Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We have new pieces on the union piece. We have And we have this big discussion after we get off the floor on the transit corridors. So welcome, everybody. New week. We're all refreshed after town meeting. And it is Tuesday, March 10, and we're back in the Senate Economic Development Housing and General Affairs where we're working on a housing bill. And we have the Vermont League of Cities and Towns and our planners here to help us improve section one, which is our housing targets, which is where we're blending a lot of our work together, the work we did on act one eighty one, working with our planners to have every town develop their own housing targets that are realistic and embedded into our plans. And we welcome Sam to give us Vermont League of Cities and Towns perspective on this proposal.

[Samantha Chittenden (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: You. For the record, I'm Samantha Chittenden, the Municipal Policy and Advocacy Specialist for the Vermont League of Cities and Towns and happy to be talking to you today about section one of S-three 28. So, we have had some conversations with the administration before the session about their ideas in this direction, and it's something we can generally support in concept, the work happening at the citizen planning Commission level to thoughtfully incorporate local housing targets along with a, you know, mid range plan for the community to achieve those targets. And it's also worth saying that we hear often from our municipal leaders, of course, that housing is their top concern and that the availability and affordability of housing is a top issue for local officials, but also that they feel like they have pulled every lever they can. That we have many communities that are very housing ambitious, who before the Home Act, before Act 181, had taken really innovative and ambitious approaches to supporting the opportunity for more housing in their community through changes to local zoning and regulations and other local initiatives and feel constrained still to this day, by some of the, regulatory authorities and tools that are in the hands of state government. So we're open to a process that helps work through those and discuss them in the municipal plan, in terms of opportunities for housing creation, also real constraints and limitations and maybe ideas about how state and local government can continue moving forward together to unlock housing opportunities at the local level. That said, the language currently in the draft, we find in some places not quite appropriate for a municipal planning document, which is not a regulatory document. It's not enforceable. It doesn't have the force of law of ordinance or bylaw. And also in some cases, sort of too specific and beyond the scope and capability of most citizen planters. So remember that our municipal plans start at the citizen planning season, and even at the local official level, the vast majority of our communities are run entirely by volunteers. So more than 70% of the count have less than 2,500 population. These are small communities working through big questions, and we want to make sure that what is required in statute is achievable and within the resources of every claims commission and legislative body. So early this morning I sent Sarah a memo. Our approach at this point We have it right here. Great. So you know, you'll hear from Catherine, we, I think, have a lot of the same concerns, with We need to land if we can, come together on figuring that out if we can today. Okay. I think there's probably more than one approach to this. What we've offered you is to strike language. So I'll actually just screen share, which is maybe, like, the easiest and fastest way to Yeah. Approach that. And oh, I had to

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: do my quest. Yeah. Okay. The bill just disappeared, and I think that it's would you like me to get you to the drug? Yeah. Think I

[Unidentified Committee Member]: just have it right here. Okay.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Great. Let's go through it. Okay.

[Samantha Chittenden (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: So basically, the sort of introduction purpose is fine. We would strike and from subsection one and provide regulations that allow for it because again, that's just not an approved immunizable plan and not order regulations with. So strike that. In subsection one a, strike this highlighted language, which is basically an inventory of location, age condition, occupancy. This is not data that's readily available, unless there is a fresh current max reappraisal. Could we could we is it let is

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: it information worth knowing? I would think it might be worth knowing for the time. Could we put in language that says, begin to work developing a way to collect this kind of data? Is this valuable? I mean, would think this would be valuable to have.

[Samantha Chittenden (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: I mean, this is the type of information that's valuable to have in something like a needs assessment or a feasibility study. That's not what a municipal planning document is. In many cases, it there would not be a substantial value to having this information municipality block. It might be that in a zoning district, in a tier one b, in a downtown development plan, this would be more useful and important to know down to this level. I think Jim, for a more broad application, we're talking two fifty one municipalities. I think knowing the targets, knowing the overall existing residential inventory and what, could be achieved through rehabilitation or leveraging underutilized properties as opposed to new construction, that that's that that has broad application. Knowing the sort of age of construction and current occupancy is much harder to get at and isn't is important for every municipality to know a crop that's old brand list. So that's what we're thinking there. And then same thing, this is a very resource intensive type of inventory that's described in subsection one b, that, again, it's not particularly necessary or useful in order to get started on a housing plan to reach the targets. The targets that we want to reach. Yeah. And this is something that would be done by a sort of specialized housing feasibility study conducted by a firm that would cost 30 to $50,000. Like this, this is not, Right. Approachable for most planning commissions. Got it. And then sort of similarly, we would strike in subsection D, just a detailed description. This is a this is the planning document. It's informed and created by the community. It's adopted by the legislative body. It goes through the statutory checks with the HCB and the regional planners and other necessary partners. And it goes through a long engagement process in the in the public, where specific direction to achieve some of the ideas and the plan happen is in the red of resolution of the legislative body. Like, that's the appropriate place for a detailed direction to the Planning Commission to reform or create or adopt new regulations that would support the municipal plan. So we think, you know, just cut back the language a little bit, and to be more aligned with what a municipal plan is and how it's used by the legislative body.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And so can I just check-in just given how tight our time is Yeah? Cabinets. Are those proposed cuts okay with you as well at this point?

