Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I got it at 07:15 get here now. What's that?

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: I left at 07:15 to get

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: here now. Well yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the senate economic development housing and general affairs. It is Wednesday, January 7. Is that possible? Time marches on. Frightening. And it brings us all along. And it is today, we are turning ourselves to economic development. We have a new commissioner of economic development we're excited about we welcome back our secretary and our commissioner of housing and we're looking forward to a sort of an update and an update on some of these critical important this work that we've been doing together. Also, I just wanna let you the three of you know while you're in the room that our we have a new committee bill deadline this year, which is a challenge for We our committee bill deadline is January 29. So if we're gonna do a housing committee bill, which is probably what we are needing to do because there's so many elements that we're gonna we need to know what your priorities are that need to be in that bill and or that we would certainly consider being in the bill and the same while with economic development. We'll probably do a committee bill on economic development. So yeah. So with that, it's even more important that we hear about your goals and objectives are for the year and how we move forward on addressing the housing prices and plus the economic development crisis but certainly some of the other things that we're looking at. So with that we welcome secretary Kerley. Thank you. Introduce yourself. And if you oh. She's cool. Our one our wonderful new committee assistant, Pierre Ram Hinsdale.

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: Nice. Well, for the record, I'm Lindsay Curley, Secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development. And I'm really excited to kick your morning off here in the committee room. So, know, I feel like I know most of you, so I won't talk about myself. But I do want to start by thanking this committee for your partnership last year and over the past few years. It's your engagement, your leadership, and your willingness to work through some really complex and challenging issues really helps move important initiatives over the finish line. So we're already seeing the impact of that and across Vermont, across all of Vermont, and we're so deeply grateful for the collaboration and we look forward to more this coming session. Since adjournment, the agency's work has remained centered on a few core priorities that cut across all of the departments: expanding housing supply, supporting businesses and the workforce, strengthening our downtowns and

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: our communities, the infrastructure and ensuring strong implementation of programs that were

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: authorized by the legislature. So I'll start with housing, which remains foundational, like housing is economic development and vice versa. You don't have one without the other. So right now, we continue to say that housing is probably the single largest barrier impeding our economic growth objectives. So across the agency, we have been continually focusing on increasing housing supply and better aligning the housing investments and infrastructure with what we need and with our economic development efforts. So I'm not going to go into details because I don't want to take the thunder from Commissioner Farrell on this, but he's going to provide a more comprehensive update. I do want to, you know, again, reiterate that we continue to stay focused on this issue and really do appreciate your engagement and your enthusiasm to hang in there with us and keep trying to move the needle forward. Economic development. So there have been several important developments since the last we met and you raised one of them. We made this wonderful new Commissioner, Lyle Jeffson, who again, I think most of you know, but he's going to tell you a little bit more about himself. We also brought Nick Grimley, who had formerly been our director of entrepreneurship and tech commercialization into the deputy commissioner role. And you, I'm sure that he has specified in here before, but you'll see more of him. The department's really been actively focused on supporting Vermont businesses, responding to the employer needs and helping communities plan for sustainable growth. And I will mention to you that, again, when we talk with businesses all around the state, it continues to be, you know, housing workforce, housing workforce, and, you know, they feel that if you get housing online, they can bring the workforce, they feel that they have great jobs, and they can they can recruit people. We have,

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: as you know, a lot

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: of great training programs in our state as well. So we have good jobs. We need have find a place for

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: them to people to to put their head in. Lindsay, can I just put put a question for you and Alex, which is do you have data on how many businesses have actually had to say or had to not hire people? Who people they have hired but couldn't find out. Do we have any data on how many how that's affected? Don't I really know how to ask

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: the question.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I knew it. You're sort of like, can we quantify it? Yeah. Right? Because we all know anecdotally that so many of our businesses have have not been able to hire the people that want it because they couldn't find housing. Yeah. But I'm just curious, do you have any data on that? From the don't No, it's okay. No. But it's something to think about and to

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: just to sort of again, like reinforce,

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: we

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: we probably could go back and because we keep track of our business visits and but something that's on my mind right now because we just visited Bennington County in December. So, you know, we visited an anchor employer there, Mac Moulding, they stated it. We visited Orbis in Manchester, they stated it. We, it for me, I cannot recall the last time I visited an employer and I visit a lot, but you can try to, comes up every no single matter

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: what region you're in.

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: So so anyway, so thank you. And we, like I said, we don't have a fine a great data point on that other than to just tell you, we do keep track of where we visit, and we could, you know, we could go back through there, but I I would guess we are in the 90 some odd percent. I can't even do the one that didn't. Yeah. So also, you know, since the adjournment, the agency has been working really closely with FC2 on the rollout of the new CHIP program. CHIP really represents a very important new tool to help communities address infrastructure needs. And it's tied directly to housing and economic development, as you know, and it's these are often regional collaborations and approaches as well. So we are really excited because Jessica Karleben has been a rock star in this. This has been a heavy lift. She's great. I know I think you're probably scheduled to hear from her.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: She's coming today. Okay. Perfect. Awesome. Alright. And then Nice. Yes. You're gonna hear some some good details. So Yes. And we all sort of join in on some of that so that's been great work.

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: And again this is what I keep thanking you for the collaboration on because that was a big deal, a long time coming. In tourism and marketing, the department has remained very focused on promoting Vermont as a year round destination, supporting local economies across the state. And, you know, they're very focused on helping regions make the most of marketing tools and also those, I call them the shoulder seasons, right? Trying to like bolster the visitation. You know, we know a lot of folks love to come in the winter and believe it or not, the summer could be more busy. The fall is always great, but sometimes in the spring, you know, we struggle and again, just having helping regions market the things that they do have to make sure that there's a consistent pool of people. You know, they are a revenue generating agency, right? The work they do generates revenue to our state.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We'll be getting Heather in to update us on marketing and tourism soon. Great. Probably next week.

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: Yeah, so fall tourism was really strong across much of the state. It takes there's a little lag. It takes some time to get all the numbers, but it it was proving to be very strong. Despite the Canada lag? Yes. You know, continued demand for our outdoor recreation, downtowns, and seasonal experience. Now I will say across the the northern border of our state, they felt the impact of the the Canadian lag the Canadian the Canadians not coming. So it's not that it's not impacting. I'm saying we're, you know, we've had a strong fall despite that. And again, that's why I think the department remains really focused on adaptive marketing strategies to support the regions the best they can and understanding that they're all a little bit different. So they they spend a lot of time working on a destination marketing strategy, and that's something that Heather, Commissioner Callan will talk about as well. Federal funding across the agency more broadly, our departments have been really focused on getting programs up and running, deploying resources and supporting regional partners and businesses. And so we're tracking developments at the federal level and how they might impact our programs and things are evolving rapidly and quickly. We know this committee will be focused on that as well. And we'll keep you apprised of programs that, federal programs that maybe we lean on in the past that we either have heard that

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: we won't be receiving funding or. You know, we certainly are more attuned to open housing, but I would really, I think all of us would really appreciate understanding the other programs that we have come to treasure and that we would rely on the federal government. Yeah. Exactly. And, of in your former role as commissioner of labor, you well, if labor is gonna be heavily impacted, and we're gonna be hearing from Ken as Yeah. But it would be great to for some of the lesser known programs to be clear on what our challenges are with the federal cuts and or anticipated cuts.

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: Yes, you know we and again Commissioner Jackson whether today or like in the future can talk a little bit more about this too but you know, some folks don't realize we receive federal money for importexport activities that supports, again, businesses that want to do that work. So again, it's not to say that we won't get that money, but again, you know, just goes to show that there are tranches of money throughout the agency that we lean on. And we, like I said, we are watching it closely. What I will say is that over the past year, the folks in our agency worked really hard to quickly deploy the money that we did have, any federal dollars that we did have. That's they couldn't claw it back. Exactly. So So even if

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: you spend it, they can't if you spend it, they can't claw it back? Well I thought they still could claw it back.

