Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Just when we weigh in. We're live. Thomas, would you be kind enough to go and hit that? Okay. Perfect. Welcome, everybody. It is the week of February 9. Today is Tuesday, February 10, you are in the Senate Economic Development Housing and General Affairs in the glorious Vermont State House. Today, we are continuing our work on our housing bill s three twenty eight, and we're trying to check all section. I mean, I given how short our time is, we're really trying to check off sections. I would and we're gonna be going through it at end of the week on the sections we're ready to check off. Sounds like a a theater class, but it's fun. So today, we are going to address section two, I believe. Section two on our the tax credit for our down payment assistance program, which has been a very successful program. And to do that, we we've had a sort of a high level introduction to this section earlier in session. And today we have Laura Collins, who is the who is the executive director of the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. Laura,

[Laura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Thank you very much. As you said, I'm Laura Collins with the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. This bill overall looks great. I am gonna focus is that to me, Sandra? Oh, sorry. I was just watching Sandra Weeks for a second. I thought I was doing something. Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We I I Kiera and I, I think we've got it up.

[Laura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Great. So I will be focusing on section two. I hope I could speak a little bit to section eight if there's time, but I will be fast. Yep.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And and we're gonna have people stepping in in the courts of the week coming in the rain on section eight. So Perfect. Happy to have you do both.

[Laura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: So I also was happy to see section one. I'll just say that planning for housing targets was the intention of testimony given by VHFA and others probably three years ago. You know, personally, I always like it when our needs and numbers are aligned and people don't start coming up with new numbers if the if the state is rallying around the housing needs assessment and DHCD has already been instructed to create a housing targets in the dashboard that they created, I would love to see in section one some references to the state's housing needs assessment and or DHCD's targets because those are already mentioned in statute. And so saying that municipalities need to plan for the housing targets that have already been defined could be a bit of clarity so that municipalities don't feel like they have to start from scratch.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thank you, Laura. I think we would welcome that. And if you wanna give us language on that, that would be great. Okay. For us

[Laura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: to But I but I believe that or from what I understand, section one, the intention is exactly that, that municipalities will be building off of the good data work that's been done.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But let's not reinvent the wheel. Let's use what we have.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Right. Right. We're working with you.

[Laura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Section two of your bill does focus on VHFA's down payment assistance program, which I testified to a week or two ago. Thank you very much for including this provision in the bill. When I testified a few weeks ago, I talked about the 2,100 Vermont households who were able to buy their first home as a result of getting either a 5 or $10,000 0% interest silent second mortgage. So their mortgages are less than what they would be otherwise. Oftentimes, this is but for money where someone could not afford to buy a home if it were not for this. It also lowers the amount of money they have to borrow against, and so it lowers their mortgage payment. And you'll remember in my testimony that we have $11,000,000, $11,100,000 invested in Vermont's homes in those households, and we've had $3,000,000 that was deployed but paid back to VHFA because this is a revolving loan fund model. And when I testified before, I spoke of how for every dollar that the state invests in this program, Vermonters have earned so far $15 of equity in their homes. And so these are not grants. These are loans that get repaid to VHFA. And this current fiscal year, f y twenty six, was the last year that VHFA was allowed to sell these five year tax credits, and so VHFA has asked, and section two, includes that, VHFA be given the authority to continue to sell these credits for another five years, and that, my intention and my hope, is that that would get us past the the current drop and dip in repayments of this revolving loan fund, which we are seeing as a result of high interest rates. Now interest rates may stay at the level that they are now. I am not an oracle. I do not know where interest rates are going. But I do believe, and most economists would agree, that even if interest rates stayed at the level where they are today, at some point, there are natural economic conditions that will mean that more folks will be repaying these loans because they naturally will need to move or they may choose to refinance or you know, we know that a thirty year mortgage often only is outstanding for about seven years on average. So we have a lot of people with a lot of very low interest rate mortgages right now, so there's not a lot of interest in refinancing to a higher rate unless life situation requires it. But but having another five years of being able to sell tax credits and fund the availability of this program as a result of those tax credits will buy us some time so that the repayments can then act the way the revolving loan fund was intended. I did send in a written memo that does thank you. Has language. You'll see that in the bill right now, you were talking about having $250,000 a year in the sale of these tax credits. That is the amount that historically VHFA has gotten over the last several years, but we are asking for 350,000 in the next five years. And the reason for that increase so that I just wanna point out that the I'm on page five, line 18 is where that amount is mentioned. Going to $350,000 a year for the five next five years is really to allow for us to keep the benefit at the level that it has been, which is giving up to $10,000 per household as the down payment assistance loan. Originally when this program was originally envisioned and designed eleven years ago, it was assuming $5,000 as a maximum loan amount. We did increase that, and that matches with where we've seen home prices appreciate. So we're just trying to keep up with escalating home prices. And my memo points out that there's been about a doubling in the median home price since this program was designed, and so doubling the total amount of the loan makes sense to VHFA. I don't know if there's questions about that amount or the program in general.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Let's discuss it. I just wanted to ask, on average, before the house housing price increases, on average, your first time homebuyers were turning over their houses, what was the average time that they held that loan? Seven years or nine years? Seven. Seven. And now that it's harder to find another house to move into and think unless you're moving out of state, obviously, I assume that slowed down a bit.

