 I'll let Gus begin and it's all yours, Gus. Okay, Mr. Chairman, committee members, thank you for having me for the record. I'm Gus Seelig, I'm the executive director for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. I know, Mr. Chairman, you said this is fundamentally not going to be a bill about money. And I guess I just need to start by offering thanks, for the support this committee and your colleagues in appropriations have been giving us from the housing revenue bond forward because fundamentally the problem we have is as a number of witnesses have stated is a supply problem. And people are not building housing for the people who need it the most because it's too expensive. And the dollars you've provided go a long way toward making things happen that would otherwise not happen in a market-based economy. Just to get to a question that Senator Clarkson asked, we are making a recommendation to our board to provide VHFA with $2 million to start this risk pool that you heard a little bit about and that more Collins will speak to and that should happen at our January board meeting. So that work is well on the way and it's part of the value of the getting an appropriation last year, record appropriations from both ARPA funds and general fund. And it's great that the state is in a position to deal with this. I think one of the things the governor has said repeatedly is we've got a big workforce problem that's affecting all of the work we do, not just the building of housing, but housing management, managing the finances of it. And it's affecting every part of our economy and clearly what Josh said to you earlier in terms of comments from employer communities, it doesn't matter whether it's nurses or teachers or people in business, there just is not enough housing at all levels in our current environment. And it took us a long time to get to this place. What I'd like to do, Mr. Chairman, also is just to give you a quick report on what's been happening and that we can build upon as we do this work. So I'd like to share my screen if I can. Am I able to do that now? You should be able to, sir. Yes. Okay. Okay. Well, yeah, I can. Are you able to see this presentation at this point? Yes. Yes, indeed. Okay. So I'm going to just see if I can advance it now. That was further. Okay. Well, this will just give you a sense of what has happened over recent years. And I've just since from 2020 to 2023. And you'll recall that you gave us $33 million from coronavirus relief funds focused completely on helping to house homeless for monitors. Other appropriations have been for a much broader range of housing, but we have funded more than 1,100 homes and apartments around the state with just about half for people who've been experiencing homelessness. Almost 500 have already come online. We expect 386 more in 2022 and yet more in 2023. So housing is being produced at a rate that is much, much faster than had been the case in the previous seven years. I agree with Eric that we could double the rate of production for the next decade and we're still not going to catch up. Senator Brock has always been somebody who has been in my ear saying, can we find some less expensive ways to do housing? And one of the things we're getting national attention for we California and a few other jurisdictions have focused on converting hotels and motels into housing that's been at a much lower cost than new construction and one effective strategy to get housing online quickly which was a prerequisite for the coronavirus relief funds which were due to be all expended within about eight months of when they were appropriate. And here are a few examples, Brattleboro in Colchester and Williston in Burlington of those examples of what we've been able to do. We continue to do new and rehabilitated housing, new housing all over the state. You'll hear from your ag committee about the need and we've recently awarded the Champlain Housing Trust funding for a farm worker housing program. We are continuing to focus on primarily new construction to add units. We are seeing great community cooperation in doing that. Bristol plan for this development that you see pictured here for many years they were hoping for condominium development for home ownership. They couldn't make the numbers work meaning it was gonna be too expensive for what the units could be sold for and it's become rental development instead and part of an overall community development strategy. We'll soon be working with CHT on the redevelopment of the hardware place site down the road from the chair in Shelburne. And this is Fox Run in Berlin is attached to the mall and this downtown building in Rutland we were adding three apartments to as it gets rehabilitated. So the successes are that housing is coming online very quickly that there's a coordination of capital and service subsidies. We have had a housing recovery working group that Commissioner Hanford, Mara Collins, the agency of human services, VHCD and the state housing authority being about twice a month since the pandemic began. There are more apartments being targeted to for monitors experiencing homelessness. So those are among the successes that we've had. I think the largest challenge that causes me to lose sleep at night is the cost increases that others will speak to but I'm gonna give you just a personal anecdote my daughter'd like to build a home on our land in East Calis and she met with a builder who's had it for 30 years and what he said to her is he's a year out before he could begin but for a 12 to 1500 square foot home even with free land she shouldn't count on less than $100,000. And I think we're spending $400,000 for a modestly sized home. That's consistent with what we're seeing in terms of proposals coming to us. I think Eric could tell you that he probably can't build condominiums in Burlington even with lots of density for less than that and probably for a lot more than that. Lots of things have affected our market conditions that make the price of housing very high and the shortage of supply again one more anecdote from down the road from me one of my neighbors owns a three unit