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Committee advances H.479 with housing program changes, tenant protections and tax-data provisions
Summary
A Senate committee moved H.479 favorably on May 1, 2025, advancing an omnibus housing and tax bill that retains CHIP language, restores a five-year forgivable loan option in the Vermont Rental Housing Improvement Program, sets a minimum 30% annual set-aside for targeted grants/loans, revises landlord-certificate data requirements, and adds immigration-status protections with a federal carve-out.
A Senate committee moved H.479 favorably on May 1, 2025, as received from the Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs Committee. Committee staff described the draft amendment to H.479 as largely the same as language the Senate passed earlier this year in S.127, with a number of changes the House had proposed incorporated into the current draft.
Cameron Wood, Director of the Office of Legislative Council, told the committee that “the CHIP section is exactly the same as we passed it” and then walked members through the bill’s notable changes. The committee voted to advance H.479 as it was received from the other committee; the clerk and chair recorded the committee action as passing with a tally reported in the meeting as 4–0–3.
Major elements discussed and confirmed in committee:
- Vermont Rental Housing Improvement Program: The draft keeps the five-year forgivable loan option alongside grants rather than eliminating the five-year forgivable loans, restoring an option the Senate earlier proposed to strike. The bill would also revert the ten-year loan repayment terms to a fair-market-rent model that existed prior to last year’s change.
- Minimum set-aside for targeted units: The amendment includes a minimum annual set-aside for grants and five-year loans to serve people exiting homelessness and similar prioritized populations. Wood explained that “It is set at least 30%, but it can be set higher than that annually,” and that the department would consult with AHS regarding voucher availability to set the precise threshold each year.
- Reallocation of unused set-aside funds: Funds set aside but not used within nine months would be made available for the ten-year loan pool.
- Reporting: The bill would require an annual report on program outcomes to the General Assembly.
- Manufactured home repair and infrastructure funds: No substantive changes were reported to manufactured-home repair language; the infrastructure sustainability fund includes a revolving-fund provision allowing the bond bank to use money in conjunction with other programs to leverage investments.
- Tax-department data access and landlord certificate changes: The bill would require municipalities to provide extracts from computer-assisted mass appraisal systems to the tax department. It reinserts the school property account number (SPAN) into the landlord certificate requirement and removes the prior requirement that a landlord provide gross monthly rent on the certificate. On background checks, the bill specifies that a landlord may request a Social Security number but must accept an unexpired government-issued ID or an individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN) if the applicant lacks a Social Security number; Wood summarized that requirement as mandating acceptance of those alternatives for screening.
- Protections tied to citizenship and immigration status: The bill expands language originally in S.127 to include immigration status within the definition of protected classes for unfair housing practices while retaining a carve-out that permits verification of immigration status when federal law requires it. The amendment also includes a limited exception for financial institutions: a lender may consider immigration status where federal law allows consideration of such status as part of credit and loan-repayment risk assessment.
- Housing appeals and other sections: The bill contains housing-appeals language that committee staff flagged as potentially being struck by another Senate committee; committee members did not resolve those cross-committee jurisdictional items during the meeting.
- Positive rental-payment pilot: The bill would create a two-year pilot, administered by the State Treasurer’s Office, to provide rental-payment reporting to credit agencies for up to 100 renters; the Treasurer requested $100,000 for the pilot. Committee staff cautioned that the pilot is contingent on appropriation and was not included in the current budget, meaning it would not proceed absent a funding authorization.
- Brownfields, smoke and carbon monoxide alarm technical changes: The bill incorporates prior work on brownfields and technical amendments for smoke and CO alarm requirements.
Committee members asked staff to clarify drafting points and sought drafters’ presence when floor action is imminent; staff said they would attempt to make drafters available and that the committee would take up additional tax-department testimony and cannabis-related scheduling the next day. Cameron Wood advised the committee that parts of the bill had been modified to align with budget language and JFO (Joint Fiscal Office) changes so there were no substantive changes to some sections but technical alignment instead.
The committee recorded that it had received the bill from Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs and moved H.479 favorably to the next step in the process.
