Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: There we are.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Welcome back to seventh Economic Development Housing and General Affairs. It's still January 7, and we have the pleasure of welcoming Jessica Hartleben to our committee, Jessica being the executive director of the Vermont Economic Progress Council, who with the legislature created and a number of other key and important players develop the CHIP, the Community and Housing Infrastructure Program, which we hope is going to be a great opportunity for housing development in our rural communities and around the state. And Jessica is here to talk about the CHIP guidelines, which she and her crew were tasked with developing this summer and fall. Yep. They did them in an incredibly timely fashion. I believe this program is ready to rock and roll now. So, Jessica, welcome, and take it away. Thank you. Thank you so

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: much, senator Clarkson. It sure has been an exciting seven months since the passage of the CHIP bill, and I just want to thank this committee for all of your extremely hard work to get the bill over the finish line. And it was truly a team effort and just really appreciate everyone's collaboration and efforts through January and May. Now that we have done this work over the summer, it's truly inspiring to see that we are very close to watching the program. Very excited. So I'm gonna try to run the slideshow by myself and I will admit that I am a novice, so if you have technical challenges, just bear with us. Kara can help. Yeah, it's fine. I got some tutorials yesterday so we should And get

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: we have a copy of this and we'll be getting the guidelines and stuff. Right,

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: so just to set some background, we all know that CHIP is the new statewide tax increment financing tool that is designed to help Vermont communities unlock housing opportunities by investing in critical infrastructure, and that $2,000,000,000 is going to be invested between now and December 2035. It is the largest investment in infrastructure in the state of Vermont that we have ever had in our state's history. And as I said before, the launch date is targeted for January 2026. We are continuing to develop and test the software platform as we speak. As of 4PM yesterday, our team was able to launch a pre interest application form, and that is now live on our website. And one recent development, which I think Commissioner Judson and Secretary Kerley may have mentioned, is that the 24 acre site that many of us visited in Fairhaven this summer for the ceremonial signing of the Chip bill has been officially donated by the owners to the town of Fair Haven and the town of Fair Haven plans to use this land as a chip project site. Which is really exciting. It's really actually super inspiring to see towns like Fairhaven bringing housing to their communities and that the town manager, Joe Gunther, who testified in the legislature last session in support of CHIP, can now use this new tool in his toolbox, and he can actually realize that vision that he's had of redeveloping that racetrack that sat vacant for decades to bring much needed housing to So they're donating the

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: whole race back because they didn't mention that actually. We talked about fair game.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: Yes, they did. They don't. And the owners are the former, he was the former owner of Covington Forge. There was an article in the Rutland Herald about that. Right. So

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: let's go to

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the next

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: slide here. So just to talk about the progress that we have made through the summer. Are you guys seeing emails that pop up? No. Yeah, okay, great. So this summer, the VEPSI Council created what they called a CHIP subcommittee. The CHIP subcommittee was made up of five VEPSI Council members, which included Chair John Russell, who serves Rutland County Michael Keane, who serves Bennington County Rachel Smith from Franklin County Senator Wendy Harrison and Representative Abby Duke. This subcommittee met weekly from July 2 to October 25. We held weekly Zoom meetings to craft and create the draft guidelines, which were then reviewed and adopted by the full BEPSI Council. During those subcommittee meetings, we had weekly public comment and stakeholder input that provided robust engagement throughout the summer and the fall that led to the adoption of the CHIP guidelines by the full VEPSI council at our VEPSI retreat on October 22,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Which was exciting and was there for and just to reiterate the guidelines are now set. Yes there are a lot of public input, lot of it was a great progress, very transparent progress and productive one. And they're now set and ready to go and there's no legislative action needed

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: on this, which is really

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: exciting. No. Nope.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: Additionally, in November, we hired a new staff member, Farida Ibrahim. Farida will serve as the lead for the CHIP program. Farida comes to us as a former US diplomat. She served in USAID and she was leading the infrastructure rebuild in the Ukraine before that position was terminated. Their loss, our gain. Yeah, she's wonderful. Her name is Farida. Farida Ibrahim. Her name is on the slide. Oh, there she is. So our next progress is that in response to the statutory requirement, we were asked to provide a report on the considerations for amending the definition of the housing development site that was submitted to you all on 12/15/2025. The council at this time has chosen not to make any further changes to that definition. The council is prioritizing keeping the CHIP program as simple as possible to administer. By adding contiguous parcels at this time might create some additional administrative burdens for municipalities that are just learning how to administer CHIP, So keeping the number of parcels as small as possible, seemed like the more, administratively best

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: path at this time.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: So the council wanted to

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: do that. If I could ask, so we went up and down the flagpole several times on what that deputy she was in the committee during testimony such accommodation, housing, retail, percentages, where did it end then?