building in East Calis Village and two years ago he posted on Front Porch Forum that he'd rent an apartment for 800 a month and this week he posted that same apartment at 1500 a month and I believe he'll be able to get that and it's not a fancy apartment at all there's no fancy finishes in it it just speaks to the shortage that we have. Workforce is an issue for all aspects of our work but Senator Clarkson was also asking about risk and I think that risk is not just time and it's not just uncertainty it's also what do the banks tolerate for risk? So one of the things that's happened since the Great Recession is that banks will not finance condominium development unless you can show that you've sold half the units before they'll finance you and we have not had a market and maybe we're beginning to get there where you can do that level of pre-sales but certainly not at the price points that we're now at so those are some of the challenges. I do want to note and we'll be meeting with Treasury and the congressional delegation in a couple of days that there are some challenges around using ARPA in conjunction with the low income housing tax credit doesn't mean we won't use ARPA funding but it does mean that we will produce less units with ARPA funding than a Treasury where to make it easier for us and I hope there'll be a solution but it's probably months away. A cornerstone of our housing policy has been to revitalize our downtowns and as we look at this slide I will just tell you we're working on a building in downtown Brattleboro just down the street from this flat street building that you see in the bottom left. In Bennington the Putnam block is well underway and has tenants there are two sites there that are available to I think add another 60 units of housing as part of the Putnam block overall redevelopment. In Montpelier I've talked with a church group that wants to build 25 houses in downtown and Washington County mental health has a historic building they're considering converting to housing and so there's lots and lots of opportunity all over the state more than we can shake a stick at. Want to talk for a moment about home ownership and we've been doing a home ownership program for many years across the state we've invested in about 1200 homes they've provided through shared equity home to 1800 families and this chart just gives you a sense of who's living there and I would just urge the term workforce housing gets used a lot that anybody who's above the tax credit limits for rental housing is in the workforce but we have very few federal resources for them whether as renters or homeowners and when you look at this profile of who the Champlain Housing Trust has provided home ownership for they're all the people that make up our economy and I guess I just also want to say that the pandemic made clear that lots of essential workers whether they fill our grocery shelves or their nurses aides or their janitorial staff are really, really vital and housing is a real challenge and they're not at the highest paid folks in the state. Elements of an omnibus housing bill this is put together by Jen Holler and these are all issues that are in some form of legislation or another on the left. I can't speak to all of them in any great detail but they are all important issues and anything that you do that encourages communities to enhance density and let us grow vertically we'll meet our smart growth goals and our affordable housing goals. On the right are a couple of things that I think are worthy of more discussion I don't know if we need legislation but clearly if we're gonna tackle climate as an equity issue, our funding for climate ought to be directed to helping to pay for the energy efficiency components of housing. You'll hear more from Mora about development pilots I don't think we need legislation around shared equity but we will need more resources because I think we've often helped people compete in the marketplace for existing housing but I think the shortage is now so severe that we're gonna have to do more of what we're doing and Michael Monti will I'm sure speak to this in downtown Winooski where the Champlain Housing Trust is building a 20 unit condominium. I would note in that case that the city of Winooski made the land available for free. We're seeing more and more communities step forward. We visited with Manchester a few weeks ago where they have a site with two commercial buildings and room to build at least another 30 units of housing in a great neighborhood and they wanna do it as affordable housing. The last slide I'll just show you as a project will bring to our board and this is more housing in Putney that is planned adjacent to the food co-op. So lots of good things are happening all over the state and with that I need to figure out how to end my screen share. Okay, while you're doing that Gus I didn't quite understand the limitations on home ownership to that there's little funding for people above the housing credit limit I think you said. Well, what I'm saying to you is when you think about workforce housing most of the housing we were able to build in Vermont and leverage other monies comes from the housing tax credit and the housing tax credit you can move into tax credit housing if your income is at 60% of median or below. So in most of the state for family of three that means people up into the mid $30,000 range. And I guess I would just say to you there are not federal resources that are robust above that level. We'll be working on using ARPA funds for those groups. We usually, when we put together housing developments we usually encourage a quarter of the housing to be market oriented for people above the tax credit limits. And I'm just saying the term workforce housing gets thrown out around a lot but without that tax credit we're really talking about people making $20 an hour and more maybe it's a little higher in Chittenden County who do not qualify for housing that's built with a low income housing tax credit. So there's lots of folks that are doing essential work that are making way less than $100,000 a year $80,000 a year that we do not have