Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I brought up unhealthy living.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Welcome everyone to the House Committee on General Housing. Today is Cinco de Mayo, May 5. We are going to start by reviewing about four different elements that came over from the Senate but they haven't come over yet. They are in the senate under consideration in a senate version of our bill, h seven seventy five. And, at the request of that committee, in an attempt to align our three twenty eight, S. Three twenty eight with this, they've asked us to consider incorporating, well they've asked the House to consider incorporating five changes or additions. As you know, we can't do that, because we no longer have possession of three twenty eight. Three twenty eight is now with Ways and Ways and Means. Means will consider these five amendments or five additions, which is fine. But they would rather know that at least I can report that we've looked at them, and that's what we're doing now. We're looking at these amendments, which I think are pretty noncontroversial, so that we can report to ways and means. Yeah. We've looked at them, and they're okay.

[Unidentified Member (House Committee on General Housing)]: Are we not able to amend we can amend our own bill.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Not when it's out of we don't have possession of it. It could be amended on the floor. That's what I mean. Yeah, but but it's easier if it's amended in some other committee, and we don't have to have a floor amendment. Okay, so to assist them in reviewing these five changes, we have our esteemed counsel here who will tell us what we need to know. Cameron?

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Oh, sorry, can I ask one question?

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

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Sorry to interrupt. This is about another bill, but are we also gonna oh, okay. I think the senate also has our labor omnibus one.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: They have two thirty.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: And there might have been some changes to that, but we won't find out yet until it Okay. Comes Thanks. Sorry about that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And then we'll either concur

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Okay. Or appropriate

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Cameron. Yes, for the record, Cameron Wood, Office of Consulate of Counsel. I'm going to take a look at the most recent version of seven seventy five that was reviewed by the Senate Economic Development Committee. They have possession of the bill, so this is all subject to change, obviously. But

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Mr. Chair, you want me to

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: go through the whole bill or you just wanted to look at the just the sections?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Just sections four, five, seven, seven, ten, twelve. So

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I will talk about a few of them. Two of them, I can give you the broadest comment on what they're intended for, but I would defer and will defer to John Gray on any details about them. But here we have so what I'm sharing, I'm sharing my screen. And as I mentioned, this is draft 2.2, the most recent amendment that I walked through last Friday in Senate Economic Development. So this is an amendment to seven seventy five as it came over from the house. And it

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: starts at page seven of your And

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: so what you'll see though is a lot of these sections, they should mirror up to what you have in 03/28 as it passed this committee. There were a few sections that you included. For example, if you remember section one of your bill is now the requirement for the Secretary of State's office to publish information on its website about common interest communities, that's not here. But most every section that's here really matches up already with what you have. And so some of this highlighted stuff right here on section one, these are all things that you actually added in on threetwenty '8 and that the Senate committee was reviewing to include in this potential amendment. So not a lot of difference at this point. One of the primary differences, I will say, just quickly as I'm just making a few comments before we get to the substance of what I'm here for, the treasurer's credit facility, this is probably the one section in the bill that is different than what you have in threetwenty eight because they didn't include the 1% in the off-site pilot program. So what I'm going to talk about next is what the Senate Economic Development Committee is reviewing for inclusion, Mr. Chair, as you mentioned, reviewing for inclusion in July that was not in 03/28 as you passed it out. And so this is going to start on page seven. There is a new section four and section five in their bill, which is related to a program that is through the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. So that's why you see that reader assistance heading there at the top. And this is a rental housing revolving loan program that was created I believe it was created in 2023, may have been 2024. I didn't bring my note with me.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It says inactive in the 2023. That's it. Perfect.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: 2023 action results number 47. Thank you. So this section for let me back up. So it was created in 2023, and it was put in session session law at the time because it had the language that accompanied the program to say that the duty to implement is contingent upon an appropriation. Well, it did receive an appropriation. And so that's why BHFA moved forward with implementing the program. But at this point in time, it's a revolving loan program. It's intended to last arguably into perpetuity. So it really needs to be enacted in statute and it doesn't need to be in session law.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We've had members of the committee over the last two years, we've had testimony to the HFA about this program. It's just it's a program that allows them to make loans for the development of rental housing. They make them to the developer, and the rates are lower in order to facilitate the development.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And so you've amended the program once last year in your housing bill, which became Act 69. And so at this point, because this is another amendment request, I asked the chair of Senate Economic Development, and I would strongly advocate that the program be put in statute at this point. And so section four is just articulating that. It's the intent and the purpose here to codify the program in statute. And I think a key piece of this last sentence, it just says, the loans that have been issued to the program shall remain in effect in accordance with the executed terms and conditions. Trying to repeal the language that's in session. We'll leave it there. This is just indicating that these are intended to be the same program. So then we get to section five, and this is where I'm adding the program into section six twenty nine under subchapter three. So you will see all of this language is underlined, but it's actually not new. This is a copy of what exists in the session law provision. What is highlighted are the changes from what is in the session law. And what you can see here is, as the chair mentioned, this is a revolving loan program. And it is intended to create and administer a loan fund to provide subsidized loans for rental housing developments that serve middle income households. And when you get to sub B, it outlines what those loans can look like. And some of the key provisions are that at least 25% of the units have to be affordable housing. And it says it's affordable housing earning. And why it's up to its highlighted is because currently it says between 65150% of area median income. And the proposed amendment here is to remove that lower floor to allow it to build units that could support individuals below 65% of area median income. So serving even more lower income individuals is the change here.

