Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Are we all hooked up? Good morning. Welcome to the Center of Economic Development Housing and General Affairs. This morning we're going to turn back to two pieces of

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: work that came out of

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: this committee and the Senate of Natural Resources and obviously the House as well on our land use planning and our housing development work. And so we're going to begin with Charlie Baker and have an update on where we are with our land use planning maps which are due, I believe, in December 26. Charlie gave us confidence two years ago that we were actually going to accomplish this and be on time. So I am going to Charlie, take it

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: away, it's yours. Yeah, I'm sorry I'm trying to get to the chair. There we

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: go. Okay.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Yes, Madam Chair, thank you. For the record, I'm Charlie Baker, Executive Director during the day for Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission. At night, I have been doing a lot of coordination with all the RPCs on this topic. I guess, yeah, just because we have the most staff and here I am. So I do want to reassure you on that front, Madam Chair, that we are still on schedule. I'm going to go pretty quickly because I know you wanted to focus

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a lot on the housing targets. Yes. Well, mean, that's our commitment. Yep.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: And the reason that we got really engaged on this

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: bill was for housing, right? And I just want to remind committee members we have the presentation here if you want to take notes. Yeah, great. And Yeah, I think and where the farming bits are, what we can do to help, what's emerging as ways as you see it now midway through the process, we, what we can do in our housing bills this year that would help. Excellent, we are on

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: the same page. So just to kind of give you a little context, you know, we part of what 01/1981 did was update regional plan requirements, a lot of focus on housing growth areas and also climate resilience at the same time, standardized the future land use mapping. So doing regional plans and land use mapping is nothing new. The RPC has been doing it for decades. States required us to do it for decades. So this has been more of a refinement of that work. And just, again, a little context, in Vermont statute, there are 15 planning goals. That's what all those circles are around there. And so there's a lot of topics that we're supposed to address in our plans, from flooding and conflicts under the agriculture, transportation, natural resources, air and water quality, housing, public facilities, education, energy, economy. Yeah, so you name a topic, it's there. Probably the only topic that's not there that could potentially be there, and I'm definitely not arguing for that, is health. But health is kind of also, or at least public health is there to some extent. The schedule. So you asked, are we on schedule? There's kind of a two step process that we are going to do with the land use review board. There's a pre application initial sixty day review. Three of the regions have gone through that review at the '5, and you can see here the rest of us are going to submit by the summertime to order for that preliminary review. We're all on schedule to adopt as the statute asks us to do or requires us to do by the end of the calendar year. So we'll go through this initial stage with the winner and then we'll also bring our revised claims back to them for

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: formal approval. So, would you be kind enough to clarify for me anyway, pre preliminary approval or full approval has

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: to be done by December 26? Final adoption of the plan by the RPC This section's a little fuzzy about whether the LERB has to have approved it by the '26. It may be that the last couple regions here may be in the approval process with the LERB at the end of the calendar year. They may not have I'm not sure that they'll have formal Board approval, the Regent will finish

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: our plans. And, David, you were not in this committee when we did this work. Thomas, you were either We're

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: doing it at the same time.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah, and so what was very important for us doing this work was this was going to be ideally ground up, turbine to the plan I

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: will come back to that.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Oh, okay. I'm sorry.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: No. That's alright.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But I think what's critically important to me is I mean, I've been in and I think we've all been the senators have invited to a number of town towns meetings and with our like, every one of these plans was done in conjunction with the planning commissions in those towns.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Is that correct? Yep. Yeah. And or they're in process. Or or in process. Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And and then presented to the town once they have a preliminary plan. That's what we've been off going to in these these first rollouts. And then the town are you gonna go through the process of then what if the town says, oh we don't think we can go 190 in I the next two

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: think I'll cover that territory here. So just to talk about the Land Use Review Board and this kind of like, this is a new part of the system. Landies Review Board did not exist. Regional plans did not go to anyone for review or approval until this new system got put in place. Two things come with Landies Review Board approval. One that's gotten most of the attention is this Act two fifty tier one, 1B, maybe 1A, Act two fifty exemption areas. And if those, we should talk more about this, but there's two sets of benefits. Act two fifty exemption, those ones are probably going to be a lot less than, and by less I mean less towns, less places than the designation benefits. And so the way the bill was written was there's benefits available for every town. The designation benefits are for everybody. So even the smallest town in Vermont, they have a small center, the church, the town hall, that could be a village center, property owners there can access benefits through the designation program. There's a whole series of benefits there. And then the other one that has gotten really a lot more airplay is the Act two fifty exemption area.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: One day, one day.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Yeah, and there the legislature said, well, okay, you can only get Act two fifty exemption if you have regulations in place because you're kind of stepping into the role of Act two fifty in a way, right? Act two fifty is not there anymore. And there are definitely a lot of towns that have said, we're not necessarily ready to do that. We would rather have Act two fifty remain in place. So I just want to kind of put that out there because I've been hearing some stuff in the media like, oh, 100 towns are benefiting from this. We're doing the same thing. And that is not factual. Like almost every town should benefit from the mapping because they're able to access the designation benefits. They may not be able to access the Act two fifty exemption. When it comes

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: to update, opt in versus opt out, you're always going to get a lot more when it's opt out rather than opt in that we have. So my question to you is

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: since it's

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: currently opt in, though a lot of advocates are arguing that we should just, by default, have them opt out, and then they have to that they by default, they're in, they'd have to go through and take a specific action option. And what is the current process? What does it look like for a town to actually opt in? Like how rigorous

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: is that? Do they need

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: to get lawyers involved? They just send an email? What does it take to opt in?

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: We are asking for a vote and I think there may there's a resolution at the select board. Okay. To say, yeah, we wanna be in it's yeah. That's it. Yep. That's it. And then, you know, there's a little form. Yeah. So that's it's been a pretty simple conversation in both directions though. I just say a form. When I hear a form, I don't know

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: council days. I usually wanna talk to a lawyer.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: So I need a lawyer to be involved. No. Okay. No. It's just a simple resolution. Sorry. I think I think maybe the Lord has some form on their website. But it's not something we're filling out or something. It's something the town needs to do.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But it's not huge. No.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: And it's really I mean, it's a are they okay not having Act two fifty in play?

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: If we switched it to opt out, it'd be just as easy. That's right. To say, you know what? We're opt in.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: That's right. And I don't think it would change the dynamics terribly. So we've had a, know, maybe it creates a little more lean

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: for sure. What I think a lot of advocates and myself want,

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: lean towards housing. That's absolutely where we started two years ago also.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That's why we ended up with top 10 other than opt out. I

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: can't remember. I'm not sure, so I don't know if that came out of the House of Environment Committee, I think that they wanted the town to make a purposeful decision to take this role on rather than have it be thrust upon them. Don't want to speak for the committee. But we have the same battle. That conversation, yeah. I'm pretty sure it came out of house environment, which is where the preliminary work, I think it was age six, 87, got done. I'm pretty sure it came out that way.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: If we miraculously, not even miraculously, but if we did switch it to opt out, is it even relevant now if we got it in place for this year?

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: There are are some regions where that could have impact.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Maybe ask that question, Tom, if you would for Alan.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Let's put that.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Okay. Yeah. Because it also what would it take to ask

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Charles? Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. What does it open up?

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Yeah. Good question. And just you've heard the one know, using the term here, growth areas, I'm not sure it's the best term, definitely these areas for Act two fifty exemption. The RPCs are responsible for doing that mapping. And then kind of the way we've been talking about this from the beginning, the LER, the Land Use Review Board is doing the tier three mapping and rule making. And then tier two is kind of everywhere else with the road rule got added, right? So just in terms of responsibilities, the RPCs are really focused on working with our towns on these growth areas. Since tier three is at 2,500 feet and above or is it, what's the That is the responsibility of the Land Use Review Board and To designate with tier two and tier three. That's tier three and you know and there was some statutory guidance about you know really critical natural resources to the state. Okay.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It doesn't have to be high.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Okay. Elevation is already one of the things in Act two fifty that Yeah, I think anything over 2500 elevation is jurisdictional right now. So that's an existing Act two fifty requirement I think. And then, so this left column again is kind of the tier one B eligible areas. And then this is broken down into the specific land use categories we're using on our maps. Sorry, this is going down into Meade, but downtown center, village center, planned growth area, village area. Those are the four terms and they all have some definition in statute that we're working on with our towns and like, oh, does this area fit in any of these? It'll make it tier one be eligible. And then there's a variety of other areas, some more focused rural. And we are mapping rural conservation in our town, but please note that it's not the same as tier three. And then there's transition and enterprise resource based recreation, resource based recreation and ski areas, maybe lakeside resorts type of places. So just to give you, here's a couple maps from two quarters of the state, Bennington and NVDA, the JTHM. And you can see there's nothing totally or too surprising here if you are familiar with the geography of the places. Know, like in Bennington, if you have, know, Route 7 is where most of their development is, and you can see Bennington in the South there, Manchester further north. And you know, we've had the same thing in The Kingdom. You can see where the major roads are, where St. Jay and Newport, those key towns are. And how much of our state is rural also pops out, which is the greener shades, right? And then we also, in Northwest, our Senator Brock is not here, but kudos to his RPC, they did a little analysis because one of the things that was in the bill that came more out of this committee was the interim exemption areas. In Northwest Region, was 1.3% of their region as they actually worked with their towns to map the growth areas of 2.1%. So the interim exemptions weren't really too far off in terms of how much geography, but we've been able to work with our towns to kind of customize the exemption area to fit the town better in our process. And then Madam Chair this is me. Yeah,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: sorry, okay. I guess I'm just not this is Andy Jewell's area right? Yes. Is well it's Catherine. Catherine Demicks? Catherine Demetri. Yep. Demetri. Yep. Franklin And Grandal Counties. Right. So she's taken I mean, it was not surprising. She's really she dove in fast. She was ready to. And are you saying to us that I'll in her whole, in that whole RPC, it has 8,051 acres? Were covered by the interim exemptions. Were covered included. They didn't all choose to use the interim exemption.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: The legislature didn't give a choice. We just We imposed, if you remember, there were quarter mile buffers from village centers, half miles from downtown.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Property owners. Property owners

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: could take advantage of it since a year and a half ago.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. So when this got passed, so we've

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: met interim exemptions in place. And some of what we've been saying as we talk with our tenants, these interim exemptions are already here. So you know, defining your 1B area isn't changing policy at the state very much. We're just customizing it to fit your town. Right.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And so 3.9% of this of Catharines RPC is eligible. Do not have those together.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: No, no, I'm sorry. It's the interim exemption area covers 1.8%. Okay. These new 1B maps we're doing with the towns is 2.1%. So slightly more than the kind

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: of simplistic interim exemption Got it.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Thank you. Yeah, these next couple of slides, we've talked about our conversations with planning commissions and select boards. We're probably getting close to 500 meetings with those groups statewide right now. And you know, and yes, but I'm sure we've been talking about it on bottoms up, like the legislature really directed us to work with the town to make sure this fits what's going on in your town. There's a slide here just on some of the themes and issues we've heard. Just some concerns with the law in general about making sure that they're not changing their zoning, which it doesn't do. Recognizing there are housing needs. Also

