, although it's not up right now. It was lovely.

[Sarah Launderville (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: Thank you. I think it's just

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Emily, we have we have three members on here. Nice to see you wanna

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Yeah. Nice to see you virtually. Emily Krasnow, South Burlington 29.

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: And Mary? Good morning. I'm representative Mary Howard, and I represent Rutland City District 6.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And, Gayle, you you are recovering Gayle. Yes? Gayle, can you wanna introduce yourself, or are you still on mute? Well, Gayle will she'll be participating when she's ready. So, Sarah, please take it away. We are attempting to understand these concepts.

[Sarah Launderville (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: Okay. Then I think I think we're good. I I was a little bit worried I was gonna go off in the wrong direction. So thank you. My name is Sarah LaMont, I am the Executive Director of the Vermont Center for Independent Living. If I may go up script for one moment, I was able to catch the morning devotional and representative Lamoille.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: That was beautiful. And I just wanted to say

[Sarah Launderville (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: that out loud. So I did finally send my testimony this morning, so it's a little late in the game, but here we go. So VCIL is a disability rights organization organization of people with disabilities, and we work together for dignity, independence, and civil rights. And I really appreciate you contacting me to come and talk about the definition of universal design. I want to first share my gratitude for the committee looking into what universal design is and create space for this dialogue. It's an important thing to do because at its core, designing programs, services, and structures that work for everyone is a place we should all be striving for. When the Americans with Disabilities Act passed in 1990, it was groundbreaking legislation, but it was meant to be a base and not the ceiling. And what has played out over the last thirty six years has been a lot of resistance and not much growth from that base. And that translates into a lot less opportunity overall for people with disabilities. And that's why I have so much gratitude for this conversation today. I wasn't fully aware of your hopes or for the definition of universal design or your experience with the term, so I thought I'd focus a little bit on the principles of universal design and how the concept is different than accessibility related law regarding design and happy to answer specific questions regarding the work we're doing regarding universal design. When we speak about universal design, we're talking about a framework built on design principles that were developed by the late Ron Mace. And Ronald contracted polio when he was eight, and he used a wheelchair after that. In 1966, he earned his architectural degree and he was instrumental in developing the first codes around North Carolina. Those codes really helped us develop more national codes. He was instrumental in helping us develop the Fair Housing Amendment Acts of 1973. He was the founder of Barrier Free Environments in 1973, and he helped with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. In 1985, he coined and defined universal design as the design of products and environments to be usable by all people to the greatest extent possible without the need for adaptation or specialized design. And if you don't see my testimony in front of you yet, there are links in it to help you get right to what I'm going to be referencing today. This definition is still broadly used as it goes beyond a code and beyond who specifically the design might be meant for. It's important to understand the distinction between these principles and the accessibility laws we currently have. My lens of work is ensuring that people with disabilities have access to spaces, buildings, activities, programs. And I can say without a doubt that the majority of our spaces in Vermont are not accessible for people with disabilities and that it is leaving them out. So when developing policy, it's important to understand that we're not always addressing minimum accessibility codes in our state. When we've tried to expand policy regarding minimum standards, and I heard you reference like visitability earlier, when we try to expand what that visitability bill looks like, we've also tried to expand things around tax credits for accessibility, and we've been met with a lot of great resistance throughout the years. Universal design is a proactive approach that anticipates human diversity from the start, regardless of age or your disability, sensory experiences, comprehension levels, language and circumstances. And it moves beyond that minimum compliance towards environments that work well for everyone. You probably know this, but the Vermont Department of Public Safety, which also oversees the Vermont Access Board has a lot of information on design standards in Vermont. And you can take a look at the list of all the information they have there on that website. And there you'll find all of the different rules, the Vermont Access Rules of 2012, the Vermont Access Standards Statute, the Fair Housing Act Design Manual, and there's a lot of other links that share with regarding design laws related to accessibility specifically. And as I said, it's important to understand the standards to some extent prior to the implementation of why you might choose embedding universal design principles into law and whatever those crossover effects to the accessibility laws. It sounds like you're kind of already dabbling in that getting all of the specific languages. So Valerie Fletcher is the Executive Director of the Institute for Human Centered Design out of Boston, And that's an internationally recognized expert on universal design. I had the pleasure of training with her in Rio on universal design one year. And we've also done training with Vermont Housing Finance Agency many, many years ago, like maybe twenty years ago on these concepts. The Institute for Human Centered Design is committed to advancing the role of designing in expanding opportunity and enhancing experiences for people of all ages, abilities, and cultures through the excellence of design. And I've left the link for their website as well. For over thirty years, VCIL has worked in partnership with the New England ADA Technical Assistance Center, which is housed within that institute. And we are the technical assistance affiliate in Vermont, and we work to provide technical assistance to the community, businesses, whoever calls and asks us questions regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act. So they use the following language regarding the principles of universal design, which is commonly accepted internationally. And so you'll see the seven principles and I've tried to give a couple of examples under each of those principles just to help us get a good understanding of it. So the first one is around equitable use. The design does not disadvantage or stigmatize any group of users. So this might include something like the entrance works for everyone, including people who use mobility devices, people who are like UPS delivery drivers, people who walk and they have automatic doors instead of a separate entrance out back for people who use wheelchairs, which is like a lot of buildings that we see. Or that captions and audio descriptions are in every single video and that there's an option for them to be turned on or off because there's dueling access needs that people have. Some people might have a processing issue or are hard of hearing and need captioning, whereas other people's disability might make captioning very disturbing and not able to concentrate. So they need the ability to turn them off. So thinking through all of that is important. Number two is flexibility in use and the design accommodates a wide range of individual preferences and abilities. So that might include when material is presented, it's done in a variety of ways, in print, a digital option, maybe an audio option, maybe large print options. It might be that doors have multiple ways of opening like a footplate, lever handles and an automatic option because everybody's different abilities with their bodies make it so that they need different things potentially. Number three is simple, innovative use. The use of this design is easy to understand regardless of the user's experience, knowledge, language skills, or current concentration level. So that might include signage that's easy to understand with a lot of pictures, information in plain language with instructions and visual aids. And then number four is perceptible information. The design communicates necessary information effectively to the user regardless of ambient conditions and the user's sensory abilities. So that might include alarms. I was at the State House with you all yesterday when the alarms went off. And so there's flashing, there's strobing, there were sounds to tell us where to go and that we need to leave. But it might include vibrating cues for people who are blind and deaf. It might include things like braille and visual cues, that sort of thing. Number five is tolerance for error. I like this one a lot. The design minimizes hazards and adverse consequences of accidental or unintended actions. So that could include the undo button on our computer software after we've written something or done something or deleted something. Audio shut off on our Crock Pot, web forms that save as you go throughout. And then number six is physical effort. The design can be used efficiently and comfortably with a minimum of fatigue. So that might be touchless, sensor operated trash cans, sinks, soap dispensers, ramps with less of a slope than one in 12. It's little thing that a lot of people think one in 12 ramps are great, but that incline is still very difficult for most people with disabilities. Like I said, within the Americans with Disabilities Act was a base, and it's important to kind of understand those things. And then number seven is size and space for approach and use, which is appropriate size and space is provided for approach, reach, manipulation, and use regardless of the user's body size, posture, or mobility. So wider doorways, hallways, having public seating available, clear floor space under sinks. A lot of people like to put water bottles under sinks instead of having it for use of a wheelchair, that sort of thing. So while the seven principles of universal design offer a strong conceptual framework, it's difficult to translate these principles into specific concrete design decisions without additional guidance. The principles describe what good design should achieve, but they do not prescribe how to achieve it in a particular building, program or system. And that could create several challenges, but they're worth thinking through. People only know what they know, so they might make a decision that affects someone else's lived experience very differently. For example, I've ran our home and community access programs for years before I became the director here. And I once had a contractor proudly show me an extra wide ramp that he had created. But in the end, it didn't work for the family we were working with because the person using it regularly needed to hold on to both of those handrails on both sides while pulling themselves up that slope. But for other people, having that wider place would allow for another person or a caregiver or whatever. So it doesn't, the design, we have different sort of thresholds around housing design versus public design and all that sort of thing, but it's important to think that through. A group might focus on one subset of a population and leave others out. For example, town meeting day in Vermont in some towns is all done from the floor and a bunch of types of people can't make it to the date and time because they have to work or because of their disability or chronic illness. They can't be in a crowd of people or some people don't have childcare options. The meetings are fast paced, they use specific language, it's often technical and hard to understand. The meetings require residents to do things without much instructions like put a sticker on and wear it if you're a member of the town, speak at a location where there may or may not be a microphone for other people in