[Catherine Dimitruk (Northwest Regional Planning Commission)]: They're okay with me. I would go farther. Okay. Much farther. Okay. So they have

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to go much further. Okay. Well, we're gonna keep Aussie Target, guys. We're doing this an important piece. But

[Samantha Chittenden (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: And then yeah. That's basically it.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And then you right. Okay. And then And all those all those changes are here in this.

[Samantha Chittenden (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Yes. I guess maybe the last thing I'll say is, like, this is really important to us, this last subsection five, that the amount of detail provided beyond the minimum is at the discretion of the legislative body. It's and it's conceptually important to us that the requirement is to adopt the targets, identify opportunities and barriers to achieving those targets. And if the town wants to do more, if they want an inventory of Right. They can replace brownfields. If they want an inventory of, you know, unoccupied, uninhabited houses that they want the targets for redevelopment or to bring back online, that that's optional and is done in a way that's useful to support their municipal plan, but is not a statutory obligation of the elements of the municipal plan.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thank you. Yeah. Committee, thoughts?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: In theory, I appreciate because I'm it's a lot of a lot of work. The rest implies a huge amount of work

[Unidentified Committee Member]: and the rest of it right for the planning. Yeah. I guess the best one. Yeah. So I agree that we don't want to put on orders work on there. My impression, I do like the idea of urban versus rural. So the bigger communities having higher expectations, think Patrick's gonna speak to that. But my impression of comprehensive plans, when they go through this process, they're once every eight or ten years, and they're already usually sometimes engaging in consultants. It's as much as it might be $50,000 for this, but if it's part of the overall, no? So it's

[Samantha Chittenden (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Well, most maybe sometimes. Yeah. But sometimes. But remember that the position of any municipal so they have to update their municipal plans, which requires a forum of volunteers that can dedicate, the necessary time and work product. They typically would apply for a municipal grant through JCD, a municipal planning grant, that competitive and they may or may not be granted it, then they would look for someone to fill that planning position under the grant. Typically, if the planner from the RPC, sometimes they go out to, like, a UTEEL or something, and then they have to work on the availability of that planner combined with the quorum and the publicly informed meetings, and and then they have to navigate that statutory deadline in order to produce the work product within municipal plan. These are typically I mean, it's it's like 15,000 or $3,015,000 or $30,000 planning grants that they're working with. So when you see a community like, my community is going through a piece housing feasibility study for a specific site proposed for redevelopment right now. We got the we got a CPG grant in order to use a planner from Two Rivers who had supported bringing that or we got a planning grant. They put out the RFP with assistance from the RPC, and then we're able to hire White and Burke as a consultant for the feasibility study, and they're doing all this market research. So they're looking at the agent inventory of the existing housing stock, the amount of current available rentals, how many beds are in those rentals, should we have more one bedrooms, should we have more three bedrooms, and but that's very intensive work, that that's a $50,000 grant that is is hiring Weidenberg to facilitate for one slated redevelopment. So that's like a much more typical experience of a municipality than like those that have five eight person planning departments and or more resources to bring in targeted Or

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: a volunteer planning commission that Right. Three people. Yeah. Exactly. So we have to, does that have

[Unidentified Committee Member]: be sort of arranged from

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: submerged and sublime to be less sublime.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Includes me of having submerged bodies.

[Samantha Chittenden (Vermont League of Cities and Towns)]: Sublime? No. No. I, you know, just They have a great plan for happening. They have a great plan

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: for happening. Which is great. Yeah. So thank you, Sam. If you're if it's okay with you given our time, I'd love to pivot to Great. Yes. Cynthia. I mean, Cynthia. Cynthia at CDC. Cynthia's nice, Sam. No, no, but Catherine is much more wrinkled. Catherine, welcome. Thank you

[Catherine Dimitruk (Northwest Regional Planning Commission)]: very much for the record. I'm Catherine Demetrek with Northwest Regional Planning Commission and the testimony I'm gonna give you today is my home, but I have coordinated with three or four other RPC directors,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: and they're all like Right. And can we just begin with we we just heard that's funny from VLCT. I take it you have to give comments from the corner, the corner comments. You are are okay with those proposals, and you would suggest we go further. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So you're okay with those proposals so far? Yeah. So So Cam is listening. So we're redrafting the fee as we're all listening.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Cam is

[Catherine Dimitruk (Northwest Regional Planning Commission)]: And you have a copy of my my testimony. Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We got

[Unidentified Committee Member]: it right here.

