Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We're just setting up the video on so the public can join us and we'll get going.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: All right, wish you would like.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thanks so much, Representative Mark Mahaly, for joining us this morning, who's gonna be our lead off presenter. We thank you for coming down and leaving his committee and coming to our of denuded committee down here. Greatly thanks, Gillen. You. Thank you. Mark Mahawi,

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: Charles Plainfield, Mershfield, and House General and Appropriations.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Right, and we're gonna be talking today about H-seven 72, which is an act relating to residential rental agreements, eviction procedures, and the creation of the Positive Rental Payment Credit Reporting by the Department of Corrections.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Controversial

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: subject. But the reason it's controversial is because everybody's right. That's the problem. There's evictions for people who don't have enough money and can't pay rent. Sometimes puts them off the street, and we don't have enough money to do everything that we could conceivably do for homelessness. On the other hand, we, unlike a lot of states, our landlords generally fall into two groups. We have the big, very large non profit landlords like Champlain House and Friends, for example. You know, thousands of units, okay? They operate under kind of federal rules because of their financing. So they don't evict people easily, and if they do, they have all kinds of programs that they can help them with. It's almost a situation where it's very rare. They won't just throw someone out because the lease is up and so. But then we have, most of our landlords are small businesses, and they operate on relatively thin margins. And one tenant who just says, I'm not paying, stays or messes up their apartment or does drug deals in the mall can put them under. I mean, it's really, so what we have is a lot of landlords saying, I'm not doing this any, and exiting the business. And when they, that means less housing for the tenants. And so that's happening. And the non profits are facing a situation that's really unfortunate, where they're dealing with drug dealers who take over apartments. They actually victimize the tenants. And the tenant is an addict and they can't get them out under existing law. We are, it is unfortunately true, we are a bit of an outlier among the states in terms of, hey, we're an outlier among the states in terms of how long it takes and how much it costs to evict a tenant. I mean, a lot of states take a third or half the time that we do. Okay, so what does this bill do? It's an attempt to balance the bill. It's an attempt at coming up with something that helps tenants and helps landlords. It's particularly aimed at helping tenants who are good tenants and are paying rent, but the landlord decides the lease is over, or I want to not renew the lease because I want to convert it for my family, or I want to sell it or I want to completely remodel it or whatever. In that case, it has a long notice provision. They've got to give three months notice, ninety days. And in addition, remember, this is a good tenant. In addition, forty five days before the expiration, they've gone to do a walkthrough and if there's no damage, get them at their deposit back. Because these people need cash to roll over into a new See, what we're really trying to do is make it less conflict so they can actually get another unit and get out so there's no need for eviction. There's a limitation on rent increases to once per year. You know what I'm gonna do? I have a one pager that I've scribbled all over. I'm gonna just send your clerk a one page description. Great. That'd helpful. Oh, and by the way, naturally, everything we do in the Housing Committee belongs in it. Every other committee, it's Housing, it's that way. So this bill judiciary spent some time and they've done a really good job, I think, And their amendment is gonna be introduced on the floor. This is both their bill and our bill combined, okay? It just shows you what it is. But to go on, There's a million bucks for the rental arrears fund, which is a really good way of avoiding evictions. It pays up to three months or so rent for people who can eventually pay rent. You only qualify if you have the ability to actually pay, but something bad has happened to you, like an illness or a problem that's a one time problem, It's a bridge, kind of a bridge payment goes right to the landlord. It's really good, it prevents homeless, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than motels. Is this a revolving type fund? Yeah, no, they don't pay back. It's just a one time. And it's an existing program, you're just gonna run out of money in April. So, and there are other

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So that would be sued, in other words? What? Was renewed in the bill?

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: Yeah. Then there's a provision with idle call is for tenants, although it's also for landlords, because you know there are interests in common, actually. And this is an enhanced, fast process deal with the drug dealer. To deal with someone whose continued presence is a danger to the health and safety of the tenants, other tenants, or the landlord or the landlord's agent. And it's very fast. We've tried to shorten the eviction process. It's now, there are currently no limitations on how long it takes. The courts tell us that their target is six months and that 70 or 80% of the time they hit the target, that's a long time. So we put in here that they have to set a hearing. This is heavily negotiated with the courts. They have to set a hearing within ninety days of filing of So the it's a faster to date. And then there's an enhanced trespass law to make it easier to deal with the tenant who's excuse me, the nontenant who is selling drugs in the hall, etcetera. And then we have other money in the bill, but I don't know what's gonna go out of appropriations. But, one is, $200,000 oh, yeah. You know, there's a you guys passed it out. We passed out a credit reporting bill, and it's back in here. And it basically says, people who pay rent, that gets on their credit report, which it doesn't now. So very often people who have no credit card, no nothing, the only thing they do is pay rent, disallows them to build a credit score, and if they blow it and don't pay, they're out of the road.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I know that when we looked at the bill originally, there was a lot of discussion about the fact that if the person or parent was participating in the program and they participated properly and paid the rent, they would get report to the credit reporting agency that it a good report. But if they failed, or if they didn't pay rent or stopped paying rent, there was no credit report issued. I know a number of people here have some concern

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: about that. Right, and now the way it works now is you don't pay rent one time, you're out. You're just out of the

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And there's no reporting? There's no reporting at all.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: Well, there's no reporting now, but there's no reporting. You're just kicked out of the program. That's about, that's a quick summary. Will provide you guys the one pager. I've tried to make sure that the one pager shows what's in both bills combined. But the bill that we pass out, if we pass it, it gets to the floor and if we pass it out, the bill will be combined, and so that's what you'll see.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: What the bill number of the two bills in

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: the house?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Sub-seventy two. Sub-seventy two. Was there a second bill? The

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: judiciary never took possession. They just did an elaborate flyby, and that will result in a floor amendment, which we will hear this afternoon. Okay.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So if we look at this, depending on how fast we look at it before it becomes something to work with, we probably need to look at what you guys do as

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: the men today. Right, yeah, and that's why I'm gonna give you this, because I will adjust this one pager to reflect both together.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Great, great. That'd be helpful. Anything else? We

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: anticipate seven seventy two will be on the floor today. No. No.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: Think that, first of all, appropriations has to hear it. They will hear it, I believe they will hear it this afternoon, and then it will go on notice, and then Wednesday, even Wednesday. Okay? Any other committees besides approves and judicial? Okay.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: A few minutes.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: Real Thank you very much. As the comedian, there's this old comedian, long dead, named Mort Saul. Oh, yes. See, one of his favorite, one of my favorite sayings, he said, The future lies ahead.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Thanks again.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: Yeah, okay. The

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: next item that you have on the agenda is the report from vice counsel. The vice counsel has gone upstairs to one of the folks that he he had to be at. And so Yeah. Till he comes back, I'm not sure there's a whole Washington fan that he could do because the purpose of today agenda is to hear the introduction which we have from representative Mulholly and then to go through the bill which the council will take us through. And the assurance that we had was that if it would be, oh, five to ten minutes at max, then he would be out in house preparations. He's had five of his ten minutes. In the meantime, is there anything that are any things we should discuss right now, even though that may not be an agenda item, so it's gonna be either coming to us or a result of what we did last several days that we should bring up the discussion with this committee?

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: We'll bring something up. So I did send an email. I don't think I see Senator Ram or Senator Meets, but Senator Brock, is in your inbox. So I'm going to propose an amendment to the cannabis bill on Tuesday of next week which would effectively an act on one of the recommendations of the meeting I'll call for last year, the cannabis control board. This is a report from the CCP James Pepper highlighted that would effectively, I would argue, recalibrate outdoor cultivators' fees. They have produced a sixth as much crop, but they are charged that hold the current of the $8,400 for tier three license. And that just seems out of set with also the impact of the natural environment that we through other policies have been compensated towards. So I think considering a recalibration of outdoor licensing fees is something that we're considering. Was that recommended in the Fortinet, accounts? It's framed as a consideration. So they cite Colorado Energy's office about the estimated cost of outdoor cultivation versus indoor. So I don't see it as the word recommendation, which I do see in the second one. So I think they walk the lines because it would result in a revenue reduction of about $120,000 So this won't necessarily what I'm gonna record, fill that hole. I don't have the answer for that. I do expect if this committee supports it, then I it'll be a floor amendment. I think we'll have to have this conversation in finance and then also pros and then side competition with the appropriations chair. I think there are will be concerns raised that we're gonna reduce our revenues by $120,000

