 Welcome everybody, members of the public. We're going to move over to housing or how on of this housing bill. And this morning we're going to be focused on land use, planning, permitting, all those good things that. Some, which we hopefully identify some, sometimes unnecessarily increase the cost of housing. The length of permitting and try and pick away at those pieces to promote more housing through policy, as opposed to just putting more money into the issue. So. Regina welcome. I don't think we've met. It's a pleasure. If you want to start us off. If I've given you enough to go on. I think you'll give us plenty to go on. Okay. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. Good morning. Good morning, Senators. Thanks so much for having me. I am Regina Mahoney. I work for the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission been there for about 10 years and prior to that was. Planning director in the town of Milton. And today I'm here talking with you folks. More on behalf of the Vermont planners association. So. Over the summer and the fall, we put together a housing position paper and it's got sort of four main recommendations. So I'm going to be. Sort of walking through that and explaining how. Some of the provisions of age 511. And we have a number of. Pregnant. S226 and S1. Oh, one kind of. Fit in and are supported by that position paper. Just quickly for those that don't know the Vermont planners association is a nonprofit. Advocacy and education organization. We've got about 200 planners. From all levels of government and the private sector consulting organization. And we've got a number of plans. We've got a number of plans for the advancement of planning in the state. So in putting in BPA, putting together our housing position. State statement. We did work quite a bit from. The housing barriers report. Which a number of planners put together over the last year. And really focused on the neighborhood development. And that document is really the grounding place. For age 511. So over this sort of same time period in the fall. Myself on behalf of BPA. As well as. DHCD staff. Chris and Jacob. As well as the NRC. Worked with. Representative bond guards on that bill. So there was a good, really good amount of working. We had a number of meetings and really worked through the starting place of that housing barriers report. And really. Got to a very workable place that. We felt in age 511. So. If it, if it helps, I can sort of walk through. The, the, the, the BPAs for overall recommendations for housing. And then really sort of pinpoint where H. 511. And also it looks like your draft 2.1. Of S 226. Really has incorporated a lot of that. Great, great work in there. So if that sounds like a good approach. Sounds fine. So I, I just sent this over to Scott this morning. But I'm also happy to share my screen as I walk through this. Do you have a preference? I have a preference of sharing the screen because I can print. All right. Excellent. Let me just. So if people have questions as we go, you're going to have to shout out because I won't see your pictures anymore. Okay. Is that zoomed in enough for you to see? Probably bigger. A little bigger would be great. So we're looking at draft 2.1. This is their report. I think. Oh, this is their report. Right. Yes. So our. Overall housing recommendations. Again, there's four main record recommendations. And I think that really is a recommendation to fund and implement water and sewer infrastructure in our existing settlements. Really from a big picture perspective, there's only so much we're going to be able to do without, without working on that. And certainly ARPA. Big help. The infrastructure bill will be a big help. But just wanting to sort of point that out and not, not lose sight of that. So. Could you give us an idea. Of what big help. Means, I mean, what is the. It's probably an unfair question, but very broadly, what is the. Dollar need out there and how much was it. ARPA for this, how much is in infrastructure for this? When will we know that? And we're also have, as you probably have our aware of follow on S 33, which is our mini tip bill. And one of the questions we've been asking. Doesn't. This number one, like. Totally subsumed the need for. Many tips. Great question. And I don't have a great answer for you. I do know in our region, Westford is a, is a great example of trying to put some. A municipal wastewater system in place to help support their. Village and neighborhood designation. Area designation. And they are big proponents of that mini tip bill. And they, they can speak to it much better than I can, but even with ARPA funds on the table, the help of that mini tip would be, is still a quite a huge need. Couldn't give you specific dollar amounts off the top of my head, but these projects, unfortunately, are very complicated and definitely very costly. So I think both ARPA and the infrastructure bill is helpful. But I don't believe that it's solving the need in full. So let me, let me play devil's advocate. And maybe I'm just missing something. The numbers that I remember from Westford. Is they wanted to get essentially a million dollar. Loan through the TIF program. That they would pay off through increased. Property tax payments in the future. Instead of that. Couldn't offer or infrastructure just write them a check for a million dollars. I think it depends on how it's going to, how the program is going to work from this date. I