Multiple stakeholders told the Joint Corporations Committee that housing — and specifically housing inventory and workforce housing — should be a core interim topic. Christopher Volsky, deputy executive director of the Wyoming Community Development Authority (WCDA), asked the committee to continue work begun during the last interim and to use the interim to develop potential legislation that addresses the state’s inventory imbalance.

“While we're all in here talking about housing, it has real world impacts out there,” Volsky said, urging the committee to treat housing inventory as a comprehensive topic with many policy tools underneath it.

Dan Doris of the Southeast Wyoming Builders Association, Ashley Harp Street of the Wyoming Association of Municipalities and Brett Kaler of the Wyoming Economic Development Association each asked the committee to examine regulatory barriers, permitting, infrastructure financing (water, sewer) and tools to make local permitting more business-friendly to accelerate housing production. The witnesses cited several bills from the recent session (HB66, HB67, HB68, HB88 and Senate File 40) as related to supply efforts and said many proposals warrant further review.

State Treasurer (name not specified in testimony) referenced WCDA reporting and tax-incentive ideas, including federal opportunity-zone-style investment tools, as potential avenues to attract private capital; the committee asked staff to consider grouping related proposals under a single interim study on housing.

Ending: Committee members were asked to rank interim topics; the co-chairs said they would consolidate rankings and submit a recommended list to Management Council for final selection.