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: We did an amendment like this, as I recall, last year, and I don't remember what the revenue impact was of that. Do you?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, was always uncomfortable because that one raised other fees. So it was revenue neutral, but we didn't talk to any of the people who SpeedSpeak would raise. So I was more comfortable cutting it only in the sense that I believe when we were having that discussion, the CCB still took in all their money, then used what they needed, and then remitted the rest of the general fund. Now, given how we count our beans here, this creates $120,000 holders, so that's different.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, know we took testimony last year, which we can certainly review. Again, it's up to you as to whether or not we should actually bring people in from both sides of the picture and take a bit of testimony beforehand, both to refresh our memory and also to see if anything's changed. The budget of the lost revenue is something that we, I would think one would hear from the cannabis control board as to what the impact of that would be and how would they suggest making necessary.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Okay, so James Bever is fully aware of this, so if he's gonna be part of that, so having to hear from him, that would be useful. I since it's not gonna propose to raise indoor cultivator speech to to build a hole, I don't expect much opposition. I'll be happy to see more

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that just expense. No. I I would respect that,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: but I would expect that if you did raise somebody else's speed to make up the difference, that's what's here. I don't recall last year, did we get any testimony, substantial testimony from both the large indoor cultivators whose speeds would have gone up in most of last year? Do you recall back to that point of? Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: There is a handful. I think there's I mean, it's maybe, like, less than five. So, I think we know who they are. I don't remember any, like, how I

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: don't I don't like it. To

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: To me, this is worth the conversation because outdoor cultivators have a really rough go at

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: it. Yeah.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: The weather and the climate.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: And it typically is are the smaller cultivators who were suffering the most of the things. And one of the objectives of the legislation, some of the purpose statements that I've seen, is to promote the small growers so that they can have a competitive place in the picture. And that's one of the questions that have been raised is that the fee structure is such that it makes them less competitive, less able to survive in any case. So any other agricultural crop we charge a fee of $8,400 just to grow it?

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: You know? So I mean, so I'm fine with charging for cannabis, but, I do we do that on grapes or, you know, tobacco grows in Vermont? Which is

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: an idea that you're suggesting for the rest of agriculture?

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Yeah. No. My point is it just seems out of staff with what

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: with other agricultural products. So that's I'm not aware of any. That's so broad as it is. But most of our rigs don't have quite a strict regulatory issue to deal with that has to be managed and somebody's gotta pay for it. That's the balance point.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So I mean, you want to are you going to try and have JFO look at making up the difference?

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: This is how I was going to propose this. I requested the amendment. I was planning for Tuesday as a discussion. I think that works with how the caliber is holding. And if this committee does support it, then I was gonna go the next step and talk to CFO and finance. But if this committee is not ready to sign on to this, I don't think it's worth.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, everything that I'm thinking of is from a time standpoint. You know, we're pressed for time. I gather that helping the literature understand that this may be postponed a day or two if necessary in order to have sufficient time to deal with it. I don't know that in fact. But nonetheless, if we want testimony from JFOs, I I think probably it would be wise to give them the heads up today so that they aren't pressed for trying to do something like this very fast.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: I think I cc Ted Barnett, but I will send that email to him now.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. I

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: was gonna say, if we don't have other things on the agenda.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: This is it last night, Tucker. I don't know if he ever it's ready to review. Once.

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: The senate calendar question. We we have your business s three two seven, which is the economic development committee. The reporter is.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah. We have just two separate bills for her, and I notified the secretary's office yesterday that she is out of town until Tuesday and requested that it be passed over.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: She did request, but I was gonna say it. One of them. She requested.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Of Well, she may have, but I I see the thing when I talked to a health care group. That's not what they're doing. That's why I'm saying. They had

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: No. Right. Okay. I said

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: aware of that until I spoke with Right.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So that's that's gonna be for a follow-up on Tuesday.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: Okay. So

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: we have nothing up on

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: the calendar today for our

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No. Not because that's quite all. Think you've not looking at today's and side dwelling 03:27, and those are the bill of hours that was there.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Think I missed that. So we're not doing 03:27 today?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No. We that's gonna be passed over to this other party. That 347 will be passed over Tuesday. I thought there was another bill on yesterday.

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: 328 is also showing on notice yesterday.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: And it's now

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: it's three it's now on three two eights on the notice calendar today. Right. And it was I I don't quite understand that because I saw it on notice calendar yesterday. Right? On 03/03/2027, so I don't know what they did to apply.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: That's not to try the best. And I I mean, I think our committee has an interest in s three two five, which will be up next week because it's, you know, if if it was me, I probably would have asked natural resources to to come talk to us about s three twenty five only because it modifies act one eighty one, which originally committee made last night. Isn't that

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the the bill? Is it three twenty five that Senator Watts would be your personal maintenance?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: No. Senator Watts will be here for amendment of s three twenty eight that you went to the committee about yesterday. Oh, yeah. I can talk about that if people forgot about that. Yeah. She'll be here on Wednesday for hopefully a potential committee vote on the amendment. Correct. So I'm happy to try and talk about both a little bit. Sure.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, if we have the time right now, we're waiting for a councilor

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to come back.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Okay, I didn't know if were stalling or what.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No, no, we're waiting, basically, had a thing in house appropriations as well, which we announced as he arrived here this morning that they were pressing him. So since we didn't have anybody from the committee to tell us the background of the bill, I invited a representative behind the ballet down here to give us that base of the understanding that him would do his best to get back here in about ten minutes, which is what he thought I would pay.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Okay. So I'll I'll talk quickly then. Okay. So the alright. Natural Resources did not ever possess three twenty eight, our housing bill, but they did wanna look at it for our agreed upon shared jurisdiction around municipal water sewer regulation. They they looked at our piece about the 2,000 feet on either side of the road for water for ensuring that quadplex can have the same access to water super hookup that any single family home would have received. They heard from ELCT and the municipalities kind of, again, what we heard from people like Chip Sawyer and others who came to us with options. I guess they didn't like that we chose the option of 2,000 feet from the road. So they talked a lot about different numbers of feet, but I think where they are landing is trying to harmonize trying to harmonize the number of feet from from a road with whatever the community is already allowing for in that area and strengthen the language on the nondiscriminatory piece that you can't prohibit that water sewer hookup that is on the road simply because you don't like the number of units or the project, simply because of the units of housing rather than the you know, that it is the housing budget.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Does that mean that they would look at taking whatever limit they have now and continue to use it, but if it got rezoned from single family to a quadriplex, that number would still remain the same?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, it's essentially saying that anywhere you have water at Seward, which is 41 square miles that we have it, you don't get to zone single family. You you right now, you don't get to zone single family anywhere because of the duplexing by right anywhere.

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

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: But we're now saying, which is what we said in the original comment.

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

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: A long water and sewer, you need to be able to allow quadruplexing by right because it's a precious resource that we only have in very few parts of the state. And then we we proceeded to have municipalities try to understand what we mean by that, have, you know, pre litigation conversations about what we mean by that. So this is our our next attempt to define what we mean by a long water and sewer. And so I don't know exactly where they've landed on all of the language, but they did not want to use a specific number of feet. They at first did. They tried to use a quarter mile because they looked at our housing extension and saw that we have a quarter mile around village centers. So they understood our effort to harmonize, but they're they're looking at another way of carbonizing. And I I mean, personally, I don't have qualms with that effort. We've just been trying to get this right and not have municipalities have expensive fights about what it means to say, you know, more density along water and super, where otherwise single family density would have been allowed.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: But by not defining it, do you have the potential of having program in 61 different fights?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yes. That's how I always feel. That's what I always worry But I guess the the response that one could give is that we would have that anyway. Yeah. Because we can say to them, we're expanding here what you've already debated to be the 500 foot, you know, allowance on this side. And we had some testimony that, you know, they got one side of the street that's a view shed Right. That they don't allow any housing. I still feel like that should be clear enough that if you're not allowing any housing on one side, we're not asking you to do quadplexing on that side of the road. Wherever you allow other types of housing, need to allow quadplex. But and by the way, I don't know if people saw the Washington Post article about Portland, Oregon today. I'll send it to you. Can you find that? Do you guys have, like, a, like, a Washington Post subscription access thing? Sort of, like, different Not that I know of, but I can find it to you if you need. I'll text you the title of the article.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah, you may not be able to find it because Washington Post is It's real lockdown. Newspapers that's protected.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: We thought we'd have, like, a question about Lexus and Lexus, like, and we might. We might