could. Look up how much Westford is actually getting from their ARPA funds directly. I don't know that off of the top of my head. And we don't know, we don't know on infrastructure. We don't have all the details yet about how much money is going to go out. Yeah. And that's a bit of a challenge quite frankly here, just in terms of the money flow and what's duplicative and what isn't. I mean, it's just. It's no secret that I've been a big fan of. Many tips. I went to the governor's press conference stood beside Senator Brock on, on this. And it's pretty easy for us to just throw it in the bill because we've worked it over, but I really like to have this question answered. Is it. And I guess it's certainly necessary maybe for 10 years out when we're going to be asking questions. I mean, I don't know if all this largesse goes away, but is it really necessary now? I guess. I'm sure we're going to be asked. That the house is going to be asking that question. So if somebody could get an answer to us. Great. Mr. Chair, I would recommend talking with Neil Cayman from the agency of natural resources. I know he's worked closely with this, this town of Westford. He's been working closely with the agency of natural resources. And he's been working closely with the agency of natural resources. And they are leading all the infrastructure investments and water and wastewater. And this is also familiar with the mini tip proposal. And I'm happy to job to him. Cayman. KAY. Okay. I mean, I think. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Scott's got it. I'm sure. Okay. Okay. I rudely interrupted. No worries. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Second big recommendation from the planters association is to make some improvements to the neighborhood. Development area designation. And the other state programs. So first kind of. Sub part of that is really. Making the neighborhood designation more accessible for the rural communities. So the more that we can really support. Some. Removing some barriers to that designation program for more communities. I think all the better. We're going to be. So. Five of those are in Chittenden County. And I can just say from, from our perspective in Chittenden County, this designation is a really great, valuable, helpful designation. And really making housing happen. So the more that we can really support. The more that we can really support. The more that we can really support. The more that we can really support. The more that we can really support. The more that we can really support. The more that we can really support. The more that we can really support. So one. Concept there. That was described in the housing barriers report. Was talked about in age five, 11. And looks like it's been added to your. Drafts 2.1. Of 226. Is the concept. Of. Not requiring. A municipality to have water. And wastewater already in place. As a prerequisite to getting the neighborhood. Development area designation. I think the desert getting the designation first. On the table can help invite the housing developers to the table. And then. Water and wastewater is. Something that needs to be permitted. And it will be properly permitted. With housing developments that come forward. And there's also just. Some great improvements to decentralize systems. And the lots more things that can sort of happen from that front. So at least by a project by project basis, just allowing a little bit more flexibility in that program. I think. It's going to be pretty helpful. Does it. Does it potentially. Open up a loophole that will result in. In the future. Sprawl or non. Smart growth. I don't think so because. The neighborhood development. Area designation still has so many other parameters in place. Largely the minimum density requirement. And so we're already looking at relatively. Tight locations. It also. Really needs to. Be. Only buffers. And goes on top of. The other designations that are already in place. And those parameters are pretty tight. And as is the state designations are. Really. You can see in. To be there. 0.3% of the state's land area. We're still talking about a relatively small area. Even with this. Initial provision. Off the table. Mr. Chair. May I just add. I think. We think of our designated downtown. Is actually being bigger areas than they actually are. In the grand scheme of things. And so I. I don't think we need to be concerned about these. These areas just becoming huge and overwhelming and sprawled. Out. We're still talking about a relatively small area, even with this. We're still talking about a relatively small area. We're still talking about a relatively small area. But they're becoming bigger areas than they actually are. They're quite very. Surprise. I think people are always surprised at how actually contained. They are. And my sense of the NDAs is that they're just sort of like the next ring. Around what we all consider our downtown. Is that a fair way of. Describing that Regina. I mean, it's ridiculous. They have to be contiguous to our downtown and village centers. So I think that is a fair way of saying that. I mean, I would say that this is the district of woodstock. Where I live now, I would hope would be. An NDA, but it's not part of the designated downtown, even though I am a block and a half from route four. So you'd think that I was right in the center of Woodstock, but I'm actually. Not part of the designated downtown because that is a tiny little. Area. So I guess. I