a big federal resource to support in their housing needs. Most of the housing needs are focused more at the 60% of median and below level. So that's, as you say, all federal dollars. Is there any program of comparable, not comparable, but of tax credits at the state level or is that just too small a number? What I'm saying to you, well when I walk into the room with your appropriators they have been very focused for many years on the problems of very low income Vermonters and the problems of our GA budget and the fact is we still have 1,300 Vermonters living in motels as we speak has meant that people have asked us to focus on that end of the market but no we do not have other than the home ownership tax credit at the state level a lot of resources for people that are above the tax credit maximum. That's our most powerful tool to produce housing across any policy. It produces more than $20 million of equity a year from the 9% credit and then there's the 4% credit as well. So it's a very powerful tool and I guess I'm just saying as you think about workforce there are people making 18, 19, 20, $25 an hour not a lot of money who are not gonna be competing for home ownership in this market that we need to be thinking about housing as well. Okay, thank you. Any questions? Did you get your slide? Would you be kind of to send your slides to Scott so we can post them? He has. Okay, great, thanks. We're already posted Senator. Oh, great, terrific. So anyway, we would look forward to working with you on an omnibus bill that covers all the issues that are outlined that are already in legislation and again, I would support what Chris said earlier that priority housing projects, the size of them I think probably needs to grow from the 25 that's currently in statute. And the more we can encourage communities to allow increased density, the better and that may mean growing vertically as well. There's a building we built in Winooski in downtown Winooski or just out of the downtown in Winooski for veterans some years ago. And it's a five-story building on a quarter acre and that really actually amounts to 120 units an acre if you were to multiply how many units are on that little quarter acre or fifth of an acre lot. So we can build densely if we choose to, lots of communities have an aversion to that and it's something we really need to encourage. Do you share Eric Farrell's concern about the using the word density as opposed to floor square footage or something like that? I'm in favor of helping the talk with communities in any language that will help us get to yes. So if there's a better term, I'm all for it. I think we, you know, as you all know, I work on the conservation side of things too and if we really wanna protect our rural working landscape then building smart and building with more density or more square footage is really important. One of the things about, I noticed in South Burlington anyway, this is maybe not knowledgeable enough to speak on this is form-based code often requires certain amount of commercial space it has in the South Burlington New Town Center. And we're in a time in our economy where the demand for commercial space is very different particularly office space than it once was and that's something also to be thinking about. I just have one other question. Senator Clarkson has a question after this but I know your background and you just mentioned your obviously housing and conservation, are you optimistic in general that from environmental advocacy side of things that there could be housing policies that don't necessarily negatively impact the environment? Yes, and I think there's been more and more collaboration. I don't know if we'll get to 100% agreement on every single issue but I think it is in the interest of the folks that are concerned about our environment, our natural resources, our land use, our ag lands to support our downtowns, our village centers but also the neighborhoods adjacent to them. And I think we work closely for many years with an organization called Smart Growth Vermont which is now a program of the Vermont Natural Resources Council. So whether we can get to 100% agreement on all of the environmental issues that are in front of you, I don't know but I think that they are in general supportive of lots of good infill work. Senator Clarkson. Thanks, I think the word density people get and understand. I think the Eric's word is for the professionals in that world. I think people understand smart growth and density and cluster development and those of us who are environmental and supporters of downtowns are not mutually exclusive. We're all here supporting, I think the same things and we can't have one without the other is I think what we all come down to. I guess we now have a fairly clear notion of the numbers for homeless for building new home housing that will house our unhoused. I'm just curious and I, you know from the Vermont Futures Project I have a sense of the need, even though it's old numbers it's still huge numbers for our housing needs generally but do you have a number for the workforce population you were addressing earlier? Do we have a notion of that need for that because it's a huge, it's a big number. And I just, I'm just curious if you have a number on the need for workforce housing and families that. I do not have that number today. I'm happy to sit down with lots of people who are smarter than me and try to brainstorm what that number ought to be. I guess what I would just say to you is if we think that we have if we know we have 1,300 households in motels today and there's probably several hundred who are not in motels. The best practice is not to build facilities just for those people that are isolated but really for them to be integrated in housing through every community. And, you know, so if you said well we only want one in five apartments to be for people who are homeless and you multiply 1,500 by five we need 7,500 more homes on the rental side. In terms of home ownership, I think we need to do some thinking about what our goals ought to be. But I think the current market, if you look back at that chart that