[Unidentified Member (House Committee on General Housing)]: Low and moderate

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: rather than minimum.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: They asked for that change?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: My understanding is this was requested from BHFA.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But otherwise, what you see here is the current law. Just not codifying.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's just two changes, and it's there on line eight, which is the up to, and then there's an addition here on line 21, it's similar. When you get down here further under this page, it starts to articulate how the loan and the maximum loan amount that's authorized. And so here, under this subdivision, you can get up to $150,000 per unit for units that are affordable to earnings of up to 80%. Currently, it's 65 to 80%. So now it will be up to 80%. So the only other change, mister chair, as you mentioned, as I mentioned, all of this language is just bringing it over from session loss, and none of it is actually new. The only other change that I've made is here on page 11 subsection e. Currently, they're required to do an annual report for the program, and is requested to just allow them to incorporate the information into the annual audit report that they have to do that is provided to you all. And so that's what this section has just changed to say, that they have to do this audit report every year, include information in that report so they're not having to do two separate. There

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: are some risks we have

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Mary, you are not muted, just so

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: you Okay. Can ask them how you

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Mary, so in sum, this is a request that came over, it's just a request that we, that the house include this provision in three twenty eight and if it's included, it would either have, like all of these that we're about to hear, it would happen in appropriations. Or So ways and anyway, this is simply codifying what's there with minor changes. Yes. So they can look at something that's not in there for these generally? Yeah, they'd prefer it if we'd looked at it. That's why we're sitting here.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Oh, okay.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We don't have to vote. We don't even have to make a straw vote. I think I just wanted everybody to have a chance to look at it and think about it

[Unidentified Member (House Committee on General Housing)]: and be aware of. A good example is, remember how we had put language about housing targets in our bill, and then the VLCC wasn't able to comment, but came to me and said, We actually wanna see some changes? I was able to meet with them, figure out what they were looking for, and then I met with Rep. Kimball when it was in Sydney, said, Here's what we've heard, here's where it came from. And they just did it that way.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: And some, you'll see in a minute, some of the amendments, also not controversy, really are retained to them.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, so really the next two, and so I'll jump you down further to

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Is John coming, Mary? At one You want to do the ones that John's interest do those labs?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'll just mention them, and then if you all have further questions, I would have to defer any specific technical questions. Real quick the next two pieces that are being included are this section 7a on page 14, 7b on page 15. So if you remember, the section above this, section seven, is the special assessment bonds. This was in July initially. This came out of this committee and is included in 03/28 as it came out of this committee. And it's included in July still. But you all added this in, and this is giving the municipality the authority to issue a revenue bond backed by the special assessments that are imposed on a piece of property. And there was some concern about a project not being able to issue revenue bonds and also to be able to utilize the CHIP and the TIP programs, respectively. So this section 7a and 7b is adding some language into these two sections entitled 24 related to municipal and county government. And it is the intent of the language is to allow projects to utilize both the special assessment bonding process, the revenue bonds, and also to have access to the chip program that you passed last year. So it's to ensure that they have more availability under one project. As far as the specific technicals of this language, I'd defer that to John. Yeah, I'd suggest we address that, and then John shows up.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: So can I just ask the basic question? So you're saying this was this is not changing stuff that was in last year's

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: No, ma'am.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: Bills. This is in our current seven seventy five, and we're just sort of adding And some of

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it's not changing anything that you pass related to the revenue bonds above regarding special assessments. It's just adding language into totally different, this came up just a few weeks ago, Michael Gaughan with the bond bank. This is Michael Gaughan

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: and John Gray working together realizing that there was this technical problem. To access. Yes.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: I'm sorry. I'm confused. So am I are we are are is this the part of the bill that looked at I'm giving away that I have lived a life of teaching Spanish and not taxes municipal bonds. But we can have a subjective, you know, test challenge if you need to. But is this the section of the bill that's about the, like, if section of a municipality wants to develop something that the rest of the municipality shouldn't necessarily Road. Prevent them from doing so because it does not affect them? Yes. Got it. I thought we passed that last Not this No. No.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We passed it in July.

