Senate accepts $2 billion housing infrastructure plan, sends bill to governor

The Vermont Senate on the floor accepted the committee of conference report on S.127, a $2 billion infrastructure program intended to support community and housing projects, and then voted to message the bill to the governor immediately.

Supporters said the Community and Housing Infrastructure Program, or CHIP, is intended to let communities use tax-increment financing-style tools more broadly to invest in infrastructure that enables housing construction. "You are about to vote on a $2,000,000,000 infrastructure program for the state of Vermont," the Senator from Chittenden Southeast said on the floor, summarizing the conference committee's work.

The senator who presented the report said the program includes a sunset through 2035, will leave the existing tax-increment financing (TIF) program in place, and provides higher increment-retention shares for affordable housing projects. "We gave an extra boost in the increment retention for affordable housing projects," she said, describing a split used in conference to favor affordability projects.

Discussion and key provisions

Supporters pointed to a series of numeric assumptions the conferees used…