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: just not produce I used to subscribe to it, I get about 50% of the articles now.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, I'm just saying, like, if people, you know, people have balked at when we've talked about, you know, small housing projects and how they can really change things. Mhmm. People balk at Minneapolis because that's mostly apartments. That's, like, 15 to 20 units, and that doesn't fit most of our character. What what in state people balk at Houston or Austin because just not Houston or Austin. But Portland, Oregon, you know, great article on how they have lowered the cost of ownership of duplexes, triplexes, and quadplexes by building in backyards and, you know, really fitting it into the character of bungalow type neighborhoods, which Portland, Oregon is known for. So, you know, seemed like another great touchstone for people who have bought that Midwest or elsewhere, but another, you know, very liberal city that doesn't wanna change its scenic.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It's not on page one. We'll reference it on page one today.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: It's called Lots of Cities Need Affordable Housing. Portland Found the Secret to Building It. I found it online. Like, I don't I don't know.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Because I actually see it. What what section was it in? Know?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Looked like some kinda special interest type of thing.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Another thing I'd bring Senator Ram up to speed on from our discussion yesterday, planning on Tuesday for a tobacco amendment to come from this committee about reinstating one of the top laws, so basically still make it a consequence if somebody presents a big ID underage. So I think the chairs on an email thread with that too can seem supportive of it.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Right. That that that that's been updated. So s three '25, I think I I just recycled all of the summaries of it, but I, you know well, I think we're trying to work for one for the floor. But you may know anonymous phone out of senate natural resources should be up on Tuesday. Not sure, actually. And it extends all of the deadlines from act one eighty one. Mhmm. Some anywhere between two to four years. And it extends our housing exemptions for four years, which I was grateful for. It and then I think It's true.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: It was too tight. Right? It was When we passed. It was too tight. Yeah. It starts.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: And it's working. So that's exciting. And it it pushes out the road rule four years and gives a harder look at tier three. And let's it tries to give the LERB more flexibility over these next few years as they are in this iterative process with the RPCs and the municipalities. A much more flexible process to allow them to narrow any any of of any new act two fifty, you know, amendments or permits that they might need to deal with and to really narrow tier three period. That's the important part. But, you know, if tier we know tier one because it's water sewer, because it's big infrastructure, is about one to 2% of the state. They're looking at matching that in tier three, but really honing in on, very ecologically sensitive areas, places where building probably isn't a good idea anyway because of slope and ledge, etcetera, and reducing what tier three looks like on the map.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: One thing that I would like to see if can construct is some type of a measurement mechanism that shows in certain kinds of new construction by tier how long it takes from beginning to end. In other words, a timeline to know whether or not we're actually making progress or whether it's just as slow as it always was, but now more complicated. Right. Which is a concern to me.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yeah. That would I you know, I that's a good point, but I'm trying to think if we heard specifically kind of housing exempt projects that have benefited from the fifty and seventy five unit cap? I believe so. You know? I mean but I worry that it's not spread out as much in the state as we would like it to be. It's very, you know, right now it's still just very hard to get a multi unit project off the ground outside of Chittenden County.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, that's something that we should perhaps think a little bit about as this is going along, is that periodically bringing in people to testify about what's the permitting process like. Right. Is it faster or slower?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I thought it was really helpful when we talked to, I loved that guy. He was like the town manager of Fairleaf something. And he basically said, you know, the Land Use Review Board has not been here to my community. They they made you know, they didn't let us do tier one a or b in an area that has our water sewer infrastructure, essentially. So a lot of this really is natural resource. I've been trying to figure out from the lurb, where do you feel constrained by what we did such that you're having such disagreements with municipalities and regions about, you know, what they see on the ground as their potential for opportunity? And I bring up fairly because it's around where Jonah Richards is, who's someone we brought in almost annually to talk about like four to 10 unit developments in Orange County.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Well, I think it's the issue of doing more outreach for people who have experience with the regulatory bureaucracy that people at various stages of development. And it's sort of like throwing a net out of how hard or easy was it for you to build a house, set up a trailer, stable home, or to create a multi unit or multi

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I'd love development. I'd love to check-in with the I think it's the town manager in Fairhaven who spoke at the Chittenden Press Conference about I mean, I thought of that project as we've done every single bill. I said that at the press conferences, you know, that's a that is the perfect home ownership, 50 units, racetrack next to a very desirable neighborhood that they you know, everyone's hoping our three bills combined would help that site. I'd love to know how that's going.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I'd like to know is in various towns, people, businesses, organizations who have inquired about or restarted the process of building a house for development and then stopped. Yep. To talk to those people who are inclined. I think that's really important for people who have a letter or whatever. Right. Expressing interest but have not followed up. Why?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I think I think we should also talk to Kilden. I I don't know if we feel like we've heard enough from Devin Neri, your regional planning commissioner. Mhmm. But Rutland went first with the land use review board. And, you know, they now feel like they've learned a lot from that experience. But I wrote a letter to the land use review board in support of Killington getting 1A designation. It is its own center. So, you know, sometimes we're we're I mean, these things happen mostly when we're gone. Right? We're not here for construction season, and if they lose that season, they lose a year. So, you know, there are definitely things that have stopped.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That diving for size.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, I will say since we did when Act one eighty one, during the time we were doing Act one eighty one, the ski areas wanted to make sure there was some opportunity for them to be considered for that density designation because their goal is to try and build densely and build their own water sewer. So, you know, we we I think it's been two years since we've heard in committee for Killington about wanting to build 300 workforce housing units and, you know, take advantage of any programs on infrastructure that we could support them with and that they're investing

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: hundreds of So are

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: you discussing over the next five weeks that we hear with Killington, Devon Neri.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Fair Davis, Jonah Richards. I mean

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Yeah, exactly. We can. We're talking. Our time is is very free right now, this minute, this second. Yeah. But it's gonna get eaten up again by all the stuff that's gonna come in from elsewhere, plus the reviews of these combined bills. But this is something that we ought to do, and we ought to do now if we can do it. If not, there's some in-depth stuff that we should do to see how well, what we thought we did, actually how it back got done and where there are obstacles to if that that was something we should periodically do during the off season.

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

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: I mean,

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I think so my bill was, I think, s three zero five that went to

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: One second. Could you give a call to house appropriations and see how we're doing with representative so and so? Just emphasized to them that our committee had them scheduled today. We are waiting and blank for him to

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

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Appear to testify.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I'm teasing with the deputy assistant and with Cam right now. I just asked real time estimate. Read that to me because we

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Tell him we're

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: gonna hear his testimony without him, otherwise.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: S three zero five so every year, so I don't try to keep it in my head, I've tried to start drafting a bill of all the problems I've heard about people facing that stop their projects. And for better or worse, I think mostly for better, a lot of people in the state know you're the person to like cc as we deal with Mhmm. You know, our district manager in Act two fifty or our municipality or ANR. So I think I said this at the beginning of the session, ANR is still a big one. Well, yeah, mean, haven't really done is

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: big on experience as well. Yeah. That it's one of the largest roadblocks is the administrative capability of ANR to be able to deliver. And the question is, what's the this is, again, in terms of legislative inquiry, why? To bring people in who can report on the issues that are affecting them, slowing down their projects, place, and to find out why is it happening. Is it bureaucracy? Is it a lack of staff? Is it what is it?

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Well, I'll go back to that visually. We always highlight, which I would love to spend more time on this evening, is permanent layers and layers of permitting across multiple agencies in the municipal state.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Every single one has an appeal? Mhmm.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: That's a problem. And the appeals that I was more optimistic going into the session that we're gonna take our own. It seems that what came from that report was nothing that I would support, so I don't know whether that appeals discussions like that.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Maybe we can add another exemption because those are the only things that can't be appealed to right now for activity. Sure. We can, I mean, you know, we, for folks who weren't here, we were looking at many, many things? And then we said, we need really strong exemptions right now while everybody argues about it. We could we could look to see if there's another interim exemption that we need to, you know, put in more rural places. I mean, what real I really struggled with was we had a big fight about ten five five. In places like tier two where we're supposedly leaving the status quo, I think that pushes developers to look for opportunities for bigger homes, bigger single family homes. Ten five five says you can only build you could you could you could build under 10 units within five years, within five square miles. That sprawled me. I've never understood what that does to help us. And Jonah Richards was one of the people who really pushed back on that because he wants to be a small town. Like, everything on HGTV is like, let's fix up all these, you know,

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: small is arbitrary. It's independent of how large per parcel.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I can show you around

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Jersey Street. In October, there are 10 houses on almost, I want to say, 15 acres. Exactly. That's quite terrible development.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Simply create a different corporate entity in order to circumvent that very easily, I would think.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I mean, well, you know how hard it is to do anything and not get appealed back to your 50s. They've often, I mean, we know that usually what happens is you just see a nine unit project that they have to get their margin somewhere instead of doing a 25 unit project that's more affordable for people.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Yeah, looks good to landscape.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yeah. Let's do it too. I can tell you a whole list of big stuff people right now that are, I think are eminently solvable or we should experiment with what solutions.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I would think with the army for profit and non profit organizations that are dealing with housing, they should have heard some of this.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I could tell there's They

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: were putting out a list, if you will, not necessarily organized, of people certainly who went and pointed out the issues that are delaying their ability to