I, now that it's posted, there are lots of people and Michael will be, Monty will be able to speak to this more than I can. That CHT is provided and their partners around the state have provided housing for who in today's market there's even with an $80,000 grant competing for housing is very difficult. We just are so tight on supply. So we've got to expand the supply. As I've talked to him, you know, he's looking at projects for home ownership that might be in the hundreds of units. We're looking at a neighborhood in West Brattleboro, adjacent to that chalet that has 17 acres that might be built out for more housing. There's a project we're working on in downtown Windsor right now as rental housing. And I talked to one of the proponents and she thinks that there's adjacent land that can be used for more home ownership. Mad River Meadows is a place in Waitsfield where we have rental housing and there's land for more units and maybe some small home ownership units. So we're looking everywhere we can for those opportunities. Thank you Gus very much. We'll have you back certainly. And Jen probably next week, we'll pick this up again for sure. Let's move on. Thank you again to Jim Bradley. I'll see Jim. There he is. Hello everybody. My name is Jim Bradley. Can you hear me all right? Excuse me? I just want to make sure everyone can hear me all right. Yes, can hear you fine. Great. So I am a builder in the state of Vermont. I'm a weatherization contractor, a partner with Efficiency Vermont, a passive house certified builder. I had been president of the Vermont Builders and Homeowners Association for two years previously and also now head the legislative committee. I also have a radio show called House Calls Vermont on WDEV on Saturdays. Surrounding this very topic as far as how to construct things appropriately, how to weatherize your home. It's an assistance show if you will for homeowners and builders. I'm invested in this, what we're talking about right now. And I think any investment we make, we have to do it really intelligently and know all the variables that are in place. One thing that's really important is that pre-pandemic, we had so many other factors heading towards a crossroads if you will in our economy nationwide specifically in Vermont as well with people getting out of the workforce, retirees, baby boomers. It is estimated that since July nationally, we have had seen at least 4 million workers exiting the workforce on a monthly basis. And so that's huge. You look at 24 million people have just exited the workforce since July nationally, which equates into, if you look at the demographics, 55 and above, people who are 55 and above account for 90% of that exodus. So you have a lot of people who are graying, who are getting older, who have been tradespeople, have been in the workforce that are getting out now, they're retiring. Some of them have various reasons, but we knew about this for 25 years that this was going to be happening and here we are, it just happens to coincide at the same time we went through a national worldwide pandemic and it couldn't have happened at a more challenging time. We knew it was happening and here we are. How do we address it? Because we can have a lot of money to throw at a project. We can have great plans for a project. We can even have affordable building lots. If we don't have a sustainable workforce to build these homes, no matter if it's low income, middle income, upper income housing, we're not going to get the work done. And a lot of people have become somewhat jaded when they hear the term workforce development because, oh, we've heard about this for years. Well, we're here. When every builder that I talked to said, I could hire at least one to five more workers immediately. And still wonder if I can get everything done. There are definitely material supply chain issues that are affecting the cost of housing. We're watching lumber prices when they usually equate this into 1,000 board feet and pre-pandemic, that was right around 400 per 1,000 board feet at the height of the pandemic. And last summer, it got up to $1,700 a thousand board feet last fall. So this last fall in 2021, it diminished down back towards around $400, but today it's up to $1,200 a thousand board feet. So that's just a huge roller coaster of material cost variables that it's hard to put your finger on and say, okay, I know exactly what my fixed costs are gonna be. Added to that, you have delivery issues. You have delivery issues where, you know, a kitchen that used to take three to four weeks to get on site is now tracking somewhere between 20 and 24 weeks. So you have to be somewhat psychic to know exactly what you're going to need. And when, unlike before, and just say, okay, I think I'm gonna have everything in place here. And hopefully there's not a ship out in the ocean that has my materials that I'm waiting for that's gonna delay the whole project, which is a crescendo effect because it affects, you know, the whole progress of the project when you don't have certain materials in place from the plumbers to electricians to the finished carpenters, everything else. So those stresses are there. At the Home Builders Association, we have been attempting to engage with others from transitionary workforce individuals, you know, like the military or people who might be new Americans or people transitioning out of the hospitality industry to engage them in some type of a robust training program to ensure that we have those workers in place. It's been a heavy lift, even at the vocational level, you know, at the high school levels, it's just because the bandwidth, the interest, the finances are not there. Plus the conception or the preception that people have of what a trade person is. You know, a lot of times it's unfortunately our society seeing as the lower rung of professions. That can't be the case anymore. And that messaging has to stop and it has to be retooled and refashioned to let people know that if you're building somebody's home, you have to have a great education in proper building science, material acquisition, how to run a business appropriately, the