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: at

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: the same time in some towns, there's more concern about growth and more support for growth, right? So that's very independent perspectives of depending what town you're in. Property rights tier three and road rules have come up a lot as concerns, particularly more rural towns. We need easier process for regional plan amendments, And then appreciation for collaboration. I think actually these conversations have been really healthy and good with the RPCs and the towns. You have to talk about some of these issues. And we've been talking about some of them a little bit, but it kind of drove some more focused conversation. Not just on growth, but also on flood resiliency. Yes. And then public outreach, we've had over seven fifty events. I'm sure that's climbing also. All kinds of things, senior centers, libraries, focus groups, farmers markets. I'm trying to get input also beyond just the formal conversations with the town bodies. Lots of comments from the public about we do need more housing, we need more housing in rural areas. Concern about the housing targets, are we going to be able to meet those targets? What happens if we don't meet the targets? So we've had to do a lot of research like, I'm not sure target was maybe the best word because it's really their goals and there's no consequences. It's kind of a planning target that kind of helps all the things through.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: The consequence is build housing for

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: their children. There are larger societal consequences. There are no consequences, like the town's not going to get fined or penalized in a direct way. Trip, flooding, job growth, And yes, so anyway, those are some themes. Rutland did a survey, you know, kind of a public survey, I guess, about where people, where should the world happen. And you know, not surprisingly, have the downtowns, the village centers, the long major corridors. And then so now to get to the targets, and how am I doing on time? Okay. You're you've got ten more minutes. What will what will I do?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Then you can get we'll leave over a tiny bit because we're we're basically expanding on this and moving into an update on Act one and eighty one and the whole. Okay, great. And where are we

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: at with that deal at all? Yeah, so the regional targets got developed. DHCD was charged with producing those, Department of Housing and Community Development. So Commissioner Farrell, I think you had him in here last week maybe, that he could speak more on this if you wanted. Part of their charge was to come up with a statewide housing target, and what they ended up producing was a lower and upper target for 2030, and a lower and upper target for 2050. You can see the low upper target were 27,041 thousand for 2030, seventy nine thousand and one hundred and seventy two thousand by 2050. And then they were asked to break it up by each of the RPCs. And so these are this table here is the housing targets for each RPC. But how does

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: this correlate to the housing targets we have developed in this natural process that the RPCs have led? These are the ones we're using. They're taking the feedback from the

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: preliminary reports. There's two directions going on. So it's all feeding into the The legislative, yeah, right, it's coming together in our mapping because part of the direction that the RPCs were given was use these targets that the state is giving us, break them down to each municipality, and also work with your towns to try to get us, I think the language in the statute says a substantial majority of housing growth in the tier 1B eligible areas. Says it a little differently. Okay, can I

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: of needle into something you said the numbers which the state gave you are those these numbers? These numbers. Okay, so let

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: me ask did you challenge that at all?

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Do you agree or did

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: you just accept it or wash? We got you. State did a great job. Honestly, I think when the RPCs looked at these numbers because we saw the regional numbers first, they were fairly logical and THED was also pretty transparent with the methodology. So we could see the methodology and we didn't really have any pushback. I'm not challenging words, I'm

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: not challenging because I mean it's wrong, I'm challenging you because I just want to make sure it's as accurate as well. That's what

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I was trying to get at earlier, my other question is how is this fed by the book we have done in town?

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Yeah. So this is So this isn't just to go to David's side. Is more need. This is organic. This is grown organically. No. The the statewide targets were more needs driven. So kind of what do we need to address all of our housing issues? But you also see a big range here, right? The center could speak more specifically, could talk about my region. And we got a target of 15,700. I'm gonna focus on the 2,050 numbers just because it's a little bit easier to talk about a little bit longer term. That 15,700 number for Chittenden County is pretty close to what our trend has been. And I

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: think that was somewhat true for the rest of

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: the region. The lower number wasn't too crazy and or too high. The higher number obviously is three times that. And so our local conversation, we've been working with our towns, has been lower number, no problem. High number, that is probably we're gonna have to do really challenging and maybe, I don't wanna say impossible, really challenging. And so from a kind of planning perspective, and I've seen this kind of is happening around the state, we're kind of using a mid number, a midpoint. The midpoint number is a pretty aggressive number, but not unrealistic.

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: So Chittenden County has a different growth dynamic than So the remainder of the

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: that growth dynamic, that growth factor, is

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: it different given different regions? Yeah. Recount, okay. Yeah, Yeah.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: And also how much geography there is and, you know, what's how much infrastructure is there? So the what I would call

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the organic targets, which have come through the RPC process, which we've all been engaged in in our towns. Where does that target fit with these needs based targets that DHCb

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: So has we've taken these numbers and then worked with our municipalities to kind of, within our region, we have some flexibility to be like, okay, which town wants to take how much? So, you know, some towns are taking more, some are taking less, we're working So it

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: out can these be within our articulated with each town as they reviewed and set their own targets? I mean, did they get to see the needs that or did they set their own targets without regard to

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: the needs? We've been all using these regional targets and then fitting everything within Yeah. Your question about how deep the conversation got into needs at a municipal level, I I don't know. That's probably highly variable depending on the town's interest and what were the conversation with. Okay. Keep that. So those are the kind of regional and statewide housing targets. And I know, Madam Chair, when I saw you last week, you asked for municipal targets. I so far I think 10 out of well, I know there's at least one RPC that has not finished breaking them out to municipalities. The kingdom is kind of in that process, but haven't haven't directly had those conversations very deeply with their towns yet. Central Vermont is probably further behind in having those conversations with their towns. So again, we're trying to pace out our submissions to the police review board. So we're pacing where this is happening. All municipal targets have not been established yet, but probably the majority of them have. If the committee would like a report, we could give you a spreadsheet with the whole state of what I think it

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: would be interesting for us to see at the moment.

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Questions. One, do these targets factor in the aging demographic being that there's a tipping point where policies return to

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: the market or higher occupancy? Yeah, the HFA did the analysis. So I'm sure if you wanted to dig more into the methodology, but it was the whole range

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: of things. Yes, no, okay. And then in the targets, does your organization have any thoughts on whether these targets can be satisfied with renovation versus new construction?

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Do you get into that? In my accounts, 2,000 units offline. Yeah, right, right. Unoccupied. Yeah, I do think, I think that was part of the methodology when BHFA was looking at it, think they were looking at units that are, yeah, uninhabitable right now and could be brought in. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Yeah and there's also, there's like a vacancy rate, you know, so there's kind of like a normal. Yeah, it's the unoccupied housing. Yeah, right on your mind. Yeah, 2,000. Yeah,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: so keep going for it. Yeah,

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: but I did hear a request for getting more details.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah, you're coming. What do you think, would you like to see that come, the goals come by him? Pretty interesting.

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: It would be I love

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: looking at it for Chittenden Hill.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: And would you also maybe I'll attach to that the BHFA methodology. I would help answer some of these in more Okay. Sorry. Can

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: so I

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I think I've raised this privately with a couple of our housing partners but an interesting phenomenon will occur when a community actually gets close to meeting their housing targets, which is something I hung my hat on with all of our housing bills that the vacancy rate will loosen, rent prices will stabilize, and in some cases even go down, and you will then start to get a capitalist pushback on the building of housing, right? It's slowed down more so because we've achieved our goal. I think Chittenden County is close to achieving a 2% vacancy rate again and when you talk to our assessors, know, the private ones, you see this conversation starting to happen. Well, we're going to have too much housing soon. How do you make sure those conversations don't, the market conversation doesn't drive the human need conversation to actually lower rents in many of these places?

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: I think that may be more of a question back to the legislators. Yeah, I think you're right and we saw a little bit of this, remember when the legislature and the, remember there was a housing bomb?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yes, we knew it came out of this community.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Five years ago, right? No, in '17. Thank you, '17. Gosh, '17. There was, but that, you know, I can't remember if it was $3,537,000,000. And that did cause, you know, it was a bump in construction. I don't know when that happened. And I know, yeah, think you referred to the Alamin

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Corona miner. Yeah.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: And we had an uptick in the vacancy rate, which is like a healthy vacancy rate get up to 5%. We've been like under 1%.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah, our healthy vacancy rate is 5%. It's

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: 2% for ownership and five percent for rental. Rental.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Thank you. And yeah, I'm I'm talking about being too great for rental, and you know it ticked up to like 3% and there's hardly to be a little reaction like that. Like oh okay it's not really because you know, kind of developing this in India, Iraqi for example, you're a landlord, you want to make sure there's a healthy market to provide people to and so there was a little I could see that starting to come. Sundar, I'm hoping that we kind of hold fast, like this is a long term issue, no, this is not going to be solved in three years.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Right, right. Okay.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Yeah, this is just sorry I'm almost done. Just a quick map, I think we got this out of DEC. This is just a map of the wastewater systems around the state because that is somewhat driving a lot of conversation about where can you actually have growth development and density. I don't have this number committed in my head, but I believe there's over a 100 public wastewater systems in the state and that's what you see, you know, peppered around the map here. So, you know, every region has wastewater systems, not certainly not every town. This is also, you know, I would say most of these places are probably the tier one B eligible areas. Right.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So the challenge here is that they're reaching their max. Yeah, for Absolutely. Many of In our region they are beginning to reach their max. Yeah, yeah. How do two come on in, we're gonna bleed right into And

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: we were having more conversation. There's seats for you right now. On this note real quickly, and I mentioned in the next slide, we are having conversations with

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And that's an issue on Yes, and we

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: are having We started having a conversation with DEC. Because, yes, there's capacity issues. There's towns that would like to add sewer capacity or or add an extension. And, you know, the DEC system, you know, there's also all the chip financing availability is going to put a lot more pressure on that DEC wastewater and water office. So just to highlight that, that it's good thing. Yep, it's a good thing. As long as things can come

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: through the process. And they're highly functional, they've, you know, they've come in and have been under a month for their turnaround, but it's something that's in my bill that we should watch and asking ANR to tell us when they can't achieve three months turnaround on Right. A

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: And then, sorry, this is going to open up another can of worms here. Here's what the 1B eligible areas look like statewide. So right now the draft maps and these drafts were about 2.2% of the state. One particular note is that Central Vermont is definitely underreported. They have not finished doing the mapping with their towns. I expect they'll probably get around 2% also by the time they finish. So we may end up like 2.3% or something of the state in these tier one B eligible areas, very similar to the exception areas. Compared to the legacy designations which were 0.3%, so we're you know seven, eight times more area in those growth areas.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And statutory fix we would have to do here, not you don't mean local municipal statute.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Statutory fix for Oh, yeah. It just I guess the point we were making here is that some of the what we're getting back from the comments from the letter is probably may cause us to contract these areas a little bit. Notably Rutland, you know, what they heard back in the LERB, I think Devin was telling me it would be about a 20% contraction of the 1B eligible areas.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: But that's if we accept

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: The comments? Their proposal, right? Well,

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: we need, the LERB has to approve our plan, and the 1B areas, So they there there's a body that got put in charge of that decision. Mhmm. The comments and their statutory language, the rub is bottoms up. Yeah. Which is what we want. Which is what we're our maps kinda reflect. And then there's top down statutory language that, you know, was referred to as guardrails. And that's where we're having a little bit of misalignment right now. You know, and I don't know how big a deal to make of it is concerned. We'd like the areas to be more inclusive of what came from bottoms up process. And I think we would. And the LERD is kind of, and this is no blame on the LERD, I think they're doing their best to generously interpret the statute, but they are getting they're hitting some of those guardrails where they're going. Some of

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: that area doesn't meet the statutory I think we

