Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Bad. Only two minutes behind.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: Could be worse. It's you know? It has So that's a win. In my experience in government Shine up. So welcome back. It's early.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Welcome back to Southern Economic Development. We welcome back Monroe Weinberger, who is running I believe you're running directly.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: They call me the executive chair of Westbrook Homes. I'm chair of the board and and the part time executive. Right.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And very helpful in our developing our housing last year, and so we welcome you back and give you ah, there he is. Give you the floor. Welcome, Rutland.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: Thank you, Senator Clarkson, Chair Clarkson. It's yeah. It's exciting to be back with you. A lot's happened, I feel like, with housing and we're on in the school home since the last time I testified here. I meant to check. I was rushing to be on time on the way in. Still there. Are you still there? Alright. Great.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I thought that was it. I couldn't No.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: We it it was a great it was a

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: great poster for our door. For those of you who aren't here in the building, we have the Let's Build Homes poster on

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: our door. And we appreciate that and the coalition appreciates that. It's a big it's a coalition that's grown since we last talked. We now have almost 900 Vermonters are part of Let's Build Homes one way another and almost two seventy Vermont organizations. And I think in the in the different organizations that are part of the coalition, you really see the breadth of this pro homes coalition. We have everything from, you know, affordable housing committee members in rural towns to our largest employers are are and growing employers are part of the coalition. You see AARP and group representing younger Vermonters like EPOP, Vermonters where people are in places. Yeah. I think what makes this difference in some of the past housing initiatives in the state is just the breadth of the pro homes interested are involved, the hospitals, utilities, secondary education. It's it's a big and growing continuous support coalition. We have just released a 2026 platform after and and I wanna just it's it's a fairly lengthy platform, and you have great to see you guys have been able to print it out already and ready. It's built on these four predict pillars. We wrote this platform after spending the summer having seven public meetings in every region of the state after checking touching base with as many of the Vermont kind of housing stakeholders as as we could. And and and we ultimately made the decision to release this platform that think really touches on many different aspects of policy areas that we think action is possible and they they break down these four pillars, provide predictability and speed time to market, unlocking capital, reducing construction costs, lowering costs to own and rent. And you can see there's considerably more detail on each of these pillars in our platform and I I don't think that great use of time is to go through each of them in detail. I I thought I would focus on where, you know, I'm happy to answer any questions you have about any aspects of them. The areas where we see the greatest opportunity for impact this session I was going to focus my remarks on.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I think that's a great focus because not every one of those areas of the state can have impact on. Yes. Great. And it can and can't. So I think you were very clear on where government can actually intervene and improve. It is helpful to focus us on what we actually can accomplish.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: Great. And so my testimony today just sort of build up, I guess, we made good in the house as well where appreciating your chair, Mahali, has been focusing in on what's working. I thought that was an interesting way to think of it. Great way to start. And this committee should be particularly proud of, I think, one of the things that from every from where I'm sitting seems like it is really on its way to working, which is CHIP. You guys passed with your leadership and the people on this committee's leadership, a very strong CHIP bill last year. I think the work that Pepsi led during the summer, and I know Senator, you were a big part of, was like a model of how whole process should work with a focus on urgency and getting things done, but taking a lot of input at the same time. We certainly felt like we had an opportunity to to weigh in on that. Guidance got published on time. And as far as I know, the program is on track to open in the next few days here before the end of the month. There has been I don't know if you guys have heard this, but the the they've been doing these three webinars. We have Those webinars. Great webinars and incredible attendance. Over two fifty people in each of the first two. Think third one might have been a little bit smaller and many of the people logging in as I understand it we're representing local governments around the state, towns that in the past, you know, has have not had the tools to be active on generating housing. I think you have tapped into something very significant and important and really almost like restoring what used to be a core element of local government of working to build the grand list by building infrastructure. You've given municipalities ability to do that again. I think there's gonna be a huge response. I don't wanna linger here earlier

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. Or thoughtful, predictable time frame and speedy. I mean, we did all those things in a very in a fairly short time, and we are now up and running, opening this one.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: Very exciting. Couldn't agree more and I was that's exactly what I was trying to express and saying. I thought it was a it was a model of urgency and and At the moment. Yeah. So I for all I do I don't want to spend time with this and then hopefully you're never gonna have to hear about this again. There is the chair and I had one discussion there. We do have one concern about how this tool gets used for not just rental housing but for sale housing because of the twenty year requirement that goes with the prop it's supposed to in some way go with the property after a developer makes a sale. How do we ensure that those homes remain primary homes for the compliance period? There's some questions about that that are hopefully getting it worked out as the first of these agreements gets approved by VAPSI. Possible I'll have to come back here and talk to you about it again. I'm really hoping not, but I didn't want it to be