professional way of doing things. And that shift has definitely happened in our society and we have to stay in step with that. Otherwise we are going to be left behind. So making that investment in our workforce is hugely important and that starts at the ground level. I know I've heard it said, you know, we need some quick housing, some fast housing, that's great. But if we have out of five tradespeople who are getting out of the workforce on a monthly basis are only being replaced with two new ones, that math doesn't, you know, bear out, it doesn't hold water for us. And so this is going to only get worse if it's not addressed now. Turning the ship around and getting it, you know, in the proper direction as far as workforce development is not an easy task, but it's an important one. We have to be able to change the mindset of parents, of guidance counselors, of those people who are counselors in the transitionary workforce area to let people know that the trades are a viable, financially viable, a rewarding type of career field that people should want to go to without incurring huge amounts of college debt and everything else. It doesn't mean you're not going to get the education. It will be there. It will come if you're going to stay in this industry, but we have to change the value that we have placed on that because otherwise we're not just not going to get our homes built. We're not going to get our other weatherization goals met either. So we have, you know, more money being thrown at weatherization, which is great. Let's make that investment and, you know, the planet and everything else and, you know, diminish the cost of fuels. But if we don't have the people to actually fill those jobs, it's a fool's errand. And so we have to make that investment and it needed to be made yesterday. But here's today. And we have that opportunity to make that investment and it starts with whatever program we go forward with. We might get some success initially, but the longterm is what my concern is. So after the first round of success that we do get some more middle income housing built, then at the other side of this, okay, who's going to backfill that, those, the workers and be the people who are building that today? Like I said, without exception, I have every builder that I talk to are saying I could use more people. I could use people who show up. How that's affecting the cost of the home. Right now, if you're a tradesperson and you're a laborer that just shows up on the job site without any experience in Chittenden County, it'd be hard to find somebody who'd be willing to work for less than $20 an hour. Usually that pay rate is between 20 and 25. Great, but I've also heard other builders trying to, there's this one in particular that was trying to find somebody who will show up, doesn't care what the skill set is, just show up and be consistent and I'll pay you $34 an hour to start. I'm considering thinking, okay, the wages just keep going up and up and up and as they do, that has to get passed on to the buyer and or to the government entity who's funding the housing project. But the thing that's so important here is, we need to have those workers to draw from to not just make wages go down but help them level out appropriately. But at the same time, if we are having new people transition into the state or stay in the state, moving out of their parents' home maybe and into their own home, there was 12 million new households formed in America from 2012 to 2021. There were only seven million new housing units constructed, five million unit deficit. We share that same dilemma here in the state of Vermont. Right now, someone asked earlier, I think it was Senator Clarkson, you asked, what were the needs currently for the workforce? I know just from the trades people side, you could easily say that anywhere between 1500 to 3000 workers immediately would have jobs. And as we continue to put more money towards these initiatives, we're gonna have continued growth. We're gonna need more people in those areas and they're gonna need housing. So yes, you can get more workers in but you also need housing for those workers so they can stay here at the same time. And so putting a concerted effort here, yes, we need to build more housing but you need the workers to build with. Otherwise, you could have the best of plans, you could have affordable lots, you could have building materials if they do show up but you can't get them built without the workforce. And it's not just something that says it's gonna happen someday and we can keep kicking this down the road, the can down the road, it's happening. It's already here, we deal with it on a constant basis and that's the lament of every builder that I've dealt with is finding the people that will work so you can get the job done and yet we could get more projects done. So we weren't booking out to 2023 and 2024 with some of these projects because if we just had the people and had that resource and that's a vital part of our resource. The other thing, the resource preservation is usually important because it was asked by Senator Sorkin and I love this question is can we do this efficiently and swear it's gonna be proper for the environment? So many of the building materials that are offered today can be put together without the durability factor being championed and why is durability important? Because if we're looking to diminish the stress that we put upon our environment, you wanna build it once and be done. You don't wanna build it once in five to 10 years we place your site or within a one to five year window you have major mold problems inside the house because you didn't use the right materials and you didn't understand indoor quality or vapor drive or ventilation and everything else. And let alone what are the health component factors for the occupants because you didn't get the building science right. The reality is though these measures the building science, the proper materials and the building techniques already exist. It's important and incumbent upon us to make sure that we're investing this money that we're getting these details