think I need to understand this one a little bit more. Yeah. I think it's a little bit more. I think it's a little bit more. I think it's a little bit more. I think it's a little bit more. The design. They get the designated down. The designation prior to them having. Steward or water or war or both. Yes. Okay. Is it both they can. They can have one. I don't have to have either at the time of getting. Designation, right? Correct. I think it's a little bit more. I think it's a little bit more. I think it's a little bit more. I think it's a little bit more. Smart growth. Housing development. That. Insues from the designation. Couldn't go forward until they had the water and sewer in place. Right. And I think the concept is that. Housing development to come forward. And work out a system for themselves. That doesn't necessarily require a much larger complex municipal level. System. Put in place. And. You know, I think the other way to kind of think about this too. Is. That there are. There are not going to be that many areas that are coming forward through this program without. Without. Without water in place or without the potential for municipal waste, wastewater in place. It's just sort of a matter of timing and lining things up. So that a municipality can really start to do their planning. And get their zoning right. Get into the NDA program. And if the wastewater water is coming either at a project specific. Level. That can work great for the municipality may be working more towards water wastewater. It just takes a long time. And so at least everything. All the processes can sort of be working collectively together. As opposed to. Having to have water and wastewater in place first. And then get the NDA. I think I understand what you're saying. But in response to the question, you weren't. Saying that. I think that. There at some point. Before the, the actual housing is built. The water and sewer on a. Municipal level or a system. As opposed to individual. Wells and septic systems. Would have to be built. You're saying. No, they can get their designation. So in essence, you're not just. Delaying for timing sake. You're actually eliminating a requirement. Am I being clear? A housing development is not going to be constructed. Without. A water and wastewater permit. So they will have a water and wastewater system in place to manage that housing development. But it could be individual systems for each house, right? And it most likely. Wouldn't be individual necessarily because of the scale of developments that we're talking about here. It could be. But it may be more of a community system. And so not necessarily publicly owned. But a community system. And I think the idea, the point being. All of these options. Are possible from a water wastewater perspective. And so really it can be more based on the housing need as the projects come forward. Rather than. Rather than getting a municipal system in place. If it's not, if that's not necessary. Okay. Yeah, I think it makes sense. I think I need to. Feel a little bit more comfortable that. The existing law sort of was. The timing might not have been right, but the, it sounded like it was designed to. We have denser housing on a congregate. So I think that would be a good idea. I think that would be a good idea. I think everybody would be hooked up to that, but. Let's move on. We'll get, we'll figure that out. Okay. Okay. Then. Second point under that is. We talked about this for a few years now. And it was in S one. Oh, one. And now it looks like again in 2.1 of 226. The state water, the state water, the state water, the state water or wastewater system in place. And the municipality is issuing their own water, wastewater permits. That there is a redundancy with also having to get the state water and wastewater permit as well. So. VPA supports this provision that would. Go. The city. The city, the state water, the municipality is already permit it. Okay. We're very familiar with that. Yeah. Okay. So. Moving on here. So again, this is under the same recommendation in terms of improving the. State designation programs. and the associated fees that that come along with that. So B1 here we really really support the concept of taking a look at the state designation programs as a whole. There are a number of them they were created for different reasons and we always are finding ourselves in them. In the place of trying to use these programs to define where we want growth to happen and that seems like the most logical reason to have these state designation programs. But it would be great to just be able to take a look at them collectively and with that intent. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah, we've talked about this for a couple years. Yeah. So that's great. DPA is also in support of extending the downtown and Village Center tax credit programs to the NDAs. That was in SO 101 as originally introduced and it looks like it's in your new S226 as well. Also, the concept of applying for a neighborhood designation development area designation by a joint application of two municipalities seems like in support of that great idea. It's also in support of the concept of including flood hazard and fluvial erosion areas in the NDA, where pre existing development already exist in those areas, and if the municipality itself has adopted the rules for appropriately providing growth in these areas. So, if the municipality has their flood hazard and river corridor