[Laura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: I don't have that number handy off top of my head, so I would hate to be quoted on a number of years. But if you remember, and

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I

[Laura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: could try to grab my slide. I was showing you last time about how we were seeing here it is. I'll just pull it up for myself. That in year two of the program, we had about 6% of these loans repay the second year that they had the loan, and then that jumped up to 10% in the third year, and it went up from there. And by the fifth year, we were seeing about 14% of these loans were repaying every year. I'm sorry. We're repaying by the fifth year. That five year repayment dropped from 14% to about five and a half percent. So that's a different way of answering your question because that's the number I happen to have handy. But, yes, we are seeing a real slowdown in in in longevity to these mortgages.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. No. That gives one a good indication of how much longer first time home buyers are holding on to their first time home. Yeah. There's no place to go. David, did you have a question? Have questions on this? Because I I I'm very supportive of this of this program. It's done great great work and enabled so many Vermonters, about 2,100, to move into a purchasing market where they might not have been able to before. And the and I think your increase makes sense because this amount has been in place for how many since since 2,000

[Laura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Several years. I again, I'm sorry I don't have that handy.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It's just

[Laura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: increase, during my tent, not as executive director, but I do remember testifying several years ago bringing it from 100 to 250,000.

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

[Laura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: And I can't remember what year that was that I No.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But I think important for us to all remember these numbers need to stay relevant and in the house pricing the the pricing of houses now to stay relevant as a as a benefit that people really find useful and would apply for, it needs to be a more substantial match. So, any other questions for Laura? Okay. Because I think we're gonna be signing off on this, I hope, by the end of this week, signing off on this, you know, on as many sections as we can. So, members, here's your moment. So, with that, why don't you move to section eight and your proposal for your suggestions for section eight?

[Laura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Excellent. I'm gonna take the liberty to just mention I'm not gonna have comments on all the other sections. I do just wanna say that I'm excited to see that section three is included in the bill. I'm excited to see a lot. I do want to point out just so you know that, if you are, contemplating the idea of a loan guarantee, then by definition, that loan guarantee will need to be accessed if needed. Meaning, at some point, someone's gonna may they're gonna need to collect on that guarantee because something may go sideways. And I'm talking about off-site construction accelerator pilot. You're asking the state to look and talk with the treasurer about the potential of creating a guarantee. And I just wanna point out that I I would have a question about that, about if, let's say, the 10% in Vermont program could really be a source because, by definition, the 10% in Vermont program, that money cannot be lost to the state. VHFA has received $56,000,000 of that, and we've had to guarantee every penny of it because if the state's deposits end up being used, let's say, because someone uses a guarantee, I believe that turns it into an appropriation. So I just would I I will just flag that as a question that you, hopefully will get some testimony on.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. They are talking about something different from the lab. They're a they're creating something additional to to to I believe, to do that for up to 12,000,000. But we're having the treasurer in to address Excellent.

[Laura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Treasurer knows this far better than I do.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So Yeah. And and Alex back because Alex was was concerned about whether they could go forward with this given the cost. And I think now that we have the treasurer on board looking at how we can finance it, that's changed a bit. Yeah. Which The off-site construction. Maybe dollar. So Okay. Are we talking about the off-site? No. Not right now.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Oh, okay. No. We're gonna talk. We have Who's the question?

[Laura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Sounds like you're gonna do more testimony on that.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Alternative language. Did everyone get it?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I mean, well, we're not talking about it, but we will get it for when we talk about it.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Let me make sure. No. No. I

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: it it it's Cam has it, and it's the the language from the treasure. Mhmm. Right. I've got that. I I got it too. So I I responded. So Section

[Laura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: section section eight that I wanna talk about has to do with VIDA's statute expansion, which I've worked with Joan Goldstein on, and she and I both have testified in Senate Commerce on this. I linked to my testimony about that, not that you all want to spend your evenings watching testimony. But, Joan and I, Vita and VHFA came up with language that's different than what's in your bill, but, work

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: out of both of us. Have it or does Joan have? Because I've asked for it, the new line.