right. It doesn't mean you have to build the most efficient house possible. It means that you're gonna make it as durable and healthy and safe as possible using known prescriptive measures to get this to happen. And it doesn't have to drive the cost way up there especially if you have to replace your siting prematurely within a 10 year window because it already started to rot away or deteriorate add another $15 to $25,000 to that expense. But if you get it right in the first place by adding a few thousand dollars to put the belt and suspenders on and make sure that that deterioration is not going to happen so rapidly, you're saving money, you're affecting the planet. And that's the resource preservation component that we have to get right. So as we're investing these monies, let's make sure that we're investing the monies yes to secure middle income housing but durable housing that's healthy and safe and also we're investing in our workforce so that we have somebody to backfill these positions that are being, people are retiring from them so we can continue to have a workforce and a sustainable resource that can build the homes that we're looking to have as part of our housing stock. And at that point, I'll go ahead and take questions. Thank you so much, Terrence. That was great testimony on a personal note. I couldn't agree more. I represented the trades for decades in the legislature when I was advocating. Also have to say, I really just really struck a nerve when you talked about lumber cars. I had the misfortune of building two decks this summer and everything just went skyrocketed. But I did want to ask you, have you been asked to testify yet in the house? I did last week sir, yes. I did. They're taking the lead on workforce shortage. These things obviously overlap but in terms of dividing workload, they're gonna do that and it's really important to me because I hear people talk about the need for more nurses and the need for more childcare and the need for more broadband workers. But the trades, it touches them upon broadband a little bit but the trades are not mentioned in that top three tier of groups. And I think we need to get people's awareness up there that we need more people in the construction trades. Any other questions for James at this point? Great, we're gonna move on to Mora Collins. Thank you again, Jim. Mora, I haven't seen you for a while. I know, I have been hiding in my home basement like all the good doobies who are trying to stay away from everything scary. My name is Mora Collins. I am the executive director of Vermont Housing Finance Agency. Today I am joined by my coworker, Seth Leonard. I want to introduce Seth because he's really gonna be the one following the committee's work this year. We know what this committee can do for housing powerhouses and we're so grateful for, not just for the effective advocacy you do for housing but also the meaningful and measurable results that you've clearly been able to deliver on. So Seth oversees our community development department which means he's responsible for our development programs when we talk about rental housing development and these home ownership pilots. You've heard about all of our research work and the asset management department which means that he knows of all the housing that we've already funded and created in Vermont what's happening with it. And so can talk to some of those issues that Chris Hart spoke about about the capital needs of housing in the state. And lastly, some of you may recognize him. He was the longtime mayor of Winooski during the time that they implemented form-based codes. And so he knows a lot about land use planning and municipal realities. So I say this because there's a whole lot of research and reports and information that we have that I think would really reinforce the messages that you're hearing today. And so when the time is appropriate in the future if he could come back and speak to each of these I'll just give you a quick highlight and then dive into some of the conversations we've been hearing so far. So Seth led the work that VHFA did in partnership with VHCB to study the cost drivers of affordable rental housing development. So if you want him to come back and speak to that he could talk about what those factors were that led to increased costs in Vermont. Another initiative housed in that department is a housing fellowship program that we have with graduate students. And this past summer one of our graduate students surveyed town planners, zoning administrators, chairs of planning commissions, town clerks, economic development directors and we heard from 69 different communities. And that may be worthy of him coming back and going through those results. They were fascinating because folks like me and us on this panel follow the end result of what housing gets developed. But it was really interesting to learn that 22 of the 69 towns don't have any zoning that is less than a half an acre anywhere in their community. And we know that large lot sizes can pose significant barriers to housing affordability. So when towns increase the amount of land required to build new homes then those units are gonna have to be sold or rented at higher cost to make up for that initial investment in the property. So there were recommendations that came out of those findings that talked about opportunities to look at by right development or a taxing vacant land. We talked about streamlining the permitting process and reducing fees. We already heard previous witnesses talk about not having duplication of state and municipal permits, increasing residential parking flexibility. And you heard Chris talk about updating zoning bylaws to allow and encourage higher density development. And so just high level, I looked at several of the bills that are in the legislature being considered right now. I think you all are looking at as fodder for the Somnibus bill and there's a lot in there that supports those recommendations. Seth was also one of the authors on a report VHFAA released this fall focusing on what we heard from builders and developers like Jim and others. We know that the cost of