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: should really look into that. And we need to look into one a, one b. My bill has an opt out for 1B instead of an opt in, I'm talking to our communities like South Burlington about 1A and even how that's becoming more difficult and restrictive. That's not what we intended. I don't know what guardrails they're talking about, but this is my concern. They should not be don't see anything that we put in 1A and 1B that should be interpreted to shrink those areas from what the towns are proposing.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Yeah, and you know we had some of the transportation I

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: would love to know what they're seeing in. Some

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: of the guardrails are around, you know, historic cultural uses and centers, walkability, distances.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: We didn't put that. I

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: don't remember us putting

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: that in. It didn't come from your committee. It came later. It's in the sign.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So that's part of what we're thinking through. And then we can have this conversation. Yep.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: And so this last slide, and apologies for being slow here, are just some thoughts. Okay. To the point we were just talking about in this first bullet is clarifying statutory language about what we really want because we are these areas that the towns are planning for. We also may need a simplified way to amend these maps and plans. And we also need to clarify some of the designation benefits. There's a lot of extra words that got put in statute. Some other notes, wastewater appeals, we don't really have a position about who hears appealed, but I think more of the focus should be on the front end of the process, like what can be appealed, to what extent can it be appealed, and not have de novo, and other streamlining that could happen. A couple other thoughts that are more random, not necessarily related to this, one of the big housing market dynamics we've been seeing is that since the two thousand and eight real estate crash, the financing for condos has been, you know, not impossible, but close to impossible for developers to get financing for condos. So that's why you're seeing every multifamily is apartments. And you know, it used to be before 2008, a good chunk of them were down there. And that's entry level ownership opportunities, right? And so we're kind of missing that entry level ownership part of the market because of this financing issue.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And we it's I mean, it's it's kind of

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: the banking risk issue. I don't know I

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: don't you know, we bring this

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: up to the treasurer, like, could the state somehow be a firewall and kind of like backed up developer that

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: did learn to confident and say hey they don't need

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: to have you know I don't know what their financial rules are like they have to have 90% of it sold or something before they can get it financed.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Do you think

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Jonah Richards is a good developer? Mean are the smaller developers

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: who are not trying to make long term investors happy, right, which is more the rental market? They have much more limited set of tools. They've given them a much

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: more limited set of tools to be helpful. Yeah. And we should definitely have that conversation because that goes to that's a critical lead as you say, that

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: is entry level. And last crazy thought, and these last couple of thoughts are my personal thoughts, the data So, has been playing

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: on these.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: But the other thing that I've been wondering about, you know, how for mobile homes, parks, like, there's kind of an opportunity when the owner wants to sell that the owners can see if they can form a co op and own it themselves. And so this was like a workaround in my brain on the condo issue. Like, we didn't say anything about the apartment building? Not that they go on the market that often, but could there like be a period of time to see if the owner or the residence could form a co op or a foundation? I

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: thought about that. I think that's a great idea and I don't know, it's certainly a good question for us to consider.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: And I will stop in reference so you can get on

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to your other Well it's a very natural set

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: because we're going to do a sort of

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a very similar sort of check-in with these bills, where we are. Charlie these considerations are very helpful. The opt in opt out is a big conversation and I think the constriction of 1A and 1B is a big concern. I think we want it's already a modest percent of the state anyway in the first place and I think we want to be able to maximize the places that are have have have positioned themselves for this kind of growth, and Yeah. I don't think we want to be limiting it. Thank you. This is really helpful, and more of call we'd love to have you back in with the other data you're covering us on the housing and thank you for this work you're gonna make this target.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Well thank you for well leaning in on this it's a really important issue for Gilat. Thank you all for your work on this.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. Well, thank you for your work. And your leadership. Is that correct? It's very important. So, Helen and Cam, the natural continuation of this conversation is your update. If you wanna both join us towards you know, first, you wanna do it together? What do you wanna do?

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: We can probably do it separate. Okay.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Which would you like first? Ellen, why don't you start? I mean, what would you recommend? Our two big housing pieces of work in the last three years and sort of review where we are, what we still need to do, and things we may want to be open for conversation about.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'll check out the Office of Legislative Council. So I sent to your committee assistant four documents. I sent her Act 47 of 2023, which was the Home Act.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We have a summary of it right here.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And you also have the summary document because Act 47 is quite long and more than and then Act 181 is more than double that and so I sent you that document as well as its summary document.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah we have both the summaries printed out the the package to go out and print that so they're on your computer.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes and so it's what I did what we did in the summary document was boil down each of the provisions that's in there, if you'd like to look at the exact language I can put it out for you in the actual act itself. So I was just going to start with act 47, the summary. Rick, I did not know what he wanted me to focus on because well, and I just want check on your time because I did this walkthrough in over forty five minutes alone in House General and Cameron also took forty five minutes on his part so right there's

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a lot in both of these There is and I think we'd like to do it because we have less time than House General does we'd like to do it at fellow base You know, like, 78 RP's, you know, like, 78 records. We're gonna do it faster. So we I would love to see how much we can get through with both of

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you, high level, what do we

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: still need to do, what's still in play, where are we, And I I just think we have the time we have. So do your best, and then we happily, you and Pam are local, and we can get you to come back and finish. But I'd love to if the police begins so that we as we go into our housing bill development, which we will begin with we now will have a bill, which I hope will speak send to this committee that we're gonna begin going through next Friday. And Do you want me to have that conversation about where it's getting

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: sent or?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I will. Okay. And so we'll have more time but I think it was important in Canada to have a fairly high level where are we, what are we, what's still in play, what's due when, what are the extensions, you know what can we, if we're going to update anything, like talking about the opt in opt out, where is that appropriate?

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Alright, I'm going to start with Act 47 summary document. It included a Act 47 included a number of changes for municipal zoning, a lot of it around housing. So on page one of that summary document, so some of the changes for municipal zoning include in residential district surface sewer and water, the municipality cannot require more than one parking space per dwelling unit. And then it may require 1.5 parking spaces if it's a multi unit dwelling in areas without sewer and water if existing parking isn't sufficient. Also municipalities must allow duplexes where single family units are allowed. Municipalities must permit multi unit dwellings with up to four units in areas of the town served by sewer and water unless the town requires more units to be built. Requiring that the town subject the accessory dwelling units to the same standards of review as single family homes. They can't be more restrictive on them. Next, they cannot the county cannot prohibit hotels from renting to those using housing assistance funds. In residential district certified sewer and water bylaws that will establish building lot standards that allow up to five units per acre or more if they so choose.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: We go through these sections where we try to achieve some by right development standards, I've had this conversation with the environmental court and others. I'm hearing that there's still the ability to appeal and have at least a hearing on whether or not they are allowed to develop I Right. I'm trying to work on language about how we say what we meant that. Know, like we meant it's I Right and can build four you units here, you can build five units here, we worked on the along water and sewer language but and I think we can include some of our environmental court administrators to have that conversation, I don't know, but like how do we make sure it's very clear this is not an appealable decision?

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I would need a little more specifics I think,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: and let's put a pin in some of these questions or things some of the things that

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: have cropped up. If it's okay I'm

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: gonna email you and somebody who's whose quad flex was appealed right and then who is also a lawyer so we can have.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah because I think this is what this conversation I hope is about identifying the areas that Clean up. Clean up and what do we need to do to reinforce what we meant or what what can we do to improve what we've already passed But a lot of this is already in play and in statute and in action, and the question with some of it is how is it being interpreted? Is that fair? And I think to answer your other question, we have until 10:30. Why don't you take Cam says he could be shorter. So why don't we you have the longer amounts. Why don't you take until, like, 10:20, and then we'll give 10 him ten ten minutes. Is that okay? Okay. Great. So the bywriters are here and I'm just putting checks on them to return to.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There is a density bonus so that is the one, two, three, four, five, six bullet. Density bonus for affordable housing, they can add up to 40% additional units and may exceed a floor limitation by adding one floor if it's for affordable housing. Municipalities can define what areas are covered by municipal sewer and water for purposes of all of this language. Limited the aspects that towns can regulate for homeless shelters, also called emergency shelters, including that they cannot limit their daily and seasonal hours of operation. It requires specific information to be submitted to the Department of Housing and Community Development when the municipalities are adopting new zoning bylaws or updating their bylaws, including uploading the bylaws of the zoning districts to the state database and building a zoning database. The last bullet point on page one, under the provision that gives any 10 voters, residents, or real property owners the ability to appeal a zoning decision, it prohibits the ability to appeal the character of the area for affordable housing development. And in the next act, Act 181, you actually changed any 10 to any 20 voters or people. On page two, you allow towns to give their administrative officer authority to approve minor subdivisions and decide if a hearing is required for minor subdivisions. So municipalities in their zoning programs, there's usually an administrative officer who generally handles the more minor applications like administrative amendments and things like that, and then there's also the full board whether it be a development review board or they just structure it differently, but this is allowing them to give that authority to their administrative officer, which is a much faster process than going to the whole board. I added language, I clarified that the character of the area cannot appealed in decisions for certain types of housing, though other elements of those housing can be appealed. It established by right zoning which requires the appropriate municipal panel to provide reasons for adjusting dimensional requirements in permit decisions on housing. It required additional detail in the housing elements for both the regional plans and the municipal plans and they're supposed to include an estimate of the total housing investments needed and specific actions needed to address the housing. It removes the ability this is kind of a weird provision. It removed the ability of rural towns to require all bylaw changes be adopted by Australian ballot by the whole town. It left in the provision that says any town can on a by they can decide to send any zoning changes to a whole town vote. But that option is still there. Removed the default provision for small towns to say that all zoning changes had to be voted on by the whole town. There it gave some additional funding for the Department of Housing and Community Development to use when they're administrating the

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Sorry. I'm just Is this a very bad the

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: four big one is a

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: very

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: very

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: small rural communities, although we don't specify size.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, there is. So let me just stop you because this is a weird provision. There's a definition for rural towns in chapter 117. There was this very sort of odd, specific authority for rural towns to send all of their zoning changes to a full town vote. You eliminated that provision because there is a broad provision that applies to any town that says on a case by case basis they are allowed to put zoning changes In the court by the municipal body? The default is that only the legislative body of the town, the city council, the town council, they generally are the ones who approve zoning changes. Right. They have the option to put it to the whole town on a case by case basis. So it just eliminated that rural towns always sending their funds.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Got it. Got it. Okay. That's very helpful.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They still have they still have the option. Any town still has the option, but it's not the default for just small towns. Yeah.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Do you have petitions of if they or residents, I recall from the city council days, there are some power vows where if you get 5% of the voting electric, it's not a petition that I can force new zoning laws to be put on the ballot for consideration?

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know if that's how all towns have structured it. Towns do always have the option to put any changes to

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: the full town vote. So Voters force that?