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: the room to

[Sarah Launderville (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: hear. You're expected to potentially vote on the spot with not a lot of time for processing. And if you have processing issues or concentration issues, that could be difficult. And not a lot of time to think about that, how you're going to vote. And that's a place where universal design principles could be implemented by bringing together people with lots of different types of backgrounds to work on a solution through designing spaces, programs, and either changing the law to evolve with that practice. And the key though is the solution needs to really work for everyone, including people who don't have access to things like cell phones, computers, the internet, or transportation to the polls. All of this will take great intention, hard work, and commitment to one another. So like I said in the beginning, I wasn't exactly sure what you're hoping for around my testimony, but I am more than happy to be here and answer questions. Thank you.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Questions of the committee? Do you Any questions? I can't resist. Do you when you look at our visitability standard, for example Mhmm. Which applies, as I understand it, to all multi family housing. When you look at that, do you feel that there are major components that are missing that should be there?

[Sarah Launderville (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. I I wish. So so my dream, if we were gonna create a visitability bill that was real, I want people to be able to visit other people at their homes. That's the idea of visitability where if whether I use a wheelchair or not, I can go and visit my friend. And so that's the height of it, right? Like that we have so much accessible housing stock in the state where not only people with disabilities or our family members can live there, but I can go visit my friend or my friend who uses a wheelchair can come visit me. So that's sort of what the higher bar would be in my mind. And so we're not even merely there. I think we get a lot of resistance from, or we had in the past from the building community that it will cost more to put studs in the walls and make doors wider and that sort of thing. I think that at some point we need to decide as a state what's more important around some of that. We're paying, we run a home access program out of VCIL that's paid through general fund money to modify people's homes. And our hope is that people keep their homes modified, right? But some people may or may not when they sell their home. Like we have to get to a place where that housing stock really is growing with intention around accessibility

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: overall. Thank you. Other questions? Sarah, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day and spending half an hour with us, much appreciated, and thank you for your written testimony.

[Sarah Launderville (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: You're very welcome, happy to answer follow-up questions too.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you. Thanks. Any other questions?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Yes. Sarah, can you talk a little bit about, you were just talking about helping individuals make their own homes more accessible. Do you have any experience with the cost of doing that to a house that is retrofitted versus a house that has been designed to be adaptable? Brand new.