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: I mean, I guess anything's possible. Right? We got deployed dollars and we're folks spend it, please. You know, do do the work that you've said you will do with it. So, again, you know, just wanting to recognize the staff because that does take a lot of work. As you may remember, we're small but mighty. You know, we're about 100 people in our agency. We have three departments in this division, the Division for Historic Preservation, and it's a heavy lift for the work that is done all through the state. And of course, rely heavily on our partners, the regional planning commissions, the regional development corporations, the downtown communities. So we do have help, but again, the team has really worked hard to get that out. I'm really grateful. So just again, in closing, I just want to say we really look forward to working with all you, the session ahead, and I'm excited for you to hear from our commissioners that are here today, and as you mentioned, having Commissioner Pelhaman down the road to hear about marketing efforts. Thank you and I don't know whether you

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: want to if you have

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: questions or if you want me to shift.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We are unless you have more. Do you have more? No. So maybe we are full of always full questions.

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: You have something directly with or we can hear from the others and I'll stay,

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: so Good, David or Randy, any questions for Lindsay? What's the biggest problem that

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: you have? Housing. In a lack of, you know, let's just say, you know, we've learned that money will not buy our way out of this, right? We've learned that it's, you know, projects have to pencil out. We need public and private partnership to dive in on this. So that is definitely something that we continue to work on. We're excited about CHIP. We know it's, again, it's just one tool in the toolbox. So housing is really difficult. But we, but again, we have hope, right? We feel like, you know, we're going to keep working at it. We're not giving up. I think just in general, everything that we do, I feel is really important work. And like I said, you know, generating revenue to our state when we support businesses and they're successful, that brings in, as you know, appropriate income tax. So we want to make sure that folks who again, we're like, I'm sure you've heard the news, you know, is looking to add a thousand employees in the next year, year and a half. So, and you know, I don't want to focus on just one employer, but the crux of the issue as we talk about housing is when they go to bring people in or when they might even keep people, right? They want to keep them here. We need to make sure there's not only housing but it is affordable and that it fits their needs. So long and short, I'd say again, housing is the greatest barrier for us.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: In terms of housing, one of the issues that we're constantly confronted with is time. How long it takes to get things done, how long it takes to get things permitted and operational Is and there anything that in terms of initiatives that you are proposing this year, speed things up?

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: Well, I am going to let Commissioner Farrell talk about that, that we are thinking about that all the time. We last year, you may recall there was conversation about off-site manufacturing. We've done a pilot program with the with the manufactured homes, where we, you know, located sites within mobile home parks that were ready or needed a little bit of an upgrade. Again, it's not the end all be all but to your point we're constantly focusing on that. I think back to when we introduced the DHIP that program sorry, acronyms Vermont Housing Improvement Program. We, when we introduced that, it was the same frame of mind that we're thinking about is what can we do to engage people who may never have been in, you know, thinking of themselves as a landlord, and make it worthwhile for them to bring, you know, units online that may have fallen into this repair or I mean, we saw, we've seen 40 burns converted, you know, we're now converting commercial building, commercial space that wasn't necessarily needed. So, again, it goes back to making sure that it all can be quicker and smoother and easier. Like I said, the team in DHCD and Alex will probably, sorry, Alex, now I'm throwing you. Alex will talk about that a little bit, but basically wanting to make sure communities have sort of a standard fit to bring housing that we all agree upon and in the areas we agree upon online faster.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And as you know one of the things we'll be addressing this year is the the Act two fifty appeals process and the legislature as it were, the Land Use Review Board to come up with recommendations for how to improve it and speed it up. And they have come back with that recommendation, with those recommendations. We're gonna be having a joint hearing next week. There are additional suggestions that will be entertaining along the way, but we're gonna be addressing the speeding it up. That's great. Hopefully big now. I think

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: it is also gonna be important, and I'd ask for you and your agency to think about

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: how do

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: you measure improvement? In other words, how do you measure the fact that everybody says we need to get things done, we need to get them done faster, we need to

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: get them done. How do

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: we measure whether or not that's in fact happening? Well, so we do have a data dashboard that

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: we are measuring. We have started to measure what is coming online. And so we do, I think that we are we've evolved greatly in that area. So again, I'm not sure that Mr. Farrell will necessarily go through that today, but in another date, I think it would be really worthwhile for you to see.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, and we can all go on your website to see the data that they are tracking.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: What I'm also interested in though is there are a lot of people whose hands are involved in getting things done and getting things done faster and less expensively. How do we have, should we have some type of measurement tool that goes across agencies and departments that looks at the particular issue that we're concerned about and tells us, A, are we making progress and if there are particular areas in which we are not making progress, pinpoint them.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. So Yes. The data the data statewide sharing and a collection and collecting data is something we're gonna be addressing later with the data trust update.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: It's a great opportunity

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: for you to point your finger at another agency.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah, no, was just going to say we have

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: an amazing team in ADS who are very enthusiastic to build these dashboards and tools. And again, whether it's on permit reform or counting houses or making sure that, again, they're talking about how it's

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: not just enough to have a

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: housing unit. We have to make sure that the number of bedrooms meets the need in the area, right? So if we need one bedroom or two bedroom and we have a bunch of five bedrooms, right? It doesn't match up. So we're trying to align that. We're also trying to align it with the schools, like where the schools are and making sure that, again, we can, you know, make sure down the road, we can match those up and develop and refurbish, you know, lighted properties that are near where we want them. So Well, thank you. Sorry. I'm gonna

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: add to the and senator for your awareness.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Do you

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: wanna sign into the record? Oh, thank you.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: Alison Clarkson, Commissioner Housing. Part of the executive order that the governor signed does require measurement of throughput and whether some of the proposed changes or changes that are to be proposed as a result of other reports that secretary Burleigh Depp said, deputy secretary Brooks are overseeing right now, measure that throughput. Where is there improvement in agency permitting processes and where isn't there improvement.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: If there's not improvement, document blocking.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: So that is part of that process.

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: Alright so right Just remind me who's next.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well it's just interesting the flow is we can do it however you want. No, I'm not here. Actually why don't we welcome you. Okay. Our new commissioner of economic development, we would love to have you come and join us and then we'll some more time with you.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Well, thank

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: you for having

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: all of us.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Excuse me for one sec. Well, there's a chair behind me if you want.

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: I'm in. We'll see

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Carly. Say Lola. Carly rolling, our terrific housing reporter, right behind. Thank you. And toast to Alice, she's got great things in there. She's good. Lyle Milk.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: Thank you. Lyle Gibson, commissioner for economic development, new in my role, started November 3. Alison, senator Clarkson, if I go off the rails here and start talking about things you don't want me to, you just stop me because senator Weeks will tell you I might go down a rabbit hole periodically.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Oh, that's okay. We agree.

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: We'll we'll do that. Well, I

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: think we'd just appreciate the tiny bit of background because Randy doesn't know you. I mean, David knows you well. I know we have less well, but certainly had lots of contact with you before. Can you just give us a brief background because one of us is gonna have to represent you on the Florida Senate sometime soon.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: Well, it's not a made for movie life. Thirty years in public education, lifelong Vermonter, have four children, never left Vermont, went to school at the University of Vermont. So have been here in education and then for thirty years and then ten years beyond that or fourteen years now, more in economic development. Worked at Rutland Economic Development originally. We merged Rutland Economic Development with the Chamber of Commerce down there, so it is now Cedar, the Chamber of Economic Development of the Rutland region. We couldn't come up with a longer name than that, so we just said what it was.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Actually, CEDAR is better than any of the other acronyms that we've had to deal with. Yeah. Thing Softwood being

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: cheddar, but we didn't wanna be cheddar. So but at any rate, live in Rutland with my lovely wife. We've been there for years, and I travel back and forth because we're not gonna leave Rutland. And I can tell you a couple stories about Rutland because one of the things that I think you wanna hear about is is what's happening now and the work that you've done in the

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: past, is it working?