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't think that's in the statute. I think that that is a decision the town's can add in there. Because

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: you you do hear about those all the time. Petitions to take this to account like that.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah I think that's the forty's generally but I don't think that's a requirement in the statute. Right, that's

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: a good tougher question too.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I'm still on page two of the summary. Last bullet on this section. Oh yeah, so this is just that the Department of Housing and Community Development can use up to 20% of the housing fund of the planning funds to assist towns to meet the requirements of the neighborhood area development designation. Next there was There's nothing

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I think the follow-up on there is on some of the buy right stuff that we'll follow-up with and then most of that's pretty straightforward yeah and not the study actually much okay

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: let's keep going there was a regional planning study that VAPTA conducted or hired a third party to conduct. VAPTA, the Vermont Association of Planning and Development Agencies, so that's the group of all regional planning commissions that they're like The group?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. We're hearing from them next week.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They were directed to hire housing resource navigators. Okay.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: We just heard from

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the chart. We're hearing from the yeah. Sorry. Yep.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So then the rest of the changes in Act 47 are related to Act two fifty. So the first bullet point under the Act two fifty secondtion was repealed and replaced under Act 181, so I'm not gonna read through it. Next, though, it removed the cap on the number of priority housing projects that can be exempt from Act two fifty for downtown's neighborhood development areas and growth centers. And that is a temporary provision that the deadline that was put in in Act 47 was July 2026, but that was extended in Act 181.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I think we need to extend that again.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yes it was extended until

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: '28. '28? I think '28 was

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: the compromise at the end.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It was For Ferry Housing projects, it is 2020 it's 2027.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. I think they're all they're all 2027. Really? That's what I thought. Yeah. No. Okay. Let's keep going. And then that, again, that's something to return to you.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And that exemption required requesting a jurisdictional permit and that all the exempt projects would be substantially completed by 06/30/2029. It allowed municipalities to apply for master plan permits for their designated downtown or neighborhood development areas. Master plan permits are something that can speed it streamlines the Act two fifty process and requires fewer criteria to be approved when you submit an application. It clarifies the Act two fifty appeal the fees apply per application and not per project. It exempted electric distribution utilities from Act two fifty temporarily and that permission did subset on 01/01/2026. And then the FAFSA consultation I'm on page three now of the summary. In consultation with the board and stakeholders shall propose a framework for municipal delegation process. So that was a report that you all got and considered which led to other reports. And then there was another report to review active adjudication triggers. Alright, so those I think are the main, yeah, a couple more reports were established. So that was the main part of Act 47 that I drafted. There are other things in there as well. Shall we move on to Act 181?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Do you want to add anything on Act 47 as well? No. Okay, great.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So Act 181

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And remember, with commanded we share this jurisdiction so we're going to be Act two fifty stuff with Senate Natural Resources and Energy and so this this was the first time really we navigated those compromises asserted more of our jurisdiction as it relates to housing on the Act two fifty piece. Okay let's move to 181 is this helpful David in particularly? Okay great because I think it's just helpful in context to see what's working, what's in play, what still needs to be improved. I think that's you know and that's what we're working next to you.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So Act 181 is a very long bill. I only wrote half of it. So there's a lot of things in here besides land

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: use, so I just want to

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: flag that. There's also tax provisions and we're housing the housing attorney so

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I handle We're gonna focus with your work and then we'll move to Cam on my house.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I handled the first 72 sections and it covers most of the

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: things in my jurisdiction. Reporting it was a bear too, So

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the first part of Act 181 did a lot of made a lot of changes to the Act two fifty statute itself and the structure of its governance which is now the Land Use Review Board. Did you want me to walk through all that too or did you want me

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to state No, I think a summary of that would be good because that's basically now all in place. Yes. I think a big summary of

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: what we particularly for people who

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: are new to this and don't deal in active duty all the time which this committee doesn't that big picture would be helpful of what we put in place and what's in place next. Sure.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So prior to Act 181, the Act two fifty, the land use and the state land use and development law had board called the Natural Resources Board. It was the chair of the board was a permanent full time position appointed by the governor, and then there were five other essentially volunteer members who only participated once a month ish and were given per diems. The structure of that board was changed in Act of 01/1951 to rename it to the land use review board, and then it had five members appointed by the governor after names were submitted by the land use review board. All five members are now full time positions.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: They're all professional.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, they're all full time paid positions. They go to the office every day. You updated some of the required skills that were required for those board members. That's really what I

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: meant by profession. Oh, sure, yeah. There are professional planners and environmental lawyers and Yeah.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Their required experience relative to the work that this board does, is a lot of community planning and land use planning. So yeah, then you create a language nominating board, language review board nominating committee, is a group of legislators who reviews the applications and submits them to the governor, a list of the qualified candidates, which is very similar to how the how judges are appointed. You also gave this new you gave the new board the authority to review regional plans. Prior to this, every regional planning commission was required to produce a plan or update their plan every eight years, but there wasn't an oversight or approval process for those plans, and now as you've heard a little bit from the prior testimony, the Regional Planning Commission work on those plans with their member towns and then they submit them to the Land Use Review Board to review for conformance with the statutes on what is required. Later in Act one eighty one, what you also did was change the terms that are required to be used in regional plans. Prior, there was not necessarily consistent vocabulary or terms required, and so the regional plan commission maps did not necessarily line up with each other, say we're using vibrant language. So this was an effort to unify all the language that these plans could be put together and line up across the board. So you gave the board authority to hear those, to review those plans and approve them or require additional work on them. You also gave them authority to hear applications for tier one a areas, and I'll talk about more about that farther into the bill. You did not do anything specifically with Act two

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: fifty appeals in this bill. Well, we gave them a report. There was

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a report you asked for

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a report on recommendations from the Land Use Report, which is what we heard Monday. Yes. 20 Tuesday.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You also asked them to make the executive director position a permanent position. There had been an executive director at the board years ago. That position was left vacant for a number of years, someone has been hired, PPLs, and then they made that temporary and then you asked them to make it permanent, or you required for them to make it permanent. I'm on page two of the summary document in section seven. You shifted the burden of notice for the applications to the district commissions instead of the applicant, and then you required that they post notice on their website. It also required that the applicants have signage on their property that says that the property hasn't applied for an Act two fifty permit. I haven't heard if that's rolling out yet. I have

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: not seen one.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I haven't seen any, but I obviously there's a cost

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: savings and I think they're

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: probably working on it with all the other tasks you gave them but I don't know if they've started doing that yet. Specifically district commissions are allowed to require self certification with compliance with permit conditions. Then you establish a fee for the filing of applications for your tier one A areas at $295 Then there was transition sections you gave the NRB one new staff attorney, you had a transition for the appointments of the old board to the new board and when that had to be done by. And then you require that the new board conduct an appeal study and make recommendations on whether Act two fifty permit appeals and JO appeals should be heard by the board instead of at the environmental court as they are now.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Right, which is what we are I'm gonna be debating. Okay.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The next couple of changes are added a new criteria related an Act two fifty criteria related to forest blocks and habitat connectors, so this is criterion HC these provisions have not taken effect yet, they won't take effect to the end of this year, but once they do it will require applicants not have an undue adverse impact on forest blocks and habitat connectors. If they would, they have to avoid, minimize, or mitigate the effects in accordance with board rules, and this is a similar structure that is currently enacted 50 for primary agricultural soils, so they ask applicants, Have you attempted to avoid or mitigate any harm you're about to cause to the forest block if you have one on your property? If you don't have a forest block or have a connected garage on your

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: property, this will not apply.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then you required a rule making process for this rule and the rules are supposed to be finished in June. On to page three, section 15 requires AMR is

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: helpful for our member of LR.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You also require that ANR add horse box and half pack connectors to their maps. Section 16 added a provision for wood products manufactured under

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Act

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: two fifty if you're going to convert or destroy primary agricultural soils, you need to mitigate the harm to them either by conserving soils elsewhere or paying a fee to have soils conserved. There's this formula and statute that requires either two to one or three to one as the ratio. This changes that so that wood products manufacturers only have to pay one to one protected areas to affected areas. There are then a couple provisions related to accessory on farm businesses.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Which is still an unfinished piece of business. There's still a lot to be done on that. I mean we're still expecting okay work from them on farm accessory on farm businesses.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You made changes here I mean I think there may also be additional proposals. Agriculture's working on this.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah I just wanted to mention this this work and the AG is hopeful the coming summer resolution will be done with this piece of Go on.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It amended the definition of accessory on farm business which previously was only a definition used in zoning. It changes to allow the revenues of the business to exceed the revenues of the farm Right. And allow them to sell merchandise, baked goods, and agricultural products from other farms. And then it adds an act two fifty exemption for accessory on farm businesses. Previously some accessory out of farm businesses were already exempt. This expands it so that all storage and sale is exempt and then exemption for preparation and processing of farm products if 50% comes from that farm, and there's no exemption for event spaces. Section nineteen and twenty are related to

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the rule rule under

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Act two fifty. This sets a new jurisdictional trigger for the construction of one eight hundred foot private road or the combination of private roads and driveway more than 2,000 feet constructed on constructed after 07/01/1926, that will trigger an Act two fifty permit. Previously, about twenty five years ago, was prior a jurisdictional road trigger and this is restoring it. It's similar but you've added additional language attempting to clarify the distinction between roads and private driveways And then there's also clarifying language that maintenance and repairs do not trigger Act two fifty. And then you did give the authority to the board to adopt rules on the

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: road rule

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: if any additional clarity is needed. Section 21 then starts with the tiers, so location based jurisdiction was added to Act two fifty under Act 181. Prior to this language being added, whether or not something needed an Act two fifty permit was based on the type of land use being proposed.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And the size of the project. So if

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: is a commercial land use, then you look at the parcel size. If it's on more than 10 acres in a town with zoning, if it's on more than one acre in a town without zoning, that would trigger the need for an Act two fifty. There's also a number of other land use types that have different jurisdictional triggers under Act two fifty, including if it's a housing development, 10 or more units would trigger F-two 50. That hasn't changed at all. What is changing in Act 181 is the decision about whether something triggers F-two 50 or not will depend on its location and the physical attributes of the site. So tier one are areas that are associated with downtowns and village centers, areas that the town has decided are where they would like to concentrate development. Those areas you will hear more about in a moment, but there's Tier 1A and Tier 1B. Tier 1A in the area will have a full Act two fifty exemption. Tier 1B will be areas of the town where housing is encouraged, so there will be an exemption for up to 49 units of housing to be exempt per project in those areas. The opposite of that is tier three. Those are critical natural resource areas where any development would trigger Act two fifty. The rest of the state is in tier two and that the jurisdictional triggers there remain largely unchanged with the exception of the addition of the road rule in those areas. So in addition let's see so on page three, section 22, you directed that the board needs to adopt rules defining what tier three actually entails. We gave them parameters of things to start with and look at, and also determined how it will be administered and how tier three will be mapped. They're supposed to be they held a a stakeholder group on this. Those rules are supposed to be due in February. I don't know if they're on track

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to meet that. I I can't remember what we gave extensions to and didn't. This may have been extended. So you

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: haven't statutorily given any exemptions. But if they meet that, if they miss that deadline there's very little that

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: you could do. So let's check.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then on page three, Section 23. So Section 23 repealed one of the changes that was in Act 47 because it was replaced with additional language in Section 24. Well, so Section 24 extended the priority housing project exemption until 01/01/2027. You also added that priority housing projects can be exempt if they're located in a downtown neighborhood area neighborhood development area or a growth center and to areas one half mile around the designated center if they have permitted zoning and subdivision bylaws, sewer, water, or appropriate soils. I'm happy to go into more detail on any of those terms I just used, but

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: You know, for this purpose, I think. Yeah.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: '25 repeal the sunset well, let's just ignore that one, actually. I'm happy to explain if anyone wants to hear it. I have it in there, on page four, section 26, you amended the Act 47 let's skip this one too. Yeah, I would Section 27, this was the statute that establishes the process for the Land Use Review Board to review regional plan, future land use maps, and tier 1b. So I already told you that the board will be reviewing regional plans. In those regional plans, you have asked that they work with the towns to decide where tier 1B areas are, and so then when the LERB reviews those maps they will then be approving what areas are tier 1B. Can we I circled this section. This