protection bylaws in line with A&R's rules at the local level. So, in support of that. So, a minor tweak in terms of how the four dwelling units per acre is established and defined for the neighborhood designation areas and BPA is in support of that. Last bullet here, BPA is in support of removal of the priority housing project caps all together. And so I think that's where your original S226 landed and it looks like your new S226 has a modification to that. It probably acts, I'm not sure if it follows what was in H511, but just broadly speaking from BPA's perspective, the priority housing projects are excellent. It's what we need. It's what we want to not only help address the overall housing supply challenge but also the affordable and moderate supply challenge. Just not sure that there's a lot of reason why those should be capped in any way in order to access the Act 250 exemption in these areas. So, I guess, I mean, I guess my response would be if the city of Burlington wanted to build a housing project with 2,000 units, there may be some reason to have Act 250 review in something that big. And just because there's a designated downtown, I mean, I just, I don't know, that's why I think a total elimination of the cap may be a little bold at this point. Chris, you have a comment. Yeah, Mr. Chair, currently for larger municipalities, there is no cap. I don't know what this is intended to do. So Burlington wanted to permit 2,000 units. So Cambrian Rise, you know, has is a priority housing project, you know, permitted units. It was not required to get an Act 250 permit, nor was was it city place, you know, the one in downtown. And I think it's just a point of equity, you know, it was like, we want to see more development happen in some of our smaller towns, the changes the NDA program are aimed at giving them the same opportunities that our larger municipalities have, what the right number is, you know, being RC feels like it should be more modest in a change but they're open to making a change. Obviously the planners have a different opinion and want to completely eliminated. So I hope that helps. So I apologize. I thought that there was caps, varying degrees of caps on every size community but the theory remains the same in terms of the suggestions for the smaller ones. If you're, if you're eliminating a cap for a real small town, and all of a sudden the giant housing project comes in, should there be Act 250 review in that case, but we'll we'll look at it. I apologize for the diversion. I did have a chair. I know we're going to look at this more fully, but I would just like to ask at this moment, the, what point does local planning and town plan and local zoning Trump no caps. I mean, I mean, because our smaller communities need some protection from exactly that kind of a situation. I guess they're act 250 to fall back on, would we be allowing our town plans and our local planners to be able to make decisions about that. Yeah, I go ahead. So the designation, you know, we do look at the community's bylaws, you know, so they have to do a lot of work to make sure that that housing is located in a right in the right locations and minimize impacts to important natural resources. So it's not just like any town can get this they have to meet minimum standards to achieve the designation to create a larger area to allow a priority housing project to occur. But, you know, to your question, you know, at what point does a large development have a regional impact and, you know, that is kind of the intent of active 50 to look at that. I guess the other pressure to is, you know, the, the suggestion of the removing the cap in age 511 also is based in some facts, you know, the HFA and you invite please invite them to speak. You know, did an analysis of kind of the economy of scales for an affordable. And they found over 40 was kind of the sweet spot. So when we're trying to, you know, get the most out of our resources, you know, afford unit development or more is is more affordable to build. And right now, those can't go into a smaller community unless and qualify for php's unless these caps are changed. Yes, I remember that. Thanks. Can I go back to flood hazard, and then also minimum residential densities. So that is saying that flood hazards and erosion areas with pre existing development presently can't be part of. The designated area. Yes. So currently, the way that the neighborhood designation area works is you first define a geographic area, and then collectively, you know, look at it with the downtown board to see what what's the right place. So, you have to remove flood hazard and river corridors from that geographic area, even if there's already pre existing development there. And as we know there's a good amount of our historic villages and downtowns are right up against these areas. And so, this is not suggesting in any way that we get any closer to any river, river corridors or flood things that we have have now. Just a way to try to acknowledge some infill in an appropriate way of doing it with in these areas so that we're not completely removing, removing them from the potential of additional housing if they've already got housing there already. If that makes sense. I think we need to phone a friend. Mr chair if I could add no offense I mean it's using and it's new to me and I'm just, it sounds like it's an equitable thing where you're getting penalized for having pre existing housing that already works in a floodplain. That's