[Sarah Launderville (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know the current numbers, but I can tell you if you build intentionally from the beginning, it's going to cost a lot less than retrofitting just hands down. So when we go in, our average cost, we only will work in bathrooms and entrances because we don't have enough money to really retrofit other parts of the home too. And so we decided a long time ago with that grant funding to focus on those most main things, bathrooms and entrances. But wouldn't we love to go into kitchens too, right? And with that, have an average of about $10,000 but we might spend $20,000 on a bathroom project, that sort of thing. So we're talking about, and that's basic minimum access standards. That's not like if you're looking at your home and you want to make it look even better, we're talking about basic, basic access so that people just can get in and out of their homes and use their toilet independently and take a shower independently. Some people, when I used to work in that program, it's changed a little bit. We haven't had as much wait times, but people would be waiting years to be taking a shower independently. So those are big, big deals. But we could look into the actual numbers. I do know from history though that retrofitting is always costing us more money in the long run than if we just built the doors a little bit wider, if we put the studs in so that we don't have to go and do that after the fact, those sorts of things.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Did you just say that people are waiting years to take an independent shower?

[Sarah Launderville (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: They used to, yeah. It's a little less time now, but when people are waiting for grant funds to be able to pay to retrofit, they could wait a significant amount of time depending on how much money programs like ours or other programs have to be able to help with grant funding.

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

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: You're welcome.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And if I, yes, Debbie. Well, I mean,

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: just know other ways to move people around inside. They use, I'm gonna say things that are mounted on the ceiling to even move up, but does any reinforcement

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: have to

[Rep. Deborah "Debbie" Dolgin (Member)]: be done on the ceiling to use a device like that?

[Sarah Launderville (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: Yeah, like Hoyer lifts and that sort of thing. Yeah, you wanna make sure that you're just, you're putting in something very safe when you're putting in those types of contraptions, absolutely. It's really important. Ceiling track systems, I'm sorry, I said hoyer lift and I meant a ceiling track system.

[Rep. Leonora Dodge (Member)]: I was curious, Sarah, how many projects do you take on a year? How many households do you?

[Sarah Launderville (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: I don't have it in front of me. I'm gonna say about, I don't want to tell you the wrong amount right now, but it could be 60 to 80 projects that we're doing per year right now.

[Rep. Leonora Dodge (Member)]: And those, you said like a bathroom would be $10,000 to $20,000 Yes.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: So what would be fair to say is your annual expense on these car costs on these retrofits?

[Sarah Launderville (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: We're spending about $400 $500,000 a year. Some years we get a lot more money, some years not as much. So we're spending about that much. And we've had this program since the late 80s. Although back in the earlier days, we had about $20,000 in just volunteers doing work. And eventually that changed the legislature invested in this program. It goes through the Vermont Housing Conservation Board and comes to us and that significantly changed the way projects were done. I think in the very beginning it was some volunteer groups are still used, but we really work to make sure that the projects are top notch as opposed to somebody who's just coming out to build a quick ramp that might not meet code and that sort of thing.

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

[Rep. Leonora Dodge (Member)]: I'm seeing that universal design, I think as I, at least the way I suspected from the start was that this is sort of like, almost like a process, a call to process of like, you should be thinking about these things as you're designing a home and taking into account the specific needs of the people that are gonna be living there and arriving at some choices that include in the discussion of those people as principal stakeholders rather than a specific checklist. So I've seen AARP put out a list that does look like a checklist, but it includes everything from the kind of like D shaped handles on kitchen cabinets or whatnot to the way you shake the windows and the kind of light bulbs you might use and the placement of light switches. And as we try to embark on something that is a little more of a checklist, how do we square that?