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I did give the chair a list of developers who are trying to do four unit project. I mean, they're trying to just use the quad flex Mhmm. Thing so that, you know, it's like, they just wanna build exactly what Portland is doing. A couple units in someone's backyard in Montpelier. And I don't miss Bill Fraser, you know, the former city manager here in Montpelier because he all of our team of our VLC team members are saying, we need something that lets projects under 15 units happen more easily. That's how we're going to get housing here. That's how we're gonna get housing. So I could I could absolutely make a list, you know, of a lot of the developers who'd love to talk to us about this exactly what stuff is. So, You know, we should talk to our environment court judges. I mean, there was a whole effort to move all of the appeals away from the environmental court after they we just asked them to hire a new environmental court person to make that go faster. Mhmm. And my conversation with them was just trying to say, how do we decide that something doesn't even need to be heard as an appeal? You know? Like, why do they get standing to appeal when we've said that's a by right use. So I try to dig into all of this stuff in my non existent free time, but would be bluff to have those conversations in here. Cam is headed this way now. Okay, good. If someone gave me a couple days off housing.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I have the impression before

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: we joined this committee that's what you did spend a lot of time on previous year. Is that correct?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So those are conversations I've spent enough time. We spent enough time to solve the ANR problem. And some of that problem has got to go to the issue of going and screaming because the answers that we're getting have not been accompanying me at all in terms of responsiveness.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I think some of the conversations with leaders within ANR are going a lot better. I think we have to do that jointly with ANR, with, sorry, natural resources. I wanted to get up and actually celebrate the whole wastewater, you know, transfer of authority to municipalities. We've been trying to solve that for several years. Yep. But the the wastewater division in ANR is highly functional. They are getting permits out in a month, and they are now saying, you know what? It it doesn't make sense for us to require a $1,500 engineering design for someone to like, duplex their house. So they are looking at ways to give that municipalities as a, more of a technical permit that's topped the $100. So It

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: wouldn't be great to buy it, you know, that it's done in a timely fashion. And the issue that I hear about ANR and committees, much as anything else, is just responsiveness.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So wastewater is the, I mean, they can almost tell you they get almost everything done in less than a month, and they are very responsive to people.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: The rest of ANR

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Wetlands, which if we want to bring in the wetlands team, mean, that's where they say to people, well, you just need a new wetland delineation. Okay. That's $20,000 Why don't why does an ANR have a wetland delineation, and how does a wetland all of a sudden get created somewhere?

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: It on wetlands, if I just made it right. The city of South Burlington that I love has enacted a 100 foot buffer on wetlands, which is arbitrary and not based science. You go half a mile to Shelburne, and it's what the state has, just 25 or 15 foot.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: It's 50 foot, and we want it to be.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: I would argue that South Burlington is inappropriate. I think wetlands loss has suppressed growth in one of the most wealthy areas of the city of Kansas State, and that's where I think just think we need to think most of commodities regulatory enablers and the local government. That came up previous year though.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I think it's a good discussion. You pointed out a number of things that we need to do, and perhaps we should write down some of those things that we need to do and figure out how to get the time other than dealing with specific pieces of legislation. Some of these areas are all just sort of tangentially. But we don't really have a process to look

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: at the underlying core problem

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: and to say, How do we fix that? If nobody presents us with a piece of legislation that doesn't.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I've just been asking ANR to come in here and tell us what they are doing.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: How slow are they? What is the effects that are slowing down those processes and what can speed the model?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: All right, now.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: As we move to the chair gets back, there's one of the things that we should raise and we should have one or more sessions or days focused on improving the above and processes. What's taking so long to get things done and identifying and then looking Yeah, at action

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: and I actually, I had a conversation with the chair resources with ANR for out of session about could they tell us where they are low on staffing and what that's due. Could we actually start talking about fees again? Because we hear from people all the time they would pay for speed. You know, they I mean, like, not

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: because they are projected line.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Their pay bars are slow. Exactly. So, you know, there's like, they would pay a fee that guaranteed them a reasonable concrete answer in less than three months.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Let's go back to this issue where we had the time to do it or maybe trying to do it, we now have Legis Council Cameron Wood, with us today who's gonna explain everything about the bill that we heard about from President Obama.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Good morning. Cameron Wood, Office of Legislative Council. I will start with apology for the runaround since the time of the I'm in. I have to go into house approves for a vote. For, age seven seventy two. We started the what was the committee vote as it came out of house? As it came out of house general? Yes. I believe there were three against. And I believe it's a committee of 11, so I believe it was eight three. I don't think there were any individuals not present, so I believe it was eight three.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: To that point, it's on the floor now with an expected judiciary event. No. It's not Oh,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it's just not on the floor yet. My apologies, sir.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Go ahead. So it's without a committee. It's so

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: so the first caveat is it is sitting in appropriations. Okay. So it's not even on the board, and you have the report of the general housing committee, which I have in front of me, and I'll use it kind of a little bit of a guide to start walking through this issue. I'm not even sure. Dash what? Four point four point one. Yes, sir. Not even sure we'll get through all of this, you know, this morning. It went from house general to appropriations directly, and appropriations has not voted the bill out at this point. They would need to do so by today. The house judiciary committee has continued to work on certain aspects of the bill, and the chair of that committee has an amendment that they are now on five point no. The last version that I won't contact with any of

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: this is 4.1.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So they have been going through multiple different iterations of certain aspects of the bill that would change the ejectment process. And so I can kind of if we get to there, I'll kind of speak to that a little But just understand that as you all know, I think appropriations anticipates voting it out today, given all the work that's gone into it, but they did not, then the bill would not have made crossover. Okay. So before I, you know, kinda jump into the language here, I I was going to spend the first bit of time just walking through the residential rental agreement chapter, but given the where we're at with time, I might save that for when we potentially come back. That way, we can at least just jump right into to the language, and you can start to see what some of the changes are. But I will just, at the outset, for those who may not be familiar, just gonna understand the global process that we're talking about here. Individual enters into a rental agreement with a landlord to rent a dwelling unit. And that's process, the the process of entering into the agreement, what the agreement can and cannot include, what are the obligations of the tenant, what are the obligations of the landlord, how do you terminate that agreement, what are the rights and the remedies of the parties to the agreements, all of that is governed by chapter one thirty seven in title nine, which is about residential rental agreements. The first thing that happens when you're talking about, you know, unfortunately, we're having to address the unfortunate circumstance where the agreement is being terminated because of some reason, the first thing you have to look at is the residential rental agreement chapter related to termination of a rental agreement. And depending on the reason that the landlord is terminating the rental agreement and depending on how long a person has lived at that location will depend on what notice the landlord has to provide to the tenant. You have to provide a certain time frame to say the rental agreement will expire or terminate on this date in the future, and you have to provide a certain number of dates. So their first half of this bill is dealing with that aspect of the landlord tenant relationship. Separate from that, if the landlord has terminated the rental agreements and the individual tenant remains in the location after the date where the agreement has been terminated, the landlord then has to bring an objectment action against the person to essentially have them evicted from the property. The statute doesn't use the term eviction. It uses the term ejectment. But just understand that there are two separate processes that we're going to be dealing with as you all move this bill forward if you so choose, and you're hearing from the stakeholders and you're figuring out which aspects of the bill you potentially want to amend, it gets here. There's the first part where you terminate the agreement, and then second from there, you then have to the landlord would then have to bring the ejectment action to actually have the individual removed from the property if the individual stays after the termination of the area.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So we were very careful

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: with that terminology. Is there an ejectment process and an eviction process that would be known? Why do we need to call it ejectment when I just know

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it as eviction? The statute calls it ejectment. Okay. I I don't know don't know why that word versus eviction, but that was one thing I just wanted to, as I talk about it, if I talk about it and ejectment, that's what we're referring to.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Is it defined specifically in the same way?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It it's not defined. Like, the word ejectment isn't defined, but just the the sections, and and when we get to it, you'll see, like, the process of you have to go into court. You have to file the complaint, the answer. If you if the landlord ultimately wins and there's different motions that could be filed depending on the circumstances. If the landlord ultimately gets a judgment that they are entitled to lawful possession of the property, they would get a writ of possession, and then the sheriff would have to serve that writ of possession onto the tenant, the dependent, and then within a certain period of time, they let the defendant know, you have this amount of days, and then I, as the sheriff, will be back, and if you are still here at that point, the locks will be changed. You will be physically removed. So just the ejectment process is really the eviction of how that happens. And then at the very end of the bill, there is the credit reporting pilot program with the office of the state treasurer. You all may remember you all did a lot of work on that last year, and the current version of that is as it was last with you all. But, you know, I'll be happy to kind of walk through and and reorient when we get there. But given most of the attention is on the the landlord aspects of this bill, I think some people may forget that that's in there, but it is. And so we can we can talk about that when we get there. But okay. Okay. For starters, Kiera, I just sent a request to share if you don't mind. There we go. Okay. So again, this is the bill as it came out of the as it's recommended to be amended by the general on housing committee. First, we're dealing with residential rental agreements. This first piece here is actually really critical. It's a definition of actual notice, and it kind of is very key when you're teeing up what happens when a rental agreement is terminated. The landlord has to provide actual notice of the termination to the tenant. An actual notice, there are lines 14, means receipt of written notice. So two key things there. It has to be in writing, but it cannot be verbal, and the individual has to have received it. And currently, there's only two ways that a landlord can provide actual notice. It's by hand delivering it to the individual or mailing it to the last known address. So you can see there are lines 15 or line 17. And this proposal would add a few other methods of providing service. So it could be delivered by sheriff, mailed to the last known address, or the address provided in the residential rental agreements. It could be emailed to the email address included and mailed as described in sub three. So if you're gonna email it, you also have to mail it. Then when you get to the top of page two, if the last address is unknown, it could be posted on the door as well. That's right. Only be posted if you don't have that address. So then the sub b here is a when you when you think about, as I mentioned, from the one a, actual notice means receipt. So when the landlord ultimately goes in and brings an object in action against someone later way down the lines, the landlord's gonna have to demonstrate that they provided the tenant with actual notice and the tenant receives the termination letter. So that's, you know, a key piece. You get all the way to the court case, and the defendant tenant could say, I never received the termination notice. And so the landlord's gonna have

