Meetings
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[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: This is getting more interesting. I know. Welcome everyone to the House Committee on General Housing. It's a
[Unidentified Committee Member]: great day, yes.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It is today, still, Wednesday, May 27, and we are still in session. So, what we're doing now in this little piece appearing here is that we have an omnibus housing bill, S-three 28, and that bill came back from we worked on it, we amended it, we sent it to the senate, they worked on it and sent it back to us with about eight or nine instances of amendment. Four or so of them have to do with land use and we had our land use counsel, Alan Tchaikowski, here earlier today to go through those, and now we have our August housing counsel, Cameron Wood here with us, and he is going to go through the other instances of amendment, after which we will take a seroppel on whether to concur on this bill. Cameron, welcome. Happy to be back.
[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: For the record, Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel. Okay, looking through the amendment, Mr. Chair, as you discussed, yes. The first instance of amendment is related to the treasurer's credit facility. They have proposed to strike section A, subsection A, reinsert subsection A with this language on the page. What does this mean? They're continuing to stick with their position of increasing the credit facility authorization from 10% to 12.5%, but not including the standalone 1% for the off-site constructed housing. Just so you're aware, the treasurer can do that off-site constructed housing through the 12.5% credit facility,
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: it just wouldn't be written in statute for that amount. They have the authority to do it. Correct. And also they told Now they have the authority to do 2%
[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: of it.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yeah, they can do whatever they want and they're okay with the slack.
[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Right, and have said that that is, yeah.
[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so that's the first change in the first instance here from lines five all the way down to 12. So in the second instance of amendment lines 13 through 15, You have that off-site accelerator pilot program. Remember it was with the VHCD and then as the bill was over here before you sent it back to the Senate, you moved it over to the treasurer's office. So the treasurer's office is the one doing this pilot at this point in time. Before issuing any funds through the credit facility for the purchase of off-site constructed housing, you have in there that the treasurer needs to consult with a list of entities. And that includes BHCB, BHFA, THCD, etcetera, your housing providers. And the committee and now the Senate is recommending to add among those group of stakeholders the Vermont Economic Progress Council.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So they have to consult with that, which makes sense. That's fine.
[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, the third instance of amendment here on line 16, it's in section six by striking subsection A. And section six I'm just going back to the bill as it passed out of the House. Section six is the section related to VHIP. And if you remember, in section A, you all made some changes here at the bottom of this page, top of the next page, that the department, the HCD, may authorize partnership organizations to advance funding at the beginning of a project. BHIP is technically a reimbursement program. The developer has to begin the work, expend the money, and then they access the money. I think the funds are issued at stages during the project. This would specifically authorize them in statute to upfront the money and the Senate is proposing to strike that change.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: That was because they're concerned about risk?
[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, sir.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: I just want to say, we all always knew that the ability to do this lay within the theoretic authority the of MIIP as it is without this legislation. But MIIP told us that they would prefer to see specific authorization, and so we did it, and the Senate took it out, and I don't think anyone is terribly disturbed by this. Correct.
[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Correct. The fourth instance of amendment is on line eighteen and nineteen. This is regarding the changes for the municipal plan. You remember the work that you all did to add in to the housing element of the municipal plan, the requirement that the municipality look at Markets. The housing targets. And then they also have to include an analysis of the physical and regulatory constraints that are preventing them from meeting those housing targets. And so the Senate is proposing to also add in the word labor. So it would be an analysis of the regulatory, physical, think it's the regulatory labor and physical constraints that would be prohibiting them. I think the overall concept here was what are the workforce challenges? And they are substantial.
[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: That makes sense.
[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So that's the fourth instance, then you get to the fifth instance, which I'm assuming you may have had Ellen go over with you this morning. The fifth instance adding some of the things back in that were in All the rest.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Including the change in Can we just go to Fine. See, the fourth instance Mhmm. Section eight. Mhmm.