[Sarah Launderville (Executive Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: Yeah, it's challenging in my mind too, honestly. So we have checklists that are related to accessibility specifically, right? And minimum standards. The cool thing about housing, in some ways you can adapt it to work for the person, the individual. And I think that we always need to be able to be mindful of that, that sometimes the person's gonna need something different than what's in the codes. When you think universally, even on those checklists, when you look through it, sometimes it's not going to work for every person. And that's the problem with checklists is for something that's a principle. I think that if we can move to a place when we think about universal design, when training designers, and this goes beyond built environment, it goes to programs and structures, even within state government, say, for example, like when we're designing a new program, how are people accessing those programs if they don't understand the language or don't have access to computers and all that sort of stuff? So it's very, very large and it takes a lot of thought. And it's not a great answer because I'm not saying here's the checklist that you need that's gonna incorporate all universal design because we're talking about a principle that's something that's very large. It's about really intentionally trying to incorporate spaces for everybody. So that's the mix match for me. But I have the hat of trying to really represent people with disabilities. So I would like us to at least going beyond what that minimum standard around accessibility is and getting stronger around that and having people start to understand the philosophy and principles of universal design so that when they're thinking, they're thinking about all of those other things that, oh, I didn't really consider that someone who's blind is gonna be using this space potentially, or someone who uses a chair is, all those parts of it. And so that's sort of where maybe you go with where the principle and philosophy is so that people understand something a little bit more than they did before.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you. Sarah, again, thank you for your time. Sure, of course. Laura, you're up. Laura, of all the different things that you've been before us, just to put this into context, I think you get it. We may or may not include language in legislation, but I think what we've done is take the opportunity that we have, and we have a little bit of time, just to try to understand these concepts more, and I know that there's material on your website, we've seen some of it, but would appreciate any thoughts you have.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: I'm always happy to share your thoughts. Hi, I'm Laura Collins, I'm the Executive Director of the Vermont Cousin Finance Agency, And hi, Sarah. I wanna start off my testimony, by just saying ditto to everything Sarah just said. The work of the Vermont Center for Independent Living does not get discussed enough in this building. It is great work. VCIL has been a tremendous resource to the state. I appreciated that Sarah remembered, when she and I met, was just about twenty years ago, I think it was 2004 when jointly VHFA and VCAL put on a two day universal design conference. And we had some of the experts and institutions Sarah was referencing come to Vermont and train developers and architects and engineers and others. And we're probably eighteen years overdue for doing it again. And so Sarah's, been a great leader of that organization and their work is critical. So, I don't necessarily always follow every budget item, but to the extent when you heard about their home access program and that is, supported by state appropriations, I believe through the Vermont Housing Conservation Board, that is a critical program. And I just want to take a moment to say, please make sure that those waiting lists stay as short as possible because it is unconscionable that someone would have to wait years to access their own home, especially when that is an owned home you know, life circumstances change and not everyone who chooses a home chooses it for its accessibility, yet, health, aging, and reality hits us all and, needing an accessible home is universal. So, I have been out of the building for a month. And so apologies, I appreciate a little groundwork laying. I don't wanna show up at the eleventh hour and take you all off course, but I am good at doing homework. So I'm familiar that, I think it was yesterday you got some testimony on the rules and what they applied to. I think you heard from Mike DeRoscher and you got a little crash course on accessible, adaptable, visitable, universal design. I want to make sure I listened to the testimony. I just had it summarized for me. I want to make sure you also know about the concept of reasonable accommodations. That's in the world that I work in, which is, publicly funded housing has something else. When I say reasonable accommodation, I'm not talking about another standard. I'm not talking about another definition of inches and doorways and radiuses. I'm talking about the fact that broadly speaking, if there's public funding in a housing project, then owners and managers are required to provide reasonable accommodations when they are requested by tenants. And so I'm talking about in a rental model here. And I wanna make sure you know that, not every building is sadly set up to be accessible to, all the needs of humans. And so everyone can ask for a reasonable accommodation. There are multi day trainings on what is reasonable, what is an accommodation, what do I have to do as an owner? What do I not have to do? But, this is a very well established practice for many decades in my world and lots of legal and financial nuance to it.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Laura, is this reasonable accommodation, I mean, there law on the subject? Is there regulation? And whose regulation is it?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: It depends on the funding. HUD, usually. HUD. It's HUD funding. And there are lawsuits against property owners when, and a lot of it often comes down to, was the request reasonable or was it not? And you can imagine a story where I'm the property owner and my tenant says, I need you to build me an extra bedroom for my personal care assistant who now needs to move in with me. It's like, well, is it more reasonable I could just move you into a two bedroom unit in the same building that's accessible to you? You have to find the reasonability here. And at some point, it often comes down to a financial matter about if something is deemed reasonable or not. You can let your mind run rampant with the arguments about, is that reasonable? Can the landlord afford that or can they not?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So the HUD regulations still, as detailed as they might be or might not be, they end up with words like reasonableness that are then subject to litigation.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Correct, and I just wanna be clear, it's not like these things fall under the reasonable accommodation definition. It's not saying you have to have 36 inches doorways or lever door handle or something like that. It's just the concept of, if a tenant in good faith comes to you with a doctor's letter that says they need this reasonable accommodation, then the property owner and their former manager who's hired by them has to adhere to it. Lots of times this may be around service animals, it's not always about the physical accessibility of them.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So, that's what I was going to ask, sort of, is this often people wanting ramps or wanting

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Can be, be all the things.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I think

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: it's reasonable for someone to fully enjoy what they pay for, which is their home. I want to give you four things as you look at this amendment and as you consider this, there are four binary options that I, each of these four things I'm going to tell you has two sides to the coin that I think are important for you to be thinking about as your brain goes through a decision matrix. One is when you're talking about, I loved how Sarah talked about the ideals of universal design, the vision, the multidisciplinary nature of it. And so that's why I come up and say, on all that she said. When we bring it to a housing and housing construction framework,

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: which

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: is I believe what you're talking about here, the first thing to always keep in mind, are we talking about rentals or an owned unit? That is important. Rentals, anyone in the public can have access to, they're gonna turn over more often. If there's public money in it, there's some expectations probably that this be fully affordable adaptable and available to people. Own homes, for sale homes, there's questions about code and the like, and well, if I'm building a home on my parcel of land, what are my obligations to ensure that the next buyer that I've built that home to reasonable design standards or the like? So those are two different ways for you all to view public policy.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Elizabeth. But

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: those are also interchangeable.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Absolutely. We know that one third of the renters rentals in the state are in single family homes. Largely, I bet you a lot of those were built at some point, assuming people would own them forever and now they're being