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: a total surprise. You almost haven't. Alright. Well,

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: Maybe not on this one, but let's hopefully we don't have to be talking about other things. Moving forward, Act one eighty one. You know, Act one eighty one did a lot of things that I I'm not but there's what I've come to understand that I think is ultimately gonna go down as the most important thing about AC-one 181 and I think is on its way to working at least, although, know, maybe there may need to be more here, but we now have a way we have the beginning at least of kind of mass legal consensus about where we want housing growth to happen in the future. And if you think about it, you know, since Act two fifty was created, we've never really had that before. And that's been a problem. It's a problem that's held us back. I think it's been, you know, one of the kind of core reasons why we have this housing shortage. We are far enough in now almost two years into the implementation of Act 21 where you can see we're gonna end up with a future land use map statewide that has a bunch of these tier one eligible areas. Probably about a 100 I think is the count that no no one knows because it's an ongoing process, but about a 100 of them and that

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: is a break a breakthrough. Haven't actually thought about

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: a number that will have a 100 communities in tier one. That, you know, and I I maybe turn out to I am doing my best from the input we've gotten from like a regional planning commission chairs and whatnot. I think that's where we're headed. Another way to think of it is, you know, it seems like we're headed towards around 2% of the state. Massive and tier one eligible area. I suspect over time we may and actually one of the ideas I'm gonna present to you actually is sort of speaks to this. I think we may need to expand that some over time and intuitively 2% feels narrow to me, but at least we now are on a way to having 2%. And my main message to you today, wherever I think this is the greatest opportunity for near term further housing progress, further progress meeting the housing production goals, that's how the way I define that progress is through pulling every lever we can to accelerate housing growth in these in these areas that we now have consensuses, housing growth areas. And I'm gonna get to those in a moment. I want to just before moving on to this slide say I do think I want to be really clear that we think the rural caucus has raised some important points about Act 181 implementation and it is that, you know, they have raised concerns about how tier three is being implemented. We have concerns. They persuaded us that those concerns could potentially negatively impact existing housing and small scale housing growth in rural areas and we support what they put in this legislation of slowing that down, bringing more people into the conversation, as well as clarifying, this is in their legislation, what it means for municipalities in Tier 1A to be responsible for enforcement of existing act two fifty permits. That is an issue that is creating That's what we're hearing.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. It's independent for them actually accepting their

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: That's what I'm hearing too. Surely concerns on tier three you're getting broke off, we need to advance that. But on your second bullet in the middle there, I just wanna words matter on this. I'm I'm under the impression that right now towns are not opting in, so we are proposing to switch that to have them opt out so they we might have all get a tier one, tier a.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: Yeah. No. You're you're right. That's the way we set up is. That's it. I'll correct that. They they they are not choosing to opt in.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: They're choosing what we've heard already several times, but they're choosing not to. Opt in

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: to being The advocates are recommending.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: To be opt out. You know, the numbers because that's why I asked about the 100

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: because my concern is we're not gonna get to a 100. Well, I think that's Yeah. Wanting to, and I hear the biggest barrier is not wanting to take on overseeing the act two fifty, the the former act two fifty agreements. Yeah.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: I think that's yes my point before is I think we're gonna have math about a 100 eligible areas. The early stats on who is choosing to opt in to the tier one eligibility are concerning. As fast as I've heard, you know, in Lake Chittenden County about two thirds of the tier 1B eligible communities are opting in, about a third aren't. Tier 1A, this is that process is not is we're mid process on that, but I am concerned here even, you know, my old city Burlington, last I heard they were not gonna opt for the entire city to be tier one a, which kind of kills me given.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: They are poster child for one a.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: And it comes down to, as I understand, it's this enforcement question and the ambiguity about what that means and they're, you know, they would have to take on they would they've said to me they're supposed to have said to me there are hundreds of existing Act two fifty permits. We need to know more about what enforcing those actually means and I think the intent in a lot of ways is for the city regulations that have been given if you're tier one eligible area, that means you have enough local regulatory capacity and laws on the books that can guide what happens going forward, but that they they're they're saying they need that clarified. So I think the rural caucus bill provides a vehicle for that and we support that. But getting back to the question of I think that this is something we're probably gonna need to keep talking about. What why what other what other reasons are municipalities not opting in? I think I'm in addition to the complication we just talked about, I have heard some municipalities sort of make a sense that, like, it's a bunch of work to become a tier one b community and the juice is kind of maybe not worth the squeeze given that all that that means right now is that you are partially exempt from Act two fifty. I think if we get to the rest of our presentation here, we it's possible that some of these municipalities as they see other benefits included and what it means to get tier one b, that that calculus might start to change. I think there are probably some communities, certainly looking around the country, let's say it this way, looking at other states around the country where you had states try to initiate pro homes, reforms, frequent you know, it is a common dynamic that some municipalities that don't want growth or that don't want what they consider to be the wrong type of growth in their community that they resist the the state's efforts. Let's hope that