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yes.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: To your point, data,

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: is it working? And how can we make it work better?

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: And I'm gonna suggest it is working, and I'm gonna suggest that we need to keep going on the track that we're currently going on. And I wanna list out a couple of things. And I I see today maybe more as a celebration of the positive things that have happened already. Right. I know you will have bills that you're gonna put in. You're gonna ask us for our input on that, and we certainly will provide input at your discretion.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, and also quite frankly, given our shortened timeline on our committee bills, we would really appreciate any priorities that need to be that you want legislative action on this year for economic development.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: Well, and you may hear as I talk a little bit here, me alluding to things that I hope you will continue doing. So first, I wanna also thank Nick Grimley, who may be listening to us right now as deputy commissioner. He's holding my hand through this process and showing me where everything is. He's been around for years, knows all the players, knows where everything's buried, so it's great to have a a backup person who's really supporting the cause.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: It it has been a

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: little bit like drinking through a fire hose, as you might imagine. The first thing that happened when I walked in the door was I was given four pages of acronyms, and I would get home to try and figure out what they all meant, and I'm not there yet. So I'll keep working on that. One of the first things that happened was I was invited along with other commissioners to go to the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers Conference in Newfoundland.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Oh, that's great.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: Newfoundland is beautiful, maybe not so much in

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the fall, but it's

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: a beautiful place, and we will be hosting that conference next year. Oh, this will be an opportunity for us to do some business to business connections because we see the corridor from Canada, Montreal specifically, to Boston and New York as a very important corridor, and we are part of that. So

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: we're gonna be hosting that. Where you're hosting it now?

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: So stay tuned for exciting scenes. We don't know yet.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We'll come from the governor. Our hands up. Maybe what's Everybody for

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: the day.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: Their hand

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: up. Yeah.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: Yeah. Everybody left their

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: hand up.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: So what stood out to me as I've entered this role is the commitment that people have to the work that they're doing. Alex and his team, amazing stuff going on. And if you look at the marketing program, I can speak specifically to how that has helped the Rutland region through the GROW program, which you supported. There are just a lot of positive things happening. And I know there are times that people say, money is like or marketing is like, where where is the results? You know? How how do you judge if marketing money really is working? We have a we have a way to do that. And so we are now keeping track of the number of people who are moving in, and did they come through the program? And, course, people don't need permission to move here, but we wanna find out, did you come through our programs or not? And the evidence is clear that if you market, people will learn more about your region and they will come. We have, and you know this, why Act two fifty was started fifty some years ago, that we want to preserve the way Vermont is. We need to balance that with growth. And so then I put my economic development hat on and say, yes, we can have both at the same time. Since you've given me my soapbox, I just wanted to list out a couple of things that are very important to us at the Department of Economic Development and I think for the state in general. Too often in my prior role as an executive director at a regional development corporation, I would hear people say, What does the state do for us, Sandy anyway? And it

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: would be, okay, wait.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: Let me talk to you about some of the things. Now I'm learning even more, and I've got a whole toolbox full of these are the things that are happening up there that are positively affecting the Rutland region and the rest of the state. For example, TIP. If TIP wasn't available, Killington wouldn't be doing what they're doing, and Rutland wouldn't be doing what they're doing. Yeah. Rutland is ready for change so much so that once they got the TIP approved by the Pepsi Council, they got 85% of the voters to approve a bond. That does not happen

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: in real

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No, that was a huge issue. That does not happen.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: But they recognize that now is their moment and that they are gonna bring the county forward with the work they're doing on the tip. So thank you for your work on that.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I've forgotten that was an 8585%.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: Vote in support. And in Killington, it was 76%. Yeah. It was crazy. So people recognize the the positive power of the tip. That's going to happen with Chip, and we have all we already know there are more than a 150 people that are gonna be on a webinar tomorrow to listen into what is this chip thing and how does our community get involved in it. So everyone is very excited about that, so thank you for your role in that. Little known money that's out there that you put in the budget every year, the buildings, grounds, and general services grants that support small businesses, keep them going.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Keep them going.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: I forgot

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to mention that yesterday. That was one of the things that I served on with Wanda and and $80 in upstairs. We had such a good time. It's such a small amount of money, but it makes such a difference. And it it's just $300,000 of economic development grants, but they and most of them are stewarded through our our regional development corp. And that it it's always a wonderful thing, an exhilarating thing. And that that means so much to people because it really enables them to buy that one piece of equipment that's gonna make such a difference, and it's gonna hire one or two more people. I love that program.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: In nine months, go into Komoota store in Pittsburgh. It will be changed over because of a $25,000 grant, and that's

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: what they needed to be able to move forward with a project. Exactly. It's that it's

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: that small amount of money, small businesses that we need. So thank you for that.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And we just on the tag on that, we see that with our micro business grants through the cap agencies. They are incredibly empowering too, and they're even smaller than that that enable people just to start.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: One piece that might be a little bit out of your purview, the Northern Orchards Region Commission funding, that very significantly affects the entire state of Vermont. All towns, all the entire state is involved in that. I can only speak for my region at the moment because I haven't learned what everybody else is receiving, but the airport industrial park in Rutland received that. Benson Village store received $500,000 to put their village store back. The Paramount Theater received money. Rutland City in Rutland and Killington received money to help with their financial stack to get things done that they wanna get done. I wanna really thank the governor for focusing on particularly infrastructure, that they're on putting that into infrastructure that will lead to houses, that will lead to jobs. Another thing that's extremely important to us is Brownfields funding. Yes.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: This committee has been very supportive of Brownfields funding. So we're a little

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: there's some trepidation, as Lindsey suggested about the federal government and what decisions they may or may not make on funding. Right now, we're not sure about Brownfields funding for from the federal government, so we will come back to you at some point. I would hope you wouldn't ask us to come back and talk about Brownfields.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We will hope that actually on the January 20, we hear about Brownfield investment with governor. Feel

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: free to make your views known.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Oh, I'm not the one who's important right now. You guys are. Because that budget's still being finalized. And we just said that, you know, this committee really put their muscle behind that and did it with the appropriations. We asked for 6,000,000. We actually ended up with 2, but it was we see in our communities every penny of that enabling housing and that enabling economic development. Once properties are cleaned up, we can do a whole you know, we can do such huge amount with

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: And people will look at the brownfields money that went into the pit, as we affectionately call it in Rutland. There will although there will be a hotel there, there are be 26 units of housing as well, and so it's all adding up. And so we can keep track of the number of housing units, and we are doing that. Vermont Training Program, thank you for the funding for that. Yeah. So again, I've seen firsthand things that are that are going on. I have lots of On

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: that, who's the new director of

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: that? Randall Zaat.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Oh, that's right. I knew that. Former legislator. So

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: if people are asking, what does the state do for us? A lot. So here are some statistics because everybody likes numbers.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Is this in your handout, the statistics? Okay.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: Not all of it, but some of it.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Oh, and we do. And international trading business. Tim Cherry is the trade work too.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: So already, we know that up to $2,000,000,000 over the next ten years can go into the chip program for infrastructure development that will go specifically to housing. That won't build the houses, that'll put the infrastructure in place that will allow it to happen. That's huge, and we're we're grateful for that. The Brownfield revitalization, with support of you folks, we've had $4.00 $8,000,000 in redevelopment investment to date based because of the Brownfields program. How many $400,000,004.00 8,000,000.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So what would be great is to equate that with how many new housing units we have and how much economic development. So we can make an equation between that cost and how much more it leverages, just like what we're able to do with the downtown tax credit, we can it leverages it's almost like 16 to one, I think. 17 to one at its best, and it would be great because I know that is a drop in the bucket compared to the investment that that enables.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: So go to the dashboard for Brownfields, you will see the number of housing units, the number of jobs, and the number of acres cleaned up with that funding. We can

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: come back and we

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: can provide all of that too.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No, no, no, that's helpful. That's great.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: Brownfield's huge. Northern Borders Regional Commission in 2025 last year alone, $26,000,000 went out.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yes. But that is one of the programs I think we all have concern about federal cutting. There is concern. Yes. I know. Right. The executive director lives in which for our neck of the woods.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: You mentioned the state trade expansion program through Centierly. $700,000 has helped Vermont businesses enter into new foreign markets, and we can come back and show you the the return on investment, which is basically $14 to one. So millions of dollars is coming back the other direction as a result of that that work.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Oh, I think and we had a figure on that. That's great. 14 to one investment?

