 Good afternoon. This is the Energy and Environment Committee, Environment and Energy Committee. I am having Tuesday morning, confusion. We are going to continue our discussions of S100 and act relating to housing opportunities made for everyone. And our first witness will be Sue Minter. Welcome, Sue Minter. Sue, are you with us? You are muted. That is not good. Can't hear us. We can now see you. Let's see. I don't know if there's anything I could be doing here. The channel three was muted this morning. I cannot hear you. You can hear me. Okay. I could start my testimony, Madam Chair, but I don't hear you. Would you like me to try to exit and reenter or would you like me to just share my testimony? And if you can put a note in the chat. Yeah, we're good. So can you chat with her and see maybe she should try not using her headphones. Yes, if you could start. Start, I guess. I can't hear. It's not the headphones. Yeah. Yeah, they are blue to me. We can hear me, and I still can't hear you. Do you want me to just go ahead, Madam chair at this point? Yes, let's get us started. Thank you. Okay. Sorry for the technical inconvenience. I just want to thank you all very much for inviting me to join you. For what I understand is an attempt to talk about housing and equity and some of the very serious challenges that are most vulnerable Vermonters are facing right now in 2023. I'm Sue Minter. I'm the executive director of capstone community action, which is a community based anti poverty nonprofit which was established in 1965. We serve the counties of Washington, Lamoille and Orange counties, and are one of five community action agencies across the state that make up the Vermont community action partnership recap. Folks who work for us at capstone are really what I would say on the front lines of the war on poverty, providing crisis support for those who face food insecurity, housing insecurity and homelessness or just enough heat to stay warm through the winter. We also work to build ladders out of property by providing tools and opportunities to help our clients gain economic self sufficiency and self esteem. So really I'm here to provide perspective from the lens that I have watching Vermonters literally wait outside in the dead of winter without warm clothes, just for our food shelf to open. I'm speaking from a place of seeing the economic and racial divide and Vermont continue to grow and experiencing the trauma and despair among a growing number of Vermonters as we all try to exit this global pandemic. And I'm here to reflect on the bill bill before you and try to provide perspective on the incredible urgency that literally thousands of Vermonters who will soon be unhoused from area hotels or who face eviction from the inability to pay their rent. From where I said it is clear that from on every level, we have a severe housing shortage in Vermont, and this shortage is negatively affecting every region of our state in its own unique ways and I know you've learned the macro picture of the current under supply of housing and the increasing demand for housing and the concurrent escalation of price in our existing housing stock. And the lack of stable housing and a growing housing supply means that Vermont's economy faces stagnation without adequate ability to attract a diverse workforce and threatening our businesses that are community vitality. It is so clear to me that Vermont needs to rapidly scale up housing and housing density of all types and at all income levels as quickly as possible. And I want to say that in this sort of moment of racial reckoning, Vermont also needs to face the structural inequalities and racism that is built into the many forms of restrictions and regulations that have become significant barriers to building housing throughout Vermont. And this is why I strongly support S 100, which seeks to remove some of these barriers. It's also why I'm working with other committees of jurisdiction in the legislature to increase funding for the supply of affordable housing and shelters, along with supportive housing services. So I also want to say as a matter of full disclosure and potential relevance that I have a history in my career of working in the planning field my degree is in planner and I worked for 10 years at the Vermont Department of Housing in community planning downtown revitalization. Also as a local planning commissioner in my town of Waterbury, a staunch defender of active 50 and a promoter of smart growth, including when I served as Secretary of Transportation. I established new programs to expand public transportation and to marry planning with transportation funds to create great places, walkable downtown and community centers. And now in my new role combating the causes and conditions of poverty. I've also begun to better understand how some of the unintended consequences of some of these very policies in our current economic context. So, each year, someone that 11,000 Vermonters will walk through one of capstones, many doors, seeking healthy food warms during our hard winters early education programs for vulnerable at risk children and their families. And for help navigating what is only described as a Byzantine system for navigating people so needing to find a roof over their