[Laura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: It's in the memo. You just held up the it's the bottom half of that piece of paper you just held up from my letter. And what it is saying in plain English is very similar to what you have in your bill, which is that Vita's interest is in their language was on applications that are eligible for financing from both VHFA and Vita that when invited in by a financing lender for multi unit housing of five or more units, that VIDA would have the ability to do that lending. And it does allow that VITA would consult with and give deference to VHFA. And largely, that carve out is in the second it's small I I, where it's just saying that VHFA will remain the primary organization that does lending on housing for low and moderate income Vermonters. Meaning, when we've done awarded tax credits or there's bond financing or other VHFA lending in a deal, I don't believe it makes sense to bring another lender into another public lender into the mix when in those deals, we often have so many sources. You know, these are projects where often there's VHCB funding, VHFA funding, the Department of Housing would bring in community development funding. And for those types of low and moderate income projects, it would remain VHFA's purview to do lending there. What VITA's intention has always been is to make sure that there's no gaps in the market that are created where VHFA does not do lending or would not be interested in it and that VITA be able to step in and provide that resource in partnership with a community bank.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. And my understanding is you're in agreement on this language, and we won't send this to camp to to for a redraft of this section. Great. Thank you. We're I have to say that that that we're glad that has gelled. Thank you. Thank you for that effort. And I think we could say we want any other additional financing abilities to move into the housing market is not a bad thing. It's good. Expanding our loan opportunities is good. Anything else or any other questions for Maura at this point? Yeah. Maura, we wish you well.

[Laura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Thank you very much. Sorry I can't be there, but I'll be back.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. Good. Good. Well, and we we're rooting for you.

[Laura Collins (Executive Director, Vermont Housing Finance Agency)]: Thank you. Appreciate that.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thanks so much. Great. Terrific. Thank you. So, let's move. We have Chris Delia, believe is the raw moment. Chris, why don't we start with you? We're now going to move to section four of the bill.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: Morning, madam chair, committee members. Director Chris Dealinga, president Vermont Bankers Association first coming this year to come in and see you. Good to have you. Specifically section four, we've taken a look at the language that's proposed in there, and we have no problems with the language that you've authored in the bill.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: That's that's going to done all week.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: There you go.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Alright.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: And like you, madam chair, I'm glad to see that we, Chittenden, and we did have come together on that section of the deal.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. So your interest in this, obviously, you helped finance home ownership associations and condos, and you have no issues with any of

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: the proposals here? None whatsoever.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And none of them affect the banking aspects of of of these? No. Wow. Short and sweet. Less than a minute.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: There you go.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: You get the gold star. Perfect. I like that. Yeah. Oh, David has a question.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: Sorry. About about the last conversation about section eight. Did you have any thoughts on that? Are you spanking section eight? Yeah. Oh.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Because you also get lumps. Yeah. Yeah.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: I just wanna make sure that everyone has the opportunity to raise concerns and pursue it. It's what Laura was just talking. Oh, I no. I'm I'm really glad that they were able to figure it out. That these are two absolute vital partners to the banking industry, and I didn't wanna be in the middle of part funding. So I'm glad they figured it out. Yeah. And we and I just looked at the language very quickly in her memo, and absolutely supports that language. Great. Terrific.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thank you. Have a good day. Great. We're aiming on it. Aiming to. Peter, would you like to join us? Sure. Thank you.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Good morning, everybody. Peter Pucker, and I'm the Director of Advocacy and Public Policy for the Vermont Association of Realtors, and appreciate the opportunity to be here today. I've been watching from the committee, first time to be in front of you. Just a couple of initial comments, if I can. One is the planned housing targets. So really fortunate for me, our government affairs committee met yesterday and were able to to to review this whole bill and and, you know, made some comments, so I'll try and be quick and get to the, you know, to the common interest stuff. Yeah. But the concern, got two There are two folks on the committee that are select board members in small towns. Yeah. And when they were looking at this language on planning for housing targets, they're like, wow, wow. That's a lot of work for town. It's now admittedly, hopefully, a lot of it's already done. But, you know, their comment was, boy, you know, in our town, I mean, I don't think people would, you know they would just quit the select work as opposed to, you know, really getting involved in that.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So the intent on that is to do it incorporated in the organic way that planning commissions do their do their work. They've already engaged with their their regional commissions. Not not all of that. Not that.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Not all