[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: H n. The Well, I'm looking at The municipal plan section.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It's a good series of brand development. Re development. Re development. It would go right description of what actions.
[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So it would be the Hallansing element shall also include an analysis of any regulatory, labor, and physical constraints preventing the development, redevelopment, or rehabilitation.
[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Just adding the word labor.
[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Adding the word labor right after regulatory.
[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Right, and
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: two commerce. Presuming they need workforce essentially. Yes. Then Ellen went over with us the fifth institute and
[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: the
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: sixth instance including the late delayed effective date and the village center matter as well. So that should get you to page seven
[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And there's an eighth instance of amendment, which if you remember, this is back to the report from our office about common interest communities. And they added back in as the bill came over to you this section four. Vegetable gardens. Vegetable gardens, yes, sir. And then lastly, the ninth instance of amendment is simply striking the effective date to make that sunset section that Ellen should have walked through with you, make that effective 01/01/2028.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Thank you. You're welcome. Questions of our illustrious counsel?
[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Oh, not of counsel.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yes. So if we were to put July in this, where would you suggest that happening? I
[Unidentified Committee Member]: have another question that is slightly more.
[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: More than that?
[Unidentified Committee Member]: No. What if my question was real? Basic. Yeah, I see a question real.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: No. I won't. So I know exactly where
[Unidentified Committee Member]: I On put line seventeen and eighteen, line seventeen and eighteen on page seven, the permit the installation use of vegetable gardens within a unit owner's designated specific. Would that override any rules about you can't chop down trees or privacy bushes?
[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: As I was
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Picture yourself in a suburban compound, Tom. Tom was like, what?
[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Not as I was reading the language. So keep in mind, this is just going in the report. So I need to come back to you with any issues about requiring the installation of them. But as I'm trying to think back to the house bill, because there was a bill that you all passed to specifically allow this. And it said that Common Interest Community Association could not unreasonably restrict the installation of a vegetable garden. I think if you had separate regulations that say you can't alter the common use space without authority, I don't think it would necessarily override that.
[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: I thought that it was just a study.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: It is.
[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Oh, okay.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Written by one of legislators with nothing to do in the summer.
[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: What they did was kill the right to garden bill that passed the house and just made it into a study instead for some unknown reason and, didn't really say anything, but just did it that way. Had to do that. Right. Because it was a constituent in South Burlington, we inspired the garden bill. Anyway.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Okay. Any further questions of counsel? Real questions? No, no real questions. Okay, comments before we take a straw poll?
[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: No. Oh, comments not for Cameron. No. Right. Just comments. General comments before we take the straw poll.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Yep.
[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: Well Oh, you go first. Well, I will be supporting the bell positively, whatever upvote. I'm happy that they've left in provisions that I wanted. And, you know, I It's not my constituent, but it is someone in South Burlington that'll be disappointed. Not sure if they even tell. I told them two of their senators were on the committee and they could reach out, but I don't know what happened. Anyway, I'll be voting for the bell supporting it to concur. I believe that's the vote. Yeah. I'll be voting to concur this situation.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Other comments before we take this throughout the poll?
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yes. I will also be voting to concur. Bless you. Bless you. I just want to take a second to thank everybody. Bill, all of the bills we've done in the last two years, really shows what compromise looks like and hard work, and does not matter what happens to other bills. I know that we did really hard work on everything that we had in front of us, and we left it on the field, and sometimes that doesn't work, but I will support this bill just like I have supported almost every other bill that's come out of this committee, because I think, as a team, we all do really good work.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: Well, I just want to say, I think this committee is the best committee in the House.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: I know that. All
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: know why. Alright, who's in favor of concurrence? Anybody? That's 12345678. Pentagel.
[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: 803.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: 803.
[Emilie Krasnow (Ranking Member)]: And then Tom does the discussion on it. Thanks, Carolyn.
[Marc Mihaly (Chair)]: So we're done. Now we may we're in current what? Yeah.