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: That is. Yeah. And if you wanna talk with Randall Zap, he would come in and tell you since the inception of the program, 15,000 workers have been trained or retrained, upskilled, so that they can use new equipment and can increase our gross domestic product. Moving to Vermont Employment Growth Incentive, which is always out there, like, it sunset? Will it not sunset? It will not surprise you that we will ask that it not sunset.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Listen. This committee has been, first and foremost, out in front of that.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: Veggie has brought in 1,200,000.0 billion dollars rather in business capital investment and has created more than 10,000 jobs. That's $1,200,000,000 and 10,000 jobs. And it will not surprise you, and I see them working every day, and I wonder what are they doing in there. But the captive insurance industry is huge for our state. Oh, we have. Supporting that. There are 1,413 licensed captive insurance companies in the state of Vermont. We are number one, and our goal is to stay number one.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So it's interesting on captive insurance. We do not spend enough time in this committee on captive insurance. Mostly, it's done in finance. You know? And it's if there's anything you, as our new commissioner, think we might address to not only further underscore how to them how important they are to us, you know, that's that's something for us to be considering because we really just spent all this. Anne Cummings is the one who really talks about capital insurance because it's an insurance program and it's mostly treated in this building there, but it's huge economic development impact on the state.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: $35,000,000 last year came That's right. To the state office. That's revenue to the state that goes into the general fund that can be used in in ways to help with housing or other things. 700 millions come in over time, and 500 and high paying jobs have been created as a result of the industry here in Vermont. Yeah. And we'd love to come back and talk

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: to you

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: about the APEX program, which connects federal and state municipalities' contracts with local, just Vermont, employers and businesses. Apex? Apex. Used to be called

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: what you

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: what do used to be

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: called? Yeah.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Ptech. Used to be called Ptech. Basically, it's, you know, it's technical PTECH.

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: Technical assistance.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: Procurement technical assistance program.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So Oh, they can't think of it as technical assistance.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: Yeah. Well, between two of us, we

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, you know what? You have

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: to take a lot of your information in. It takes a while to find

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a broker store then. It's an acronym. Alright? It's

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: an acronym. So that

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: brings an incredible amount of money into the state, into state small businesses and large businesses who are applying for contracts through federal contracting. We'd love to come back and talk

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to you. So that's what for federal contracts. And then we have,

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: of course,

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: technical assistance in a host of other areas that are so important to our businesses and to our municipalities. So

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: So I also know later today, Jess is gonna come in and talk to you about Chip. They are ready to launch. She'll tell you when, how, what's gonna happen, what the process will be. They are ready to ready to go. So just wanna thank you. Couple of things that you mentioned earlier, like data technologies. We are meeting I'm meeting with them regularly around education as well as housing and their needs on-site. They need one technician every day for the next two years, and they need transportation links. They need to hire one new technician. Hire one tech every day for the next two years. Those jobs are starting at about $4,000 a year. They need housing, they need transportation links, they need support with education and training. We're working with them on all those three things. Hubbard, you'll hear around the state, Hubbard and Forge needs housing in in Castleton. Mac Molding needs housing in Arlington. Everywhere we go, the first thing they start with is housing. I thought I was gonna hear childcare. That's starting to go down. Well, we actually they didn't know. It's important, but I'm not hearing it as much as I'm hearing housing. And permitting. How can we make it go faster? Speed. How can it go faster?

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I have to say, on the CHIP program, we that was a good example to be. That was done

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: Amazing.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: A huge amount of work to get that program up and running this January.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: Jess and her team rock stars. Rock stars. Yeah. You've got the PDF that we sent out.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thank you for sending

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: it. We'd be very happy

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: to come back and talk about anything you'd

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: like to talk about.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: If you have questions, I will try to answer them. I probably won't mute things up.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Simple question. So you were the executive director of the economic development organization in the heart of a corridor kind of a stagnant economy with Virginia, South Dakota, Pennington. You're right, a quarter of it in Wellington County. What did you learn from that kind of regional perspective that is valuable to you on a state perspective?

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: I find I'm doing the same thing now that I was doing roughly, and that's connecting the dots. That there are grant opportunities, there are housing opportunities, there are workforce opportunities that small businesses or other businesses don't know about. We need to connect those dots. They they're unaware of some of the things that are there, like the buildings, grounds, and general service. We put that out in a newsletter, and people go, what? There's free money?

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Well, that's

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: not free. You can't get it. But that's the kind of stuff we need to make sure that we're advertising all the good stuff that's going on. And we need to make sure that happens all over the state. So I'm meeting regularly with the and so with Lindsay, we meet with the economic development directors once a month. We have a special time that we just meet with them. That's great. And we're bringing suggestions, basically communicating things that are available, and they communicate back on how we can better serve their needs and their regions. We need to work with the people that are the boots on the ground. They know their businesses. Like, I

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: hope I knew my businesses in Rutland County,

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: and they know which people need the help, and we can bring that help.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Not all them, but most of them.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah, because I think David and I are particularly, and Randy too, although Tiff has helped boost up a lot of the economy in some of his areas in Franklin County, but we both struggle with Rutland and Springfield. You know, we struggle with some serious communities that have big needs, economic development needs and and housing needs, but lesser to a lesser degree because they have great housing that's just needing to be upgraded and renovated. But in terms of economic gut, the gut punch of the fifties and sixties to both those cities and and areas. And I think what it I think at some point it would be great for us to have a further conversation about how are we addressing the really challenged communities in the state and what can we do to further support them. That would be great.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: I'm gonna go back to the things that are working.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. No. No.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: I Having the tip available is going to be huge for Wellington, both of them down there. Nice. Having tip available, already Fair Haven is going I've got a spot. And

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, we have lots of plans for Fair Haven. Don't we? Don't we? Great. Yeah.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: Thank you.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, well, thank you. And I just wanted to say before we move to Analect that Abby Duke has been working. And I don't know if she's reached out to you, but Abby upstairs has been working on the idea that you and I I discussed and raised at Pepsi conference about really articulating and and and sharing just to go to all the positives. All the things that we currently, you know, being clearer for each stage of business development, what the state offers and how they access it. So, you know, addressing start ups, early growth, maturing, and then matured businesses and develop it'd be clarifying and we're working on that and it would be great to loop you in on on some of that because

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: I'd love

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to do that. Remember when I Yeah. You were at my table,

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: so you remember. Well, we know that there are businesses out there that don't necessarily need as much help as others, and I would suggest that mid range business and smaller business, they're the ones that need the help.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, needs are different, and what was very helpful at that Pepsi conference was through this we clarified with Art actually saying this well, Pepsi isn't for every business at every business. And that's what prompted me to say let's articulate what we offer in each area so that people aren't going after things that

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: are inappropriate. The 10 the 10 person to 50 person business, there's a gap.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, thank you. Thank you very much. And we'll I'll loop you in the alley. And Alex, let's welcome you into the chair. Alright. Alright. I was like, I can sit. The beams.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: See how tough our journalists are here in Vermont?