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: of that. But yeah. But and it's that's just the comment. Know, I had two people say, if this came to our select board, we would probably just

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: No, if anything, we should get in the RPCs that have not done it and ask them what's happening.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Well then go to the other end of this with a bylaw, you know, committee, the proposed allocation for bylaw support, where you kind of make up for that.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I mean, think the concern, Peter, is we're going to hear a lot of people say, I don't know. We just haven't gotten around to this yet. And that's the point is

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: To get

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: that RPC should be helping them.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Mhmm. And

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: and if RPC isn't, that's a problem. Some towns are arguing with the RPC and that's something that we'd like to have an end date, you know. Agreed. So I would hope, you know, your members understand that we all need these housing targets.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Right, right, and it's a process, and it's well underway as well. I think that's the other important concept. Yeah,

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: but where it's not underway, if we can help, we should. And so it would be more valuable to actually figure out what's happening with the housing targets. Try to use them for something that they're not ready Right. For You

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: know, the off-site modular pilot program we think is excellent, because that really does start to produce homes for sale, You know, as as those, you know, individual units are are constructed and put into towns. We heard a a presentation from eight zero two Homes, and I think that's, you know, kinda, you know, combined is is really gonna be something that's positive for the state.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I think if we I I still have deep opposition to that section. But if we take it up, I think we need to hear from those who have made it clear that it isn't the cost of the house that's the problem. It's the cost of the land, and it's the size of the parcels. I don't know if your group talked about the reality that we gave back FEMA trailers. We had housing projects that we're gonna use modular housing collapse because they don't have they they were told you have to do two units per acre rather than five units per acre on industrial land.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Yep.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: And that if someone is already purchasing a manufactured home, chances are they're very price sensitive to having to have it on an acre of land versus a good order acre of land.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But land, I mean, yes, the cost of land is a big piece, but the cost of building right now and the materials

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Let's talk to the charitable trust because it's prohibitive. People don't want to buy a manufactured house and then have to pay premium for

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: any house. Right, but I would just remind everybody, this is not just manufactured housing. This is pieces of houses that you can use and that are made in a more cost effective way in large numbers

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: than The the treasurer larger could determine that's a good use of funds as it comes up, not set aside money that's needed for any housing project that's ready.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. So, I mean, think we're going to have Alex back and treasurer back to address this. It will obviously change before we get it passed out of here. If you want

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: to make the case, need to hear from Pew Charitable Trust and the Housing Commissioner who had to

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: give back the Ventraclists. To do Happy And to do

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: we obviously are focused on all the components of construction, know, the land, the legal, you know, blending, and lumber. One more, but Okay. So let me get to section five. And and generally

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, section four is where common interests the committee.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Four. Right. But five is the kind of the continuation of that where I have the comments. But so when I first started in real estate in '97, I think it was, you know, the Common Interest Community Act was was had just been put into place. I sold five con five condominiums from five different condominium projects and had to coach them through, you know, providing the correct information that, you know, the disclosures that condominium associations needed to make the new purchasers. So, you know, from the very get go, my real estate career, I've been involved in the common interest communities. You know, I I think that the you know, this is this is really, you know, positive language, you know, clarifies things for a lot of those common interest communities, and understand that they are very often their leadership is folks from out of state or just very much volunteer folks that do those proposals. But, you know, prohibiting uses this one.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Do you have anybody in the real estate world who is a that sort of that this is their bailiwick common interest communities that because you and I spoke about this. It really It would be an attorney. Building for these communities. You're it has a real estate Right. Person. Because there are wide range of common interest communities. Right. Their ways condos to mobile home parks to