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: used as rentals. Yep. Yep.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: And when you're setting legislation and you're deciding what is going to apply, that is one framework. There's also one that Sarah talked about already, which is new construction versus rehabs. And the idea, Sarah's spot on when she says it's cheaper when you're building it from the beginning, you know, require things during new construction because it can cost more at rehabilitation. It also is physically impossible sometimes to rehab some buildings to have, let's say, no step entry when the home was built four steps up. Now you can build a ramp and you can do different things. Other times it'll say, there has to be an elevator in a building. Okay? We're going to have to reinforce and restructure and lose things to put in all there. So, rehabs can be prohibitively expensive. It's going to be cheaper to do whatever you want to do in new construction. There's also subsidized housing, non subsidized housing. And I know this committee considered some bills and discussions in years past about having the subsidized housing, have universal design requirements and the like versus non subsidized. I'm gonna tell you about what we currently have in place and you can think about if we're going far enough or not. And the last thing that I think applies to what's being considered here is around manufactured housing versus all housing. And I believe what's being discussed now is about applying things to off-site construction, manufactured housing, as opposed to all housing. So for VHFA, we give out public funds. And so largely for that rental housing, reasonable accommodation comes into play. So we are going to make sure and require that our developers are following the accessibility rules, the adaptability rules, the visitable rules, and there is this reasonable accommodation concept. So we, as a funder and regulator, have some role in making sure that the architect is signing off that these things are met. We are fully supportive of universal design. It is economically efficient, which Sarah mentioned. It is a civil rights issue. And we're just good moral people. And this honors the inherent worth and dignity of all people when you can do universal design. So how this has played out has been more complicated than those blanket clear statements I just made. How it's played out is that BHFA has a universal design policy. One thing that you, I believe are grappling with right now is how in statute or in legislation you're going to, define universal design. And I hope you don't ask me to come up with one because I can't. I mean, gave a presentation on the depth and breadth of it, BHFA, but I can talk to high level concepts of idealized goals with universal design that speaks to universal access and all this, but I would struggle to put into two pages If I could really say what this means for a builder so that they clearly knew exactly what counted and what didn't. And so what we've done at the HFA is we've come up with a menu approach and it is four straight pages of options. And what we do is we have, I'm guessing this is 40 some odd ways, this is why I call it a menu, that we think are ways you could meet having universal design. And we ask the builders and developers how many of the units in your project are going to have this? And if you're not going to do it, tell us why. But we do not in our public funding of rental housing, we do not clearly define that universal design is just these 40 items, nor do we say that buildings have to adhere to all these 40 items. And I bet you that if Sarah and others looked at these 40 items, they could add 20 more to the list and we could have discussions about most of them. About is this universal design? Is it not? Did we go far enough? Again, I'm focusing very much on construction. So, let me give you a few, there's categories of like general elements, like 36 inches wide entry door with a lever style handle, adequate non glare lighting inside and outside entries, easy touch rocker style light switches at the top and bottom of stairs that are 42 inches off the floor. Then there's things about the entrances and exits to the building, where we talk about accessible paths, no step, at least one no step entry, ample and level maneuvering room in the entryway. Look at this, the word ample, what, define that for me. I mean, this is what drives builders nuts, I have to say, because they'll come in and they'll say, We gave you ample maneuvering room. And we will say, No, you didn't. And we have to have a discussion about that. So clarity is kindness when it comes to building. It's gonna make it cheaper and clearer so we can be clearer. There's also sections on stairways and halls, dens and living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Elizabeth? Thank you.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: So can you say specifically or more clearly? Because it was a little bit confusing for me when you said that you have a universal design policy. You have a list of 40 items. Are any of those 40 items required according to your policy?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Our policy is, the the policy says that everyone should go as far as possible with it. I'm looking at it right now. The intent of the policy is to meet national standards for visibility for all funded units and additional functional amenities. So what we do with our policy is that there are certain places, certain buildings that Mike DeRosche would have told you that need to be adaptable when there's four more units with an elevator and there's no elevator, it's ground floor units. We've raised the bar on that. So for instance, we have it apply adaptable, has some rules around when there's three or fewer dwelling units, and there's more than one story. So anyway, for adaptable and visible and accessible, we are going farther with publicly funded money than the state standards are. And then when it comes to universal design, it is, we're calling it a policy, but it is more of the checklist idea. So really the policy of what we're requiring is when we're raising the bar for adaptable, visitable and accessible.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: And those are required? Yep. Okay.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: For the whole No, it's nuanced. And this is where I'm happy to get in. But like, so right now the state says that when there's four more dwelling units not served by an elevator, adaptable applies to just the 1st Floor, the single floor units, when there's more than one story. Right. For the QAP, we say the primary level of a multi story unit should contain access to a bathroom or powder room where possible. And so we're trying, and that's not in the state code. We're trying to access to that bathroom in those cases. For that same type of property, 5% have to be, accessible. And we say all, all the ground floor entrances should also be accessible. Accessible. And so there's little ways that if you get our money, you've got to go a little bit farther. Adaptable and accessible don't apply to when there's three units or less, but those two things apply for all the ground floor units when you get our money. And again, it's just about adaptable, visitable, and accessible is where we've really raised the bar. When it comes to universal design, we do not have a strict policy saying how many units have to be universally designed or ground floor or whatever, because we can't define universal design clearly enough. Instead, we've said every applicant has to complete the checklist and tell us how they're doing it. And when they're saying that they're not going to do it, they have to explain that to us. And then we wag their finger and have a negotiation about, I think you could do this. I think you can do more.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Has your experience been so it's interesting. I'm gonna reflect back one important thing, tell me if I'm not hearing you right. What you're saying is, you see universal design as a set of broad principles which you support. You also, in your kind of operating, at the operating level, you have taken the approach of not saying to a developer, you must have universal design, but instead, you use a list of requirements. And does your list use the words adaptable, visitable, or accessible, or is it simply the list which in fact relates or doesn't relate to the state list?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Those are different things. We mentioned adaptable, visible, and accessible because those are state defined terms with state regulations with certain number of inches and requirements. So we have a policy that says where those things apply. Separate from that, we have a checklist around universal design. And when I keep saying I can't define universal design, it's because as Sarah pointed out with the captioning, if it's universal, it means it has to apply to everyone's unique circumstances. So what someone may find helpful, she mentioned closed captioning, may be problematic to