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: doesn't that's not what's going on in Vermont.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: Let's hope the sense of purpose that I think you know, Vermont is a different place. Let's hope we can ultimately prevail and just guide every municipality that they need to be part of the housing solution and that they should opt in. It may be a debate for a future day if a significant number of municipalities don't, they choose they don't wanna be part of that housing solution. I I think that might be something we have to grapple with in the future, but not not this one. Yeah, so Yorker. Really quickly this is the Rutland County draft map. You can see the pink areas are basically the areas that are going to be in the tier one, are proposed to be in the tier one eligible communities. So you can see it's significant, but you know, once you get outside of like the main Rutland there, they're modest, they're small. But you know, we it it is at least the start on consensus about where we want housing growth.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And all and you to say around key

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: corridors? Yes.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Around group four rest, group seven North, and a

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: few other spots. I want to make clear that electrical homes continues to support Vermont's I think admirable public investment in affordable housing. You'll see some more detail on the platform about our continued support for increased base funding for each of these four programs. Thank you. But here's, you know, kind of turning to like why should we do more in the housing growth areas. My a lot a lot of the justification to me comes down to this map, which is formerly part of state policy and this graph, is baked into state policy now. This is the 2024 housing needs assessment projecting the homes that we need over the next five years to address the housing shortage. My understanding is when all the numbers are in for 2025, you're gonna see another year close to 2024, you know, good year relative to, you know, what we're doing a decade ago for most of the last few decades, but well short of what the projections are for the kind of growth we need. That's that's what's on the right side of the graph. And you can see that we're, you know, even with another decent year, we're at about half of where the target says we Maybe should not even. Maybe not even. So far beyond 7,500 a year, we're doing FMOs somewhere between three and four. Exactly. Yeah. Looks like a little more than a three probably again, but less certainly than And a But inadequate. And I think there's a real concern that despite all the work you've done in recent years, we could actually have a slowdown coming in the years ahead because of high interest rates, because of tariffs, because of construction costs. So to me that's a justification for continued action. Why we don't just say we've had three years of action. I think we should keep pulling any lever that we recently can to to try and meet these goals. And here's here's specifically some levers we think you you could pull, but some of them I think are squarely within this community's jurisdiction as I understand it or at least at least something legit for you guys to care about. We care about that. I know, you know, we have a sales tax on construction materials. There's been talk in the past about waiving that sales tax. We're suggesting we look at that again, but do it in a more focused way than that's happened in the past and maybe that can make it more palatable for some. Let's just waive this tax in the in the tier one areas, the areas that are these housing growth areas. And, again, that's only about two where I have here maybe 3% of the state. I see diff you know, no one there's a range in what people think is gonna end up being. Like, latest I saw this morning was more like 2%. Last week, hearing stats that were more like 3%. Whatever it is, it's small. It'd be a focused tax tax exemption. Other states do this. When I was a builder in other states, building nonprofit, affordable housing, we would get a letter for our project that we could take literally take to the hardware store, show them we're not supposed to be charged sales tax. They would happily not add that to the bill. Are nonprofits already out there? Well, here's an interesting thing. Tech yes. If they are building it as a building that a nonprofit is going to own and operate, they can get tax exemptions. However, our housing nonprofits, because almost all of our programs are tax credit programs, to build new housing almost always means that the Champlain Housing Trusts and Kinesal Squares and, you know, Twin Pines, they set up single purpose tax credit limited partnerships that are technically on paper for profit entities, and so they do pay sales tax. They would affordable housing as well as market rate housing would benefit from this exemption. It would be and you know, the benefits won't be enormous, but it's 3% at a time when we're all worried about how high construction costs are. This is 3% we could just get What's