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Yeah, to run the gamut. The key, I think, is to have clear roles and to have disclosure. That's kind of what, in my estimate, that's what's made an interest communities kind of work. So, you know, this supports property rights. I mean, that's something that we always support, you know, the right of folks who own the property to do what they wish, you know, to lease it if necessary. You know, the sublet, you know, and then the electric now I'm up to section six, actually, on electric vehicle, EV hookups, and and that, you know, so this is the language that that comes from the comp from section four, essentially. You know, we think that this is a positive thing. As EVs become more popular, the need to be able to have charging systems there is important. At the same time, that particular property owner needs to take responsibility for rent installation, to have a system that is safe and useful, and doesn't interfere with the other members of the common interest community.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. Common interest community could actually, together, make decisions about where they wanna do these. Right. Right. Exactly.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Nothing You know, so long as they have reasonable, you know, reasonable, you know, rules and regulations in place for that. So oh, yeah, on the EV thing, the one concern, not concern, but the one thing that I would point out is disclosing to prospective buyers, the unit's existence and responsibilities is something that, that disclosure is something that realtors typically manage. I'm sorry, I'm on page 13, line 15. And it's just that we wanna make sure that, if that's gonna be part of legislation, we wanna make sure that our members are aware of it, and that they are facilitating that disclosure. There's nothing challenging, it's just a matter of, if you don't disclose, and all of a sudden we're in a kind of nebulous zone where, you know, an attorney fires an attorney, say, that's haven't performed. So, yeah, it'll just be something that I'll have to bring back to our membership, you know, as as this film is, you know, if it passes and and goes in the in the action.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: But, madam, please clarify this language. It addresses your concerns. This Yeah.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Yeah. It just says you need to disclose. You know? But I

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: just wanna say said, clarity and disclosure are key successful They are,

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: and I think that's where this language, you know, right throughout is pretty effective, because it's just laying out the guidelines in very clear, you know, plain English, and we just wanna make sure that if that is part of this, that we're making sure that our our our clients, you know, when they're selling a property, are are making that disclosure. So I'll just need to, you know, I'll need to to just get with, you know, our our folks and, know, communicate that out. That's really all I was trying to say. And, you

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: know So before you leave Sure. With it, because that's the last piece in confidence as communities. Yep. I guess I have a question for you because we haven't included this yet because it was a proposal from Megan Sullivan, but we're needing to hone it because it's it's actually too big probably for this moment. Mhmm. But I think the piece that we would might consider adding to to this section enabling and clarifying that people could have a family child home care. The home care side.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Yeah. I know it's that language.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So we that that that prohibits any disability to limit that. Where do you think you would be on ADUs? Because ADUs has come up as a really sore subject in a couple of HOA home ownership associations. So I'm just curious Mhmm. What you think where you think your where you think people would land on maybe because we allow them everywhere. Right. But homeownership associations have do have barriers to to ADUs. And the question is, where do you think people would be if we if we did it on lots of a quarter acre or more? I mean, we could certainly make it work for home ownership associations, but I think we really do need to address ADUs.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Yeah, and that's, so my experience with common interest communities is mostly surrounding conventing projects, right?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Condominiums are a little different, right?

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: I'm envisioning like a studio condominium with a childcare facility in it, and I just don't know how that would happen or work. So what would but there's other kinds of, you know, you said, other kinds of common interest communities.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So HOAs is where the ADU piece

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I think the h oh, very definitely. The HOAs is really where I'm thinking that we need to address the ADU.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: But you don't oppose the condominium. I mean, there are regulations now for the size of a home based childcare and other provisions that you would need to

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: That would just

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: fall into it.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: See.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. That would be fall into it.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yeah. If you don't have a square foot issue, if you don't

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: have

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: egress at the rate.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: There are. I think some kind of a, is it HOAs? I think about manufactured housing in a park, which is bigger and maybe has the space to do something. I don't know where you draw the line, I guess.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, mean, that's why I'm asking. Because I have talked about this with Magna, and there are a number of HOAs that are two or three acre single family lots, and these are places that could easily be cheaper So than they the question is, in my mind, how small would we take it? Do we say any HOA that has lot sizes of a quarter of an acre or more would be subject to the ADU. That seems to

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: make sense.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Could not prohibit that.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Right, exactly. Yeah, I guess I do think that there is that smaller limit, may be dealt with in other parts of the law, would disqualify some things, but to make an affirmative statement on kind of a minimum lot size would probably help clarify,

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: you know, it's more clear. Okay. Right.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Right.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And so that's, I think that's where we're maybe landing with Megan's suggestion. I just sort trying to make it work. Yeah. And then we can address her bigger issues, which are bigger and more and perhaps more constitutional. Mhmm. So, anyway, that just

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Do we need to make sure that common interest communities cannot grow into duplexing?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That is an interesting question. Because we've said duplexing, by right? Yes, exactly. At both ADUs and duplexing.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: You always have to play the back of

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: all of what No, no, That's what I'm trying to do

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: with that. Which they should you would think they'd support more and that you're not changing the footprint of the building block.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Yeah. I guess a lot of it and I know that Megan, you know, there's looked at a lot of covenants on properties, in our over her area at that decision. You know, it does seem that a lot of things that we put into place, be it HOAs or kind of any common interest, you know, have overly restricted things. But, you know, I I think that once again, you would have to have a, you know, a conforming you know, you have to be conforming without a duplex and not

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: living Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So I would ask our committee to think about that, and having language drafted with Pam to address, we could add duplexing to

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Yeah, and I actually did, I saw the Family Care thing, and I said, well gee, that's not really what our you know, Valleywood. That's terrible. I'll think about it some more, see if I have any

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Anyone who raises a concern about a studio that would not be eligible on a fragrance. Right.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Probably not. I mean,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: not the multiple egresses and love space.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Yeah.