head. During the last federal fiscal year capstones frontline housing support team worked with 523 families. We see Vermonters who come to our doors in desperation. They come from all walks of life there are senior citizens families with kids, single working adults, people with disabilities. They're bound together by a common thread of severe insecurity of losing the stability of a home, because they can no longer afford their rent, or the extreme challenge of being unhoused altogether. Right now, in Washington County, there are 375 adults and children sheltered in area motels in Lamoille County, 146 adults and 46 children were in the motels across our headstart program 30% of the children we serve are homeless. And across the whole state, there are over 2000 adults and 600 children who are currently living in area hotels, and after this July 1, their collective fates are unknown. Capstone staff provide supportive services, case management, other key tools to help lift people into stable housing. And over just the last five months of our service, our housing team has worked with 212 households in search of housing. But only 35 of them have been able to find safe and affordable long term housing. And this is because there is simply no available housing for the folks at this level of housing need, particularly those who are unsheltered and unhoused. And this isn't despite of new vouchers, the Section 8 program. It's been considered a lifeline. This is the very resource that used to be considered a golden ticket. But there's literally no place to throw the life preserver. The chairs of our staff working tirelessly to get their clients into the Vermont rental assistance program VWRAP. They are now faced with letting the clients know that not only has the program ended, but there's nowhere for them to go. One of the capstone counselors, housing counselors, sadly called Section 8, quote, the program of empty promises. We couple this gaping disparity of available apartments vouchers and skyrocketing rents and we understand why Vermont is ranked set in the country right now. It only to California I believe for the rate of homelessness. And as difficult as it is right now, I am deeply worried about what lies ahead, because during this very month of April, a cascade of pandemic era supports are dissolving or gone. April marks the end of the snap three squares emergency allotment, which will affect over 70,000 Vermonters. April is also the end of our Vermont Everyone Eats food program in central Vermont alone where we've been the hub distributing over 5000 nutritious meals every week. This is also the month when the Medicaid unwind is beginning again affecting low income Vermonters accessing their health care and the Vermont child tax credit is also on the chopping block in this body. And then there is VWRAP, which not only has helped provide safety to house some 2500 Vermonters in area hotels. It has also provided critical rental assisted for some 10,000 Vermonters. And we're really just beginning to see what the effect of removing this rental assistance will mean, as many clients are coming to our aid facing evictions and homes they can no longer afford. So we really have yet to experience the full impact of these programs ending. But I really am here to say, we can't think that we can just go back to the way it was pre pandemic. We are now facing a new era of housing unavailability and costs coupled with high food costs fuel and heat for transportation that we've really never experienced before. And we are working with our area partners to try to prepare for the unhousing of hundreds of people just in central Vermont right now the state is estimating that in Washington County alone. About 100 people will be unhoused from the hotels at the end of May, and 200 at the end of June. The general assistance GA program is really on the precipice statewide of exiting more people from the motels this summer than we've ever seen. So we're trying to plan for this. We work with area partners communities public safety officers. The things we support in our GA subsidized motels are elderly. Some are in firm, living with disability or mental illness, or substance misuse. Many are fleeing domestic violence, or they're simply for monitors who work every day and return home to a motel. Far from a perfect model these motels have been a lifeline and we can't find our community, the lifeline that we can't find in our communities without a diverse housing stocks. Guests have found recovery jobs they've gotten healthy had their surgeries, and they've also found compassion and serve with our service providers. If these motels closes proposed we will truly be facing a pandemic and of poverty and homelessness across our state. And I need not remind you all of the very real dangers involved in this moment of supporting people who are unhoused. The tragic grief, the tragic murder of a young Vermonter, Leah Rosen Pritchard whose passion was to spread radical love by providing shelter for those in need at Morningside House in Brattleboro. As difficult as the current situation is, I do see signs of hope. I see hope in every victory that our staff achieve finding people a home, a healthy meal and a job. And across the state, our Community Action Network has served over 1400 individuals experiencing homelessness to find permanent housing during the pandemic. 