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: your estimate? Loss of rent? I'm gonna replace it.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: Yeah.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Those are the two questions we have. Yeah.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: I would say for both one and two, you know, there's no JFO report squarely on the way we're proposing it yet. I think it's, you know, I would expect that one, when it gets done, if it you know, there will be some impact, but that impact should be dwarfed by the new revenue that flows to the state from any new development actually getting built. You know, lots of new revenue from any new housing, income taxes, you know, we're not getting rid of sales taxes once people are living there and buying things, so you have those consumption taxes and so that would be the justification.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We'll get more to follow. Number two, I hope you had a long conversation with the governor before his budget address today.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: My understanding is that the governor has a form of this in his bill that would be removing or be raising the cap on village credits from what I heard. Is this not no longer correct? I heard he was proposing raising it from three to five.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That's what I heard. Yeah. Now I can back out. But anyway, we'll find out.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: Yeah. That'd be that's news to me if that's if that's

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We'll find out in a few brief hours.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: The next idea is a fairly big and new idea to Vermont. It's increasingly an idea that is getting traction in states around the country is the idea of a housing acceleration fund. This is, you know, basically to try to, you know, if you guys are interested in this, I hope you are, come back and bring an expert test you know, expert with me. But essentially, the idea here would be to say that we're not just going to sit around and wait for the market to build the housing we need, we have concerns about waiting, we're going to make some effort to use the state's financial weight to accelerate housing being built. Essentially, what other states are doing is creating kind of a mezzanine loan type product, something that replaces part of the developers very expensive equity requirement. You know, typically banks require 30% of the project to be paid by the developer in the form of private equity. Given where we are in the business cycle now that a lot of deals, a lot of deals are required maybe 40%. The state can make an investment in other states. The state is making an investment that kind of sits below the debt, subordinate to the debt, but is superior to all the other equity. It's an investment. It gets repaid, but it gets repaid in like five to 7% cost of government funds as opposed to 15 to 20%.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Think you've spoken with BJac about that.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: You've spoken to our treasurer about that.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We have had some In some ways could very much help us brainstorm this.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: Yes. Yes. The treasurer has been briefed on on the concept. Generally, in some ways, has some similarity to it sort of scales up the LIAC program that he's he's already created and my my understanding I did was not directly in the conversation. My understanding is he is interested and and open to hearing more on this and if there is interest in it, we'd like to present a lot more. Okay, great. The biggest well, those are all important financial things. I think there is one big additional piece of regulatory work to do as well. The again, you know, what we've done so far in housing growth areas is create partial or total PAC two fifty exemptions. We've not really done anything meaningful yet to address this broken element of our housing permitting system, is the permit appeal system. We continue

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. So you should know that the Senate is gonna begin the appeals work. It's gonna begin in SNRE. Great. I urge you to go

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: and test and panic when

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: they take me it up. Great. And then it will come back.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: Great. I'm excited about that. That's the first thing I've definitively heard on that. We'll definitely do that. The one thing I so one reason that I expected there'd be taking up is in some ways is this report that the Land Use Review Board has just published which talks about ways to change the existing system, reduce the length of time of permanent heals and we definitely have some thoughts on that and we'll weigh in on that. There's another route to go and the Landy Sherbet Board pointed to it here in this one clause in their report which is they noted that a lot of groups including let's build homes but also including the NRC and others wanted to look at is there a way to move towards sort of a buy right system for certain types of housing in these housing growth areas? Then this criteria. It's by right or Exactly and that that defining those criteria there's a ton of details to get into and you know how you do that is is there's a big discussion to be had. And the Land Use Review Board report does not expand on that. It says, you noted real interest in it, but that's sort of beyond the scope of our report.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And because in part, they pushed off their activating the their this work for two years, giving them time to address that, I would encourage us to accelerate that and and

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: the criteria.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So I I think Yeah. I think we're hopefully moving