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Walk right in and step right out. Okay. Alex Farrell, we welcome you. Thank you. Partner in housing extroverted.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: Thank you, madam chair. For the record, Alex Farrell, commissioner of the Department of Housing and Community Development. So you all are very familiar with the work we do. So I'm gonna largely dive right in if that's all

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: right with you. And we have a handout for me, which we appreciate. You do have a handout. I would direct our wonderful committee to

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: Maybe I'll start by orienting us catching up on some of the work that's happened off session and that's going lead directly into what I'm going to talk about in terms of legislative hopefully you all can consider. I'll start with VHIP. I'm not in a position to talk about budget right now, but you can see VHIP is far and away in

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: terms

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: of pace and cost producing units far outperforming our traditional programs like the CDBG program that we administer with federal funds. So this is just a tool to tool belt. If you look at the map, can see places like Caledonia and Rutland County where we know you just said, madam chair, we've got a lot of housing stock that can't be utilized because it's in disrepair. I love the picture that we chose for this one because it's in Rutland County. This is right on Route 7 in Brandon. You probably remembers looking at this structure. Beautiful Oh my god. That's or an acre Turned it a completely unusable vacant structure into three gorgeous units. Re housing folks who exited homelessness, rented a fair market rents. Yeah. Total success story. I love seeing the poor and after picture because then I get to say picture that over a thousand times across the state. It's it's really fantastic.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And I will just remind our committee well, I don't I don't think we need to be reminded because we're all big advocates of the this is the biggest bang for our buck other than home share.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: That's right.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: This is the biggest bang for public taxpayer dollars in terms of developing new housing units of anything because as we all have been those housing openings where they're the new affordable housing, it's great, it's fabulous, but it's you know at the least expensive $4.50 a unit up to 600 a unit, a 600,000 a unit. To be able to bring on a housing unit at an average cost of $39,000 a unit is gospel. And these property owners have a lot

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: of skin in the game. They're contributing generally on average more than a one to one match. In fact, you can see the estimated property owner investment. That's just what we know about 43,000,000 to the 45 that we've administered. Typically when we have good data, we're seeing the property owners at least matching if not more so what we put in. They've got a tough skin.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: I think David had Yeah, just again, for clarity, what was last year's budget for we hit?

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: 2,000,000? 4. 4,000,000. We asked for 6.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: Tremendous wait lines of applications at all of our centers.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: And did we utilize the funding from last year?

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yes. Oh yeah.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: And at what point during the year did we, did the funds draw out? Just how would you

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: want me It's a good question. I don't know exactly when. What I can say is as soon as the contract the grant rather the grant agreement was executed, basically, those funds were committed because they had a waitlist. Okay. Yeah. Absolutely.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. Key key question because we so there are two issues with the HIP. I know that are we're going into our housing bill. One is asking to make the hip a not one time, but anchored in the base budget. Or might we see that I'm trying to be anchored in the base budget.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: Don't do that to me, madam

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: chair. Okay. But if it isn't

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: if it isn't if

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: it isn't, we I think that's a key piece of what we wanna do. Also, we wanna ask I I believe we'll probably ask for more money on this just because we get such a huge return on it. The question you know I'm gonna ask you is about ADUs. Mhmm. And how many are we seeing an increase in the development of ADUs out of because now we've glommed them together, and we you know, initially, we had separated out accessories well in The US. Now they're part of the general community. I would be remiss as a former chair of this committee if I ask how is that progressing?

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: It's certainly not the bulk of what we do but we'll say as the Home Act allow for a lot more leveraging of of the ADU portion of VHIP. What I can do is after this I can have the team send specific data so you know Yeah.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It would be great. What? For us to This is where

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: VHIP and another initiative I'll talk about in a moment here and the HOME Act are really coming together to try to just where is a pathway that we can just create a highway for creating units and try to sprint down that. So it's working really nicely, EDU's being an example.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: I think one of the ways that we

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: should be thinking about many of the things we talk about, we

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: have so many great programs, great ideas, good things going forward, and we have that limitation called money. And one of the things that I would love to see of all the various programs that each agency, and this is not just yours, deals with is a ranking, if you will, about how that return on investment plays into the result that we get. And it's kind of a way of thinking about it so that we can compare across agency. And this is a thing that's obviously much broader than economic development across state government as we look at this time where things are very, very tight financially.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: Yeah, thank you, Senator. Our department does annually prepare housing spending investment and depending on investment report. And it is evident within that that certain programs like MER and BHIP.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Some obviously are harder to measure.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: That's right. That's right. Because the funds being leveraged like that. There's a lot of funds being leveraged there. But MER and BHIP you can pretty directly count. So thank you.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That's that's a great point.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: I'm going to move on to the next sheet in your handout if that's okay. And that's just to look at MER, the manufactured home improvement repair program. This is a three faceted program and the piece that I really like to talk about most is the home repair awards because we're 16 and a half thousand dollars per award. What we're doing is we're looking upstream and say how do we keep folks housed that are otherwise at risk losing their homes. So one of the pieces of our strategy and we've reallocated some of our federal dollars to focus more on this upstream to look up the funnel to keep people from falling into homelessness. How do we keep preserve some of these units that might otherwise deteriorate and we invest in them now and get another eight, ten years out of these units while we still climb out of this crisis. So this not only repairs the home, there's also infill and foundation awards so we can add to the stock and create more robustness within the existing mobile home communities because those have really struggled for years. This is a program we talked about quite a bit last session so I believe there's a good familiarity here. Again Rutland County is one that really leverages this, same with Franklin County as well.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And our bucket asked, we ended up was it $2,000,000

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: Base funding $2,000,000 which is great. So MER is now a permanent program which enables us to assign permanent staff

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to this program. But VHIP was still just 4,000,000 one time. That's right.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: So no staff is able to stay on permanently

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to continue working. Which is a problem. Which is a problem.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: All right, now we're gonna slide into looking at more of the pipeline, creation of housing, and I wanna talk about the three parts of our Homes For All initiative. We're gonna move into that. So you're gonna see three handouts related to Homes four All. One is about the toolkit. I'm not gonna dive into the toolkit. You're all very familiar with what we did launch back in 2024. Toolkit actually probably is kicking around.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It's it's here. Actually, think I may have medical. No.

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: I'll bring it back in.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It should be there, but I it will be back here.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: It well, we've got more. In fact, chair Mahali is hogging a few.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yes he is. I noticed that. I might ask

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: him to share. Kidding aside, I actually do encourage anyone to look at it. Makes you want to go and produce a unit because it does walk you through the entire process of if you are not a developer or you're interested in it, maybe you know a little bit about the trades, it will teach you how to become a developer. So that's the toolkit. That's sort of the tangible product that's been published. The next piece, I'm looking at the small scale developer training program, the next

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the one

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: pager. This is taking that toolkit and turning it

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: into actual curriculum. This is also workforce development priority.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: It it is. And in fact, it's it's taking, as I say, those folks who maybe know a little bit about the trades or take a guy like Jonah Richard who Yeah. Was not in the trades at all. He was a finance guy, found his way. We're trying to replicate that across remote. We just need

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to replicate, John. Yeah. I've tried. We need to clone him.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: That's the goal. I mean, so the in February, the first in person workshop launches. There's gonna be four of us, at least four, maybe five if we have overflow. And those are essentially prerequisites to enter the online curriculum and enter this program to to get training, to learn

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: how to come.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Are you working with our office for workforce strategy and development by any chance?

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: Not directly. We are this is some cross agency coordination with my housing finance agency with land access opportunity board and we brought in incremental development inc. Dev of vendor who's gonna

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: actually be teaching the courses. Right. But it is also workforce development. Absolutely. And so it would be great if we could also connect that to people. That's a good idea. Yes.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: So we've already received tremendous interest in So

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: what date is this? I'm not seeing the February date, but I mean Oh,

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: it's not it's not listed on here. That's hot off the presses. February is

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: now confirmed as the first date right here in Barrie. And how are you marketing?