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: That's a different question. Okay. The housing development site is the number of parcels. So right now, the housing development site is limited to where the development is actually going to occur and not the contiguous parcels outside of that. We'll get to that. The next bit of progress that we have made is we recognize that education on TIP and tax increment financing is a novel concept for many municipalities. So we partnered with the Council for Development Finance Agencies, which is a national leader in tax increment financing, and we are launching our first webinar series tomorrow at 02:00. We have over 150 folks signed up for that webinar. That's great. Yeah, yeah, It's so exciting to just see the buzz and the excitement for this tool to be used in municipalities and just speaks to what we heard last legislative session about the municipalities desire to have another tool in their toolbox so that they can create the types of primary housing in their communities that they feel is best

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: for them. Can you characterize who you got tentatively signed up? Is it town managers? Is it developers?

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: All the above. So we have town managers, we have consultants, we have developers, we have folks from stakeholder groups that are like the LCT, the RECs, the RPCs, agencies that might be involved, so partners within different agencies throughout the state. It's quite a variety, and we have attorneys that have signed up, private attorneys that might be working with developers and with municipalities. So it's a quite diverse group which I'm really excited about because I really think that education is going to be key in building these partnerships which are gonna be necessary for making CHIP a successful tool. The recordings will be made publicly available as well, so that if you're not able to tune in tomorrow at 02:00, you can watch at your leisure. Again, the application portal is on track to be launched later this month. We will be providing sort of a PDF about how to apply. Farida is working on that, but we're sort of creating the portal as we're right now. So we have to get the portal finished and then she'll work on the PDF and we'll get that launched in real time. And then as I said yesterday, the pre application chip form launched. That's on our website.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: for the remainder of my presentation, I'm just gonna give a high level overview of the guidelines and the statutory requirements. If you have, like I said to Senator Brock and Senator Weeks, if you have specific questions or you wanna get into the the policy or the details or the meat of it, I would be happy to come back and talk to you more about that or provide follow-up in the form of a written response. But for purposes of today I just wanted to keep it high level because we're just in the launch phase

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: throughout this and we do now have the entire set of guidelines that care kindly ran

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: the show state. Great.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: So what eligible, what does it mean when you want to create an eligible project for CHIP? So CHIP is designed to create infrastructure improvements. We're not building the actual house, we're building the infrastructure. So the infrastructure improvements must serve a public good and it must directly support the development of an eligible housing development. Secondly, the improvements must result in new or rehabilitated housing developments where at least 60% of the floor area of the projected housing development is dedicated to primary residences, that's your answer in center of weeks, or if you do not meet that 60% floor area threshold, the projected housing development must meaningfully address the purpose of the CHIP program. So then three just little notes here, if the projected housing development does not criteria as an affordable housing development, the project will need to meet the Buffalo test. While the increment is being paid off, all housing units must be for primary occupancy And applications for the CHIP program will be accepted on a rolling basis through 12/31/2035. So the process, this is a really high level process from start to finish for how a municipality will utilize the CHIP project. The purpose of the CHIP program is to encourage the development of new primary residences for households of low and moderate incomes across both rural and urban areas of all Vermont counties that would not be created but for the infrastructure improvements funded by the program. That's your legislative purpose. That's the North Star, if you will, for how BEPC will be reviewing and administering this program. So the municipality will work with a developer or a sponsor, or both, and they will need to create a housing development plan, a housing development site, and a housing development agreement. Those documents will then need to be submitted to VEPSI as part of the CHIP application. Once those documents are submitted to VEPSI, VEPSI staff will review those materials, And once the application and supporting materials are completed, Betsy staff and potentially Betsy council members and the municipality will then coordinate a site visit. Once the site visit is completed, the municipality must come to the VEPSI Council within ninety days to present their application for consideration and approval. Once the application is then approved, the infrastructure projects can then begin.