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: someone So

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: when it comes to, I'm struggling to come up with an example on a building type, but there could be ways that I can't promise, Oh, she mentioned the railings and that the thing was too wide. So I can't say universal design means the handrails have to be within reach if that doesn't work for someone else. So I struggle with the definition of universal design and to land the plane here of how muddy I've made your waters, is that I wonder about going back to the defined clarity that is achieved through the visitable definition, which I have pulled up in front of me, which has five elements.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: And that largely gets at, I think a lot of what we're talking about, especially if we're talking about for sale manufactured housing. And if the state were to look to see could the off-site manufactured housing find a way to hit the visible standard, we are talking about much more clarity and you could actually then measure how they did and not just because I don't know if you have it in front of you, you know, visible means one 1st Floor exterior door that's at least 36 inches wide to theoretically fit a wheelchair. The 1st Floor interior doors between the rooms are at least 34 inches wide. And there's some more here. Interior hallways are at least 36 inches wide and environmental and utility controls and outlets are at heights that are between 15 inches and 48 inches off the floor. You're trying to get a sweet spot of height and reach and all that. And that the bathroom walls are reinforced to permit the attachment of grab bars around the toilet tub, shower stall, shower seat, if those things apply. That is clear, that is actionable, that is something that builders know what to do, that the off-site manufactured,

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: you could check

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: on progress and measure it. And that my understanding of when the visitable laws and acts were passed is that the goal was that someone should be able to get into the unit, they should be able to navigate through the unit,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: they should be able

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: to get to the bathroom. To Sarah's point, I don't know if it means that they will be able to fully function at the kitchen and have all of their needs met. I don't know if we're accommodating for a wheelchair or other mobility impairments, or maybe it's something else physical, but to encourage the state to have more visible units, bring some clarity that I love universal design and for new construction and for publicly subsidized, especially rental housing, I'm going to keep pushing on it and trying to improve it. But if you're talking about for sale, maybe non subsidized housing, I'm feeling like maybe the goal should be visitable in that regard.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Gayle, you're next. She's on the board. Gayle, although she'll see you in here.

[Rep. Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Hi. Hi, Maura. Can you explain the three units or less on a Ground Floor again?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: That comes from state rules. I think this is much more of a Mike DeRoche type question. But when the state standards for adaptable and accessible only apply to four or more units, dwelling units. If there's four more dwelling units in a building, then all of a sudden, you're gonna have some rules around adaptable and accessible. When there's three units or less, apartment units or less, then adaptable and accessible do not apply. And what I was telling you was, that's true for the state, but if you get tax credits from us, then we say all the ground floor units do have to be adaptable and they have to be accessible. I'm sorry, have an accessible entrance. Clear. Has to have an accessible entrance to the Ground Floor unit. So that's my example of the state has no rules about three units or less. If you get tax credits from us, that's a public subsidy, and we think you should have to do more. So we go farther.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Elizabeth, and then I have a question. Yes, go ahead. It

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: surprises me that you would recommend visitability, but not also adaptability. Can you explain why you wouldn't recommend adaptability?

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: No, it's a good question.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: I would have to take a look at, I mean, is where, I know we've spoken in the past, there have been other, I'm looking at that, different other things, this is so complicated. I love the idea of a summer study committee. I wish they would look at how we can improve our public funding to do better, to be looking at the state standards. I have so many questions for the Vermont Access Board. I don't know how often they're approving waivers and what they're seeing in things. I don't know about the enforcement of any of this. I can tell you, channeling what I hear from the people who apply to us. They're like, you make us adhere to all these state rules. And I'm like, absolutely I do. I'm not gonna give public money if you're not following basic state laws and rules. And they're like, but no one cares about all the other housing that's being built. That doesn't, they don't abide by all these rules. I'm not in charge of them, but you are. And so I don't fully, maybe that's a good point. Maybe I should have looked at adaptable and not visitable. There are, there is more to it I see, but I need to think a little more about it. The last point I wanna make, I know there's more questions, is I saw that in the amendment, there was something about applying building codes to the off-site manufactured housing in the state. I would love to have building codes for the state. One, so this is what we hear. You want to lower the cost of housing. Don't have developers have to figure out what the codes are in every town they go in. That is a prohibition to employ more off-site construction, which may be having a statewide manufactured code would be okay. But I think that non manufactured housing should also have a statewide code that would help builders and developers know exactly what's expected, and you can embed this in, and maybe there could be more enforcement and follow-up of these things.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I just want to make sure I understand one thing. I'm just memorializing that you like the idea of a statewide code. Anyway, I think what we understood from Mike Garroshier's testimony is that with respect to multifamily housing, all multifamily housing, no matter how many units it is, well, two or more, has to be visitable, and that it's only when you get to four or more that they have to be adaptable. Mhmm. Is that I'm just checking with you. Yes. Okay.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: I was just talking about adaptable and accessibility.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So so adaptable so without getting into them, visitable is kind of the five or six elements that that you described. Okay.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Just But it doesn't apply to the kind of for sale single family homes I think we're talking about.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: As far as I can tell, although eight zero two Homes isn't expressed, we're we're gonna have more testimony from them, but at the moment, eight of the ten eight zero two Homes are multifamily, so they'd be visible or adaptable depending on size, and one I think of them is visit one of the single family is visible, but I'm not sure about the other, and we'll have to see. But right now, there is no am I right? There is no requirement in state statute one way or the other for single family homes unless they receive money from you.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: No, even if they receive money from us, we don't have that kind of thing for a single fit for our home ownership programs, we have not required.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, that's important. So, in other words, everything you've been telling us applies to your multi family, your loans, etcetera. Your single family home ownership does not require anything. Are

[Rep. Leonora Dodge (Member)]: you building a lot of new single family homes that

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: you then sell with FAFIC?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Well, we don't sell it, but we get money to the developers who do all the things set. Yeah, right now we're at like 50 homes a year and aiming to double that, hopefully.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Of the single family?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Of for sale homes. I don't want to say single family because their home ownership units,

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: some of them

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: are multifamily buildings, they're condos.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But if they are multifamily, do you apply your checklist to them? If they're like a condo.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: If they're multifamily, the state rules apply and so they have to be that visible, accessible, all that.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But what you're saying is under home ownership, your home ownership program funds single family homes, but it also funds multi family homes? Correct. And nothing is required.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: And if they're multi family, Right. Same

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But you don't, you're 40.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Our raising the bar only applies to tax credits and yeah, and so that wouldn't. I'm not trying to make this harder.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's it's it's but this will I feel strongly this is the place where we have to understand No. It's good. Yeah. And I don't entirely we may not do that much right away, but it's important that we understand it, Marc, so thank you.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: And I think fully understanding it will take more voices than mine. I mean, you need to get some builders in here and to understand what's in the marketplace, realtors even about selling, and the marketability of this, which has increased, I would say, if

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: you have more accessibility feature.