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to prove that. Comes to mind is I look at mail to the last known address or the address provided in residential rental agreement. Particularly in the residential rental agreement, the person is moving to that address, that's the address that's going be on it. They're doing from their address because

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: they are going

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: to move to this new apartment that they rented two weeks from now. It's the address that they left. We think that presumably it's going to be the address that's on there, and

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that would be very worthwhile either. Potentially. This a question that I would advise you to pose to some of the practitioners. I imagine you'll hear from some of the witnesses that intensified throughout all committees that I watched in all the judiciary and general have heard from landlord parties and entities and individuals that represent tenants. A question for them. I know you can imagine circumstances where, for example, some individuals may decide to use a PO box seat as opposed to a physical address, and so this would cover under those circumstances. But yes, sir, mister chair, you're right. I mean, presumably, the last address you're giving somebody before you take over that address is somewhere where you may not be, but there are some hypotheticals conceivably where it would make sense. Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So So they're renting something that's residential. Presumably they're living there on

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: purpose, but not necessarily. And then about another one could be, know, if you have a guarantor, for example, and the guarantor may be at a different address. So then you get to the B. And this is key because, as I mentioned a second ago, the landlord's going to have to demonstrate that the individual actually received the notice. And for how do you prove that someone receives a notice if you mail it to them? And so the sub b here, and and part of this is an existing law, there is a rebuttable presumption the notice was received. Currently, it's three days after it's mailed if you mail it first class or certified mail. So the landlord gets to go into court and say, there's a presumption. I mailed it to you first class mail. Here's the documentation of where I mailed it to first class. You received it three days after that, and then the tenant defendant would have to demonstrate would have to rebut that presumption and demonstrate that they just received it that way. So what this is doing is, a, it's adding a few revocable presumptions in here. So the date the email was sent, if it's sent via electronic means, and the date the notice was posted to the door are being added into this rebuttable presumption, and then it's extending a rebuttable presumption out five days. There was some concern in the house general and housing committee about the current delays with US postage mailing, and so they felt extending it from three to five was appropriate. Okay. So moving on, there is a definition here of immediate family that's gonna come up later on and be relevant. I'm not gonna spend a bunch of time on it right now because I'll reference back to it when we get to where it is relevant. I'll just comment, it's an expansive definition. I mean, any person related by blood is your immediate family, that's, you know, it's gonna cover every circumstance, but it also includes adoption, civil marriage, civil union, you know, all the things listed here. I got thirty six first cousins. I'm related to half the state, so that's pretty proud. So it's good, again, yes sir, it's gonna be relevant, but I would also highlight something for you that I feel like it's also somewhat, it has become unnecessary and moot based on an amendment from the general housing committee that I raised to them and they didn't feel it necessary to change. So I'm gonna flag an issue for you when we get there later. Okay. Now, next section. Tenant obligations to pay rent. This is a key thing on sub a. It's not new language. It's current statute language, but it's gonna be relevant because we get to later when we talk about terminations because of nonpayment of rents, and there's some changes regarding late payment of rent and repeated late payment of rent. And and so this question, you know, kind of somewhat comes up frequently when we we discuss the changes that are being made throughout. Rent is payable without demand. So when the parties agree that this is the rent and this is the day it's due, the landlord is not required to come to you and say, remind you that rent's due or remind you that rent is late, except it's payable on demand without notice when it's agreed to by the parties. What is being added here in the subsection c is a landlord shall not increase rent more than once in any twelve month period. Currently, there's no limitation on that. So once within a twelve month period, that does not apply when a landlord purchases the dwelling unit. So if I'm the landlord and I raise the rent Okay. In January, and then, senator Chittenden, I sell it to you in March, and you become the owner of the property and the landlord in April. Yep. You can then raise the rent again. That twelve month period would prohibit you from doing it. But then from that point on, you wouldn't be able to raise it for another business. Okay, mister chair.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Mister chair.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: So I don't even if these things are only like real estate investment trust, they're not changing hands that that regularly to be concerned with the ability to gain the system and be able to jack rents up by changing ownership. There's transparency. So

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The the committee did not discuss that to my knowledge. That wasn't a concern that I was aware of sitting in the chair when I was there, but the concern that they were trying to address was if you have it, then you can't raise it in a twelve month period. There was concern that individuals may not invest, they may not buy property if they're then prohibited from being able to raise the rent. So I'm the landlord, I purchased the property, I now have, you know, the obligations of the mortgage on the property, etcetera. And if the rents that are currently in existence, aren't sufficient to cover the cost of my investment, then it's deterring my investment. That was what the committee was trying to address. Go ahead, Switch. Was there any conversation in the committee about whether utilities were included in the lease and the cost associated with utilities being so volatile, especially in the circumstances that we're today? There were I don't remember there being any discussions specifically about inclusion of utilities, kind of about that piece in particular. There was discussion, and at at one point, the there were rent caps in place in the version in different iterations of the version as the committee was working through. And there was some discussion about if someone purchases the building, they would only be able to raise the rent. It was, like, CPI plus a certain amount, and then there was discussion about whether to change that to allow for them to raise the rent to cover costs and presumably costs, including things like the mortgage and utilities that they're paying for them, etcetera. There never was, at at least when I was in the chair, there was never an in-depth discussion about, if the rent includes things like the cost of utilities, does this somehow preclude them if utilities are skyrocketing and then they've raised rent and now they can't raise rent again? I don't remember that being a discussion. So if I could kind of twist the question around the other way.

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Is there anything in this language which would inhibit a landlord who is including utilities within the lease, inhibit them from raising the rent based on very volatile interests?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think it would. I'm pulling up the statutory chapter because I just want to make sure I don't recall there being a definition of rent to that level. I just want to make sure I'm not missing something. So, rent is all consideration to be paid to or for the benefit of the landlord under the rental agreement, which doesn't include the security deposit. So as I would read that, if you are including certain utilities within the rent of house, then you would not be able to raise the rent. Right? Like, you raised the rent in January, and, you know, unfortunately Somebody invades Iran. Thank you for bringing it up. I didn't have to. And energy prices skyrocket and you've included Eid within the rent, I would argue you wouldn't be able to then subsequently raise it again to cover the cost for that. Trying to figure out a powerful way of expressing hypotheticals. Thank you. Okay. Now we get to residential rental applications. Currently under statute, the landlord is prohibited from charging an application fee. You can see this on the sub a here. Landlord shall not charge an application fee in order to enter into a rental agreement for the residential dwelling units. That's not defined. And so there was testimony about, well, some landlords charge application fees. They they maybe they know the statute predicted, maybe they don't, but there are some that do charge the fee. You have to pay $50 processing fee to submit the application. I'm making that number up. I'm just giving you the examples. And then there's the question about things like credit check and background check. Is that considered part of the application fee if you have to do if you have to pay for it at the point of application? Well, what if you pay for it at a later point when the landlord is further, you know, kind of narrowing down the list of applicants they wanna move forward? And so the language here was intended to clean up part of that. So you have the sub two, which is giving the application via definition, any fee, charge, or cost to submit the application, including a processing payment. But then the sub three is saying the landlord may charge actual cost to conduct a background or a credit check unless the tenant or the applicant provides a current credit report as part of the application, in which case the landlord shall not charge for a credit check. For purposes of the subdivision, a current credit report means a report dated within ninety days prior to the date of the application. So trying to put out do