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

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Yep. With our I mean, I agree with you. There's a ton of common interest communities that run the gamut. They're all over the place in terms of, you know, what they're dealing with.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: And it's ideal for a family moving into a common interest community if there's a home based

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: care facility. Yeah.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Right down to from Florida.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: That advertised in other parts of the country. You know, there is childcare at school on-site or nearby.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. Right. Exactly. Great. Peter, thank you. One other comment, if I

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: may, and that is, you know, we talked about the union labor piece and giving additional thanks

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right, to the that is union section.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Know, our affairs committee said to me, look, you know, we're thinking about, you know, we've a lot of non union builders in Vermont. The guy I'll drive around in his pickup truck is probably does belong to a union, and if this was to be in Section Place 12. That's section I'm sorry. Section 12, yes. If this was to be in place, then, you know, potentially, we're gonna chase small guys out and encourage out of state builders who are union shops to come in.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: So Yeah.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: I don't think that's the intent, but I you know?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Not the intent. It's an opportunity. I think it should be viewed as an opportunity. Mhmm. She doesn't require it. It just says if you do, you get a density bonus. Mhmm. So it's an opportunity, I

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: think. Right.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. And I think that so I I I I I think my my guess is this is designed more for multifamily Okay. Affordable housing units Mhmm. And not for individual residential. I think that's probably what Kesha was originally proposed. What's the purpose of this? Purpose of this is to support union labor and to increase density.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, the purpose of this was to create an opening to talk about density related to certain projects that have a floor, that a municipality cannot reduce the density of a project that has state dollars or certain benefit. So, I do have camera drafting that language because Of additional language for that. I mean, this is the conversation we had with BHCB and others. The only way we're going to bring down the cost per unit, one of the only ways we're going to bring down the cost per unit is if we stop saying every different body this goes through could cut the floors down, can cut the number of units down. Yeah.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: Yeah, that's why everything Trump is different union or enhancing union participation. Agree with everything you said.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: This is not what that's. No. This, I think, is trying to address both. This is both addressing, supporting union labor and supporting There are At least that's what I thought.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: The general contractors wanna come in and say, if you use apprentices, you get a density bonus. What I'm worried about is anything we give a density bonus, like affordable housing or any project that we deem valuable, that density bonus could still mean nothing if the community continues to cut away at the number of units. So you have groups that have signed up to say, we'll do more than the affordable housing inclusionary building unit number. And then if they're cutting down their number of units, they're making the project cost a lot more for everybody else.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Every unit that's cost drives up the cost of the building.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So we should start to be able to say whenever state dollars are involved or some other things we care about, there's a density algorithm that spits out a particular area median income price or rental value, and you can't depart downward from the number of units there.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: Chris, the only issue is treating people equally in terms of construction providers as where it concerns the effectiveness.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, I mean, it is like using apprentices. I mean, we're we're trying to also add in a number of other benefits to get more housing built.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: I agree with that, but why specifically the union versus the non union trades? Well, non union trades would be apprentices. Mean, because union trades would be my neighbors who are carpenters, plumbers, Small businesses. Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Are they building multi unit projects?

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Well, in a lot of times subs will be, you I mean, you may say, you you need to build a big company to build a big project, but a lot of times they're summing stuff out of it. It had to be any labor, that would exclude maintenance of the subs and the amount of the staff.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, I'd love to have the labor folks in.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We're gonna have the labor folks in on this section and the general contractors and my guess is if we'd qualified it with multiunit to begin with, that it might make a little more sense because it's clearly probably not

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: bigger projects. Exactly. I mean, I understand. I just, you know, I'm expressing concerns that I heard yesterday.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. I'm great.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: I really appreciate that. Our committee is very thoughtful in the way they look at things. And then the municipal planning resilience fund, she's worth supportive of that because you look at tier 1B and the update on tier 1B right now, and municipalities need help to get there. Yeah. That's very much. That's section 14 in appropriations. Got 250,000, which is more or less what we've done on an annual basis, I think, the last few years. But as tier one b rolls out, we're gonna there's municipalities that are not opting in right now that

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: probably We could I think we should take money away from the land use review board potentially and put it for the municipal and regional side, which is what the property transfer tax. Are you looking around the street?