[Catherine Dimitruk (Northwest Regional Planning Commission)]: So, obviously, we agree with the importance of including housing targets. The regional planning commissions have been meeting with all of our towns to go over the municipal housing targets as part of the Act 181 Planning Application.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thomas, would you pass this down, Catherine? Thank you

[Catherine Dimitruk (Northwest Regional Planning Commission)]: so much. And so we've been talking about these housing targets with our municipalities since the fall, and really having these amazing conversations. Municipal plants already are required to address the housing targets. So the housing element right now in statute requires towns to include a program for public and private actions to address housing needs and targets identified by the regional planning commissions. So there's already a statement in statute that requires towns to address these municipal housing targets in their municipal plans. We haven't had a round of new plans yet to see what that looks like, to see how our municipality is going to address these new housing targets provided by the regional planning conditions. I have several concerns about what's proposed in s three twenty eight. The first being that just structurally, it's set up as something separate from the town's plans. It's a separate section of statute that's being added. So it's outside and apart from the required elements of the town plan and is an add on.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And so Well, I assume this was incorporated in that section.

[Catherine Dimitruk (Northwest Regional Planning Commission)]: No. Not as distracted right now. It's a new section of statute. So, it requires towns to address housing with this housing target report, but they also will still need to do this housing element in their municipal plan. And so the two don't talk to each other right now. So Talk to each other. I think they do need to talk to each other. So that is one concern just structurally that I have, and then as distracted right now, as you heard from your last witness, that it really is onerous, it doesn't meet, it's not achievable by most municipalities in the state. And so my recommendation would be that instead of creating a new section and a new report, can we beef up the housing element section that's already in statute by by plucking some of the important items from this section?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And

[Catherine Dimitruk (Northwest Regional Planning Commission)]: and specifically, what I would recommend is that the add to the housing element, a little more specificity saying that this program for public and private actions must include an analysis of regulatory and physical constraints preventing a municipality from meeting the targets, as well as they would have to include how they are making progress toward meeting those targets. And I think that those two additions would result in really adding some specificity to what towns need to do.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So if it's okay with the committee, I think we're probably all in agreement with you. We don't wanna set create a separate piece of section. We wanted to incorporate this. I I think we all had assumed this was incorporated into the those statutes. With I would ask you both to work with Cam to see if we can come up with a new draft of section one ASAP. So if you'd be kind enough to email your comments to Cam. Cam, you're listening, so I'm just gonna play this to you. Think that we're all probably that that would be what we would want and look at that in the next day or so. Is that okay? Great. And that's great. We don't want this to

[Unidentified Committee Member]: be a burden, but we

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: want we want it to to pay this we were to help with sort of underscore what may already be in statute, but we wanna underscore its importance and and the investment we've made in in in all this work because we haven't actually gone town by town yet setting those targets until now.

[Catherine Dimitruk (Northwest Regional Planning Commission)]: Right. Exactly. And this is new information. And so I think it's fair to add a

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: little more specificity to what towns are required to clean their toilets. Thank you. Is what's being asked to do, particularly by smaller municipalities?

[Catherine Dimitruk (Northwest Regional Planning Commission)]: As it's drafted right now, no. Agreed. And the amount of

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: work it would take to get there, I'm not sure what you're achieving. Right. Exactly. And to actually further more housing, which is the overall goal of doing well. And reduce the number of volunteers who want to serve. Yes. That is not.

[Catherine Dimitruk (Northwest Regional Planning Commission)]: That is our. And comp plans are already long.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Big deals.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah. They're but I think a lot of at least people in the communities I sort tend to find the Planning Commission a really productive and and positive way to serve their town. I mean, I think people are pretty jazzed by serving on their Planning Commission. I think so too. That's been my experience as well. Not working here. Thank you. I if that's okay, let's let's move forward with that, and that would be great. And we will be back after the floor. Do you have a notion of how long the floor is gonna be this morning? Is the constitution of which there to come?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I don't. But I can't remember.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I can't remember either. Anyway, it Either way. Back right after the floor to address the transit corridors and the options before us on that. And you may wanna stick to that too. And, anyway, so thank you. We're gonna go offline, go to the floor, and we'll chat with Cam.