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Wouldn't there be a, there's a vote in there though, isn't there? A municipal vote of some type.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: So the municipal vote would need to happen prior to the submission of the application to

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: BEPSI, yes. All the beginning.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: The way at the beginning. Yep, yep. So you're gonna have that vote happen because the development agreement will

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: need to be approved by the legislative municipal body. So the development plan gets developed with the developer, whoever they're gonna work with. Yep. So it's sort of after that first line of things then there's

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: a vote. So right and then once the application is approved if there's a municipal bond the municipal bonding will likely occur between VEPC and infrastructure project, right? But if there's no bonding, because unlike TIP in SHIP you can you cannot bond and you can work with a developer and the municipality can pay the developer directly, you could work that into your development plan and the select board would need to approve that and that could happen at the municipal, the first stage.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So if

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: the municipal bond or sponsor financing is used, then the infrastructure is installed, and that new infrastructure that's created will enable that new housing to get constructed. And what we've heard and what we've seen in shift is that sometimes that happens simultaneously, sometimes that happens, infrastructure happens first and then housing is created. It really is just dependent on the construction and the GFC doesn't get in the

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: middle of that. That's up to the municipality and the developer.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: The infrastructure enables the new housing construction to happen. It thereby increases the grand list value and those increased tax revenues are then used to pay off the debt, either the bond debt or the developer debt that was used to pay for this infrastructure.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: If it's bonded debt or debt that's directly from somewhere else. Correct. Yep. Any good.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: This is very high level, right? Like this is looking at this from a 30,000 foot view. Oh, very helpful. But just to give your municipalities kind of an overview of how this could work in their community. And have the guidelines to kind of get into the details about it. So the next slide is a table that explains the amount of SHIP increment that can be retained by the municipality, depending on the types of housing that you're going to create, or that a municipality and a developer are going to work together to create in their community. And as you can see here, there's four types of housing that the legislature, that you all have identified. There's two types of affordable housing, moderate income housing and market rate housing. The area median income or AMI limits are different for each housing type and the income limits vary geographically using the Federal Housing and Urban Development or HUD guidelines. There is no income limit on the market rate housing. The percentage of the housing units that must be created for each housing type also varies between affordable and moderate income. And as you will see for affordable housing, it's 15% of the units that are created must be affordable, and for moderate income, it's 25%. There is no requirement, obviously, for the market rate. With respect to the income retention rate, or the amount that's being shared between the municipality and the state, All projects must retain 85% of the municipal tax increment and may retain up to 100% of their municipal tax increment. There are different education tax increment rates for market rate housing and the affordable and moderate income housing. Market rate housing is capped at 75 and the affordable and moderate income housing is capped at 85%. Lastly there is a but for no

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: worries. Market rate is basically it doesn't take income into consideration So what do you mean up to 75%?

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: So that's the amount of increment that the municipality oh this point I'd be sharing with the educational tax share. So then lastly, there is this BUC4 test required for moderate income and market rate chip projects only.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: At a very high level, I know you all know what the thought forecast is, but for those listening and that may not be as familiar, it's basically that for those projects where the municipality is going to need to demonstrate that a proposed housing development either would not occur or would occur in a significantly different way if the municipality did not have the ability to utilize the CHIP financing. And the municipality will need to come in and demonstrate that to the VEPSI Council. Additionally, I should just note the VEPSI Council has the benefit of having three additional non voting members for CHIP applications. The legislature provided us with some housing experts to help us in the review and approval of CHIP applications. So we have Maura Collins from BHFA, Gus Selig from BHCD and Alex Farrell from DHCV. They are gonna be helping us to review these applications, which we are happy to have them as partners in these applications.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Okay, so any questions before

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: I know this is really meaty and it's really dry, but and I've spent a lot of time with it, so happy to

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Well, we find it fascinating. You do? You're too.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: You're Yeah. It's like I took

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: my I'm just because I It's

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: exciting stuff. It's really it's an

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: exciting opportunity. Yeah. And I'm hoping 150 people wanting to do these webinars already, which is great. How are you marketing the webinars?