developing homes is going up, it's becoming more lengthy and more complicated. And so what we're seeing is what we did, I'm sorry, is that in August, we did a survey and held a forum to hear directly from development professionals and contractors. And we asked about how the pandemic was affecting development capacity and moving projects forward. And we found that about 90% of the respondents were experiencing COVID-19. We're experiencing project delays and higher development costs beyond typical increases. They also talked about increased processing time and costs due to overlapping and sometimes excessive regulatory and permitting burdens. And so we found just looking, we don't have information about housing costs across the whole state, especially when it comes to the private market where there's no affordability restrictions. But VHFAA does have access to what's happening just with the tax credit program that we administer. And between 2020 and 2021, the average cost of a proposed development for the tax credit program went up by 9%. And that may seem really high and get people really nervous, but that increase is just slightly higher than the change we saw in multifamily homes under construction nationwide, which was an 8% increase. And so 64% of people we heard from had abandoned or substantially delayed starting a project due to cost pressures. So there's so much more the nerd in me wants to go into, but I'm gonna hold back and just dive into some of the specifics that I think you all are considering is this omnibus bill. And I wanna just speak in support of being on the record and support of some kind of rental housing health and safety measures similar to what were proposed last year. I think that that could really help our state overall. There was some news that I think a lot of us saw that talked about the failure of some housing and how it wasn't up to the conditions that any of us would expect. And I understand that some of those communities where that housing existed were in municipalities with longstanding and robust inspection systems. But what struck me was that those weren't the only towns where those violations were occurring and only a statewide database where staff has the ability to look at those kind of findings from across multiple communities could such widespread violations be identified and I would hope a swifter response could have begun. I think Commissioner Hanford has, I've heard him testify in many committees about the success of the VHIP program to improve the rental housing conditions of our state. I know last year there was also a home ownership revolving loan fund that was proposed. I don't think, I didn't hear a lot of committee testimony fleshing out all those specifics but I'd be curious to listen in on more conversations about that. Because I think some of those goals we've heard a lot about home ownership today and I think a lot of those goals are laudable. It's just a question of how that all comes together and to make sure that maybe we're not trying to do too much with one program. Maybe there needs to be some pulling apart there of those goals. I'm very supportive of the municipal bylaw modernization grants that Chris Cochran spoke to. That is a great tool. Although I worry a little bit that when we offer money to those who apply for the money we are reinforcing the good deeds by the good actors. But again, if you could read the full survey of the towns that we did this summer you'd find that there's a lot of communities that answered questions like no, the fact that we have limited water or sewer capacity is not a problem at all for housing development. And I question if all of our communities are fully aware of what the impact on housing is for some of their zoning and the like. Of course every community is different. So I put a little asterisk by that that I shouldn't also paint every town with a broad brush. But in housing proposals being considered there has been a call to increase the manufactured home replacement program that's funded through the state housing credits that VHFAD ministers that program has great outcomes and there's strong demand for it. So that has been something we've really supported as well has been the expansion of the downtown tax credits for the reasons you've already heard from today and expanding those to neighborhood development areas so that we're encouraging resources to go to areas planned for growth. I know you're focusing on policy and not funding but you've also heard teased up some talk about a budget adjustment request that's looking at the creation of affordable home ownership construction. That's going to be very important as we recover from the economic impact of the pandemic. And so I would be happy to talk more about what's being proposed in that pilot as a part of the BAA. You heard it previewed there is a construction capital access proposal that we are working with VHCB to get funded. Gus said that his staff is recommending to the board for their meeting in a few weeks that that guarantee and backstop program be set up. The BAA request is to create, to have some capital be available to cover the value gap, which is defined as the cost of construction is often higher than what the final home appraises for once the paint is dry and the final nail has been hit and all that. There is a gap there. And so if it takes a home builder $425,000 to build a home and the very day it's completed before anywhere in tear happens and appraiser walks in and says, I'm looking at the market and this home's only worth $375,000. This subsidy program would cover that gap that's necessary so that that home can be sold and by someone especially who needs a mortgage. But additionally, it calls for some additional subsidy to buy down the cost of the home so that we can make it even more affordable and that that additional subsidy would be a permanent subsidy that's retained in the home and stays there for future buyers. So in the proposals at some point I hope that you will look at tweaking the definition of mixed income housing. This is something I've testified to committee about several times and it's too