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: in that direction. Yeah. Yeah. No. I think that's right. I I think they kinda saw their they were asked to weigh in on the existing system and take a lot you know, get into this launch the any debate on where appeals should go, and I think that's really put the bulk of their time and their report. But they signaled that this was an important conversation. There are others who I think in some ways the governor's eight zero two Homes program is an effort to create some form of buy right housing with these sort of pre approved prototypes. There are some other ideas circulating out there about sort of new mandates the state can make and I think all that should be explored and will weigh in on all that. It is my I have a concern about those conversations though and that I feel like we maybe have seen this movie before of attempts to mandate from the state level. You may all be familiar with the attempts to legalize ADUs that go all the way back to the 1990s. This committee started Great. And my sense of that history is the initial attempts that the state just said it should be legal.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It took us a while to get to

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: the buy back.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: If you don't

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: get into the DNA of the local zoning, you there are all sorts of things that can continue to be an obstacle even if at some level these there's these you're supposed to have a right to do this. You could still and I I think as it has been proposed with the eight zero two Homes, parking regulations would still be enforced setback requirements from the side in your rear yard's lot coverage. So we've been advancing an idea that tries to sort of comprehensively deal with all that. It's called root zones. Organ at times. Very quickly, again, this is something I'd love to come back and talk to you and other committees in more detail about. You do have a concept paper in your materials. Basically, a high level, the way this is work would work is the state would create a model Vermont code. The key characteristic of this code is it would only have clear and objective standards. That's a big change from the way we tended to do zoning in this country in the past, and it's the subjective standards that give DRBs the ability to make subjective decisions. That's the driver of our that's what gets appeal. It's these undue adverse impact tests about traffic circulation, these undue adverse impact tests about, you know, parking impacts, that is you know, you should get a waiver of a suspected waiver of a parking requirement, that's where the appeals happen. And so this wouldn't have any of that. It would have it would bring all the planning upfront, have only clear and objective standards in code. Municipalities would then have the option of adopting this since you're care learning it to their location. This if there are some benefits or powers the state is granting to these new group zones, residential opportunity overlay towns, the state would have some sort of approval process. And then once once this is in place, here's sort of the magic of it from my perspective is a builder project comes forward, goes to the zoning administrator, asks for a permit, and it's a straightforward process of sort of going down a checklist. Do you meet the rules? If you do, it's not a new subjective governmental decision that can be appealed. It is a certification that you have met. All the criteria. And there's nothing to appeal. You know, it has a potential to dramatically reduce permit appeals. It still reserves local planning, local democracy, but that happens upfront, not on a project by project basis. I think, and we're testing this, we're starting to work with some rural communities. This has the potential to address one of the issues we're talking about previously that, more than half of our communities will not have tier one eligible areas. They won't have any expedited housing as a result of act one eighty one. This could become the path to more communities being able to get those benefits. And we're, you know, we're testing that by working with Yeah. The

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: concept of front loading, planning, and permitting so that you're then ready to roll is not new to

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: this committee, just that

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: this is a, a, this is

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: correctness, right? Well, I'm saying that's your answer yet. So

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: related to act 181, you mentioned a rural caucus bill. Yes. Is there actually a bill that's a rehab to little words, it's just a concept? I've

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: seen the legislation on an actual bill. It's in the house. I will get Yes, it should be out tomorrow. We'll see. No, the rural caucus bill is being introduced in the house and I will

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: I think mine was closely aligned with chamber a lot of cleanup home act act one eighty one and CHIP. CHIP needs some cleanup as

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: well so I don't know if you all addressed that already.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: We talked about it a little bit. We did get the details.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And CHIP remains yeah. Anyway, more apologies. Two minutes. That's kind

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: of the end of my staff presentation so yeah you Chris, this

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: is from a committee questions?

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: Do you any thoughts on

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: the views they have requests to expand their scope of funding authority to also support more market based housing projects?

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: I was aware of the discussion that was going on. I haven't seen the formal proposal yet. Don't think I'm ready to fill in yet. But I appreciate that there's I appreciate this discussion and Any other questions? Thank you.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Great. Thank you. Very much for being here at the beginning. Thank you for helping so fully and it's very exciting to have you as additional partners in this district. Awesome.

[Miro Weinberger (Executive Chair, Westbrook Homes; Leader, Let's Build Homes)]: It was very exciting to be with you and look forward to doing it.

[Senator Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thank you very much and I will see you

[Senator Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: tomorrow. Are

[Senator David Weeks (Clerk)]: you Mr. Brady?