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: In July. Okay. So It does feel like last year though. It does feel like last year. You.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yesterday feels like last year. And

[Leonora Dodge (Member)]: so within that effort of attempting to square off the ability of one small group of people within a municipality to do a bond, what are we doing with this?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So earlier just following on. Earlier this session, you passed the ability for the municipality to issue revenue bonds backed by the special assessment for the smaller portion of the municipality. And in doing so, you passed that. It went from the House. It went over to the Senate. As the Senate Committee was reviewing it, Michael Gaughan reached out to our office and said, hey, by the way, we're concerned that and I wasn't privy to the conversation but concerned that based on other sections in law, if you pass this language regarding these special assessment bonds, there could be a scenario where that development project that wants to utilize both the revenue bonding or infrastructure and wanted to also try to utilize the chip program that you passed last year, there could be issues with being able to do that. So John can better explain

[Unidentified Member (House Committee on General Housing)]: Can explain to that? Like, do both?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There would be issues with being able to utilize both of those programs. And I don't really want to call them programs. Of those revenue tools to help build infrastructure. And so this language that's being added in because it was noticed after this left your committee, the language that's being added in is to allow the development to utilize both of those tools in moving forward. And John can speak to the specific detail about what the issue was that was preventing the project from being able to utilize both. Okay, great.

[Unidentified Member (House Committee on General Housing)]: Thank

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you. Yes. Okay. Other mister chair, do you want me to talk about the sections that you removed from 03/28 regarding things that went into the environment? No.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Don't need that. Okay. It's because, well, I'm I'm just gonna tell the committee, when we got when I got a list of things that this list of things they wished we would look at, the house would look at, it included some of the things that we gave to the environment committee. Remember, we just took out of 03/28, some zoning stuff and gave it to the environment committee and I just told them we're not dealing with that. Because it's gonna be hard enough just to get, we're right at the end now, we've gotta keep this simple, so I just, don't worry about that stuff. So go ahead, guess, you can

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: talk about section 12. Yeah, there's one other change that is different from July currently versus what you passed out from 03/28, and so it's going to be all the way down in section 12, so if you remember there's this common interest community report. It wasn't in July, but it was in 03/28 that came over. And you made the recommendation of including some further qualifying language for what the report needs to review. So this is the report that would look at having our office provide information to you all about legal issues and financing issues for authorizing the leasing of residents or units within a common interest community.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Wait one minute, Saudia, I didn't see. Do you have a question? Are you online?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: I am and I do. Good. Oh, sorry about that. I just, I know you guys have moved on. I just had a clarifying question about what just got discussed briefly, and moved on from. And I just want to understand. So is the the aspect of that was that, Cameron, you were just referring to that we're just not addressing, is that the portion that we were hoping was going to get put in 03/25, but that that's not being addressed this year? Is that what I'm hearing?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There were some sections in 03/28 that this committee did not include in your, your strike all amendment to 03/28. And my understanding is they may have been more under the jurisdiction of the environment committee. As far as whether or not those provisions are moving forward in another bill, I am not aware because that would be in somebody else's portfolio. I can't guarantee you they're somewhere else. I do not know.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Go

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: ahead, Kim.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Saudia, just FYI, I got a call from Ella Chapin saying she was worried they weren't gonna be able to include them this round, not because they didn't like them, but because they were just so under the gun with three twenty five and it was so controversial, she didn't know if they could do it, and I said, well, we care about it, but thank thank you for calling me. And so, I don't know. At this point, I haven't had the time to look through three twenty five, and I don't fully know what's in there. There is a summary of three twenty five. Miriam, is it on our website? We'll put it up on our website. It's a two page summary of three twenty five. Okay?

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Okay. I I just I I I'm just wondering if it was the specific part that I was concerned that

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. I think it is.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Okay. I think your

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: suspicion was well founded.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: That's a good flag.

