Conferees keep primary-residence requirement; allow municipal option and covenants in housing infrastructure agreements

Conference conferees discussed and left in place a primary-residence requirement in the housing infrastructure agreement section of the S.127 conference draft, and they added implementation flexibility for municipalities.

John Gray of the Office of Legislative Council summarized the consolidated language: the draft requires that "any housing unit is offered exclusively as a primary residence until all indebtedness for the housing infrastructure project of which that housing development is part has been retired." Committee members said the house proposal now applies the same durational requirement across owner-occupied and rental housing and consolidated separate prongs into one single sentence.

Committee members debated how the requirement would be enforced. One conferee said municipalities that "so elect" could adopt an ordinance to enforce the requirement, but that a covenant running with the land could also satisfy enforcement without the municipality having to adopt local ordinance language. That conferee said the covenant approach means the restriction would "run with the land" and remain in effect regardless of whether the municipality enforces it directly.

On verification and remedies, conferees discussed administrative tools currently used by state programs to determine primary residency. A committee member noted that, "this is what we do right now in the property transfer tax to ensure something is not being used exclusively as a second [home]," and suggested that a landlord certificate or a homestead declaration could be used to satisfy the condition in the agreement. Conferees also observed that municipal enforcement could include complaint-driven processes and that a private right of enforcement might exist for neighbors or other parties to bring claims if a covenant is violated.

Conferees agreed to consolidated language that removed duplicative subparts while preserving the option that a municipality "may elect" to adopt an ordinance; they also left a placeholder for specifying how the condition may be satisfied (for example, by landlord certificate or homestead declaration). No final administrative rulemaking or enforcement model was adopted in the conference meeting; conferees indicated further drafting and coordination with municipal officials would be necessary.

The committee did not vote on enforcement mechanics during the session and noted the housing department or a municipal housing office would likely be the administering authority in practice.