the sense I'm getting but I don't fully. So, Mr chair if I could add you know the neighborhood designation was updated and he does right after Irene, and we're being very conservative about excluding any buildings in in river corridor areas. However, this is inconsistent with a and r's policy that allows infill to happen in within these areas. And what we're proposing to change is basically bringing them bringing the neighborhood designation in the line with existing in our procedures and policies that allows safe infill within these areas. And you know I would add that bnrc does support this. And it's an option, you know, if a community wants to add, you know, or do infill in these areas, they have to adopt, you know, townwide floodplain protections and so that supports our larger level of protecting floodplains upstream and downstream to allow infill in these dancer areas. So, this is something we've talked about at length before and I think we, it's passed out of this committee. It just never made it through the house. And the last one here or minimum resident. What are what are we trying to do on this one. So, the base concept doesn't doesn't change here in order to have a neighborhood designation area, you have to allow for for a minimum for dwelling units per acre has residential density in these areas. So, the way that it was worded before was just a little bit tricky in some places and I see Jake has turned his video on and I'm going to ask for a friend again because he's, he's got more familiarity with how this actually works. I think I remember this one, but go ahead, Jake. Yeah, it's the way it's framed right now it's it's linking the four units an acre to a particular residential use a single family detached dwelling. And this change would say that it doesn't, it doesn't have to be a single family detached dwelling units so long as the local bylaws are allowing residential uses it for drawing units an acre. Okay. We did we pass that at some point ever. I know we discussed in the last bill. Ellen, do you remember we can't if we didn't pass and we came close to passing it. Yeah, we certainly have discussed it. It's Ellen. Yeah, she should. Do you remember the Senate. Okay, so the language, and I probably should double check before I say this the language that's in that's being referenced is different than what has been considered before but it isn't. I, it's so no I don't think so it's it's less about the in the past you have considered different numbers. For the density, and what's happening here is actually striking the reference to the single family aspect and allowing for the calculation to include multi units. So, it isn't in the, so in the past you have talked about the number of units per acre. That is not really what this is doing this is talking about what units count in that density calculation. So does this does that make the proposed future housing in these designated areas more dense or less dense. I don't, I don't think it changes the density necessarily that's that still remains. It just allows. It allows it to be in a variety of housing types and structures. So it could be for single family houses on quarter acre lots, or it could be a quadplex or an acre lot. And before, and before it had a, it couldn't be a quadplex on an acre lot. I almost need a picture graph like a. Back to Jacob on this because this is the, we're talking about the calculation, not necessarily like and how the area is zoned, not necessarily the exact housing in each neighborhood. So it's like he was nodding his head. Maybe it would be earlier anyway when you were saying about the one house in a quarter acre so he was nodding his head there and then we sort of lost his support. See if I can think of a scenario. Let's say you have a zoning district and there are three uses allowed. And one is a single family residential uses there's one is a single family detached falling unit. One is a quadplex and the third is a multi family. The way the bylaws the way the municipal bylaws calculate density for the multi family and the quadplex is units per land area and let's say they require 10,000 square feet or per unit. That would meet the quarter acre requirement. If that same zoning district though, established a minimum lot size of a third acre, which is larger than a quarter acre for single family detached dwelling units that under the current statute. That would not be allowing a detached single family dwelling unit at four units an acre. So this would make clear for all residential uses that that four units is what we're looking for if you allow a residential use that there should be at least four units in the acre. Does that help. It does to the extent I'm starting to feel that this is an attempt to assure greater density under the existing law that could be less density, but here with this tightening and I'm not sure exactly how going to get four units on every acre. For sure, or you're not going to be barred from putting up for acres for four units on an acre. In a single family or for one quarter acre lots. So that more or less what the intent is. Okay. Be done pretty well. Let's go on to three. So three is looking more at local zoning. Not talking about the state designation programs necessarily anymore. And really, what the planners are are coming forward and saying is we'd really love to have a real comprehensive broad look at chapter 117 and full and really think through what, what improvements we, we could