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: is a big circle.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: To understand what went wrong, why where it became more restrictive on what communities wanted to designate as tier 1B.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah and why we spoke with 1A and 1B choosing not to take advantage of these opportunities and instead from what we understand choosing to continue with an Act two fifty process so I think we're going to have to identify the towns, some of the towns.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yeah and you know South Burlington does such a care I mean they have so many So all I'm saying is I was gonna talk to them privately but maybe would just be easier for everyone.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It can seem very helpful for us to choose two or three towns that are in this process and then making the decisions that are needed.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Question about tier three, so my understanding is that the tier three is now by default that two fifty will be relevant. Would you say this bill or the other one you discussed also besides making all of that land by default, call the Act two fifty process, did it further change or suppress the development abilities within that

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: land or just now it's

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: just triggering the Act two fifty review and there's no additional suppression of development rights. It's just forcing those any development into a tier three area to go through the Act two fifty process.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: It is

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: simultaneously also make development potential lower.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I would take the forward, not the latter.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Okay. Let's keep that one because we can't start the second. And if we need to finish, we can get we'll make time to do that.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Section 28, this process and requirements for tier one a areas. So tier one a areas, the municipality itself has to apply. The and section 29 requires that the board issue guidelines on what is needed in their applications. They did release those guidelines, and they have to demonstrate that the zoning that they have in the town lines up with most with the criteria that Act two fifty has had all these years because the what is happening is that Act two fifty jurisdiction is going away under the premise that the municipal review under their zoning is just as robust as what Act two fifty was reviewing. So there are requirements for what they need to have in their zoning to accomplish that. And then as I said, those areas those applications go to the Land Use Review Board. They review them and approve them and any development in the tier one area is exempt from Act two fifty. Section 30 then adds that the towns have to identify those areas on their town map. Section 31 is the big one that has the what are known as the interim housing exemptions. This is where they're added. These exemptions are largely temporary because they are they were put in place until the tiers started to be implemented, and so once the tiers are in place there will be similar exemptions as what is included here. So the exemptions were established for any development in tier one a and then the 49 units of housing in tier one b, which I already mentioned. An exemption for hotels or motels converted to permanently affordable housing until 07/01/2028 exemption for accessory dwelling units and converting a structure used for commercial purpose to 29 units of housing or fewer. And then temporary exemptions until 01/01/2027 for up to 75 units of housing in new town centers, growth centers, and neighborhood development areas in areas with permanent zoning and subdivision bylaws, sewer, water, or appropriate soils. 50 units of housing within one quarter mile around village centers with zoning and subdivision bylaws and sewer and water or appropriate soils, and 50 units of housing in urbanized areas along transit routes. Ah, yes, our credit report. And then, Pam, Vernon, we should have transportation wants to talk about this. Yeah. And then, exemption for all housing within downtown with permanent zoning and subdivision bylaws, sewer, water, and appropriate soils. Section 32 added definitions for accessory dwelling unit and transit route that are part of those exemptions. Section 33 is about the transition from in areas that are designated in tier 1A, the existing Act two fifty permit conditions are to be transferred to the municipal permit so that the municipality can enforce those conditions through their zoning. Section 34 was the tier two area report. This one is not due until February and that's recommending if any additional adjustments are needed to the jurisdictional triggers within tier two, including looking at partial size, criteria 9L, and accessory down farm businesses. You required the board to report back on wood products manufacturing jurisdiction and that report has been put out by the board. Right. On page five, section Why don't

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: you just finish down to 38 and then we'll have Cam quickly give us update where we can come back and and take come back to Cam after we have a break, I mean at another time. So let's why don't you finish up this through

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: 27A? Section 36 was another report so looking you'll have the report back from the LERB looking at how the location of your jurisdiction is going, and that's not due until February 2029. Then there was an affordable housing development studies incentive study, so the Department of Housing and Community Development were to report back by 12/15/2024 for recommendations on incentives. And then 37A was a transportation support study, so the agency of transportation reported back, they did submit this report already, and recommend processes to preserve and develop the transportation support in areas that are now exempt from Act two fifty, and this is because there's language in Act two fifty that allows for transportation impact fees from developments and when there are areas that are exempt from Act two fifty that's lost funding for transportation upgrades. Great, thank you. Let's stop here. Let's shift the program

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: for ten minutes and then please take a break if you need to, but we're gonna just keep going given we only have until 11:30. So I

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: did just wanna say including those are the Act two fifty changes in this bill. The the changes that I haven't gotten to are the the land use maps that the regional planning commissions

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And you just have an update as you know from the start of the The

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: municipal zoning changes Yeah. That are additional changes related to housing. And then the whole chapter on designated areas was updated and changed again to line up with the processes that you're doing with the regional things. All the time.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: You have get us to be updated or if you want us to

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: have Chris Coffrey come in

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: and update us. Up to you. I didn't get you that, but Cam, you wanna come join us for done. Do Good morning. Good morning, Kent.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: First time being here this year. Excited. Happy to see you all back. Good to have you. Happy to be back. For the record, Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Counsel. Just a quick reminder, part of my portfolio is to cover housing and housing related programs, but I tend to cover the housing programs themselves, not really the land use discussion that you all were just having with Ellen. Given the time, I'm going to be extremely succinct and try to be fast. So one thing I'm working to put together for the House General Committee, and I will offer to share with you all as well, is a little bit more detail in written form about some of the housing programs that you all have enacted over the past, say four or five years. As I was reviewing this, one thing I noticed is there are a lot of one time programs that you all enacted, some of them intended with just dedicated funds, other programs that are intended to kind of last for a longer period of time. But really when you go back 2023, 2022, 2024, '25, there's a lot of money that was issued out for housing production.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: 600,000,000. A lot

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of programs that were stood up through like BHFA for, you know, middle income home buyer, you know, rental development funds, etcetera. So I'm trying to pull together more of a written document that I can hand you all, which will really lay all of these out.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That would be great.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So if look at 01/1981 that was passed in 2024, again, just being very quick, you made some amendments to the VHIP program. You increased funds that were authorized through VHIP to allow individuals to improve accessibility of units. So there was a cap of $50,000 you increased that up to $70,000 if they were going to make those units more accessible. You allowed people to raise funds to install parking spaces for individuals with disabilities. Expanded the eligibility of the program to serve individuals with disability as kind of priority tenants. And then you made some amendments to the middle income home ownership development program. You provided a million dollars for DHFA for first generation home buyer programs. You required housing authorities to prioritize tenants with disabilities. In 01/1981, this is where you tasked the Department of Housing and Community Development to develop metrics for statewide and regional housing targets. I know you've had a lot of conversation with those the past few years. You provided a lot of funds for eviction prevention measures. So 400,000 went to CBOEO for rental housing stabilization services. A little over $1,000,000 went to Vermont Legal Aid for a tenant representation pilot program. This is a program for, I believe it's Lemoyle and Windsor Counties for them to represent tenants who are facing eviction. There was 2,500,000.0 provided to the Vermont State Housing Authority for their rent arrears assistance funds. In this bill of 01/1981, you made some changes to the landlord certificate to try to gather additional information regarding the housing units that currently exist. If you all remember, we made some tweaks to that last year in Act 69 to correct, or I shouldn't say correct to change some of the information that was asked to be provided on the landlord certificate. Required Yeah, You're required Division of Fire Safety to provide guidance on short term rentals, health safety guidance. They have to provide that to individuals who are renting a short term rental and also to be provided through those platforms. You made a lot of changes to flood risk disclosure. So when individuals are buying property and you made some additional tweaks to that last year, if you recall, but there was also provisions added individuals who are renting, the landlord has to provide that information. If somebody is renting from a mobile home park, that information has to be provided. You provided over a million dollars to THCD for their mobile home repair program. And if you all recall last year, you made that program permanent in statute. You provided the Vermont Housing Conservation Board the right of first refusal to purchase privately owned age restrictive housing. That was something that you did in 2024. And then you required a lot of, I should say a lot of few reports. You had a land bank report from DHCD. You asked in last year's Act 69 to require DHCD to build upon that report to come back to you in the 2026 on how to actually enact the statewide land banks. You included the landlord tenant law study committee, That report was provided, I believe it was at the 2024, and I believe you all did a joint hearing with House General to hear from the landlord tenant law study committee. You heard about that beginning of the

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: The task force report from last year and then we have a landlord tenant bill which moves this backward forward which is being introduced now. And happy to

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: come back and really discuss that report again if you all would find that helpful.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah, we'll discuss it in conjunction, we'll do that as a TA to the bill that actually makes the changes to the Lent

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to predict it. And then you have a report from the State Treasurer's Office regarding reporting of rental payments or someone's credit report. You all recall, you discussed that quite a bit last year as a possible inclusion in Act 69 that ended up not making the final bill that passed. So last year, again being very quick, you amended the HIP program further, there were a lot of miscellaneous amendments, but the big things were you expanded the HIP to serve individuals who, have lost their home due to a natural disaster. You made certain amendments to the ten year grants. If you remember in 2024, the five and ten year grants were trued up where they had to serve certain populations of individuals. Last year you reversed that and you said for ten year grants, only have to rent the unit for fair market rent. So I'm happy to come discuss that further in detail. You set aside minimum 30% for the five year loans under BHIP. You put the Manufactured Home Improvement Repair Program in statute, you created the Infrastructure Sustainability Fund with the Bond Bank, I believe you funded that somewhere in the 7 to $9,000,000 range, I believe they just issued a press release, I think it was this week, earlier this week, about that program, kicking off that program. You created a let me get the name right Housing and Residential Services Planning Committee. This was a committee that was tasked with creating a state plan to develop housing for individuals with intellectual disabilities that were already in that committee. And so they issued their report in, I believe it was November. You made some changes to the landing certificate as we discussed, you had DHCD further develop their land bank report to come back to you at the end of this year, And then you made a lot of changes to the unfair housing practices discrimination, public accommodations, you added citizenship and immigration status. There was some input into statute which prohibits a landlord from requiring a social security number. So they have to take an individual's taxpayer identification number, government issued ID, if you remember that conversation. And then you have the, obviously the infamous CHIP program, which happy to come and talk to you about that or have children

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And come

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: then very quickly, very quickly, was gonna mention some things that you were looking at in your draft last year that did not make it into the final version of Yes the exclusive ma'am. There were tax, additional tax credits for the first generation home buyer program that did not make it up in the final bill. As I mentioned, you had the positive rental payment reporting pilot program with the office of the Secretary of State. There's a lot of discussion about that in committee that didn't make it into the final bill.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right, that is

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: in our that is with some of the suggestions that from our discussions, that is in our landlord

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: tenant bill. You had allowing mobile and modular homes by right. You had some changes to municipal zoning to require that. That ended up being removed. You had some continuing care retirement community tax deductions that was in there that was taken out. There was a property appraisal value freeze for accessory dwelling units that was in there at one point. That was removed. You had an off-site construction report from the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. They were going to come in and provide you with a report about how

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the increase off-site which I think

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: believe they are still going to will continue. Yes, ma'am. And then there was discussion about mobile home lot rent increases which were going be built as well. Last is

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: still on their wall panel. Would note that. The

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: last two small points I'll mention are just two reports that were supposed to come to you. There was a land bank interim report, which was supposed to come to you this week from DHCD. Final report is due towards the end of this year. And then as I mentioned a second ago the housing and residential services planning committee report that was due.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Would you kind enough to get off that list of the actual items for us to consider continued? No, but

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it did not make it the list I just walked through. So as I said, there's a lot of onetime stuff over the past few years. I'm gonna pull something together, and I'll share that with you.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That that would be terrific. Thank you very much. This is I I know it's, either fire hose for those of you who were with us, but it's it's in it's important to have that update as we tea into what we still need, and we are going to switch gears. Thank you so much, Kim. Have a wonderful a break. Everybody, take a little break as you need it. We're going to shift right straight into the housing needs of to be current and continue to like us. Yeah. So So, Kiara, do you need ah, we're all set. Okay, perfect. Great. Welcome Chad, it's good to have you back. Share with us your new capacity and what your priorities and needs are for us now.

