House committee reviews omnibus housing draft; counsel details reporting and funding edits

The House Committee on General & Housing met April 24 to review draft 3.1 of bill 3 28, an omnibus housing measure containing roughly a dozen sections that would revise reporting, funding and program provisions across multiple housing programs. The committee chair opened the meeting for a presentation by legislative counsel and said the panel would resume work next Tuesday with additional testimony on universal design.

Cameron Wood, legislative counsel, told the committee the newest draft makes several targeted edits to the bill. The first inserts a requirement into Title 3 that the Secretary of State “shall provide on its website or otherwise distribute to the public information about Vermont's common interest communities,” language Wood said he had not yet circulated to the Secretary of State's office. A member asked what “otherwise distribute” could include; members and counsel agreed that adding the word “website” made the requirement less ambiguous.

Wood also described the removal of a previously proposed study. Section 2 had required the new service-supported-housing advisory council to examine a per-parcel fee on secondary homes in the current-use program; the draft deletes that subsection. Wood said the council’s annual report will still be required to identify funding sources and legislative recommendations "to the extent that they're able," and committee staff noted the report is due Nov. 15 and filed with this committee and several Senate committees.

On financing provisions, Wood proposed a small technical cleanup to the treasurer’s reporting language — striking a limiting subsection so the treasurer’s annual report on credit facilities would apply more broadly — and explained changes to the VHIF section that would allow the department to provide funding upfront rather than by reimbursement. Wood said he added an explicit submission date (Nov. 15) for an annual report the committee had previously required.

The committee chair summarized other notable provisions in the draft: language on the treasurer’s credit facility, off-site accelerator provisions, small edits to previously adopted "beta" provisions, VIDA language allowing advances rather than reimbursement, continued nondiscrimination language for modular manufactured housing, and municipal housing-target language that the Senate’s drafting preferred. The draft also asks for several reports, including a modified VHCB farmworker housing report and a private-equity report that DHCD has agreed to produce without additional funding.

Members asked for clarification about special-assessment bonds. The chair explained the difference between revenue bonds (which rely on a project’s revenue) and general-obligation bonds (which use a municipality’s full faith and credit and typically require a town vote), and described how special-assessment districts allocate costs to properties within a development. The chair said special-assessment bonds tend to be pricier because of higher perceived risk but do not obligate the entire town in the way a GO bond can.

The chair also reported a budget revision request that would allow VHCB to repurpose "a couple million dollars" for disability housing. The committee noted that the service-supported-housing advisory council appears as a new entity in the Senate text, and members discussed how House additions might be reconciled: the Senate can concur, request a conference committee, or return amendments to the House; given the calendar, concurrence or a conference were the likely next steps.

The committee set its next meeting for Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. for additional testimony on universal design (visitability and adaptability), with witnesses at 2:00 p.m. for Youth Homelessness Awareness Day, after which the panel will resume work on bill 3 28. The chair adjourned the meeting.