Senators review H.479 housing package: changes to rental programs, landlord certificates, and infrastructure funds

Cameron Wood of the Office of Legislative Council and James Duffy (fiscal) briefed the committee on H.479, the House companion to S.127 that the Senate Economic Development Committee amended. Cameron described H.479 as a combination of the House and Senate approaches and walked senators through the proposed committee amendments; Duffy summarized the fiscal implications.

Major substantive changes discussed include:

- Vermont Rental Housing Improvement Program (BHIP): The bill would allow a landlord receiving a 10‑year forgivable loan to rent units at HUD fair‑market rent rather than being required to lease to tenants from specified priority populations. The House retained a 5‑year forgivable loan option and requires a minimum 30% annual set‑aside of funds for grants and 5‑year forgivable loans targeted to priority populations; the Senate had proposed striking the 5‑year option. "Under the 10‑year forgivable loans, landlord can rent for fair market rent established by HUD," Cameron said. The DHCD would be required to consult with partners about whether 30% is adequate and to report annually on program outcomes.

- Manufactured-home improvement and repair program: The bill places the program in statute consistent with prior funding and House/Senate compromise language.

- Vermont Infrastructure Sustainability Fund and Vermont Bond Bank: The bill gives the Bond Bank explicit authority to use and combine the revolving funds with complementary programs to leverage appropriations made for infrastructure sustainability purposes.

- Landlord certificate and assessor data: The bill restores the school property account number to landlord certificate reporting (it had been unintentionally removed in an earlier change) and removes a prior proposal to require gross rental amount reporting, per the Tax Department’s request. The Tax Department argued the school property account number is the best parcel identifier and that gross rent was not necessary to administer the landlord certificate program.

- New and revised reporting, pilot and study provisions: The bill includes reporting requirements for program outcomes, a positive rental‑payments pilot (treasurer’s office would onboard up to 10 landlords and up to 100 tenants to report rent payments to credit bureaus, contingent on appropriation), and various committee study language that in several places is contingent on funding or removed per committee edits.

Cameron and Duffy noted the bill incorporates the chip (tax increment financing/project-based) language from S.127 as previously passed in the Senate, and other technical fixes and conforming amendments from Senate Natural Resources and Finance committee reports. Duffy emphasized most of the programmatic authorizations in H.479 were similar to S.127 and that the fiscal implications depended on future appropriations, administrative set‑asides, and program uptake.

At the end of the discussion a motion to pass H.479 favorably was made; a roll-call vote followed in the transcript and several senators indicated “Yes” as part of the recorded tally. The committee also discussed the definition of "fair market rent" (Cameron noted fair‑market rent is a HUD term of art) and the implementation mechanics for the 30% set‑aside and reporting.