The Vermont Senate on May 30 accepted and adopted the committee of conference report on S.127, an act to create a Community and Housing Infrastructure Program (CHIP) to finance infrastructure for housing development, and immediately sent the measure to the governor.

The measure would authorize up to $2 billion in infrastructure investment over 20 years, with a $200 million annual cap on approved increment and a program sunset in 2035. Proponents said the program uses a tax-increment financing model to allow communities to retain a portion of growth in property value to pay for streets, stormwater, transportation and other infrastructure tied to new housing.

Senator from Chittenden Southeast, the conference-report presenter, told the Senate the program is intended to expand tax-increment tools beyond Vermont’s largest downtowns so “any community who can put a project together, with partners” can apply. She said conference negotiators added “economically focused parameters” including a sunset in 2035 and an enhanced increment-retention split for affordable-housing projects (described in debate as a 75/85 split). She described the committee’s final choice of a $200 million cap as the outcome of “careful math” and local capacity considerations.

The presenter said the committee used a $50,000-per-unit infrastructure cost estimate supplied by the Champlain Housing Trust to calculate need, and that if Vermont built 7,500 units per year it would require roughly $400 million in infrastructure investment; planners therefore set the cap at $200 million as a realistic limit. “At $50,000 per unit and needing 7,500 units per year to have healthy vacancy rates and meet our housing needs as a state, we got to close to $400,000,000,” she said.

She cited examples to illustrate scale: an infrastructure project in Burlington’s South End tied to the Hula development that proponents say could support stormwater improvements for an entire neighborhood and enable 1,200 or more housing units to be built over time. The presenter said larger, lower‑risk projects in population centers could help finance riskier projects in rural communities by producing returns to the education fund.

Senators asked clarifying questions on definitions and fiscal impacts. The Senator from Rutland asked, “Give me a definition of a unit,” and the presenter replied that per-unit infrastructure costs fall with density and that smaller rural projects will have higher per-unit infrastructure costs. The presenter said in aggregate Vermont’s current affordable-housing projects cost more per unit than neighboring states, and that infrastructure can be spread across multiple units to lower the per‑unit cost.

On fiscal impacts, the presenter said committee spreadsheets project that a $2 billion investment spread over 20 years would yield roughly $2.66 billion in grand-list growth attributable to the program. She said the program’s peak year (projected around 2050) would use about $112 million of retained increment while yielding roughly $150 million in revenue to the education fund, a difference of about $38 million at peak.

The Senate accepted and adopted the report of the committee of conference on S.127 (voice vote). Later the Senate suspended its rules and directed the Secretary to “message the actions taken on S.127 to the governor forthwith,” a motion that carried on a voice vote.

Supporters emphasized the program’s potential to expand housing and grow grand lists; some senators pushed for guardrails on education-fund impacts and for parameters that prioritize affordable housing. The bill keeps Vermont’s existing TIF program in place rather than sunsetting it, and places time and capacity limits on CHIP’s operation.

The conference report was presented by the senator designated in the record as the Senator from Chittenden Southeast; committee conferees were noted as signing the report. The Senate’s acceptance and the immediate messaging to the governor complete the chamber’s action on S.127; implementation details and administrative rules will be decided by state agencies and the program’s governance structure once enacted.

• Clarifying note: unit-cost and revenue projections cited in debate were described to the committee and summarized on spreadsheets the presenter offered to share with other senators; the Senate record indicates those spreadsheets informed the conference calculations.