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: We will be marketing through I know we're gonna reach out to some of the local RDCs.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And then there's intended to

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: be some online advertising. I don't know all the details yet, but I can have the staff in to come and talk in more depth. It's like Sean Gilpin, the housing division's overseeing this. Great. So so what you can see is I'm I'm starting to paint a picture of where we're looking at who's creating the units. One of the constraints we've had is and and one of the things that we have is actually trying to address is can we broaden the base of who's creating units? We have a pipeline that can only handle so much in our sort of traditional developer pipeline, both nonprofit and private developers. So we're trying to broaden that and with successes of folks like Zach Hale, Jonah Richard, who are new in the development space, but have all of a sudden created dozens of units simply because they've received the training and the capital, we think we can replicate that. So that that's the goal here, trying to broaden

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the base of who's doing it.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: Now the third piece of this, eight zero two Homes, this is for those folks that are trying to dip their toe into the space. Now we're trying to create, like I said, that highway that they can just fly down. So eight zero two Homes is our third phase of the Homesboro initiative. We're creating a catalog. We're working with a vendor to create a catalog of pre developed designs, ADUs, and single family homes up to four unit multi family buildings. The goal being that any builder could take these designs, so it saves them money and time not having to develop designs. They're designed in the Vermont vernacular so it would look like any Vermont neighborhood. And we're piloting this across three three communities who applied to us as a development ready community. We received over 20 applications from communities that wanna participate.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: What are the three you chose?

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: In Manchester, Essex Junction, and Hartford. And what are the odds? And the goal of this is we wanted some diversity, geographic diversity, but we also wanted to see how would a community engage with this. So they're gonna engage in developing the designs. We want the designs to look and feel the way that these communities are happy with. But we also need to engage builders so that we know that practically speaking, these designs can be built effectively, you know, cost effective, timely manner. We are asking in exchange that these communities adopt these designs as pre approved. So no discretionary review. If you choose one of these 10 designs, here you go, here's your permit, just go ahead and and build it.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So are you working again, I'm just gonna sound the gong, the workforce gong. Yeah. Are we working with our CTE centers? Because this is a great opportunity for them also to engage in helping in idiots for summer for further credit or Yeah. And this is a great depending on where you end up building them in Fairhaven maybe, let's say, we heard that lovely space. It's such a great opportunity to bring number of our partners into making, bring this to fruition. We could absolutely engage with CTEs. And our architects. Yeah that's right. Because I would hope we'd have really outstanding architects working on this.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: We do. We're engaging with a firm right now who actually was part of the toolkit and so they're familiar with what we're trying to do. We put them through the rigor going across Vermont visiting many communities so they understand what we're trying to do here. But you just mentioned something, madam chair, that is a really important of this eight zero two Homes Initiative. A requirement of these designs for for the architect, each each of the 10 designs, there's gonna be two sets. One, for traditional stick built on-site and we're asking them to provide designs for each of these to be off-site. So maybe

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. I assume that significant amount of this is gonna be off-site.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: That's right. It's it's certainly possible. Yeah. But we will again, we want this to be accessible to even the smallest scale developers so that theoretically somebody coming out of our training program could apply, get a BHIP brand, choose one of these designs so they don't have to spend money on the designs, and go just get a permit for our municipality without any discretionary review.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: David? Has anyone done it?

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: The pilot just launched so we and and the design so the designs are still being developed so not yet. What's the timeline? I I would anticipate designs being published maybe February, March.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Both of those are

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: important questions because it actually leads me to my next point here which is where we're going this session. We've got these pilot communities that are gonna adopt these pre approved within their bylaws and zoning. We drafted one component in the administration's bill that you'll see is to bring this statewide. So essentially giving Department of Housing Community Development authority to designate a set of designs that statewide are pre approved respective of whatever the zoning is. So it wouldn't force up zoning. So what I mean is if there's a residential district that's zoned to single family duplex because duplex is not my right, only the ADU one and two units will be vibrant there. So it wouldn't force you to upzone to the four unit. But you know that you could go select one of these designs statewide if it's residential and you just got your approval.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So it it starts with that there are three opportunities here. Mhmm. One is to build on-site. One is to have big build off it. But the third is also an economic development opportunity which is to have a company create all the pieces of it so that it can then be purchased as a kit.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: That's right.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Just like the homes that Sears Roebuck and that monkey war did, and you basically buy the kit. And that could a company could be building the kit pieces, you know, and then shipping the kit.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: That's that's you're spot on. I mean, really, so that's the goal. The long term vision here is if we're standardizing and we have certain certain units, certain components of these units that we know x amount are gonna get used every year because there's this fast track process, then we can leverage this some of the sort

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: of future phase of what our team

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: is working on now, which is bulk purchasing. Whether it's bulk purchasing of of actual units from a modular volumetric rooster or even bulk purchasing of materials so that Vermont developers can access those bulk materials. Even if you're building on-site, but you know it's one of these designs so you can go to RK Miles or Rice Lumber and get this

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: sort of It's already precut. It's already premeasured. It's It just saves huge amount.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: Yeah. Bulk procurement is one of the ways that we can envision bringing some of the cost of development down through this.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yes. We have a fairly open conversation.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: In parallel, we're working with our department's working with a pair of agents to reopen the skyline.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yes. We are very excited about that.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: So that could be a component of what's happening.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And they could be not only creating the unit that could then be shipped to a site, but they could also be creating the kits and the components of the kit but then Panelization rates were way to go at the moment. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great use for that space. I still, we still have, that was one of the things we were hoping to do this fall but we didn't get to. We go visit to Paragon. Yeah.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: We were there.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I know you were. We're all over it. Yeah, are on.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: We had bet you. We had bet you.

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: Know but we just

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: See you on Saturday morning.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Happy to do that Saturday morning.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: And I think both of our departments have to provide us some assistance. I know our department's been planning grant in to help Fairhaven and the plant determine who could come in, what's the future look like, and so we're trying to support that.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Great. Yeah. Just really got

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: it off the ground. So thank you.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. Let's do the same.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: So you mentioned 10 designs, only two of which could be modularized or panelized.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: All 10.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: All 10. Okay. Very good. Yeah.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So what okay. Forgive me. But what is penalized for as we look at a unit that's built on off-site and then shipped somewhere, what is and then we think about kits being the what's penalized. It's the kit. You'll have all the

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: pieces and parts and you will

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: have the diagram to put it together. Right. Can I give you an illustration? So I come from the shipbuilding industry and we don't build a ship with 10,000 guys all around one building way trying to put one ship together. We build it in sections and we bring it and we drop it, the keel first. And then we begin to put packages, compartments on top of it, weld them together, all the wiring, ventilation, it's all in there. And you just start welding it together. And until it's a full vessel. That's the same concept. Build it in Fairhaven, ship it out to site, start putting it together.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: It's like, you had a photo in here.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: Yeah. I believe you do. Yeah. Yeah. Exciting. We're as modular as big blocks. Huntington's homes.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. And I was in this summer one her wedding was in England. I had the really interesting experience of visiting a home with friends of ours who a modular home that had been all blocked, semantic, basically, all blocked from Germany and then created on-site. And it was really exciting to see it, and

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: it took just a go to your

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: time frame. Once once they have

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: foundation done, it just went up like nobody's gone.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: Oh, yeah.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: Is going to use for their development in Killington, which happened as a result of TIP.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We are happily clear on that.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: Great. So that's component one is bringing this by right permitting of units statewide. As drafted, sort of go live date of that would be 07/01/2027. The purpose is to give time for these pilots to wrap up and then give about a year comment period for municipalities, VLCT, whoever else comment on the designs, maybe add a couple more requests, whatever they need, give us time to make those adjustments to the designs prior to 07/01/1927 just going into effect. We want it to feel like these communities will be happy to see these units come up in their neighborhoods.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And so that's a piece that you are that we can anticipate for our housing bill?