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: mean that the landlord or the tenant can come along with a piece of paper from the Georgia credit reporting agency?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's not further defined. I would say that See that is a real problem. I would say that as long as it is, you know, and and I'll say it's not a problem.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: This is an opportunity.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So a few things in this section just to keep in mind, landlord or landlord's agent may charge. It has to be for actual cost, so they wouldn't be able to charge, you know, something above that. And then if the landlord does charge, they have to provide a copy back to the individual, that's there in the sub four. If charging for the background of the credit check, the landlord shall provide a copy of it back to the individual. And then another key piece here on page four to be aware of is this new subsection c. A person who violates this section commits an unfair practice in commerce in violation of three four five three of this title. So that is giving the attorney general's office and state's attorneys the authority to investigate a violation as a fair act of commerce, and all the authority and penalties that potentially go along with that, which could include the attorney general ultimately enforcing penalties. Typically in a circumstance like this, the AG is probably gonna go for some sort of cease agreement with the landlord, but ultimately it could result in penalties. The individual could also bring a private right of action under the Consumer Protection Act. Is it also then envisioned that this would protect the the land, the landlord from some practice of falsifying credit report or background check? Is that, is it kind of a two edged sword or is it? I believe so. Let me double check on that, but yes, sir. I think you're saying in the example that, you know, we're kind of alluding to if somebody's giving fake background checks and the landlord rents to them and ultimately some, you know, significant you know, the the tenant stops paying where if the person had provided a legitimate credit check, maybe they would have been excluded from the the rental. Could the landlord super damages? Potentially, of course of course, keep in mind if the individual's not paying or the individual damages the unit, the landlord's probably going after for damages and back payment on rent anyway as part of the ejectment but yes, I I do think conceptually that would be a two way street. Let me double check.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Okay. I don't think it's practical. Be it's more than why we were to go after. That's that's a good question. Okay.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Section four four six one governs security deposits. Currently, there's no cap on security deposits. There is a lot of information in the section about when the landlord has to provide a security deposit back, what can the landlord deduct from a security deposit. The landlord has to provide a written, you know, summary to the tenant about what is being deducted from the security deposit. So what this section will do is, first off, it will put a cap there in the a two starting at lines 15. Landlords shall not charge for or receive a security deposit exceeding an amount equal to two months of rent in addition to any rent for the first month paid. So when you think about it, that means first, last security deposit. Understanding from a lot of the testimony, that seems to be pretty typical. Individual would not be able to charge above that. And so you're getting the first month, the first month you're living there, two months above that, that would be the capital. However, sub three, the landlord may charge a separate security deposit in addition to the amount authorized in sub two as a condition for allowing the tenant to have a pet or pets during the rental period, Pet deposit excluded, not covered in the cap. There's some language there that a landlord shall not charge any amount under the subdivision for any animal that mitigates the disability. You could argue that that's already covered in the federal law, but just clarifying it in state law. So now we're moving on to sub three. So this is where landlord has to return a security deposit within fourteen days. And then what the sub two here is, later on, when we start talking about termination, there is certain periods, as I mentioned, notice that the landlord has to provide to the tenant. And what this section is saying here is if the landlord is terminating the tenancy under subsection four thousand four and sixty seven or E, and the best way for me to describe this is if it's essentially a no cause termination, it's not a termination because of nonpayment of rent, it's not a termination because the tenant isn't complying with some sort of terms of the agreement or the tenant is becoming violent or something like that, it is the landlord saying, I no longer want to extend the lease agreement with you or, you know, I'm wanting to terminate the agreement because there isn't a written agreement. You're in month to month, and I'm gonna terminate it for no cause. I don't need a reason. I'm just giving you notice. If the landlord is terminating for one of those circumstances, not at the fault of the tenant, the landlord has shall return half of the security deposit subject to any authorized deductions, along with the statement itemizing the deductions that's already required by the statute, the landlord has to return half of the security deposit not later than forty five days before the date of termination notice. So later on in the section, it's extending the termination for no cause to ninety days. And halfway between that at forty five days left before the termination of the rental agreement, the landlord has to provide the individual with half of their security deposit. You

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: said extending to ninety for what?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: May I hold that? Sure. Get there when we get there. Okay. Because it's

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Essentially, it gives it gives the landlords ninety days if personnel

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They have to give ninety days notice.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: No notice.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, sir. And then halfway between forty five days, they have to give the individual half their. After they leave. Before they leave. Before they leave. Yes. So proceed. The the way it was discussed was the notice period for all no cause evictions is being extended to the the furthest amount under current statute up to ninety days. It's being all extended out to ninety days. And there was discussion about the barriers to getting a new rental agreement when you have to pay first month, last month security deposit. You have to come over three months. If you're having to move and current law says that the landlord doesn't have to return the security deposit until fourteen days after you leave, and so there was discussion about the hardship for individuals in that circumstance, and so the chair proposed what he felt was a compromise of, okay, then if somebody is under that circumstance, give them half their security deposit back so they can at least have that to help help facilitate getting into an. So I think it was I think that piece was received, you know, favorably by most of the committee of my recollection. Okay. The sub e here is just adding in this this new pet deposit piece, and this piece regarding the, the pay if if the landlord doesn't pay you half your security deposit forty five days before the termination notice, then the landlord forfeits the right

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: to withhold anything from it. That's a stupid question. I just to clarify, if the landlord commits to this project giving ninety days, the the person still has to pay, right, for those ninety days? Yes, sir.

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

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Then you're still giving back half of the money, would they just take it off of rent?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They could. They could. But keep in mind, you as the landlord, you you have the security deposit that you're holding, and then you're still expecting the person to pay rent. So that security deposit that you're holding, you have to give back. If you wanted to say to somebody, instead of me giving you half your security deposit, I will give you, you know, the second to last month's rent free because you've already paid for last month as part of the street or something like that or anything

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: not really good legal practice. I mean, we generally tend to require that security deposits remain in a separate account and, you know, are not mixed with Yes. Rent payments whatsoever.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I agree with you. Yes, ma'am. Because of the way the statutory section is written, you know, again, the landlord is supposed to give the security deposit back within a time frame and document what is being withheld from it. So I would 100% agree with the senator. It is probably not a good practice to do it that way, but conceivably, if the parties wanted to come to some sort of agreement on that, there's nothing statute their ability to do doing so.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I mean, deposits touch or touch down in, like, the uniform commercial code and things like that. So I just feel like I'm really glad it's been a long time since we talked about landlord tenant law. But in past years, we've spent a lot of time on security deposits as a transaction. That was my first bill that passed actually was editing the uniform commercial code, which we almost never do to allow a tenant to get more of their security deposit back while they're still arguing for a portion that was withheld. But I think it would be really helpful if we all got on the same page about security deposit law. And I frankly don't think this piece involves anyone left who remembers long debates on security deposit law. And it concerns me greatly because it's a totally separate transaction and very much legally guided. We should we should be reminding ourselves about the existing laws about the notice you have to give, the the separate account, the accounting for security like, this is