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: No. You're saying it, not me.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I'm excited about your battle. Completely.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Me that's the first step. And now they're being skimied at the second step. But, like, we should be giving them the money they need to determine where their one b is and give them the foundation they need to not have one b or one a taken away from where they think it should be dedicated by the Landis Review Board. They they can spend less time on that.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: A different hearing, know you've got that coming up. And obviously, you know, we're super supportive of the EHIP, so.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So that, so we could write that down as a change in the allocation for regional and municipal planning in the property transfer tax, but

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: we we could do that. Thank you, Peter.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Thank you so much. Nice to see everybody.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Great. Thank you for your input. Much appreciated. What do you think about the ADU piece with HOAs? Yes. And what size lot makes sense? Well, I I think initially, we were thinking a quarter of an acre or larger Yep. For ADUs and duplexes.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Yeah. That sounds good. You know, unfortunately for me, when I pick common interest communities, I'm like, how are we gonna put an ADU on the side of

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: a Yeah. Yeah. We're not watching necessarily.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Those That that is one challenge.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Right. Exactly.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Okay. Great. Thank you. Because we have Chris Donnelly, I believe, online in who's Zooming in. Yes. Great. Great. Thank you, Pete.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: Okay. Good. And good luck. I know you've got a big hearing coming up. I'm actually at another meeting, but, yeah, I will check-in. Thank you. Alright. Chris

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Donnelly, are you with us?

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Good morning. Can you

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: hear me? We

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: can. We can even see you. Good morning. Good morning. Chris

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Donnelly with the Champlain Housing Trust. And I'm sorry, can't be there in person. I think I'm going to be pretty quick this morning with you. First of all, we do support the extension or expansion of the down payment tax credit that VHFA is asking for, and we also appreciate the appropriation to VHIP at the end of the bill. But I really wanted to focus on sections four and five to go back to the common interest communities, and I just have a concern with one of those pieces. We operate a program called Shared Equity Homeownership, other nonprofits do, other housing groups do around the state. And the way that we create affordable homeownership that stays affordable forever is we take some public subsidy to bring down the price of the mortgage for the buyers. And then we ask them to agree to a couple restrictions that we put into a covenant that goes into the deed. One is, you know, the resale formula to make sure that that public subsidy stays with the home, but then some of the appreciation is shared for future buyers. And I can come back at any time to talk about how how that program works, but in in a nutshell, we just make sure that the home stays affordable forever by putting this restriction on resale. The second restriction that we've put on is actually to make sure that the buyers use the home as a primary resident, because we don't want people to access this kind of support from public dollars and then turn around and not use it as their own home and to rent it out as a business interest. So, we put that restriction. Occasionally will have waivers where people say, you know, I'm going to go spend three months to take care of an ailing parent or what have you, and I want to rent out my home for a period of time, or I'm going to a training or job, education program, but I'm coming back as a relocation. So, the section of the bill that restricts the ability of condo associations or anything, the way I read it is any kind of covenant placed by any entity as prohibiting the leasing out of an apartment would be in conflict with our programme. I just wanted to flag that. I don't know if there's an exemption, if you're pursuing this, if there's an exemption for publicly subsidized homes just to make sure that they're being used as primary residences.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Got it. So so what do people do with their academics, for example, and they need to be abroad for a year on a sabbatical or wherever it is not here? Do they apply to CHT, the Chittenden Housing Trust, for a waiver so that they could rent? I mean, they could also not afford to just leave it empty. One assumes that they're in affordable housing. So they would apply to the board, to the CHT, to to rent it for a year while they were away, and is that those kinds of things you're open to?

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Exactly, and that's happened in the past. Can recall, you know, maybe fifteen or twenty years ago, somebody that was going to be in college for a Master's program for a year on the West Coast, and we said, sure, you can rent out your house. If the plan is always to come back, then that's fine. We want to make sure that people have those rights and responsibilities of their home, but also to make sure that we're subsidising or stewarding the public.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No, appreciate that. I appreciate that.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So but we don't need to write that down to statute. I'm confused where this needs to show up. It needs

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to show up if you're requiring that every common interest community, like the condominiums and the and the affordable housing that Chris is building. Mhmm. If they are bought apartments that they have one of their two restrictions, they have two, one on on resale that it it that the public subsidy stays with the house, the apartment. And the second restriction is that they have to keep it as a primary residence. So what what I'm understanding is with those, already have an opportunity for people to apply for a waiver if it's necessary. What this bill does is say you can't get in the way of renting it for a period of time. And I think that's what Chris is addressing.