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: It'll be in the administration's bill and

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: The administration's bill may take time. We have a deadline of January 29. We'll have it in our bill. It's gonna have to come soon. Language is drafted. Okay. If you like, I can provide it.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: Great. Terrific. Thank you, madam

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: chair. No. No. I know I'm just so challenged by this deadline because you know how much time it takes for us to get to guess together as a group of all the gonna do. I mean, we're at least we have to have the components sort of like these houses. We've got the components agreed on and ready to go and at least draft and then it'll come back to our committee, we can continue to work on it, but we have to at least be clear on what the components are going to be.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: We're eager to help provide language, have our general counsel assist with that, whatever is needed.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That would be great. Ham is ready.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: Another piece that will be new, again, I'm I'm speaking of new, not necessarily our bill that already is is on the wall right now. It's unnatural. But is the housing targets which you're all very familiar with which we established in coordination with BHFA, distributed to the RPCs which were then disaggregated to the municipal level. Those municipal targets are the basis of all the data that we produced and the tracking we're doing. We want to because there's this goal to align from local to regional to state and we know there's a requirement that the housing targets be accounted for in the regional plans in the future land use maps, we're introducing a provision that's a new requirement for municipal plans that the municipal plan demonstrate that the municipalities zoning bylaws regulations can accommodate their housing targets for the next twenty years. And if they cannot, they need to catalog their constraints whether it's they don't have sufficient infrastructure, water and wastewater, maybe there's a state regulatory constraint that

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: will not allow them

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: to meet it, or it may even be that their own zoning isn't sufficient to enable their housing target. We're asking them to catalog that in municipal plan. So

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I went to a couple of these I assume all of us went to a couple of these rollouts town by town. Would the RPCs not have taken that into consideration as they recommended and looked at and were discussing housing targets with each town? It certainly would

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: have been part of the discussion of the future land use mapping process, but there is no requirement right now that aligns that down at the municipal level, making sure that those housing targets are actually kind of for in the municipal plan. So while the RPC in their mapping might have said a substantial majority will fit in this area, this area, there's no requirement of municipality. This

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: is just such a key piece to our continuing to reduce the barriers to housing development is aligning, and we've talked about aligning on very specific things like water permitting and wastewater permitting and all sorts of specific permits. But this great because that is what has to be aligned for us to make quicker progress on this.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: And you may want to ask the RPC using BAFTA for their 2¢ on this. The impression that we've received from VAPTA is that they're very supportive of this because essentially they want misalignment. It's in their plan. They'd like to see it straight through the municipality. I'll just add there there is a provision they're making clear that let's say it's you've got a municipality that is so small that taking on this type of analysis is just too much. There is sort of a release valve to say, explain why you can't undertake this analysis and basically do your best. So we recognize that different municipalities have different capacity and different abilities, we're just trying to make this achievable. Anything else on that before I

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: move on to last thing I want to mention? Wait,

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: no, it's still yours. Okay, the a report that you'll see very soon from our team, rural technical assistance study the Virta study will I believe has been sent probably sent to you all. What's it called? Virta, the the boy, rural technical assistance.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Oh, right.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: So this is an examination of how we deliver technical assistance through To our Yeah, to municipalities and communities through the state, through RDCs and RPCs, through the various entities and agencies that are stood up across Vermont and it includes many options to consider for either short term changes to how we deliver technical assistance to long term big sort of systemic changes. I encourage you all to read that. It really gives a lot of opportunity for the legislature to change things. We know especially in discussions around Act 181, smaller communities really felt like they're being left behind because they can't while resources like CHIP are being made available, they don't feel that they can even access them. I encourage

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: that part of what Glenn says that this report. That's exactly right. When we're done, we'll be done in a few minutes. We get the exact name of it, make sure we have

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: it. Okay.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Because it has they've all been submitted and and one of our challenges is making sure we get them in the right place so the committee can actually access them on our reports and resources page. That's right. That's right. On our committee page. We'll get the So anything else in terms of presentation before we ask questions? Okay. I guess my question, just again to go back to this our housing committee bill, I'm I think I'm clear on some of this, but if you could send us a memo on what your hopes and are for us to include in the housing care office, I would appreciate that. I know maybe some of it may have to wait till after the twentieth, but I only have nine days after the twentieth. Is that what

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: I'm saying? Sure. What I can do is I can I can send language now on the two components that have nothing to do with the budget and I assume title 10 stuff act two fifty not being this in these jurisdictions you wouldn't necessarily meet here? Is that a safe assumption?

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Remind me title 10. Act two fifty. Oh okay, Act two fifty. The appeals piece is sort of joint jurisdiction and we're going be doing a joint hearing next week on the LERB report. So yes, ACT two fifty is, you know, it's funny, I just never think of it in terms of titles. It's bad to But do it's mostly natural resources.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: Okay. Then so I'll keep it to the title 24 items that I discussed here and I'll make sure you have all that language.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. Well, it would also probably be helpful to know what you're asking for from SNRE as well so that we're aware. And I think any other questions that

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: we have for Alex at this moment?

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: For Alex or the team?

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: For the team! Would you like secretary Curly to take? No, because we can all just do this, we're all in the same room together. Any any question?

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Go ahead. So so I'll I'll lead. So I kind of think of Vermont as an engine with a series of cylinders. Some cylinders are firing and some cylinders are not firing. Or they're stagnating. And again, going back to the corridor from Burjens down to Benson of which that one is smacked out in the middle of, I consider as a series of cylinders that really aren't firing. Now, Commissioner Jepsen alluded to it, the transportation corridors in that region were laid down 1926, between 1926 and 1937, which is the most prevalent automobile at the time was Ford Model A. Does your agency, you as a team, consider transportation in that region to be an inhibitor to economic growth? Maybe I'll need to

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: talk about the community development side and then I I know that our our community planning revitalization team looks at our downtowns and our villages and certainly within that corridor and the transportation infrastructure of all kinds requires significant upgrades. I mean, Ranton is a great example of where the investment was made and it's had a visible impact on the vitality of the downtown. I realize that's not necessarily maybe you're thinking of transportation as it relates to the tradable sectors, but when I look at the health and vitality of downtown neighborhoods, that's something that in our program that we really look yeah, we know holds some communities back.

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: Yeah, well, do you have any thoughts on this?

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: There's two sides of it.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: I know you're I believe, senator, you're very much in favor of improving the corridor.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, not just car not cars and not just cars and trucks, trains too. I mean, we're slow, slow, slow train.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Well considering that our region is more than the railroad, railroad is probably secondary to Oh really, because

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to me that's a key piece too.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: Two sides of the question are economics of small towns that the roads are running through. And if we were to bypass those in some way, I know the store would jump up and down because that's what they rely on is people going past them. So how do we improve the current corridor to, one, speed things up, make it safer, while at the same time protecting our small towns and villages through which crew seven runs everything on this? It's a it's a difficult question. I don't know how the towns felt on the other side of the state when ninety one went through. Those towns are still there, but it's you have two sides to that equation.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Absolutely. Okay.

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: And I don't have a lot to add other than just I would, at some point, love a conversation with you that, again, hear what your ideas are. Mhmm. You know? We do work closely with all the agencies and

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: as we've talked about infrastructure includes roads so

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: we want to keep our eye on that. Not that we're building highways with Chittenden.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No but it's a challenge, particularly rough. Mean, spritifil at least has 91 close enough so that that is not an inhibitor, and it has the train. You have the train, albeit maybe freight is faster than the the passenger train,

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: but that's it's still falling slow. Yeah. It is.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I mean, I'm sorry. Japan, just as we look at other countries and other states, But the I drive, as you know, Route 4 a lot from Rutland to New York State. That four lane highway, which could be so important to economic development in in Rutland, is a kind of orphan. That little section is just it it it's kinda useless. I don't know why it was built. And and it doesn't fully it it connects Downtown Rutland, and then it hits a wall in New York State. And you go back to a two lane road to get to 87. That to me is a partnership with New York State that in some ways we could be working on, and that's an economic development and transportation issue that really would be great. And it's a grandi gun given the transportation fund for us to be looking at this. But to me, that's really what we're getting at is how do we complete what Rutland starts with that very good four lane infrastructure.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Right. Good. We'll talk. Yeah. And New York

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: State is really where it comes.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: You'll see a study go. You'll You'll have to sign on it. Great.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: The the app is fine. I live I live there all the time. Drive. So I'm I'm I'm clear on.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: I mean

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. Why?