make to it. As opposed to some sort of little tweaks that we've, we've done along the way. So, I'm not, I'm not sure that we've got anything like that in the bill. So far really sort of looking at a study committee for chapter 117 for the local zoning but just letting you know we we would be in favor of that kind of conversation. So planning for the planners. You know, and partially I think this is, we've seen a lot of really interesting zoning reform done in other states. And, and part of that is, is based on some real data and work and it's sort of done in different ways and in different places like Massachusetts as an example has a minimum affordable housing requirement for municipality. And there are other states that are certainly looking at eliminating single family zoning as a as an as the only permitted use in a residential zoning district. So, lots out there and I think lots that we should give consideration and thought to. But I'm not sure that we necessarily have the data or the understanding of really what's, what's going on in Vermont for example I couldn't even tell you in Chittenden County right now, how much of our land area is only zoned for single family residential. So I think there's the thought process here is there used to be just some more collective effort on on looking at this more broadly. So just sub parts under this is just really appreciation for the bylaw modernization grant program that's going to be hugely helpful. The municipalities that have this now really looking forward to digging in and making some real improvements. And just wanted to point out that the, the program parameters around that grant program that didn't pass an S 101 are supported by by the planners, particularly in tied with a funding program that can help them make those changes. Part B here is the concept that when you get a local site plan or conditional use approval from the development review board. It should not expire any faster than two years. So this is just acknowledging that some of these housing projects really take a lot of effort to put together. And if you get through your local approval process and you're working on all the other pieces and your local approval expires. And that makes you have to kick back into the program. That's, that's not very helpful. So we, the planners support this provision of just making sure that those, those approvals don't expire any sooner than two years. Do you think there, do you think there needs to be any qualifiers on this I know if you get into the judicial system, there's all kinds of equitable qualifiers for change circumstances, etc. So we, we play this out the world could change and what might have made sense two years ago doesn't make sense anymore. I mean, and we generally do it in form of good cause exceptions or something that has its own issues. But have you looked at has there been any discussion coming to this conclusion on things like that. And I think from the planning perspective, the two year timeframe doesn't feel too long. You know, we zoning doesn't change rapidly. It's quite it's quite the process to actually get it changed. So, certainly there could be some circumstances where something in the underlying zoning changes, but not really too worried about it with the two year timeframe is the process so onerous. I'm trying to remember my years on DRB's. It seemed like there are plenty of permits that were expiring and it seemed like a simple process to get them extended. They may have the best small fee and go in there and say nothing's really changed. But I'm just thinking like, you know, you have something that makes sense to, and certain conditions are put on the apartment. And then, you know, within the next six months or a year a big building comes in and they get approved and then all of a sudden the one you approved before doesn't make as much sense or you want another condition on it. And then the kinds of individual circumstances where I don't know if two years is the right time. What is it now six months generally. So right now that's an excellent question. Right now, there is no requirement for putting an expiration date on these permits. So some municipalities don't include an expiration. They can write it into their bylaws and they can put an expiration in and some municipalities have a year as an expiration date. And that can just be really pretty problematic and pulling together the rest of the rest of your permits. You know, I think the challenge is, which what we've been talking about today can help solve this for some, some housing developments in the in the state designations because they're not having to get active 50 permit as well as a local permit but outside of that, in most places, we are going to be still in a situation where housing developments need to go and get both. And if it takes a while to get the all those other permits lined up within a year that can be a tight timeframe if you're having to get kicked back to the to the local level. Okay. I guess this is probably some sort of sweet point there. Yeah, just going back to bylaw modernization is probably a question for Chris. Is there money in the budget anywhere for more grants for my bylaw modernization. Mr chair Chris Cochran, the governor did budget $600,000 in general fund for municipal planning grants. We've talked about this before. They are broadly cast and not as constrained or targeted as the bylaw modernization grants. Well, obviously we're big fans of