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: So we've marketed the webinars by putting that BLCT and Yeah, we shared with BLCT, we put it on our web site. We shared it in the DED newsletter, the ACCD newsletter. CBFA marketed it for us through their channels. We shared it through the RDCs and RPCs. So we just without the word through our through our channels.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: don't have our own, you know, Pepsi marketing website but we have our own website and we've definitely shared it there and we've been just keeping that updated and we do receive our support from ACCD or technical support from our ACCD partner, is fantastic. Hazel Brewster has been amazing to keep our website updated and get the word out. It's been a team effort, which is the only way that this can happen. So this slide talks about the municipal responsibilities. Again, if you're talking to your local municipalities, this is really at a high level the key responsibilities for the municipality when they're contemplating engaging in a CHIP project. The first thing that they're gonna submit this CHIP interest form, which is now live, they're then gonna provide notice of the housing development plan and the housing infrastructure agreement to the legal voters of their municipality. They're gonna then, once those two pieces have been completed, submit the CHIP application and the supporting documentation. And as I said earlier, we'll then coordinate that site visit. Once all of that has happened and the application has been approved by BEPC and the infrastructure project is ongoing, the municipality is going to need to do some compliance and ongoing monitoring. So the municipality will then need to verify that the developer and the sponsor activities are going to comply with what's actually outlined within the infrastructure agreement. They're going to need to ensure that the infrastructure improvements have been constructed as have been agreed upon by the sponsor and the developer. They're going to need to confirm the total costs of the infrastructure project. They'll need to validate the amount of the education and municipal taxes that have been retained. And we work with the Department of Tax Now to help verify those amounts and the municipality does that as well. We do that on a yearly basis. You see our annual reports for TIF that do that. And then lastly, they will need to fulfill annual reporting requirements and they'll need to do annual financial audits of their chip dollars. So I'm not gonna get into and read this slide, you have it to look at and you have the guidelines. But these are the types of allowable improvements that are allowed, infrastructure improvements that will be allowed in SHIP projects. There are a number of infrastructure improvements that are allowed, there are a number of transportation improvements that are allowed, site preparation and soft costs.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Which is great because this was subject of much discussion.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: It was and yep no and I'm glad you aired on the side of flexibility and inclusion. Yes. I mean just because so many different everybody has a different need. Yes and that was you know, the council took into consideration the legislative intent, which was Well,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: we had long discussion about this too, which was Yes,

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: and it was very clear that municipalities wanted to have the flexibility to meet the needs of their communities. And the only way to do that is to make this as flexible as possible, giving the local communities, especially our rural communities, the ability to develop primary housing that meets their needs. Okay.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So I mean just to remind everybody, this this includes everything from from building a massive septic system for 10 or 15 housing units in the town that doesn't have water. Mhmm. They you know, bigger well. I mean, it doesn't need to be a whole rollout of a huge infrastructure piece it can be very specific to a limited number of housing units. Yes, yep. It could be that road that needs to go up there, could be those electric lines, It's right.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: Yes. And it also includes, you know, one of the things that we heard in the legislative session was addressing the flooding and the recent flooding. So in the site preparation, it does include mitigation of flood prone areas and to be able to prepare sites to mitigate flood prone areas. So that's, you know, that's and that's a great

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: addition. Yeah. It's a good tool. It's a good opportunity, but I'm not sure of that particular example. How do they make money back to pay back Well, they'll be funding cost or the developers cost. That's the only one that didn't kinda look like it was outside the box.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: So you'll mitigate a flood prone area to then be able to build housing on top of it.

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Oh, oh, okay. Thought it was more like

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: clear the area. No, no, just make it possible so that it's the bottom of the flood Okay. Plane. Mhmm. Yep.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: And then additionally, there are related costs and we modeled the tip rule in the related cost

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: section. So we just substituted tip for tip.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: So the infrastructure agreement, the agreement on these bullets are outlined in the guideline. The infrastructure agreement is the legally binding agreement that the municipality, the sponsor, if other than the municipality and the developer, will need to come up with. I've talked a lot about this because this really is the substance of the CHIP project. This is gonna be the roadmap for the municipality and the developer about how the project is going to work. It's gonna include all the terms related to the financing, the affordability, the number of units that are gonna be produced, the construction timelines, and the performance assurances that are gonna need to happen. In the guidelines, will also see something called the substantial change request, so that if these infrastructure agreements need to be modified, there are ways for municipalities to come back in and say, you know, we've run into a snag,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: you

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: know, tariffs have caused something to happen. We can't meet the timeline, X, Y, and Z. We need to come in and look at making some adjustments to the project. That happens now in Big Tip. We have substantial change requests that happen regularly. So Franklin is coming back in for a substantial change request in a couple of months to talk about increases in their project related to the some of their their costs for their project.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It doesn't mean that it's

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: a game changer. It just means that these are long projects and things change over time and, Betsy, sees itself as the partner to make sure that, we are overseeing, how the dollars are being spent and that the municipality and the developer are working together to ensure that the dollars are being spent consistent with the statutory parameters and the guidelines. And that's

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the high level overview of the work that we've been doing over the last seven months. Right. We are really excited to get this program launched in the next few weeks and see what we would appreciate regular updates on how it's going. Happy to come back. I feel like we're all part of the verge of this. I

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: It's let's this

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: is very it's pretty exciting. Yeah. And it's it's being born in very real time, which is I think particularly, to go to Randy's concern, particularly exciting. It's, you know, when we need to move fast, we can move fast, Corey Parent.

