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Rep. Brian Sheena introduces bill to create Land Access and Opportunity Revolving Fund
Summary
On April 2 the House Committee on General and Housing received the introduction of H.445, a bill sponsored by Rep. Brian Sheena to create a Land Access and Opportunity Revolving Fund funded by an optional income tax surcharge and directed at community-led affordable housing development, renovation and supportive infrastructure.
BURLINGTON — On Wednesday, April 2, the House Committee on General and Housing heard the introduction of H.445, “An act relating to creating the Land Access and Opportunity Revolving Fund,” presented by Representative Brian Sheena of Burlington.
Sheena told the committee the bill is intended to “support the human right of housing and to promote public health and community safety during recovery from the COVID‑19 pandemic, the polysubstance pandemic, and climate disasters by preserving affordable housing and creating new social and economic opportunities for the development [and] maintenance of sustainable, resilient, and affordable housing infrastructure.”
The bill as drafted would create a dedicated fund that Sheena said could be seeded by an income‑tax surcharge similar to a temporary surtax enacted in the 1990s. He described a possible surcharge of 1.5 percent on income above $500,000 and cited a prior Joint Fiscal estimate — from the last time similar language was run — that the surcharge could generate about $50 million to $100 million per year, though he said he did not have current figures for the present tax base.
Sheena said the bill directs the fund toward a range of community‑centered investments: purchase of buildings and land by current tenants to expand owner‑occupied affordable housing; renovation of owner‑occupied multi‑unit housing; development of cooperatives and other collective ownership models; transitional housing targeted to historically marginalized groups; localized, circular infrastructure (composting and on‑site waste systems); regenerative agriculture and greenhouse integration; and independent energy generation at the parcel or development level. He emphasized a preference for projects that lead to collective ownership, saying, “When people own something, they care for it more.”
The draft also includes authority for the Land Access Opportunity Board (LAOB) to administer the fund and makes minor board‑membership cleanup changes, Sheena said. He described a set of workforce and social‑infrastructure ideas — tool banks, labor pools and weekend trade and repair training — intended to build local capacity to develop and maintain housing and reduce reliance on outside contractors.
Committee members asked clarifying questions about whether the proposal would change the LAOB’s role and about board capacity. Sheena said the bill would not “reinvent the wheel” but would ask the LAOB to undertake additional work if it has capacity; he suggested staff and current board members should advise the committee on operational fit. One committee member noted an upcoming Rutland event promoting trades and workforce connections as complementary to the bill’s workforce elements.
Sheena closed by saying it was likely too late to pass the bill this session and asked the committee to consider the bill’s ideas as possible language to attach to other housing measures. No committee vote or formal referral was recorded during the introduction.
Votes: none recorded; bill introduced for review and staff follow‑up.
