The governor and a tripartisan group of lawmakers have announced a new bill that, if passed, will expand on the efforts made last session to solve Vermont’s housing shortage.
H.719, “an act relating to housing development and unit rehabilitation,” would be introduced on the House floor Wednesday, said Rep. Ashley Bartley, R-Fairfax, at a Wednesday morning news conference.
“The overarching and primary objective of this legislation is to create more housing units and to reinvest in neglected neighborhoods,” she said. “Plainly stated, housing and community redevelopment.”
Bartley is among the bill’s main sponsors, including Rep. Lisa Hango, R-Berkshire, Rep. Katherine Sims, D-Craftsbury, and Rep. Taylor Small D/P-Winooski. The bill has 31 other sponsors, including House Minority Leader Rep. Patricia McCoy, R-Poultney.
“The bill addresses Act 250 in a way that promotes smart growth and revitalizes our communities in a substantial way for generations to come,” said Bartley. “For too long the solution to the housing crisis has been siloed. The crisis impact spans across every facet of our community, transcending political affiliations and economic divides regardless of income level. Be it lower, middle or tied to generational wealth, each Vermonter has felt the weight of this crisis.”
Alex Farrell, commissioner of the Department of Housing and Community Development, said a webinar for discussing the bill’s details will be held Thursday at 11 a.m. The link to it will be posted online at accd.vermont.gov.
Summarizing the bill, he said it would change Act 250 jurisdiction to encourage more homes to be built in areas with existing water and sewer infrastructure while leaving open areas open; it would make housing for all populations easier to build; it would reform municipal regulations that currently discourage unit creation; and it amends permitting requirements to allow more motels and hotels to be converted into permanent housing.
“While a number of programmatic investments are contemplated in this bill, the budget development is still underway and we can’t get ahead of that process, but regardless, the regulatory reforms in this bill will make any investment, including the half a billion dollars we’ve already spent over the last few years, go much further than they have gone in our current system,” Farrell said.
Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden, said lawmakers should set politics aside to address the housing crisis and the climate crisis.
“We are hearing that any homeowner who takes a meager FEMA buyout for their destroyed home has to look out of state for something they can afford,” she said. “We are hearing that renters are living in unsafe conditions but don’t want their buildings condemned because they would have nowhere else to live.”
The goal is to vote the bill out of committee by early February, she said, as it has a long way to go before being signed into law.
Act 250 has served Vermont well for 50 years, she said, but needs to be changed in order to serve well for another 50.
She referred to H.719 as the “Bringing Everyone Home” bill, or the “Be Home” bill, as it builds off last year’s HOME Act, which invested money into housing.
Sims said that more investment is needed and that H.719 will continue to invest in successful programs like the Vermont Housing Improvement Program, the Manufactured Home Repair Program and the Missing Middle-Income Homeownership Development Program.
“I don’t think any of us want to see more sprawl,” she said. “We don’t want houses in the middle of farm fields or huge single-family homes on top of mountains, we also know we haven’t been building housing at the rate that we need to keep up with demand. And so if we want more housing in the right places, rehabbing existing buildings and building new infill development in our walkable downtowns and villages that are served by water and sewer, we need a balanced approach to land use regulation.”
Republican Sen. Randy Brock, of Franklin County, said the housing crisis is acute and it will take more than many small measures to fix it.
“In order to solve almost every problem that we have, whether it be health care costs, education, Vermont’s tax burden, and more, we need to attract and retain more working Vermonters and that will not be possible until we restore a healthy housing balance in the housing market with more units and at reasonable prices,” Brock said. “And the only way we can do that, as the governor mentioned, is to make it easier, faster, and cheaper to build the housing we need.”
Scott said at the outset of the media event that financial investments Vermont has made into housing won’t be enough without changes to regulations.
“Right now, in part due to our antiqued regulatory system, it takes far too long and costs far too much to build,” he said, adding that he’s pleased to see a broad base of support for these initiatives.
keith.whitcomb
@rutlandherald.com