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Just Corey Parent for the record, not

[Corey Parent]: in the lobby, but I I got to serve as an interim town manager in town of Saint Albans this summer while they were looking for a replacement. We had four different developers talking to us in the

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: town Saint Albans about projects that

[Corey Parent]: would accumulate up to about 300 units. Now they've been just sitting on for years that never had an opportunity to get there, but between your zoning changes, if they could get water and sewer there, the density, that they were starting to look at these projects, so they're all excited for these to unfold and it's a really good opportunity in community seal like ours out there.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That's great. Thank you for being such a strong Sullivan's cheerleader. You are just indefatigable. Yeah. It's just great. And thank you again for your help on Chittenden

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: because you were part.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No. It was it was great. So we shall be encouraging our town managers and our local developers and possible sponsors to do participate in one of these webinars because you have four? There's three, they all really build on each other. So they have to be taken kind of on the

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: They don't have to, you

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: can Oh, and you can engage with them after the fact. Correct.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: And I don't know if I know VLCT did get a half $1,000,000 grant from MBRC. They will they will be doing some technical assistance for the municipalities.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I forgot that. VLCT got half 1,000,000 for that.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: That's great. So they it's over a three year period. We met with them yesterday, and we will be meeting with them again.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So that's in addition to what the RPCs we'd hope would be giving already to the tech? I I believe so. Yes. Yeah.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: We're we're focusing on the implementation implementation and the launching of the program. Our team has been super focused on spending a

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: lot of time with software developers over the last

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: since the guidelines have been adopted. Doing a lot of that work. Oh, yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Any other questions on CHIP or can we shift to other Betsy things? Just while we have you here. Okay. Any any thoughts on CHIP? So updates. Maybe the beginning I mean, we're gonna have much discussion, but but it would be great to get an update beginning in February maybe.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: Sure. Happy to come back to the beginning somewhere. We are gonna be

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: so anything on in the larger world of hep c that you'd like to update us on? I know that's not

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: that wasn't

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: our primary purpose today, but it's it it certainly is always of interest given that we may wanna include in our economic development penalty. Sure. Again, getting rid of the sunset. Yeah. That's the big one. That's the big one. A veggie sunset. Correct. Obliterating it. Obliterating it. Okay. Anything else for either our housing or are we just I think we've done such a big lift on Chip that I think we just need to let it play out and see what it does.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: Yes, that would be great. So nothing

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: in this process that you see that we need to be addressing legislatively in our housing bill?

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: That I would be asking for right now. I think we have spent the last year getting this to a place where we need to get the bill or get the program implemented. And then we need to see the applications that come through the door. And I would like to gather the data and the evidence. And as I said, throughout the legislative process last session, coming back to you with actual data and actual evidence about what is working and what is not working.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yep, because we can always update and change.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: We can always update and change and that it does not feel productive to make changes based on speculation.

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: You also handle TIP? I do. Any lessons learned from the past year from TIP that you would want legislative enhancement? Anything or That's a good question because I was

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: thinking the same thing which is we still have a limit on CHIP. The number of tests we can do. Do we let CHIP just ride out and then tackle liberating TIF? You know, once we've gotten CHIP and shown how much interest there is in TIF? Because CHIP is is very accessible for smaller communities and communities with less resources, the TIF as we know is for communities that have more resources, when is the right time to ask to open up TIF again, have go to to David's, to just build on David's question, is what do you want to be asking for from TIFF?

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: Right, I think at this point, given the capacity limits also of the staffing levels, the staffing free, levels that we are Let's see what comes in in terms of new tip applications, and if we max out the number of tips, then

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Where are we now?

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: We have four more. Four

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: of? Sealing is

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: Sealing is six. Rutland County is capped at the number of districts that they can have.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So we have four more possible, but they have to be in different regions. They have to be spread geographically.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: Yes, and we have interest for potentially for those four. I don't more to come. Maybe I'll have additional information later this session.