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: Absolutely. For the record, Chad Simmons with the Housing and Homelessness Alliance of Vermont. It is great to be back in the committee, although wearing a different hat. So I'm really excited to be here. My hope for this morning is just to give you a brief introduction to the organization, share a little bit about what we're seeing as the needs. This will kind of be a good segue into Michael's presentation, and then talk a little bit about our alliances priorities for the session.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We sadly, we may need to have you back. We have until like, you know, almost eleven just before eleven.

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: Yes. For both of us?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No. Just for okay. And then Michael gets to 11:30. So I'm going. Great. So let's see here. Apologies, but as you know, our time in this community is really fun. Absolutely. So we just wanna know a lot of things.

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: Yes. And you have a lot of things to know. I will be brief. So

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: our our role as the Housing

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: and Homelessness Alliance is to build and to

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: offer the fundamental right to housing is enjoyed by all. And so that's a simple way

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: of saying we're advocating for people's actions of all types.

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: Who are we? We're a member driven alliance. We represent service organizations, youth, older providers, mental health, housing, homelessness prevention, and support and finance. So we're a broad alliance of organizations and individuals across the state. We formed in 2023 through the merger of the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition and the Vermont Coalition to End Homelessness. So those two topics are married. And you are gonna see in my presentation, kind of as I

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: I show up throughout the

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: session, encouragement for the the legislature to think of those two things as interconnected. So essentially broad, like big picture, what do we do? You're seeing me today in the capacity of advocacy, so providing education advocacy, our priorities that we've seen from our members, that our members are asking us to represent. We also are the balance of state continuum of care. What that means is we are the collaborative applicant

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: to the HUD's

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: continuum of care grant. So there's two grant applicants, the Chittenden County homelessness alliance and then the balance of state. So how the housing and homelessness alliance represents the balance of state. And I can come back and do a little deeper dive if you'd like

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: on that body. Well, what may happen with the Fed side of

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: the deal. Yes, think that's

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: an important context. Well, we're facing it from the BAA. Housing patriots work, we're having a truck.

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: Yes, and we're grateful for the legislature's support, and I'll get to that in a minute. This image you all might be familiar with in terms of for whatever reason, I like the funnel instead of the chair, But essentially, the things that we need to to produce the housing that Vermonters need is capital for housing development, rental assistance, and services. So in my last position, we did a lot of data. I'm only going to give three data slides. I swear, not a lot.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I do Actually,

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: we love your data. I do want to just provide some context for our priorities and how we came to arrive at that. As you see in the slide, people experiencing homelessness has ballooned over the last five years really in the last decade. And I wanna just put some emphasis on the types of housing that we need to serve

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: people who are experiencing homelessness, whether

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: it be unsheltered homelessness or housing insecurity. We need the housing types to directly impact those households. And so that's where you'll see a lot of our advocacy and investments the state needs to put forth, is to align with the dramatic need folks experiencing homelessness have. So why is this happening? I know you all are familiar with this, but I I can't emphasize it enough that Vermont households are struggling. The weight of the housing cost burden is overwhelming, and it's one of the main drivers, as you know, there's many main drivers, but it's one of the main drivers why we see the crisis that we see before us, and why a number of your constituents are faced with nothing else but to be out in the streets or in the woods. So our policy priorities this year and our ask for investments are really tailored toward meeting the needs

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: of the most vulnerable across the state. Before you leave this, John, the cost burden which we ultimately should be about having represent about 30% of a household's income.

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: Yeah no more than 30% yeah. No more

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: than 30%. Correct. This chart you don't identify whether it's for home ownership or for rental because escalating costs of mortgages, the housing burden can also be tracked by those owners. Yeah so the more taxes. So the combination I think we have to fairly look at. Well if you own

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: a house and you've got an interest rate before five years ago you're doing quite well. Yeah but if you didn't and

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: but on the other hand Kesha for those of us who who do have a good mortgage rate and who are happily even about to retire Can't leave. There's no place to go. Yeah. And the second piece of that, our property our education property tax is as escalated at a rate because our houses are all escalating in value. So there's housing burden also for people who own their house. I mean it's not just for renters, it's our guess.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Right. Well and I hope it was clear when JFO came in and said property taxes are rising etc etc, I wanted to make sure they were very clear about what is organic grand list growth and what is inflated home prices. We should be tracking that

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: as well. We have to be tracking that because it's an ever increasing challenge for many people. Yeah. It's a it's a

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: really good point. The middle marker does show the the owner the homeowner component of it. Oh, I didn't see that.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: You're right.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's so tiny. Had somebody have

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: an age challenge that she couldn't read over. It is a little

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: phase and I It's already a time, you have a young But the point

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: is renters are entirely underwater. Yes.

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: I think, Janice. And as you have heard in previous testimony, the number of renters over the last five years who are able to afford to move into home ownership has dwindled dramatically. And so that puts tremendous pressure on our housing stock as a state. So I think the point here we want to make is that too many Vermonters just simply can't afford what is right now, and the increased cost burdens are really overwhelming our communities. So Pat, so the final data point before I get into our priorities is really focused on how many homes we need to build, but how many homes do we need to build are within the realm of under 120% AMI. Right. So this slide really put the HFA put this these data together to really show the need for monitors who are at 120% AMI. But I wanna point particular attention to the affordability

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: under Just remind us, as a community that doesn't live in that equation, what does that equate to?

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: In terms of

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yes. Let's say, even just in general,

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yeah because AMI is like 95.

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: 5,000

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to 120,000 in income?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yes. Can I just say the new EPI family budget calculator two adults, two children, is a $159,000 to pay your bills on time and children count?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That's what you need to buy.

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: Yeah, that would be, yes. Yeah. And so what this slide presents is essentially how many homes do we need within this universe. We know the market and you all have passed some extremely supportive legislation to allow more flexibility in our state regulatory and zoning laws. The CHIP Act, I think we're going to see more and more homes being built. But what this slide is really telling us,

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: how many homes do we need

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: to create in the affordability realm of under 80% AMI in particular? So if we're looking at just over 16,000 rental homes that we need to create, 10,000 or almost 11,000 need to be affordable to under 80% AMI. So that's where a lot of our policy priorities will be coming in for this legislative session. So I'm not gonna go through all of these next three slides in great detail. I'm just gonna highlight a number of the ones that this committee is most interested in. That being said, I do hope the members of this committee will look at some of the other investments that are tied to housing security. So the investments that we need, as you had mentioned, senator, for the Vermont State Housing Authority and their budget adjustment request. We are highly prioritizing that because of the impact that will have on affordable housing, rental units and people to be able to stay and keep the vouchers that they currently have.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yes. And it's sort of this. We met with Andy Markhamali and I met with Andy this morning, and I think we're now all understanding it fully.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Great. Great.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, it's because it's complicated, but it is based on yes. I think we're I think we're there. I think we're not gonna end up with the 8,000,000, but I think 5 is where

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: we're hoping. Yes. Yeah, yes and that we are advocating for that in our policy agenda. What were we

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: not understanding? The go back to

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: section eight. Yeah, oh.

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: I'll explain that in a little bit But our primary capital priorities for this year is continued statutory for BHCB's full funding. So we'll be advocating for full funding of BHCB this year. In addition, we're seeking a $40,000,000 one time investment. And as Michael will point out in just a little bit, that is directly tied to the need to ensure the pipeline for the population that we need

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to serve the most. Yeah, go ahead.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I want to be very careful about what I

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: say on the record, but I am becoming worried that Section eight is being used to for ICE detention and I have been talking to BHA about this and I think they have they are starting to develop a very compassionate policy in that regard, but it's something I hope HHAV can start to track or I mean, you know, can keep its eye on and talk to housing partners about.

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: Okay. We I had some conversations with how organizations are trying to identify ways in which they can

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: protect individuals renting from subsidized apartments. I assume protecting individuals with Section eight vouchers not Yes, yes. It's not like that.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No no, protecting people with vouchers, protecting people on the list and

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: them if they're detained from losing value. All

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: key consideration. Thank you for bringing that up and it is our intention to keep following Yeah,

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: as talk to folks, they're experiencing their

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: first cases of that. Thank you. So I hadn't heard that, so that's I'm gonna answer. Yeah.

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: You. So in addition to support for VHIV, HHIV is continuing its support around BHIP, and it's $5,000,000 in base funding. We are also in support of intellectual developmental disabilities housing, as I believe you all have heard the report already, and that one time 5 to $10,000,000, I think the details are still being worked out through BHCB. It's an ongoing need, however. It is an ongoing need, correct.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And so Just like your need is an ongoing need. Yes. So, I mean, thank you for saying one time, but actually it's an ongoing need. Yes.

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: And we've been told that, I think over the next five years, sustained one time funding over that course of those five years. The Manufactured Housing Improvement Program, again, this is a program that has been really supporting our manufactured housing communities in getting units home fixed and brought back as well as properties and sites fixed to get new manufactured homes out of those. And finally, the Healthy Homes infrastructure. This has been a need from our manufactured housing communities that's been made over the last several years as infrastructure critical infrastructure needs

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to be

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: able to access that funding.

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Before you Yeah.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: The top three categories. How many units does that

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: result in? In the 40,000,000. 40,000,000 and the BIP

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: I would have to check with the ECB.

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: The ECB.

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: And I'm not sure if Alex has been in testify in

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: terms of how many We're having post budget on this Tuesday we will have BHCV in and you can ask us directly.

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: I don't have an answer to that right now but we can definitely put BHCV on that.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But what we did do before Chad left the HFA is I asked the Housing Grain Trust, of the 7,500 new housing units we need to be building every year, what percent of those, how many of those need to be partnering with the state with state dollars to enable? Yeah. And we Chad, thank you for doing that work. I think I paid you. And I think we're looking at like 4,000 units a year to sort of go some numbers on it through all these different measures 4,000 units and not state incentivized

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: And that's what this slide, calculates the universe of the housing units. So the BHCV

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: 40,000,000 was it? That's $350,000 per unit, it's 40 to 62 units. VHIP is 140 units, yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Slightly different need but you're absolutely right, our biggest bang for the buck is our 39, actually it's home share, that's our biggest bang for the buck and then the next biggest bang for the buck is VHIP at 39,000 on average a year.

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: So I think it's a good point and I think it's helpful to remind, and I didn't put it in the slide, but in terms of making that connection to our homelessness response, investments in BHCV and that funding is helping us address the homelessness crisis. And that type of funding is exactly what we need for the folks that are the lowest income and the most in need. So that's why we're advocating for investments in DHCV to have criminally affordable housing that's available for a long period of time that can be used for folks instead of spending money. I just got done this morning having a conversation. We all have a desire to spend less money on general assistance and emergency shelter. It's not the best use of of

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Sorry, I can't comment, the best thing for our buck is permit reform, which makes the housing cost less, which is negative dollars. And will

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: get to that. We need to say something about that. I'm asking all of our housing advocates to be very loud about that. Chad, I need to.