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: So partly, you've already answered my question. This applies to tax credits and financing for some of the programs. In the case of a first time home buyer, one person, they're buying pretty existing home. Do you ever get involved with construction loans for

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: the first time? We don't

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: do construction construction loan versus the mortgage and then Yeah. For an individual. Okay. And if a developer is building single family units and you're part of the financing stack, then that's where you do up the bar with regard to those single family units. No. You don't? Okay. I know the state doesn't. Okay. So but So but only these these criteria apply where the state would apply them, and to some degrees might be a little more stringent. So if the state

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: For which program?

[Rep. Thomas "Tom" Charlton (Member)]: I am looking at

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: This is why I started with like, are talking about March of a rental? And what funding I'm looking

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: at the university Tax credit.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Yeah, that's all about, that's all about rental tax credit projects. So this universal design policy does not apply to our home ownership tax credits or the middle income home ownership program. Those are the two funds we have to build for sale homes.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Is it overall that the dollars that are going to the builders, you're requiring this? The dollars that are going to the occupants of the homes, the residents are not?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Our mortgages have no additional overlays to housing requirements over than what Freddie and Fannie require in terms of having a septic system and things like that, but it doesn't get into this kind of accessibility for our mortgage programs.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So the mortgage program, this is important for us to really get.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Yeah, yep.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, so you have tax credit programs. For your tax credit, so when a developer comes in and proposes a development, it could be Ever North, whomever, and they are using tax credits, For rental housing. For rental housing, it applies. If you are using, if you are working under your home ownership program, which provides mortgage loans. Two different things. Yeah.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: We actually, we have two ways that we can fund the construction of for sale homes, and we just go with the state standards. We don't raise the bar on people for that. And if they get a mortgage from us, then we have nothing to do with the construction of the home. So we really don't require anything there because we're not paying to build or renovate that home at all. We're just the bank doing the finance So that's why I'm saying like on the for sale side, if we're paying money to construct or rehab the building, we're making sure they're following the state rules. But on the mortgage side, we don't even check that they're following state rules because there's often not state rules Go for

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: back. Wanna rewind just two sentences. Okay, so the homeownership program funds for sale houses, or involves VHFA in for sale houses, you said, in two ways.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: The construction of it, yep.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, one is you're a bank. With, you know, blander loans, then they go in from Northfield City. What's the other?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: We have two programs over here that fund the creation, the construction or rehab of creating the actual homes. So the first thing you mentioned, the mortgage is just the financing for the buyer. The other thing, we have two ways of funding developers to build for sale homes. If both are those, you do require? State standards.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: The state standards. They fund you. What are those two ways that you fund developers?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: One is through a state homeownership tax credit, and the other is through the middle income homeownership development program, which was a one time funded program from three years ago, and all that money's been awarded, and that was sort of a new program a few years ago.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Right. Okay, so with those programs, with the state middle income, which you're not doing right now. Yeah. I see. With the state middle income and the state home ownership tax credits, state standards, with respect to straight loan, to an occupant, potential occupant to buy a house, no report, you're just the bank.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Right. Because we're not dealing with the developer or builder who has the money or ability to do that. We're giving them the mortgage, and then if they need to modify their home to meet their needs, they hopefully, they have a cheap enough mortgage

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to Gayle, do you have your hand up because you've been wanting continue questioning, or you just haven't taken your hand down?

[Rep. Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: No. I have a question.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Well, shoot.

[Rep. Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Okay. And

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: then you're next, Elizabeth.

[Rep. Gayle Pezzo (Member)]: Alright. You had said something about codes or requirements for structure, any structure, and then you separated manufactured homes that you wished there was for manufactured homes also, why would there be a difference?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: The amendment I saw said,

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: and I can pull it up.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: It said that there should be on page two, I see it says that there's going to be a report to this legislature in November. And the report should include information on whether to enact a statewide building code or codes for off-site construction, including whether this should include universal design. And I'm flagging for you all that I, there has been other study committees on the idea of a statewide building code. And I just wanna say, I can appreciate we want a statewide building code for off-site construction, but please don't lose sight of the facts. Sorry, I should be talking to the camera. Please don't lose sight of the fact that there should also be statewide building codes for rural housing, and that would be the HFA school that you all get to through some vehicle. I understand that this moment, this vehicle may not be it, but just wanna remind you that that's what I'd like to see. If you need to start with off-site, okay. But it's, to me, it's reminiscent of when there were gonna be a lot of health and safety requirements on short term rentals. And I got a little offended that we didn't care about Vermonters renters as much because there weren't the same health and safety standards for all Vermont renters, year round renters. Like, are we protecting the health and safety of our short term renters and not our permanent renters? So similarly, why are we aiming to have a statewide building code on off-site construction and not have it be for all construction?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Got it. Elizabeth, you've been wanting to make questions and waiting page. On

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: page four of the 2025 BHFA housing report, it states that Wait. Wait. Wait.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: I just need to make sure I know the prep. 2025 housing report? What?