that. And we appreciate you getting that money out the door. But if there's not more money coming. Why do we need a statute. Right. And is that enough 600,000 doesn't strike me as maybe enough. Well, you're talking to the wrong person. Yeah, no, no, I know but this bill has, you know, we have opportunities here. I mean, we could dedicate some of that money to a second round of bylaw modernization grants or we could up it or we could cut it, but before we decide on leaving that language in it's kind of, it'd be kind of weird if none of that money got used for additional bylaw modernization grants unless the language that we had in 101 and the house tweaked. Sort of somehow applies to municipal planning grants as well so I teed that up for you Chris where do we go with this. I think you have lots of options on the table for how you'd like to you know I do think the governor recognizes that local zoning can be a barrier to housing production. I think you could carve out a portion of it and dedicate it to the bylaw modernization grants. I do think you know we've talked before the language that the house passed. Remember it got separated from the budget never ultimately did pass so we ran a program that was slightly different than what was in S 101. We had some flexibility to do any number of things. You know the NPG program by itself, you know we could make it a priority for bylaw modernization grants. So, I'm not really giving you an answer but I think there's there's opportunity within the existing program to continue support it without creating a standalone program. Do you think we can enhance the effectiveness of the first round of grants with some money, like provide more support to those towns that got the grants in terms of technical assistance or working side by side or, you know having a resource. Yeah, I mean, yeah I think the next step to me is you know obviously the communities have to update their bylaws to qualify for the neighborhood development area designation. So if you wanted to target a portion of it or make it a priority for us to say, you know, this amount of money shall be you know allocated to help municipalities achieve neighborhood designation. I think that that would be a smart good strategic use of that funding. I think last. Let's do see and then we'll take a break. Right. Yeah, so accessory dwelling units. So there were changes made to accessory dwelling unit statute last year and that seems like it's been really great and helpful there was some flexibility in terms of the minimum size of the ad use and some flexibility in terms of if you are going to require the owner occupancy that the owner could either live in ad or the primary structure. That sounds like from the planning community they are seeing some more interest and folks coming in for trying to get some ad use so that's all great news. One of the things that does appear to be a little bit of a hurdle is a home that is currently permitted from a water and wastewater perspective for more than the number of bedrooms that they already have in the structure. A pretty typical example is going to be that a home is permitted from a wastewater perspective at four bedrooms, but only three bedrooms are actually built and in the home. So in theory there's an additional bedroom that can be added. And if that were added just to the structure itself, there would not need to be any change in wastewater permit because it's just still same use additional bedroom meets the allocation as originally granted. But if that additional bedroom is added as an accessory dwelling unit. Then it kicks in the wastewater permit, which is again just sort of another hurdle and very seemingly an unnecessary hurdle when at the end of the day the structure itself is still only going to have the four bedrooms that already was permitted in it in the wastewater permit. So, partially, I think the change that we've talked about already, which would at least remove the state wastewater permit from the situation in areas where you've got municipal water in place will be helpful for this. But there. Why, why is it that what's the operative law that requires in the example you gave that you have to get another permit. So, Chris is raising. Chris Cochran again. We did check in with an R before this because I, we have heard increasingly that is the septic laws are a barrier to adu production. And I don't, from my understanding and you should get I've got context that if you want to learn more about this for me and our who should speak to this but the concern is, is less about the, the septic capacity, and more about peak flows of water capacity for both those units. I don't have any new expertise, but you know, these are systems that are in the ground for, you know, 50 100 years, and they just want to make sure it's done right. But I can get you context to get additional information about this issue and, and I think there are some opportunities for them to make this easier within their existing rules. Basically, what you're saying is that an or presently says that the demand on wastewater is greater. If, if, if there's two units, that total four bedrooms, the demand on wastewater is great greater than four, four bedrooms in one unit. It was a number of bedrooms but, but broken up between a duplex or an ADU, they're requiring more capacity, more capacity and the concern also was about water supply was their adequate water supply. You know you had two kitchens and everybody's making dinner at the same time is there, you know, so, again, not my area but I do think it's worth a conversation with a and R just to have a get a good understanding of their rules. And the intent behind them. And again, they do have opportunities to make it easier within their existing framework and I don't think they're widely used or recognized. So, this is for septic this is not for people who are on sewer systems right. I mean this is like, yes. And so septic systems already one assumes there's less density I mean you're in a downtown that isn't very. I mean, right. Yeah, you could be in Norwich. This is not an issue for municipalities with sewer and water and capacity, right. This is an issue in rural areas where somebody wants to build an ADU. Yeah, yeah. Okay, you want to mention for it's pretty self explanatory. Yes. So for is pretty pretty self explanatory, nothing specific there but definitely just recognizing and appreciating what the state has been able to do in terms of funding for those experiencing homelessness and just putting out some support to, to keep that going. Okay. So, I guess, have a question. I don't know if you can answer this Chris. You know there's been some talk about a homelessness bill of rights, my understanding is that the house is working on that. And that's a fairly, I think, a big lift in terms of time. And if they're working on it I'd rather not have this committee. I'd rather have this committee deal with it when it comes over from crossover do you have any, or maybe Ellen, it's probably David Hall, who would know more about it but does anybody know what the status of the issues addressing homelessness or we haven't really talked about this year and this committee, and I assume that the house is working and will be sending us something. I do not know but I'm happy to reach out to chair Stevens and inquire. Okay, that'd be great. So thank you committee I'm going to suggest that we just continue on for a few minutes and not take a break and then we'll finish up 15 minutes earlier. If anybody is okay with that unless you have a pressing need. So, Ellen. I'm going to sort of set up meetings with Damien and David I'd like to see if I can set up a meeting with you as well for Monday where we can send some quality time seeing where languages and bills are and what you've heard and what I've heard, and start getting into next iterations we're starting to run into time pressures. We have two more weeks. We actually have three more weeks but I'd like to get least the housing bill out. Before we break for town meeting. I think this bill will obviously today's discussion shows it very well that it's going to have to do a drive by and natural resources and probably have to go to finance and appropriations so it needs a fair amount of lead time. The economic development bill also will have to go to finance and appropriations, but not natural resources I don't think so. And I don't think it has the choice of whether it goes to natural resources or not is one of the full Senate. It doesn't go by rule. So it would have to be a decision of whether they take jurisdiction over it or not but I want to continue to work with Chris and make sure I mean I see a lot of these ideas being directly on point of housing, and I hope that all of these ideas can be preserved but I think clearly they may need some tweaking in terms of getting to those points and that they may have more expertise than we do. So, all I have unless you have some anybody else has some observations I'd like to share this morning. Senator Brock, were you about to raise your hand. Before I, okay. Chris. Yeah, I mean I, Senator Bray did take a look at h 511 and has pulled many provisions in it into his active 50 reform bill. I think they were very comfortable with them. I know being RC testified largely into support to a lot of the provisions you heard about this morning so, you know, I think they do need to do a drive by but I think they're fairly familiar with the bill and and my sense was there was a good amount of comfort. That's good to know. There was a lot of good stuff. I think that, you know, it may not be the silver bullets but I think we're staying true to trying to find some policies that can help housing development. And without necessarily hurting the environment and and on top of it actually helping principles of smart growth, better communities so music to planners years right. There's time, but you know I'd love to see the data that you did from your eco study that showed how your smart growth strategies in Chittenden County reduced natural resource impacts by channeling growth to areas where we'd like to see it happen. Yeah, Regina I would like to. With Chris as a result of the significant amount of time we spent in this committee on accessory dwelling units, and we've come up with a series of brainstorming ideas I'd appreciate him running those by the planners, and see what they think of those because you're, I mean you have some in there but they're less extensive than some of the ideas that we put on the table, many of our ideas are sort of directing resources towards incentivizing and also technical assistance for a used to make it very easy for somebody who has the space and wants to develop their house that they don't run into practical hurdles, as well as legal hurdles. So, so if you guys could work together that would be great. Absolutely. Yes, definitely. Okay. Great. Thank you everybody. 15 minutes early.