complicated to dive into today but there is a reference in statute to mixed income housing which defines what a priority housing project is that gets an act 250 exemption. The problem we have is that currently the statute references a VHFA program limits that no longer exist because VHFA has changed the way we do business over the past decade and statute hasn't kept up with that. So there is a proposal to tweak that and modernize it so you're not pegging things to a purchase price limit that if anyone goes on our website, they won't find but instead something that we have committed to updating each year that adjusts by bedroom size and community and things like that. Well, we did that. We didn't do that already? That has not passed final that still is outdated and needs addressing. Okay. Maybe we could do that in 101. It's in 101 but I also see Chris has his hand up and one reason I need Seth here is because sometimes these things move so fast that I'm not up on the latest. So maybe I would love it if Chris could correct me if I'm saying something wrong because I don't need to. We may have done it in our committee but it didn't maybe to survive. But anyhow, I'd ask you more like I asked Josh if you could sort of put a bullet point, one page memo or two page, one or two page memos of these ideas that you're talking about and some of them are existing programs but just sort of a short summary so we can have a little bit of a roadmap because you're listing a lot of different ideas that are all good. Come on, you're keeping up with me though. I know you are, because you know because this was in the middle that this committee has passed and all but absolutely of course I don't- I'm not as good as Senator Clarkson. I got him, we've got him. Yeah, so I mean that just really what I'm doing is just reviewing what I've seen come through this committee and have largely the committee's support and just re-endorsing that these are good ideas that I think need to be brought forward over the finish line and get done. And I think that this idea of an omnibus housing bill is a great one in order to try to bring all that together and as a suite and package of solutions it's going to be able to touch on homelessness, rental housing, home ownership and everything in between. We're gonna be looking at supply. We're gonna be looking at, you know planning and zoning and the like. And so I'd be happy to answer more questions if there are specifics. Well, we need to move on but you're a key person to us. So we'll probably have you back on a regular basis or set back, set welcome. Do you wanna add something right now? I mean, I can see you coming in next week for sure. No, I think more did a great job with it just as you all are moving really fast. There has been a lot of great work done in the background that's taken a lot of time to come up with some policy recommendations on a lot of these issues. So we've got some of those in hand to discuss with you as the session goes on. So look forward to working with all of you. Okay, thank you very much. Senator Clarkson. Maura and Seth, I didn't hear you and I know it's there somewhere. Talk about an expansion of the first time home owner down payment assistant program or a variant of it, which I know many of us are very interested in and using it as a way to build home ownership for a wider group of people. I assume that's in there somewhere. I do firmly believe that some kind of forgivable loan or enhanced down payment assistance is critical, especially if we're talking about first generation home buyers who have not had access to the mortgage market historically. Oftentimes people think about black indigenous and people of color, but also it could be for a lot of people who just have been prevented from accessing that market. That is important. I think that right now as the market is adjusting, we're looking at those supply constraints and saying giving people more money to participate in such a broken market may not be as hopeful if there's not the housing stock. And so when you are competing with cash buyers, I don't care how much enhanced down payment assistance you have, you still have a mortgage and you're still maybe gonna be out of the running. But I do think that that is a critical tool that we need to address. And it was part of the budget adjustment proposal that we were talking about in the house. I know that they've had concerns that it's not well fleshed out enough and there's a concern. This really would be a shift in state policy if we were to go from perpetual affordability and to have all of our public dollars be retained in the homes that we've invested in to this idea of transferring wealth to individuals. And that is a conversation to really take carefully because it is a real shift in policy. And so I can appreciate that on the house side they were saying maybe budget adjustment is not where we should have that conversation but that that should be a conversation for the full budget. And so I welcome the conversation because I do think that down payment assistance will remain a critical component that we need to look at and this kind of enhancement for first generation buyers will be a great tool to have. And perhaps an enhancement into our downtowns and neighborhood development areas. I mean, we can also kill two birds with, maybe we can kill three birds with one stone with this program and drive investment into our downhounds where there may be lots of housing that needs work but there's housing stock there. Anyway, thanks. One quick question to button up here before we take a small break. Are you familiar with the proposal from the realtors for a 529 like program for to help people build up resources to put towards a down payment or to a new, a first time house payment? I'm not. Okay. Well, you'll hear about it. I think some state has done this and supposedly very successfully but the idea is to treat putting money aside for first generation home buyers to give them tax incentives to put the money aside like we do for them to pay for their college education for kids. So it's an interesting concept. Let me, let's take a break till 1125.