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: Just whatever you're about to read. I just wanna make sure I know which we're talking about.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: The special needs assessment. Is that it?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Oh, you're talking about the housing needs assessment. Housing needs assessment. And we a chapter on special needs housing because that requires that.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Yep. So it includes that the total number of either accessible or adaptable rental units in Vermont is currently 2,713 out of 76,000 units. So if you are part of the funding stack of all this housing being built, how is the total number of adaptable or accessible units 2,713, of which two sixty eight are limited for people with disabilities, or specifically designated for people with disabilities?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Because there is no dataset that tells us what's going on in people's homes. So I can only tell you what I know about.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Well, you're the person who, or your organization is the one that has the policy that requires adaptable units be included in whatever is being built. So I'm just asking, how does that wind up with a total number, 2,700 out of 76,000?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Yep.

[Rep. Ashley Bartley (Vice Chair)]: I have to

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: pulling up to make sure I'm speaking to the right source, but I believe what it is is there's 14,000 subsidized housing units in the state. So yes, there's 76,000 rentals, but 14,000 of them have gotten public money over the last fifty years. From BHFA? From all the sources combined. HUD through public housing, rural development funds it, tax credits, VHCB. There's lots of old timey programs from the 70s that HUD does directly. And we have a directory of all the affordable rental housing in the state. And there's 14, maybe there's 15,000 apartments that have gotten some kind of public money. I have to look at the year first occupied, but some of them came online in the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, before any of these rules were in effect.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: That is '75 according to that same report, 75% was built before the ADA.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Okay. So if you're saying why can I not prove that they're accessible, adaptable, all that, it's because if it didn't apply, then that would be, I'm trying to like start with the universe? So I know the physical characteristics of like 15,000 apartments in the state because we didn't finance, what's the math? 60,000 of them were just built and we don't have state by codes.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We don't have enforcement. We don't

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: know, have data on all this. But of the 15,000 homes that we have financed, tell me again, how many were before the ADA when these rules went into effect?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Oh, it was 75% of Vermont's total housing stock was built prior to the ADA. So that would

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: be homeownership. We know that 74% of housing stock are owned homes. But if we assumed the same kind of ratio that let's just pretend that 70 ish percent of the rentals were built before the ADA, then I can't say that they abided by accessible and adaptable. I would have to go and Sarah would know when I should read this document better. Like when did adaptable and accessible and visitable, these all came online at different points. So anything built before those requirements went into place, I can't say if they are or not. So what I know is that of the funding in this directory of affordable rental housing, how many of them have told us that they have units that are Honestly, I think we only asked about accessible. We don't ask about adaptable or visitable in this database. It's really just how many are accessible.

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: Well, it's two sixty eight. But out of since you have been at, do you know how many rental units have been built under your tutelage?

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Oh, let's call my tutelage, I've been there for twenty four years. So yeah, the DORA, this directory of affordable rental housing, we could do the math of how many have been built since 2000 or, you know, we have the year first occupied and we can look at how many are accessible every year and by funding and all that, it's not going to be a lot. The bar for accessibility is high and it's like 5% of units have to be accessible. And so the numbers you're saying sound right to me that very few units are accessible. I want to point out that we're only talking about the 15,000 that got someone's money of that, about 10,000 of those units have been funded by VHFA over the course of our existence. So what I don't know is, I don't know, there could be a ton of accessible and adaptable units in the market of the 60,000 rentals that I don't know anything about. I doubt it because I've looked at the marketplace and I don't see a lot of people bragging about this. And I know the waiting list Sarah's talking about, and these are unmet needs. So I'm just assuming with the data reports we do that if I don't know that they're accessible or adaptable, I'm saying they aren't, because I don't know that they are, right? I can't make up a number and say, I bet you 10% of the housing stock is accessible. I don't believe that. I don't know where I would pick that number. And so all I know is of the 15,000 apartments that have told us how many are accessible, we will report that to you all. And it's going be a very low number because the rules of what has to be accessible is 5% or at least one unit of buildings with more than four units. And so that's not gonna add up to

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: a lot. Yep. And I'm actually I think what we were actually really moving towards was adaptability and and visibility, and I'm not sure that I

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: I don't have any data on that. Does the access board track that? I mean, does anyone know what's happening that's available?

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: I really, truly, I've been asking what we are purposefully spending our treasure on. Are we purposefully spending our treasure on things that help Vermonters, of which there are more than one quarter of all Vermonters have a disability. So are we spending our treasure on housing that will help the people who exist now? And we just keep hearing this week on the radio because of the study at Gayle on older Vermonters. We know how many people are gonna be older by 2030. Are we actually spending our state treasurer responding to those needs? That's the question that I'm asking.

[Maura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: It's an excellent question. And so should the projects that get public subsidy have a higher, should all of them be accessible? I mean, if we have that kind of shortage, do you want like all the housing, 100% of the units to be accessible? Because we know that, like I said, over the, however many years that Vermont's been around, 76,000 of the homes we've created in the state are rentals. And of that, I'm going say 15,000 are accessible. If we knew that 15,000 of the 76,000 rentals were accessible, I still don't know if that's enough. So if we had made everything accessible, it still may not make the need. So there is an argument to be made that like everything should be accessible, not even just adaptable. Now,

[Rep. Elizabeth Burrows (Member)]: having something be adaptable still creates a more universal housing market than having something that's not adaptable. Agree with you. Right? Yeah.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We're just about at noon. I know that Laura is an opportunity. Some of you can't pass up, but out of consideration, is there any last question to Laura before we let her go? We are reconvening at 01:00. Okay? Here. And it won't be that long. It'll be as short, but at 01:00. So