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: Yeah, so I just want to repeat our support for VSHA's voucher contingency fund of $5,000,000 in the FY '26 VA. Thank you. So just want to name that that is something we're strongly advocating for. A couple of things in this, we're advocating for the HFA's down payment assistance request. So this would be, excuse me, expanding the down payment assistance from 250 to 350,000 annually over a five year extension. So I know more will be in soon to discuss Yes. The issues of And I just want to flag in here as well, the Land Access and Opportunity Board. There's initiatives over the year. I hope you get a chance to have them in and talk about their partnership with DHCD and VHFA for the Homes For All initiative. I got to experience that in one of my last meetings with VHFA, and I think it's a really worthy endeavor that the state is taking on and really exciting investments. So state policies. So at the top, HHS is in support of regulatory zoning and land use reform. We are in support of Let's Build Homes initiative, the group zones, and improvements to act one eighty one that have been identified, in particular looking at areas in which we can have better involvement from one a and one b areas tiers, I'm sorry, as well as some appeals reform. I spent my summer and fall talking to a lot of developers and their cry for help to have systematic a look at how we look at or how we address appeals. As a resident of Montpelier, I got to testify in front of our city council with both a nonprofit and for profit developer to look at the impact of the of frivolous appeals here in Montpelier and the stifling impact that's had on our housing development. So we are strongly in

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: favor of of the proposals being put forward. I hope you also testified in front of the word. Yes. May I did not have a chance to do that yet, but But you

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: have members who are part of their advisory groups.

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: Yes, yes. And so we are working with partners like the Land Access and Opportunity Board, Let's Go Homes to look at what mechanisms we can do this year to make it easier.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: And I will say having talked to Let's Go Homes about the route zoning, I think they've been given a lot of feedback that we have been trying to chip away at helping with zoning in communities that don't have professional staff that they could turn their attention

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to and resources to those communities.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I don't personally think saying something else from on high is going to help the 40% of our communities that don't

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: have that I'm sure they'll come in. We will

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: we will have more of this on Tuesday.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I just think your coalition could help steer their energy Okay. Toward helping those communities

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Rather than us pronouncing something else that volunteer boards

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: cannot really do. I just think that's a nonstarter.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Keith, appreciate that. I think I'm

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: just about done. So in terms of our policy priorities for the year, I think our main is looking at regulatory reform. We're also, again, looking at the cost to the state and how we can both reduce the cost but also meet people who are in very difficult situations. So looking at GA and emergency shelter reform efforts, we are aware of an effort to have landlord tenant being introduced. So we are interested in seeing that. I think one thing that we would flag is to ensure going back to our dual mandate, is to ensure that any landlord tenant reform does not create more homelessness. And so I think we would really want to see the details and ensure that whatever compromise that we can get to, we're both making it easier for current landlords to to be able to work with tenants in a variety of situations, but not create homelessness.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: Do you have a question?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No. I just do that, but we'll be out.

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: Finally, the last two things, we are very interested in learning more about what policies might be available for housing and homelessness. We understand that the state needs to raise revenue to do a lot the things that we're doing, so we are in support of progressive policies that do raise the revenue required to create the housing that we need.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Any vehicles and identified buckets we would be happy to have. Yes. Suggestions.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: So is that like a progressive property tax,

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: you know?

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: I think we would be interested to learn at what would have the most impact on creating the housing that we need, but also the least impact on the households with the least amount of income.

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: We would want to

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: see progressive policies around that. We're looking at higher incomes or uses. I we would be I can say pretty candidly and confidently that certain short term rental or multi home vacation home targeted tax policy that would raise revenue and improve the ability to have

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We a bill on our wall that we'll be looking at $2.38.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Connie was framing it as vacancy because we could be doing the same with vacant commercial and we want people to rent their second home. You know we are already taxing short term rentals higher, we could do more, but we I don't want people to just be taxed because they have a second home, I want them to be taxed because they're leaving it vacant most of the year which implies they can afford

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: it. The

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: last one is our main housing communities have asked for a couple of policy specifically the state drinking water and wastewater revolving loan program and making that more accessible for manufactured housing communities. There's also a desire to look at the three acre rule and how that's been impacted, how it's been implemented, and how we can make that a much more open process for manufactured housing communities to get the support they need.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thank you, Chad. This was terrific. This gives us a whole sorts of things to think about as we go forward. Absolutely. Thank you. Good luck at your next stop. Maybe not as much fun as being with us. If you never do. We're your can do committee. And Michael, I'm giving you all to shift to you to build on what Chad has started. We thank you. Thank you very much. And congratulations on your new job. Michael Monty welcome hi and Chris Donnelly welcome it's good to have you both alright we're reasonably well I think I

[Charlie Baker (Executive Director, Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission)]: got this right Did I get it right? You did. Excellent. Thank you so much. It's new to me. I appreciate it. Michael Monken, CEO of Chittenden Housing Trust. It's great to be here. I wanna thank my two senators

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

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: public health in Chittenden County and also the representative from Franklin County who we serve. Thank you for this opportunity. I'm gonna let Chris join in. I've been hearing the peppered questions and I have answers on occasion, but sometimes having a second brain is really helpful. Oh particularly Chris' second brain.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah, I would take that on your day. Okay,

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: so let's see how do we advance this now.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I think you need to

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: make a whole screen. There we go. Can you see it on me?

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah can you make

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the whole screen Chris is a possible beautiful screen. Tom is a wiz. Okay great let's keep going. Alright.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: So this is just who's Chittenden House addresses. What I want to do is I want to just say who we are, what we have done, what we're building right now, and what we hope to accomplish in terms of new activities and your support for the next year. And what we need What to we hope to be, what we need in order to get to that housing we need. Just quickly, this is sort of a continuum, but we serve in City Housing Trust. We work both from homelessness to home ownership, both safety, security, mobility. Neither one of those sometimes are as important as the other. Sometimes the compelling issue is homelessness, but clearly the importance of home ownership and sort of the scale of things is as critical as anything. We work through those three areas. We work in the three counties. We have a couple of programs that work statewide, the mobile home lending program and also the farmworker housing program, programs that we work throughout the state. But mostly it's Franklin Grand Island, Chittenden County. As you can see, we have a decent level of capacity. We do some commercial real estate, essentially, we do community facilities. We own

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a handful of other sort

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: of regular retail operations in downtown areas such as St. Olathans and Neensburg and Burlington. So that's an important part of who we are. We're pretty multifaceted that way. Some quick numbers in terms of who we are and what we've done. We have relationship with seven shelters, two twenty beds. We provide resident services to folks. Our numbers are really over 3,000 now in terms of affordable housing. 337 new households got leases with us last year. So that's a big impact Right. In that area. 94 of those are formerly homeless. So I was taking a significant sort of chunk out of that of that issue. We provide home education for folks. We now have seven zero six affordable shared equity homes. We can always get into that some more. But we have 45 households become new homeowners this year. A lot of them at Bay Ridge, but also 23 of them at Bay Ridge down in Shelburne, but our portfolio homes come up for sale and we sell them again as part of the shared equity program as part of the permanent affordability.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: What's your waitlist on that?

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: There's at least a couple 100 folks who want to do that and then just like anything else when you go to buy a home you're going not that home this home and so we have usually 10 or 15 people lining up for every home who want to be in that home just as you would typical from multiple listing service you know you don't want to live anywhere. You pick a household size and everything else. Okay, just curious, so are there all

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: these assets already owned by the housing trust?

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Oh, yeah. Yes. Yeah. Or through the various corporations we set up the lenders tax credits. K. Working with the Ever North and other groups. Right. Again, also, we have a loan five different loans and a little team of just doing loans, and they did 136 projects. Part of that group is we have private and farm market housing near funding for a chunk of those in terms of your research in the state. One real quick, so we have this quick profile. We bought three dorms from St. Michael's College, leased them up about a year ago last December. They were finally leased up. 15 people moving out of out of homelessness, 65 brand new apartments. Really, really nice resource for We had a room and petting 68 farm apartments, 26 condos.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: And a playground.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: And a playground, which is really important, think, for most young children in this chapter. 20 people coming out of homelessness moving into that development. Pretty significant level of development at that point.

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm sorry. I said I'd speak to the early childhood. Okay.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So we'll we'll be here. Yes.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: A great project. We took five and a half acres of land that we bought twelve years ago, which is the first motel we bought. And when we bought it, we said and we were gonna do essentially, we're gonna help the state save money on the motel program. And we will be bought and we said to ourselves, well, at least we have if this doesn't work, at least we have five and a half acres of shelter. Thirteen years, you know, twelve years went by, we said we really need to tear this down and start over again and that redevelopment sort of paid off. Post apartments in Downtown Burlington, 38 apartments, again nine people moving out of homelessness, the applications just opened up for that. Working with the Vermont Veterans of Foreign Wars, we basically bought the property from them and then built them a new facility on the Ground Floor of that site. So they're gonna be doing their, the VFW is due plus a little bit more leaning towards veteran centers. And then the Community Justice Center is gonna be also on the Ground Floor. That's those applications are available right now where people are coming in and they want to live in that location. It's a really nice property. We have done much about a lot of our work is with private developers. We support regulatory reform, private developer friends need it, we need it. And most of our work, a lot of times we're doing co development private developers. Here in Cambium Rise, you can see right the building that's built right next to the building. The Wood Building is owned by FC Ireland. And, you know, they have built quite a number of units in that location. You know, the building in Cambrian Rise, this is in North Avenue in Burlington, by the way. And so we're now starting a new building, 40 apartments, 30 condominiums, eight people moving out of homelessness. We'll start opening the rent the rental up. This so it says fall twenty twenty six. Yes. That's right. '26. That's when the rentals will be available, and we hope to start the condominium developments in about six months or so.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So put a pin in condominium development, we're gonna chat about that because we heard a question about some of the challenges condominium financing is now. Yeah. So let's put we don't need to it today.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: I can I can put you in touch with the the developed private development or crowd here in terms of the struggles he's had? Yeah. Foundations for recovery. Well, a lot of the work we work with folks who are homeless, who are in substance abuse disorder. We're working with folks coming out of substance abuse disorder and more of a recover is recovering. We work with Turning Point in many of our properties helping our our residents to stay sober and then to a nation for recoveries providing housing for them. We just opened up 10 beds in this location for women in particular. 32 beds overall, a handful in Saint Augustine. Then we're renovating those properties up in Saint in Downtown Saint Augustine. And so we're, you know, we we do this work. We do a variety of different kinds of things, not just rental housing, but really focus our housing on very specific populations. So in shelters, just a quick clarity, set I think what we hear from bill that's now being discussed between the House and the Senate, that sort of the notion of moving people out of the motel room into something more transitional or shelters. We've been leaning into sort of shelter work for a while now. We have bought over the time 11 different motels and then converted them into permanent housing or to sort of shelters. Here's a handful that are at Tim's house in St. Albans Voices, which was at breakfast. And St. Albans Spectrum also, which is a Ground floor of some space for homeless youth. Champaign Inn in South in the Southern End of Burlington, now it's a big shelter serving Burlington steps to end domestic violence in Colchester, serving people who are victims of domestic violence. And a new one that's starting up Pearl Street Family Shelter will be starting up in Burlington pretty soon. And so we lean into it's not just as operators because we really don't operate in our show we own one we operate one shelter called the Ponds Community on my Avenue Shelter in Burlington. But we are providing real estate development expertise essentially to our shelter friends. And so when they say we could do 90 units here or 20 beds there, they will come to us and we will say, okay, let's see what we could do. We put our resources and our expertise to work.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: As you have the most resources for any affordable housing developer in the state, do you also partner with develop affordable housing developers who have fewer resources. So for and and shelters that have fewer resources like The Haven or like Twin Pines. I assume you've partnered with