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: This is any covenant.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: What covenants?

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: How I read this, it says any covenant or restriction cannot prevent someone from renting out their place.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. And what he's saying is where state dollars have been used and it's affordable housing, even if it's law housing, that their covenant restricts that at the moment. You can apply for waiver if you're going away for a long period of time. But that with publicly subsidized housing that is slightly different from an HOA or a condominium association that market value that has not used public dollars to build it.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: What what why does this need to be in the bill? I'm confused. Wait. It's I don't think it needs to be written into the bill.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It was in the draft, your draft.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: What, where?

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: What I see is, I see on section five, on the bottom of page eight.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It's section five and it's prohibited uses disallowed and you have it, where is it, Chris? In

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: It's the bottom page eight.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah, bottom of page eight. Here it is, on number one.

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: It prohibits a restriction of a unit owner from leasing the individual unit owners for residential purposes.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Right, so residential purposes is a month or longer.

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Right. What I'm saying is that if you're living in one of our condominiums, you can't just move someplace else and rent out your unit to somebody and not use it as your primary residence.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Because that mortgage is heavily subsidized, you might be able to get a market rate of rent that would nullify the purpose of the program. Exactly.

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: You'd be holding on to a

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: fair Right. Income

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Which are designed to enable people who can't afford it.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I mean, so I'll say this, the goal of this section, Chris, which I hope you can appreciate, is not to exclude long term renters from common I interest

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: do appreciate that.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: You manage any rental. Like, so this is yeah. They don't this is not

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the same thing.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: But if I'm not if I may

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

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: CHT doesn't own these properties. So the owners of these properties would have full authority on those lease contracts and then somebody could exploit it and charge a market rent that you would have no say over because you're just the covenant holder. Don't know if it's appropriate. Yeah,

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: we don't step into anything until the transfer of title.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So, you're saying if someone had a shared home ownership home,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: you

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: don't want them to be able to rent it?

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: I don't want them to turn it into an income generating property.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And if they need to, I. E. A sabbatical or a house exchange for three or four months, they can apply for a waiver.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: But they're not part of a common interest community?

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: They would be if they were, say, a condominium even at, say, Bay Ridge in Shelburne. That's a condo association.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So, you're saying if they were part of the 26 units that were ownership?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I I think it's

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: They get a heavily subsidized mortgage.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right. They have heavily subsidized mortgage. They use Florida. That is not a good use of Right. Agreed. If it's public dollar to use, probably not.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Okay, I mean I just think that's covered under a different set of laws. Just don't think so we need to muddy this entirely because I think you understand what we're trying to accomplish, which is that you can't prohibit long term renters.

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Right, but we

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

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: I understand the intent and what I'm suggesting is that the way that this is written, we would not be able to prohibit

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We our need to go to a joint hearing with SNRE. May we ask you to consider drafting something that works for a community that CH CHD and other affordable housing developers could work with and have that work within this section. Would you be willing to draft language on that?

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Sure. I can I can work with Cam on that?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I'll work with with Cam on that.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: And it's the other pieces, nothing shall be construed for like whatever this piece is. So I

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: think if you were willing to work with Cam on this to clarify what communities it applies to and what it doesn't, that would be great.

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: It would also be helpful if under prohibited uses, both on leasing units and

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: the subparagraphs one, subparagraphs two there, translates those into English. I just read subparagraph two at

[Peter Tucker (Director of Advocacy & Public Policy, Vermont Association of Realtors)]: the top of page nine. I don't understand it in the least.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I think Cameron wants to comment on common interest community support. We're already getting those back then Cameron can comment.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We will have Cameron. I think that's appropriate to ask Cam, not Chris.

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: I will say also just we have no issue with the childcare use.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yes, thank

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Okay,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: yes, given that that's got eligibility issues in space and size.

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Yeah, we support that full.

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

[Chris Donnelly (Champlain Housing Trust)]: Okay, thank you.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Now go offline. Thank you all. We'll see you tomorrow morning at nine, and we're going ahead to Senate Natural Resources.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: And Are we meeting in there with

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yes. We are. Right. Thank