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Geographic amounts? Yes. That's what it's required, but Where there are none now.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: Northeast, Caitlin? Yep. So Newport's considering either a chip or a tip. I'm speaking to their housing committee tomorrow morning. I know that at one time Springfield had talked about having a TIF district. Springfield was still But I think

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: CHIP may be more up their alley.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: Yeah. We had talked to Williston about having a TIF in the past. We talked to Sorry, I'm prepared to fully They are geographically located. They're not just in Chittenden County or in,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: you know And they're required to be two. Yeah,

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: no more than two per county.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: you could have two more, in theory in Chittenden County, you could

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: have two in Franklin County. Or one more in Windsor County. Or just Hartford.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: No, you could have two more in Hartford because they're they're they're under the old.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Type. David, none of that. So

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: what's the appropriate, your recommendation to get an appropriate timing to relook at either the cap or the geographic distribution of these projects if there are areas which are interested and motivated, should we have this conversation earlier rather than later?

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: I think that based on what I have received in terms of interest. This legislative session is, I'm not prepared with data or additional information to bring to the legislature to support that. Obviously opening it up would be great. I think having more is Not having limits is obviously better than having limits. But if you're looking for me to come in and provide you that information, I think towns at this point over the summer have been so focused on thinking about how CHIP could work and that housing is really the driver, whereas TIP is more of an economic development tool and looking at TIP as an economic development driver. I would like to be able to maybe come back in January of next session to flush that out a little bit And I

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: think we need to have two more tips. To be pushing up against the threshold would prompt us, I think, additionally to move to open it up, which I would love to do. Yeah. My question to Bill sort of on David's because

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: I think I think in the same way because I

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: was gonna ask you about tip. Last year, Hartford had a very specific request. Is that request is that is that need that Hartford had been solved or do we need to continue to address that? And should that be should that be in either our economic development bill or our housing bill?

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: So I understand that Hartford would like that request we are not taking a position on that right now.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: You just remind us what because it's okay don't worry about it for right now. I should should know it's cold and Laurie is gonna just be shocked that I'm not clear on it but I yeah. I do know they they wanted more time to I can't remember. Yeah. Okay. Well, let me we'll work on it and figure out. Yeah. Yeah. Because I know they needed it.

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: You know, when we talk about these things, of course, we always talk about the good things and horrible things. What are the issues that we should be aware of that are problems right now? Or concerns or threats?

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: In terms of?

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: The success of the program. The success of the program, whether it's doing what's intended. Projects that may be subject to failure or concerns that come on our desk at some

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: point. Sure. I mean, think affordability is the biggest barrier for Chip.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: In making that the ensuring that the houses that we're building are affordable.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: Just that the market is so expensive and, you know, from what what we you know, from what I was listening to what secretary Kerley and commissioner Johnson were talking about with you earlier, because projects take so long to come online And we see this in South Burlington, the reason for their substantial change request, you know, they were out to bid, I believe that their construction costs went up like 41% over, you know, not a very long period. Well, it was

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: a project that brought to about three years in permitting.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: Right, right. And that that delay has a significant impact and that that's a barrier, that's a big barrier that can impact projects. And I would say that that's something that that we see. And permitting isn't

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: as much our committee, but I think we need to be working to make sure it's And

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: that's something that we see in Betsy. Those are the substantial change requests that we see are the costs, the rise in the costs for construction projects that are through no fault of the municipality or

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: frankly the construction company. Well the

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: cost of construction construction though is again a function of time. Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well it's a combination. Increased cost of materials, is

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. That is is often a function of time because we waited. Yes. It's And it's yeah. If we had done it more quickly, the cost would not have been as high. In other words.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: Right. So I see that as a potential

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: challenge for these chip projects. But I

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: we're all going into the unknown. We'll we'll know more in six months. We'll know more. Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But we're hopeful at the moment. And but I think that will inform the question you asked earlier Randy which is where are we going to be challenged within our own body at the legislature getting to guess some of the things that it's been up some of these key regulatory pieces. Yeah, we need to work on getting the yes together.

[Jessica Hartleben (Executive Director, Vermont Economic Progress Council)]: The council is very excited and committed to you.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And you've done great work and I just think we're going to end early now and we're going to begin our agenda planning at noon but I just wanted to say we are so grateful to you for your leadership on this and for the you're really driving it home in a timely fashion and getting something running so fast thank you so much this is great. Thank you. Great. We done? I think we're all fine thank you very much. This was great. More to follow. Great.