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: So we we have we don't do real estate development precisely, but I could tell you that, you know, I'm gonna be meeting with Angie from Downshift Housing next week. There's always a conversation that we're having down

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

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: You know, there's a they come to us with a we've got a little bit more depth there, a little more expertise. They're smart about stuff, but we can we might be able to help them.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So you have big staff and Yeah. Exactly. Big team.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: And we take that as our responsibility. And we don't we don't we don't sort of say, oh, yeah. We're big a you got your own stuff. We got our own stuff. We're in this as

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a community. And those of us represent smaller. Developer, you know,

[Chad Simmons (Housing & Homelessness Alliance of Vermont)]: for Yeah. Well, I think you'll

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: see our recommendations that actually coming that that I'll talk to you a bit about is coming from the nonprofit housing developers in the state of Vermont. So we've been meeting for a while and we'll get to that and we'll just in one minute, if I could just do this very quickly. Development disabilities housing initiative, that work that you funded that you supported here now is we're be starting construction on 10 apartments in South Of Burlington, South End Of Burlington. We had another one sort of that's in discussions in Williston, another one that's out on North Avenue in Burlington, sort of early discussions. The one in Williston, actually got a It's

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: moving forward, I thought. Williston, well yeah they those parents Those parents are forces of nature.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Those parents, so whenever always I can tell you Michael we need to talk to you and I'm ready to talk to him so those parents are pretty good advocates for the work that they're for the They're some of

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the best advocates in this.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: I think so. I think so too.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And they make great cookies.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: They make great cookies. So I would say I would say those parents, yes, we're working with them. We have a clarity of and folks in Wilson have known what we have to do. I had to find some staff who are not busy for in the next month or so to see if we can move that fast forward. And actually, we're gonna provide some expertise and support to the one that's out in, I say it's Moncton Ridge, but it's it's, you know, actually on the edges of that in some county there. That's more rural. It's a very different kind of approach. In the next in the pipeline, we have Windy Ridge in Hinesburg, and this will be rental homeownership, a childcare center will be working with a private developer and build single family homes as well. So this is a really multi unit development. We'll probably be this will probably be our first chip. We'll probably go into using some chip here on this one. The army site in Winooski, the state tore it down, city Munizky has an option to purchase from where the net option as well. And we will do a combination of rental and home ownership at that site that's underway. And then the South End Of Burlington, I think a very big project, Ragupike Cool Group with all of that general dynamics, general electric, depending on how old you are, parking lot that sort of now under development and that opportunity is something that we're in. We're working with them, supporting them and also we'll do a childcare center as part of that project. So let me just talk about the network priorities. The nonprofit housing developers are all part of the Housing and Homeless Alliance. We very much are part of that group. I have a staff person who is on that board. We were in constant contact and conversations with Chad and with the team there. And support, you know, the priorities of that organization. The nonprofit developers who are sat sat down and began to say what are our particular priorities that we really want to support and work towards. So these are these are the particular five areas that I'd like to do. And what I'm gonna do is I'll also hand this out to you because I have a little narrative here. Thank

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: you, sir. And, you know, the first one is

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: a pretty straightforward one, and and we basically, we want, we're looking to support the housing programs at work. And so in that context, have seen B2B and Bhip and the affordable housing tax credits, support the manufacturing process projects that we really think. Those particular activities have produced lots of units and lots of affordable housing, just over the last year, but the last five years, but certainly over the last handful of decades. Some of those are relatively new, but the new ones like they have evolved and valuable and we want and we think they should continue to be supported. The importance for funding for for permanent affordable housing for BACB is critical US about $40.45000000, we think that that's the number that should be funded and supported. We certainly have worked to understand what that money could buy and certainly can leverage as that money comes in and leverages mortgages, leverages tax credits, it leverages a range of other resources. So it by itself is not the only dollars that usually come in, but in fact it leverages even the other resources, even the developed disability resources, the funds that the state is bringing in for that. It's leveraging other things. No dollar in the state ever just comes in by itself and usually funds one thing. There was one moment in 2020 when Harper funds, so those kinds of funds did that. But most of the time it's leveraging and Bay Ridge property, which I showed you 17 19 different resources coming in different places, some some mostly federal, a couple of few of those different state resources. Addressing cost, we really believe in understanding the importance of keeping costs low, getting unit sizes smaller, getting build bedroom sizes smaller, looking for other cost savings, are things that our organizations are really, really, really understanding the importance of doing anywhere. And you'll see here from Kathy from everyone. She'll be coming in, I think, speaking to you hopefully or if you need her, she can come in and certainly give you the sort of the kinds of things that we wanna focus in on to get the cost lower. Different than maybe is our landlord tenant perspective. We believe strongly in landlord tenant rights, tenant being able to be in their housing. We provide support to our tenants in terms of building credit, giving

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: them a

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: chance to move, providing them with all the reasons they need to be successful, giving them all the support they possibly need. On occasion draft. But on occasion, on occasion, the tenant will and usually not just not be able to pay us, sometimes that's the case, but usually often enough, so creating difficulties with their neighbors and in their community. And in that case, we bought a stronger and faster process for removing tenants. It impacts the broader community, but it really impacts our housing and the cost of our housing and our ability to really manage our housing in a good way.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So we have And the quality of life of

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: the tenants who are living the housing. Absolutely, and you know, everyone due process is still clear, we still have, you know, if you have a right to be able to be there for as long as you can through the housing that we do. Right? Absolutely. But still, we believe strongly that we need a faster process. It takes too long. I know you brought brought in some additional judges and has helped somewhat, but really we've looked at what has New Hampshire does and what Maine does and what Vermont does. And it's at least three or four months added. When you look at that, those states have nowhere doing, we think that it could

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: be faster. And it could

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: be faster, it'll cost less, we can house other people and it has some real value I think. Preventing additional homelessness, we're always ready to lean in to do that work. We believe strongly that the vouchers system is really a key part of that. You know there's really a wide range of folks who are homeless and it goes from very low income people with disabilities to you know folks folks who are economically displaced. Vouchers really can be the key. So those are the broad categories that again, this has worked on over the last handful of months. These are the priorities we feel are important. I do want to just then say that the level of generosity from the state through federal government sometimes, but certainly from the state has been enormous and has made all those projects which I outlined and ones I didn't get a chance to outline possible. And I wanted to show you a graph of what happens if we simply drop. Yes, this is Chris's book. This work is

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: we stop funding. What if

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: we stop funding at this level? And, you know, the goal that you were sort of asking questions about, we'll never get there if we keep the level of resources that we have in front of us down to a lower level. We need to be able to jump it back. Right.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And and we guess we got spoiled by the 600,000,000,000 that has been funneled through the state in the last five years.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Yes.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And what it taught us and what it showed us is a lot I mean, not that we're ever gonna be able to fund that at that level again, but that we cannot let that spigot dry up.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Yes, And

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: that if we do have a housing crisis, we have to put some financial we have to continue to put financial muscle behind us all again. Yes, we can do all the things we've talked about, but we also need to keep the money flowing. Thank you very

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: much and that's exactly how we feel about it. Think prior to the pandemic we would be doing twenty, thirty to 40 apartments a year. That was it. Wow. So that and with the amount of VHEV funds that are available, that's just us. Of course, throughout the state, it may be a little bit more. Now, well, housing costs were a little less, obviously. But the fact that housing costs were not and again, we didn't do it. It's labor, it's materials, it's it's some of the some of the things that are almost impossible to to get it. I mean, Kathy will go through this, but they're Oh.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Because she's she's begun that last year looking at the cost differences with New Hampshire, Maine.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Yes. And machinery and equipment that we have to get from other places sometimes is just much more expensive in terms of tariffs. So those are more heat issues that are that are. So we're never gonna be able to we we really can't go back to thirty and forty apartments a year. We really have to keep up that level up to a higher level. So we're urging you to to sort of do what you can to bring additional resources to the pot of money that we usually have access to.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So you're now building roughly for the last, well, two or three years you've been able to build for online. Feels like a couple 100 year. Not for us. Yeah. Yeah.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Just us.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. But you were just you were doing thirty to forty year. You're now doing two to 300 year.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: A couple of 100, I think, in the last you know, on average last few years. You know, those again, as you see that graph, a big chunk of money that came in, we bought a Oh, we're we bought a hotel and then into 2020 and put 76 apartments in there, know. So we that was money that's rolled through because of the COVID. We're not gonna get that, but we certainly can't go back down to the 30. So yeah. One of

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: our questions, Michael, always is and we can understand the leverage of fake dollars or leverage it's in private investment with downtown tax credits it's roughly 17

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to one. What would you say,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I mean are you able to give us and maybe you need to come back to us with or Chris can, what would you say we leverage per state dollar investment in housing? What do we leverage in terms of other investment for housing? We could do, we could look

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: at two or three pro formas that we did recently, see what BHCB did and what the state tax credit did and show you what those what those were. I think we we state tax federal tax credit, you know, some of the federal resources that are Right.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But in combination, how impactful was that? We know it's impactful but I don't actually have a number that I can say

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: Okay. But again, it's not dollar for dollar. That's you you give a system. That's all we get. We we're we're scraping through every opportunity to, you know, other resources that are built. Some of them are not as available as they used to be, but they're less Well, one of the issues is the chaos in the federal government and what that's gonna bring with it. Yeah. It's taking consistently is taking money away. You know, interestingly enough, I agree totally, especially around the voucher program. Listen. I'm gonna create some, some blockages there. But they did increase the number of law firm housing tax credits available a little bit. They did make permanent the new market tax credit program, which we use for home ownership, which is fairly unique in the state. And so we are able to leverage that. But other than that, you're right. Absolutely. It's just just hard to really sort of understand and predict what's gonna happen. We have we have projects where we said, gee, we just don't know in the middle of building them. Will we get that resource? Will that money be available? Can we draw it down? What do we do if we can? Where are gonna get a million and a half dollars for the, you know, for the activity that is will suddenly be pulled back. We we didn't experience that. We're very lucky we didn't experience that a bit, but that unknowing of things is the really the real issue. Every developer wants to have a clear path. Mhmm. Private, public, nonprofit wants a clear path, and

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: it's been hard that way. I guess

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: oh, I just it just went off the top of my brain.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thank you. Any comments before we break? Chris, do have anything to add? This is such a helpful chart.

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: So the out years are just based funding,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: we hope to be on our goals, 30,000 homes, 24,000 homes in next five years. Yeah. We really want to contribute to that and at this at this level we'll just We're not gonna be able to. Right. So that's I think the key and I think that's why it was really helpful for Chad to break down for the trust the 4,000 that really do need state dollar support. Michael and better now?

[Ellen (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you. That's our

[Michael Monte (CEO, Champlain Housing Trust)]: bell.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank