Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[William Canfield (Vice Chair, Acting Chair)]: I'm still in the Ways and Means Committee room, but I lost Wednesday, so it's the thirteenth. Representative Mahali just joined us. Thank you. I think we have some questions about that final piece of moving the manufactured housing pilot from DHCD to the treasurer's office. Do you give us your thoughts on that, sir?

[Mark (unidentified surname) — Witness on manufactured housing pilot]: We always knew this was going to be a kind of joint effort amongst various entities, and I still think it's a practical matter, it will be. The whole idea is aimed at rural Vermont, and it's trying to, as you know, aggregate small orders into a bigger order and then guarantee those orders. DHCD turned out not to have the people that they'd hoped they'd have to be able to do it, So I met with the treasurer and the treasurer's office and asked if they would do it. In some ways, they're kind of ideal because they already the way they implement the 10% for Vermont, the way they implement it is they issue RFPs, and then developers apply, and then they have a group of people who are knowledgeable about development evaluate the development application to see, do these people really need the low interest loans? Because that's what they need, low interest loans. So I asked them, Would you be willing to take on this effort using the same kind of approach? And actually, they were very willing, and they had a couple of interesting ideas. Remember what we're trying to do. We're trying to marry, if I might use that word, we are trying to marry small developers in rural communities with major providers of off-site housing that's modular, that's constructed. And so their thought was, well, they would probably want to issue an RFI. How they're exactly do this, I think, remains to be seen. But their idea was maybe they would issue an RFI, a request for information, to developers and say, How many of you are out there? Are you interested? I mean, you know, maybe we'll run this off the flagpole and no one will salute. We need to try it out. And how many developers are out there, and what do you need? What is missing for you in this program? Would you be willing to use modular housing? So that's one piece, the request for RFI. The other side was, well, who are the modular providers? Well, unfortunately, this is either a sole source or very limited source thing. We have Huntington Homes, we have one panelized manufacturer, we have one straw bale manufacturer, there's just not a lot, there's really not a lot out there, and so they said it would be really great if we didn't have to do a formal state bidding process, because with the developers, they're, if you will, applicants. It's not a normal bidding process. We're looking for people who will say, Yeah, I would order four of these homes. But with the participating modular producers, there's only three or four in the state at the moment. I don't know, so that's

[William Canfield (Vice Chair, Acting Chair)]: Mark, was your concern that that's where your concern was with that section of statute forcing the or giving them the exemption for a single source contract contacting

[Mark (unidentified surname) — Witness on manufactured housing pilot]: Right. Yeah. I just first of all, I don't see I think as a practical matter, at some point, they're going to have to pick the developers, but I think that we're not talking about a lot, and frankly, I gotta tell you, my biggest concern is, will any show up? I mean, this is Vermont. We do not have a lot. We're hoping we'll get a lot of people, and on the modular side, it's like I said, just three or four, I mean, at most. Right. The one specific thing you ought to know, which is really encouraging, I don't know if any of you is familiar with Huntington Homes. Yeah. I think it's important to get into the way that a business works if you want to have legislation that affects a business. They currently they could double, easily double their capacity and maybe triple it. Their problem is, at the moment, they have a real busy summer season and a really slow winter season. They can't increase their summer capacity if they have this hole in the winter. So, what we're hoping is that we can put together an order and say, guess what, we got 40 homes for you, that fills up your winter, now you can expand your summer.

[William Canfield (Vice Chair, Acting Chair)]: I was trying to do the same thing with keeping snow over the summer. Yes? Yes, Mr. Chair.

[Mark (unidentified surname) — Witness on manufactured housing pilot]: Does this still include pilot, does that still include the possibility of bringing on another modular home producer? Do you mean modular or manufactured home? Like, for example, a manufactured home factory, is that what you're thinking by Yes. Some small

[William Canfield (Vice Chair, Acting Chair)]: I

[Mark (unidentified surname) — Witness on manufactured housing pilot]: think it includes the ability to do that because the term for the credit facility is, I forgot the exact words, but it would embrace manufacturing, I think, if they wanted to do it. And frankly, I think they have the authority now to use the 10% for Vermont as a loan if they wanted to. In other words, if we were looking for money to open the where is it? Fair Haven, to open the plant in Fair Haven. Let's say we thought that was worth it. I haven't read the report, I don't know. But let's say we did, and we're looking for capital, I think that could be a source of capital. But remember, it's not free, it's just the loan.

[William Canfield (Vice Chair, Acting Chair)]: Any other questions for Mark? Thank you so much. A

[Mark (unidentified surname) — Witness on manufactured housing pilot]: pleasure, always.

[William Canfield (Vice Chair, Acting Chair)]: So we'll see folks back here at one Or Yeah. Yep? Okay. Yeah. Great. Okay. Let's get one. Thanks. Okay.