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: I know we're just wanting to do the bill, but if I may so, yeah, it seems to if you're initiating an eviction I'm not a landlord. I don't but I would expect that you'd have issues with that that tenant as a likely to to give them their security deposit back while you're trying to get the vaccine list.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So so so keep in mind that the the statutory section there states that it's only under a termination under d or e, which is the the the so called no cause eviction. So you're not doing it for nonpayment of rents. You're not terminating for some sort of breach of the rental agreement on behalf of on on the tenant. So I'm not saying that there wouldn't be any potential potential friction between the landlord and the tenant because sometimes the landlord will bring a termination under multiple different reasons because they are trying to cover all bases. So you could be bringing a termination under a nonpayment of rent and bringing a termination under DRE.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: I still do that end. I have talked with South Burlington City Council. We're looking at rental registry, and landlords came and talked to me, they said we need to be able to evict somebody when they when their neighbors don't feel comfortable, don't want to put in writing why they don't feel comfortable because of behavior. So it still strikes me as even with a no cause as its issues, there's reasons to inject somebody without having formal documentation as to why, and it seems odd to give back half of the security deposit during that process. I'll finish that.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Happy to talk about this further, but if I pick up, I'll make a note that we have discussion on this. Okay. Sub six. Next section, retaliatory conduct prohibited. So this section prohibits a landlord from taking certain action Yes, sir. Or retaliating against a tenant based on action that the tenant has taken, I should state it that way. So as you can see in a sub a, if a tenant has complained to a government agency about some sort of habitability issue, has complained to the landlord of a violation of the chapter, has organized the tenants union, etcetera, The landlord can retaliate against the individual by either threatening to remove them or, you know, raising rent or etcetera. And the sub four there on line 14 is adding into that that the tenant has taken any legal action authorized by law against the landlord. There was some concern among the committee about landlord harassment or, you know, the landlord being the one engaging in some sort of violent activity or behavior, and if the tenant wanted to take some sort of, you know, restraining order or some sort of action against the landlord in that case, adding it into the provisions here that prohibit the landlord from retaliating against the person for doing something. Page seven. Okay. Here's where we get into the termination periods. So I'm gonna pause here because I had a chart that I may tweak and bring to you all to help as this as you you guide through this. But I had a chart that showed all of different bills that were in house government or excuse me, house general and housing about the difference between the termination periods because they were looking at, like, five different bills that had been introduced addressing termination notice at some point. Currently, the termination notice period is dependent on the reason for termination. So if the landlord is terminating the rental agreement for nonpayment of rent, the notice period is fourteen days. So the landlord has to provide fourteen days notice after the date of actual notice. And if you remember the definition of actual notice, it is hand delivered or it's mailed, and there's a rebuttable presumption that the person received it three days after it's mailed. So if you're the landlord, you have to calculate all of that out. I'm gonna mail it today by first class mail. I can only presume that you received it three days after that. So I have to count three days. One, two, three. I have to give you fourteen days notice from the date you received the actual notice. So now I need to count fourteen more days from there. That's the date that the rental agreement terminates. So it's fourteen days for non and just don't worry about the underlying language. I'm just gonna run through the sections real quick. Fourteen days for termination for nonpayment of rent. Permanent. For termination of the breach of a rental agreement. So if the tenant is failing to comply with material terms of the rental agreement or with the tenant's obligations imposed by the chapter, it is fourteen days. Nope. Excuse me. It's thirty days. My apologies. Under b two, when termination is based on criminal activity, illegal drug activity, acts of violence, etcetera, it's fourteen days. So it's fourteen for nonpayment of rent, fourteen for any sort of criminal or violent activity, thirty days for failing to comply with material terms of the rental agreement. Well, what does that mean? Well, that could be things like it's a one bedroom apartment, and your lease states that you can't allow anyone else to live there. I find out you have somebody else living there. I would argue that's a breach of material terms of rental agreement. That's the term they can get there. The lease agreement says you can't smoke in the unit, and I find out they just smoke. Breach of material terms, thirty days. So fourteen, fourteen, thirty. But then later on we get into what about no cause evictions, and that's what the statutory language currently uses is no cause eviction. Then it depends on, do you have a written agreement, or do you not have a written agreement? That's the first question. The second question is, have you lived there for less than two years, or have you lived there for more than two years? If you have a written agreement, then you've been there for less than two years. You have to provide thirty days notice before the end of the written agreement. So you have a twelve month lease. I'm not going to continue the written rental agreement after the end of the twelve months. I have to provide you notice thirty days before the expiration of the agreement. If you've been there for two years or longer, it's sixty days before the end of the written agreement. Right? What about if you don't have a written agreement? So you come in. Your first year, the landlord gives you a lease, and you sign it, and it's twelve months. And then everybody forgets to renew. You keep living there, But nobody gave you a new written document. So you're just and, you know, kind of think about it as the month to month. Current law, under that case, if you've been there for less than two years, it's sixty days. Different than if it's in Riley. Right? If you've been there for two years or greater, it's ninety days. So my point is you have all of these different notice period depending on the circumstance. Violent activity, nonpayment of rent, fourteen days. Breach and material terms, thirty days. For no cause, do you have a written rental agreement, termination reasons that are because the tenant is doing something wrong. So think about nonpayment of rent, breach of the material terms, violent activity. For those termination periods, this proposal shortens the notice period. For all of the other notice periods, so for the quote no cause terminations, it makes them all consistent and extends them to ninety days. So instead of having this different period, whether you have a written agreement or not a written agreement, instead of having a different period if you've been there for less than two years or more than two years, it makes all of them ninety days. So now to walk through the sections themselves, we have the subdivision A, which is about termination for nonpayment of rent. There on line seven, you can see that the proposal is for to reduce it from fourteen days to ten days. The next change there are lines ten, eleven, and 12. I'm gonna come back to in just a second. We move on to sub b. Sub b, there are two parts to sub b, b one and b two. But the the concept of the b is termination because there's some sort of breach. The tenant has breached the rental agreement in some capacity. B one, current law, landlord can terminate for failure to comply with the material terms of the rent rental agreement or with obligations imposed. Those are the examples I just gave you a second ago of the smoking of the Internet, allowing somebody else to live there, etcetera. The proposal here adds a few more reasons to terminate under a b one termination. Tenants late payment of rent more than three times in a twelve month period. Why does that matter? When you go back to the subdivision A, if somebody doesn't pay rent and you terminate the rent and rental agreement because they haven't paid rent and they turn around and pay you rent, the agreement doesn't terminate. But this language on lines eight forward says, the written rental agreement shall not terminate if the tenant pays or tenders rent to the end of the rental period in which payment is made. So the concern was you can't evict someone for repeated late payment of rent. You remember earlier when I said that rent is due without demand? So the concern that was raised is I, landlord, have to chase this tenant every month because they don't pay rent. Could be the last day of the rental period. I've already provided them a termination notice and they pay rent. It fixes the termination notice, and the next month, I have to chase them again and again and again. That was the issue that the committee was discussing what and how to address. So this sub a adds some language here to say that the written rental agreement doesn't terminate, that the tenant pays rent due to the end of the rental period provided that a landlord can terminate under b one for repeatedly payment of rent. So B one says that if an individual is late more than three times in the twelve month period, you can move forward with the termination under the breach of written rent payment terms. Late payment is defined as ten days or more after the due date of the rent. Top of page eight, adding in that the landlord can terminate for refuting to allow the landlord or the landlord agent access to the dwelling unit. There's a specific section that states when a landlord can access a dwelling unit and that the tenant cannot unreasonably withhold that access. There was some testimony amongst, you know, providers that that can become problematic and become an issue in certain circumstance. So this specifically authorizes the landlord to terminate a written rental agreement when a tenant is refusing to allow access. Under those circumstances, the committee is proposing to reduce that from thirty days to twenty one days. Now we get to B2, which is the violent activity or damage. So as you can see right now, it's termination based on criminal activity, illegal drug activity, or acts of violence, any of which threaten the health or safety of other residents. There's some slight tweaking here. Removing criminal activity or illegal drug activity and just going with termination is based on an acts of violence, damage to the dwelling unit, or other activity, any of which threatens the health or safety of other residents. So I don't interpret that to say that now people can do criminal activity or illegal drug activity. I read it to say that if they're doing any activity, whether

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: it's criminal or illegal or not,

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: if the activity is threatening the health or safety of other residents, the landlord or the landlord's agent or neighbors, then the landlord may terminate under that circumstance. And the committee is proposing to reduce that from fourteen days to five days. There's been a lot of discussion about this provision in particular as this bill is moving through judiciary and it was in general at the end. Now, it's moving through judiciary and there's been some comment and discussion about it doesn't specify that the acts of violence or damage have to be the tenant. It could be the tenant's invitee. It could be their guest. But then there's been concern about that possibly also including some sort of domestic violence type of circumstance where the individual tenant may be hostage to someone else, or it may be another tenant who is being violent towards that individual and is the tenant then potentially subject to a termination and a dejectment based on violent activity of somebody else? I would argue the reading of this section is yes. So there's just a policy question of whether that's something that the body wants to address. So I'm just flagging it for you now as you're thinking about the bill moving forward. That's something that has continued to come up.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: This is two a you're referring to? Yes, Yes.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Two b is being added to say that actual notice required under this subsection shall be accompanied by an affidavit saying, for a particular fact, the basis thereof in support of the termination with sufficient details to inform the tenant of the reasoning behind the termination. Landlord needs to give you facts as to why they're terminating you under b two a because they're claiming that activity that you're doing is threatening other people. Can you characterize the affidavit versus is easier?