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: Address the train issues. Trains are great when the schedule works. I'll leave it at that.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That's true. That's true. Trains and it's a cash 22. So anything to add to that?

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Specific to the hip? Yeah. So the hip is a phenomenal program. Mean, I

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: think it's Texas. He knows. Well, we helped create it.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: There was a match, somebody mentioned that we could support up to a thousand a thousand VHIP type projects across the state. As Commissioner Jensen knows, in Rolling County alone we have 2,200 units offline.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: With how many in that one?

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: 2,200. And so this is a great example in Brandon of VHIP renovation and bringing units back online. So there was conversation in the last session about the use of eminent domain to take some of these offline units, purchase them, put them back on the market for V hip type rehabilitation or direct redevelopment. I'm just curious if there's any type of any perspective from the agency's point use them in the domain to bring some of these units back online?

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: I'll nearly sidestep that just to say that you're gonna see a progress report on a study from us to develop a land bank. That's gonna be reported to you on the fifteenth? Yes. We explicitly state in that report that for the purposes of this land bank we would not want to see eminent domain used. That's for the purposes of this land bank. What municipalities choose to do is totally other. However in this we also investigate things like tax sale right now. Is there a predictable and consistent process across the state for for tax and property management properties and it's really not something that we

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: want I to have a bill that in the law that we can look at and use as a vehicle for that because it's become it's become an issue that So we tried to address it, I think it hit a barrier in the house, I can't remember what fully happened to it but we're going be addressing it again in Gabbat. And I'm sure VLCT and Department of Tax

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: have thoughts on that as well, but just to say in the case where eminent domain is not needed and I think there are many many cases we could get a lot of wins without eminent domain, I think a land bank could be a big. There's still a lot of questions as to how to capitalize land bank etc but in terms of the mechanism I think that could be huge for a place like Rutland County.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well we heard great testimony as people will recall last year from Michigan. That's right. Michigan that was inspiring, their work on land banks. Well they do it well. Yeah, it's getting that initial capitalization is I think our big challenge, but the same bill could in gov ops could enable eminent domain for municipalities because what we the bill one of the bills have introduced is, as you know, is to take the Springfield we enable them to Springfield charter expand it for municipalities statewide to be able to take lighted just totally light of disastrous properties and actually not capable of. In this

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: study, you may it may be worth looking at our report soon because there is some investigation.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: So it's through the fifteenth?

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: That's right. Oh, is

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: that the

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: January. Oh, okay. So you'll see it next week.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It's the land bank? That's right. That's right. Were there legislators on it? There were. There were

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: a couple. Was assigned No. To us I don't believe so. No one was assigned to it.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Got it. Anything else? Yes.

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Are there going to be any areas where there's significant conflict between the economic development and housing initiatives and natural resources and energy as there was last time?

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: I'd anticipate that many of the things that we push for on the Act two fifty side, on other permitting reform, and including things that will come out of the study from the executive order will certainly it'll fall under the jurisdiction of natural resources for sure.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But I think we can get to yes on a bunch of them. I think if we can really, I mean, I'm hopeful on appeals for example. I'm hopeful that we can make progress on the appeals piece. Question is

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: it would help us to understand if there are going to be areas sooner rather than later so

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: that we reconcile how they

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: get dealt with because they did not get dealt with well the last session.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: I'll offer an example, senator, because I just know it it it's likely to come up and and the executive order touched on some of this. But prior to the executive order, there was an effort to sort of belt and suspenders go straight through the legislature on wetlands. The form. Lag was drafted. It was introduced in January. Many many many attempts were made at having it brought up in that committee Mhmm. Again and again and again including from folks in this committee and it was revoked when other senators tried to bring it to the floor, vehicles were cast aside so that it couldn't come to work. So just to say, it would be that was a challenge last year.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I'm hopeful for this year. That's great. Hopeful for everyone here. Maybe not everything, but none of us ever get all that we want.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Just figured out how much we're housing. Last year, the figure was something about 600,000. Can you still agree that per unit cost is somewhere in that ballpark or what figure do you use when you talk to it?

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: $600,000 is still about Yeah,

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: 500 to $600,000 I mean it's sort of a range, depends. Sure. We're gonna have Gus and Laura and Chris get in and, you know, they oversee and and Kathy Byer.

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: And if if I might add, mean, it's it's some of the unpredictable aspect of of the nature of this that is driving this cost up. You know, we had, you know, projects a couple years ago that the unit should have been under 300,000, but by the time the appeals and the That's right. The delays in COVID and then,

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: you know, difficulty getting Teros. Teros

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: installation. 100,000. So, again, I'm not saying we

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: can bring it back to 300, but I guess the point is that we can make this more predictable,

[Lindsay Kurrle, Secretary, Agency of Commerce and Community Development]: that we can, you know, smooth out some of the permitting challenges. You know? Everything

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: we do that reduces those barriers is going to improve the cost. Great. And then we're gonna take a break.

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: Quick question. Have we agreed on the number of units needed, new construction units or units coming back online in the state? Have we agreed on a statewide number? Just wonder what what number do you need?

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: Yeah, certainly. Our our housing needs assessment and the the appendix to that are are very specific. So the the housing needs assessment It's 7,500 a year.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That's I believe that's right. And of that, I asked how many would benefit and be appropriate for state, I. E, our appropriations, and Chad and Laura came back to me with 4,000. So of the 70 500 that that the that the for the Vermont futures project and more I have identified and and BHFA have identified as needing to be built, 4,000 would be affordable, meaning to be affordable housing. Highly or important.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: And senator, here's the for the housing target, here's the number. So the total is 41,000 and that annual is a little over 8,200.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But my dad would go on up to 8,200.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: Well, that's the target.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It's hard enough to pick that 7,500.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: And as a reminder, there's a difference between what we identify in the housing needs assessment, which is essentially a projection based on what we know we have in versus the housing targets, which we established to try to drive better demographic and economic efforts.

[Lyle Jepson, Commissioner of Economic Development]: We're actually

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: pushing those trends rather than accepting them.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. Thank you. But that's why I asked that's why I asked because, you know, when we look at 8,200 or 7,500 to be supported by state, you know, state and federal dollars, that is that's a lot. And so we got it down to probably looking at more like 4,000 a year that we need support and and the kind of encouragement that the state and federal knowledge could enable. Yeah. When when when

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: our our housing market's operating effectively, it's it's a relatively small percentage of the total units produced that are funded by state and federal.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. So I'm gonna give us a break, we have a break scheduled at 10:30, More to follow obviously, I think we're going to continue to plan on having two days a week devoted to housing, probably Tuesdays and Fridays, and Wednesdays economic development, Thursdays labor. That's what we worked on last year. It was really helpful for planning and organizing for our staff and for all of us and for you, you know. So we will be coming back big time next Tuesday on housing issues and economic development on Wednesdays. We'd really love some economic development pieces for a bill that we are gonna be doing as a committee. And I think with that, let's take a break until 10:45, at which point we will jump to the CHIP guidelines and to the to Betsy's update that we're all excited about. You've already been your ears should have been burning in the hall in this test. We did grease some skin. Yeah. Yeah. They did. They greased the skin. I just came first and. So yeah. Anyway, thank you. With that, we're offline.

[Alex Farrell, Commissioner of Housing and Community Development]: Thank you. Thank you all.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thank you. Yes. We got Good to

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: see you. Hold on.