Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Chip Infrastructure For Housing topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Let's Build Homes urges lawmakers to pass CHIP to pay infrastructure costs and speed housing production
Summary
Marill Weinberger, executive chair of the Let's Build Homes coalition, told the House Ways & Means Committee that the Community Housing Infrastructure Program would finance public infrastructure for specific housing projects, lowering a common barrier to development.
Marill Weinberger, executive chair of the Let's Build Homes coalition, told the House Ways & Means Committee that the Community Housing Infrastructure Program (CHIP) could unlock housing development by financing the public infrastructure that makes projects feasible.
Weinberger said the coalition includes more than 200 organizations statewide -- from affordable housing nonprofits and private developers to employers, utilities and philanthropic groups -- and that coalition members see CHIP as the single most consequential housing bill this session.
Why it matters: Vermont has been building far fewer homes than in prior decades, Weinberger said, and that shortage is a principal driver of rising costs and workforce shortages. CHIP would allow a developer or municipality to borrow against the future taxes generated by a specific project to pay infrastructure costs such as roads, sidewalks and utilities, reducing an up‑front barrier that often prevents projects from moving forward.
Weinberger described a Middlebury project (Stone Crop Meadows, developed by Summit Properties) that built an initial phase using federal housing dollars and a private gift; that phase required about $6 million in public infrastructure. She said the remaining permitted units on the site would cost roughly $24,000 per unit in infrastructure and that those units could generate about $575,000 a year in new taxes, a stream that could be used to finance the infrastructure over time.
She emphasized how CHIP differs from traditional TIF districts: CHIP is project‑by‑project rather than districtwide, can allow the developer to carry project debt rather than obligating the municipality, and in its current form would capture only revenues generated by the new project (rather than background growth). The bill also includes reporting and a sunset (the current draft contains a 10‑year window), she said.
On concerns about "foregone revenue," Weinberger acknowledged Joint Fiscal Office (JFO) analyses that show uncertainty: "The JFO states very directly ... that it is unclear if the past reports, TIF, or CHIP cause net revenue diversion or increase for the Ed Fund," she told the committee. She urged lawmakers to look beyond short‑term Ed Fund calculations and weigh other state revenue and economic benefits from new housing, including income and sales tax gains and reduced costs associated with homelessness and workforce shortages.
Weinberger said CHIP would be administratively simpler than many TIF districts and could speed projects because developers would be able to take on financing and work directly with municipalities under an infrastructure agreement. She also said the coalition would accept an earlier sunset or review period if the Legislature wants an interim evaluation.
Ending: Weinberger urged the committee to consider CHIP as a targeted tool to address the infrastructure barrier to housing and offered coalition resources and later pro forma examples to help the committee evaluate the bill's fiscal effects.