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Is that very Yes, sir. From a legal perspective, what's what's that process? Like, how long is that taking? Is it expensive?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Give us some value. So that was some discussion from the court. Judge Zone pointed out, is there going to be an issue if a landlord provides an affidavit and ultimately moves to an object then? And what if the court feels like the affidavit isn't setting forth particular facts with sufficient detail? Is that somehow gonna be problematic? I would say that that's gonna be on a case by case basis. This isn't a legal document. You know, you don't necessarily have to go to an attorney to give an affidavit. You know, we can take that word out if that would help, you know, clarify. The two a termination can be based on one instance. One, it ends. It could be if, you know, some of the scenarios that were discussed, you know, were situations where a tenant becomes violent and, you know, physically threatens people, threatens to kill them or pulls out a knife on them, something to that effect. That one instance, you know, you write up a document, you know, articulating the circumstance that occurred, I would argue that would be sufficient.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Okay. So a concern I will raise as as this discussion goes forward in those circumstances, what I remember a couple of landlords said, maybe the neighbor of this problematic tenant is the one who feels threatened and they have to continue to live next door to that threatening individual. They very often will not put anything in writing because they don't want it to know that they're the ones that are asking you. That's why no cost eviction. The landlord still needs to say, listen. I need you out. I can't tell you what.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's a ninety day process. It is contemplated by. Yes, sir. And agree. A lot of that testimony was provided. And I would defer to the external stakeholders as to whether or not they feel some of the things here would address that. I don't necessarily know that it does. I think you're always going to continue to run into the issue of the landlord may not be present when things are occurring. That may, you know, result in a justification for termination under two a. And in that event, if the other parties are not willing to speak up and provide the information to be able to move forward, I don't know how you legally get around that circumstance. The reason the Veeks was here is the committee felt that, I don't mean to speak to the committee, but, you know, they're trying to balance that with the fact that the tenant, if you're shorting the time frame especially down to five days, you know, the tenant needs to understand what are the justifications for you terminating my rental agreement and giving me five days to leave in order to be able to exercise their rights in case they disagree with the reasoning behind the termination. And, you know, because the process is being somewhat I don't wanna use the word expedited. It's policy decision for you all as to whether it's an appropriate time frame, but because the time frames are proposed to be shortened in this bill, making sure that the tenant had adequate information upfront about what the facts that the landlord thinks are sufficient and support the termination. Getting that to them early was kind of the the thought process here. So senator Weeks, I mean, I I will just kind of somewhat echo a point that you made, and I think it may be best a question for judge Sone. He testified both in house general and in house judiciary, and I would recommend to assume that you all would have him in here as well. He did raise some discussion about the language in this subdivision. It is mirroring some language that is in the ejectment process now, but he did raise kind of a similar comment of just, you know, what exactly does this mean? And, you know, if a landlord writes down on a piece of paper, you know, a two sentence response, you know, you threatened Senator Chittenden and that's it, without any further information, is that particular facts with sufficient detail? And that may be something that the court just works out on a case by case basis. But it'd

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: be interesting if there is any case on the subject.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I and I I imagine they're so fact specific that I doubt there is any, you know, task at the courts to do.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Okay. The issue of affidavit normally, I think of an affidavit. I think of that as a sworn statement as in line. Is that what's intended here? It's not defined. So it doesn't apply affidavit directly.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: To that point, if you're seeking some sort of clarification and less burden potentially on the landlord, if the landlord reads that and thinks, okay, you know, I do need to go to get an attorney, and is that gonna take me time and money and all of that? You know, I I don't know that I don't know that the the committee was was, you know, necessarily honed in or went to that word, So it could just be a written statement. That way, it's clear to the landlord that you don't have to go through that process. You just need to provide something in writing articulating the justifications of it. Yes, sir. This this could be titled How to

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Indict Yourself and Never to Come Lame. Yeah.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's exactly what you're

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: talking about. It's a headache, Peter.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Important is the sub three here. The the and and before I get there, let me just comment. There is a a statutory provision, 18 BSA four two five four, and it provides certain protection to individuals from criminal liability in the event that the person is, starting on lines 19 here, seeking medical assistance for a drug overdose is the subject of a good faith request for medical assistance because of the drug overdose or because the person is at the scene of a drug overdose or within close proximity of a scene. Under those circumstances, 18 BSA 400254, and I can pull it up and we can walk through it if you all would find that helpful at some point. But there's certain, you know, protection from criminal liability in those circumstance. I was not around when that was drafted and passed, you know, so I'm I'm, you know, probably not the best person to speak to what is the thought or reasoning behind it, but I think just on its face, you want people to seek medical attention from somebody who is having a drug overdose. So the section is there to try to incentivize that if somebody is overdosing for the people to, the individuals who are there, to seek medical attention. If you're doing that, then we're not going to hold your criminally liable for the evidence gathered in relation to the drug overdose and self. It may be worth it to just pull that section up and take a look at it if you have questions or wanna dive further on this section. What this is stating is kind of similar to what's in eighteen-four thousand two hundred fifty four. The landlord shall not terminate a rental agreement based on a person seeking medical assistance, being the subject of good faith requests, or being at the scene or within close proximity of a drug overdose as provided in 18 BSA four thousand two hundred fifty four and evidence obtained from a good faith request for medical assistance for a drug overdose shall not be used in an ejectment action fraud. So Senator, I'll just use the example, Senator Chittenden, you're in my apartment across the hall from you. I have a drug overdose. You call the police. The police show up, and now the landlord wants to eject you because you've engaged in activity that's threatening other people in the property. The landlord would not be able to do that under this scenario.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: So I get the intent, and I'm supportive of in an isolation, my my worries are, what if this is happening once a week? There's a pattern of sorts. Isn't every single one of those instances not considerable for that termination?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think that's a good question, a question I don't recall having come up in the House General Committee, so something I would wanna think about. Right off the top of my head, I I think in every instance, it wouldn't it wouldn't be authorized. So you may want to think about adding something that indicates that there's some sort of repeated pattern of behavior. But let me review the language again just to make sure that would be my final answer. Thanks, sir. So I'm curious how the house committee found balance between the landlord and the tenant in this case given the scenario of

[Sen. Randy Brock (Vice Chair)]: Stella Aron, they sent me to.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I would probably defer that question to them. There was, I recall, many members of the committee feeling that when you go back up to the 2A, right now it's criminal activity and illegal drug activity, and now even though those words are being struck, I mean, you're still keeping the activity which threatens others. So as it was articulated by certain members of the committee, they wanted to address the drug dealing but didn't want to necessarily address circumstance where somebody may be in their home using drug activity solely by themselves that isn't impacting other people in the unit. And I understand that that is a policy decision, and many different opinions could exist on whether or not somebody doing drug activity in their unit is threatening other people, or what are the consequences of that activity. So policy decision, I will just say, at least from the statements of some of the members of the committee in adding this in, it was intended to not impact the individual who may be using drugs within their own unit who isn't disturbing other individuals around. They were trying to address the circumstances where there was drug sales, you know, subject to things that's probably metastasized. Okay. It's ten fifty one. I'm gonna keep going until you guys Yeah. So you guys

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: Let's go to a final.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yep. Okay. I think I can probably at least get to this section. It's okay. A and B are really being kept in their current construct. A is for nonpayment of rent. B is for other breach of the terms that the tenant is engaging in activity that's breaching the rental agreement terms. There's some changes, but the A and the B are really being kept structurally as they currently exist. The rest of this section, you look at C, C is currently under the statute termination for no cause in the absence of a written rental agreement, and then you have to go all the way down to E to get to termination for no cause under a written rental agreement, And then you have subsection d, where the termination is for the property being sold. All of these are somewhat being just kind of restructured a little bit, if you will. So c is gonna change into termination for tenant or government notice to vacate, and this is if termination if if the tenant gives actual notice and says, I'm vacating the property on this day, the landlord can turn around and say, hey. Your agreement ends on that day, and that's the day that it ends, and it doesn't need to be ninety days into the future, two weeks into the future. If a tenant provides a date that they're moving out, landlord can terminate the rent and rental agreement on that date, then the

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: I'm just seeing it as a lease. Does the landlord have to terminate it on that? No. And And resort to the same place.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If the tenant abandons the location, then in theory, they're still on

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the foot for the rent during that period. Is there period that addresses that?

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's a provision in the current law that talks about that, and

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: I can pull it up and

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: we can walk through it. Practically, whether the landlord goes after somebody in that circumstance, different question, but yes, sir, there is a section. The two here is when termination is based on compliance with a government order, termination date is the date that's in the government order. The government order says you need to vacate this property on this date, the landlord doesn't need to wait ninety days or thirty days or whatever, it's on the date that's provided to

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: the government. That presumably had some expectation of what kind of government order would be able to do that.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, sir. I mean, think the tenant could argue that the government order isn't a valid government order. Yes, sir.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: So now we get

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: I to

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: think Just curious.

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Personally haven't seen it, but I think somebody could argue it if the There's a highway coming through. You could argue some sort of eminent domain, or somebody could challenge an eminent domain proceeding. I'm thinking more in the sense of, let's say the government says the building isn't habitable anymore and wants to terminate based on that. Or I was just, my immediate reaction was thinking about, there were a lot of government orders during the pandemic, you know, some of which people challenged because they didn't, you know, they didn't feel like they were valid exercises of the government's power. So I do think that just a tenant who would make a case that the government order is invalid and and make it argument better. I'm we're going to have to

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: attend baby early because the bell is ringing despite the fact that it's early as my clock. We spent almost an hour

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: and we got through a third of the bill on the Palmerton's, so keep well done.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair)]: That makes me a brother. Absolutely looking forward to the rest. Set

[Cameron Wood (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: aside the next week for that.

[Rep. Marc Mihaly (House General & Housing)]: That's obliged you to lose.