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: Thank you. Okay. Alright.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Go ahead. Okay. I'm sorry to interrupt. No. That's okay. Can I interrupt? Yes.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, this was the I was just, like, talking, like, in a regular, non legally. This is the part for folks that they forgot that I didn't like that this did, and then they made it into a study. It would have negatively impacted many communities if they started having restrictions and making decisions on how people decide if they're gonna rent or not. And it could have ramifications for people's rates and other interest things going up if we had more rentals and other things like that. And then we added, which I think is good, more information. We added some stuff. It's a charge for Cameron. He's the studier.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So this is the report that was in 03/28 that came over and you kept the information from one to three and you added in this language here on line 18. What is different is this last piece on page 23, this subdivision four. The House passed a separate bill. I think it's May that would require common interest communities and would require landlords to authorize individuals to engage in growing vegetable gardens on property that they have exclusive use to. And that passed the body, went to Senate Economic Development, and they have decided to include that within the report here.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Oh, so they added Martin's bill into this now.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. They don't think

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: they couldn't get to They don't wanna do it on its own.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Couldn't to it, so they said we'll throw it in the study.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Alright.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So that is one of the differences. That's just subdivision four as opposed to, Mr. Chair, as you mentioned, passing five thirty seven. I can't speak for the committee and what they intend to do with it, but they added it to this study at this point in time. So that is not in three twenty

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: eight Wait, so that

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you passed it.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Right, and so is it the exact same bill that the House passed, the right to grow a garden?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So that bill is on the wall.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Right. In here, though. Same language?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They've just added it as a requirement for me to look at, for our office, I should say.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Oh, so they kinda killed it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: You can't say that. No, my impression is, here's my impression, it's just an impression. The Senate committee is overwhelmed. No, get it. They've got too much going on and it's of turmoil. A They haven't even gotten the landlord tenant bill yet from judiciary.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: And they're a mourning committee.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's, they're a morning committee and now they can't meet more than two hours because the stair starts at eleven, and so they're running out of time, and so they didn't want to die, so they put it in here.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: No, but what I'm hearing is they didn't put it in there the way it was. They put it in there to be studied.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Well, yeah, because it's a That's different.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: That's different. It's very different from the bill. Very different.

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

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Right. Right. There's nothing we can do about it. The bill does not pluck at all. No. The bill died.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. The bill died. Or it appears to

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: be I wonder if people know. Unrelated. Because it came from not my district, but Martin's, also in South Burlington. It was a constituent request. Yes.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So, it's a next year thing.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Oh, I get it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah. Based on the brilliant report of legislative council, including Rheingrich.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: So, right, they're going to report on what it would be like for the right to grow a vegetable garden? Well, they're going

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: to report on what One year old property?

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. There anything we can do to change that to make it the bill again if we wanted to or not? Would that be a conference discussion?

[Unidentified Member (House Committee on General Housing)]: Or amend it that?

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Amend it. Well, that's the thing. We didn't make The Senate has different jurisdictions, so they got that bill, where here it was in agriculture.

[Unidentified Member (House Committee on General Housing)]: Can we make it true to the bill that we passed out?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I don't know if ways and means could do that.

[Unidentified Member (House Committee on General Housing)]: We could amend our own bill?

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: We could have a floor amendment.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, might do that for Marie.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I would

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: say it's a floor amendment.

[Unidentified Member (House Committee on General Housing)]: Or ask AG to do it.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: But the bill doesn't go in other words, three twenty eight is going through.

[Unidentified Member (House Committee on General Housing)]: Ask ag to amend the bill when it comes to the book.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Right, someone from, it doesn't have to be me. Or could be Martin, he's Yeah. The original Alright, well I'm going to talk to some folks, but you may see an amendment on that.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Alright, I would leave my suggestion to leave the study in. No, no,

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: we're leaving the study in for now. I'm just saying that it's new information and interesting.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So,

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: we'll see what happens.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Alright, so those are

[Saudia LaMont (Member)]: elements

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: of seven seventy five where a request has come that the House include them one way or another in our three twenty eight. I just want to be able to say the ways and means that we've looked at it and if any of you have problems or issues with these, I'd like to be able to transmit things. I already know I'm going to be saying that we're pissed that the garden was watered down that

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Well, mean, I have conflicting thoughts on it, I need to check-in with a few people, but you know, but yeah, for me personally, otherwise, I'm fine. Personally, I don't know how others feel. That is a

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I'll tell you what, what we can do if you want, is we can take a ten minute break and John Gray will be here at 01:45 and we're going ask him about the other two sections. I'm feeling like codifying the rental housing revolving loan fund is a good thing.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Not John Gray.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, it's a good thing.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Yeah.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Everything else is already in 03:28. Yeah,

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: the garden is the only sticky point for me, but I'm gonna, during the break, try to connect with some folks.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay, great.

[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: But for now, let's just leave it and I might have an amendment.

[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Any thoughts, comments yet? We'll have more once John gets here. I don't think I own the place. Okay.