Appropriations committee reviews amendment to S.127, shifting CHIP to statewide mixed-income tool with new timelines and funding cap process

The House Appropriations Committee reviewed draft 1.3 of an amendment to S.127 — the housing bill that includes the CHIP program — on May 21, 2025, focusing on changes to the program’s scope, application process and funding limits.

The amendment makes the program explicitly statewide, replaces “middle income” language with “mixed income,” removes location restrictions that would have limited where CHIP projects may be sited, eliminates a separate CHIP board and sets new deadlines and funding-cap procedures. John Gray, legislative counsel, summarized the administrative changes and timeline: “The board has been stripped out of this,” and, later, he said the administering council “shall approve or deny not later than 45 days following receipt of a completed application.”

Why it matters: proponents and committee members said the rewrite is intended to make CHIP a flexible financing tool for infrastructure that supports housing — including in rural areas — while keeping guardrails on how retained tax increment is used. Representative Charlie Kimball (Windsor-5), one of the amendment sponsors, said the cap increase language responds to concerns “that the cap was not high enough.”

Major changes explained

Scope and purpose: The amendment’s purpose language is revised to say CHIP is meant to “encourage the development of new primary residences for households of low and moderate income” across both rural and urban areas in all Vermont counties. The draft replaces the phrase “middle income” with “mixed income” and links the…