121 Vermonters experiencing homelessness were provided emergency housing and 714 and very individuals experiencing homelessness were helped to find permanent housing. I see hope in the historic investments into the affordable housing and shelter programs that you all have made through this pandemic. When built, these will really help, although not solve our current challenges. I also see hope in the hard work that has delivered us this needed legislation s 100. This bill tries to remove barriers and help incentivize communities to build more housing at greater density. Removing these barriers will be a critical investment in the long term for Vermonters. But from where I sit, it cannot come quickly enough. I want to emphasize in particular this our strong support of the sections section 44121H which prohibits bylaws from penalizing a hotel from renting rooms to provide housing assistance through the GA programs, as well as section 4413A1G, which restricts the ability of communities to prohibit emergency shelters, both of these sections will assist the serious need for GA assistance and new shelters. At this moment of national racial reckoning, and as Vermont seeks to address the forces that continue to make our state unwelcoming to BIPOC Vermonters. I strongly believe we all need to think carefully and constructively about the rules we set around where and what people can build or not build. We need to recognize that many of the rules that we have put in place over decades are now limiting access to young people to low income people in the BIPOC community. These rules are effectively denying the economic diversity that our state and community needs. And they are upholding a structural racism that makes our state unwelcoming. Addressing poverty has never been easy and our homelessness challenges are not going away and we must forge onward. I believe S100 is a chance to begin to unravel those barriers and to enable communities to finally remove structures that stand in the way of a more diverse and welcoming Vermont. I'm going to conclude my comments with a quote about hope from Barack Obama. Because without hope, we have to spare in this difficult moment. Hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing that sits inside us. Despite all evidence to the contrary, that's something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and work for it and to fight for it. Hope is the belief that destiny will not be written for us, but by us by the men and women who are not too content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be. And I thank you for your time and all of your dedication and service and for your courage in this important moment. Thanks for listening. I'm sorry I can't hear you. I don't know what to do, Madam Chair. Yeah, so we can't ask questions I guess, but. She has a she's got. Leave a message in the chat. Moniz. Represent. I don't know what else to do. Try to go out and come back in and see if I can hear that separate time. Would that be a good idea Madam Chair. Okay. Give me a thumbs up things down. I don't know. We got to keep going. I think. I think we'll say it's down. You should say goodbye. Okay. Thank you all so much. And you've been working hard on a lot of things. And this is a big one. Appreciate it. Thank you. I'd like to ask the committee a question. Okay, what's your question? I wrote this down, so I'm going to read it if that's okay. So I'll get it right. I believe this bill does not belong in environment and energy. I mean, this testimony, I should say, this is a housing bill. And we are not the housing committee should be adding. We should be addressing act 250. I need to put these on so I can see what I'm talking about. We're addressing act 250. I believe general housing has has been passing the buck to us here at this committee bill needs to be divided somewhere around page 35 our part is first housing is the second part. The second part should not be entering into environment and energy when we have issues with act 250 to address. That's my opinion. And I think that somewhere toward the end of this bill that. Like I said, I think housing kind of has the buck to us on it. Entire bill. Okay, that's we'll have time for discussion. It seems like a good topic. Yeah, that's good. Thank you. Represent. Brian shoot is our next witness. Mr. shoot. Thank you. Brian shoot on the executive director of the run natural resources council. I think that has been working on issues related to land use planning and development regulation and natural resource protection for 60 years. Almost always as a defender of strong and appropriate regulations to help communities guide growth in the state, my own background before coming to be in our scene. We've spent about 25 years as a community planner working throughout the state, working on a lot of the regulations that not only are working to shape their growth and development in the state but also are in many instances providing barriers to including exclusionary practices for smart compact residential development and I think we're here and generally in support of s 100. And as it was passed out of the Senate with a couple of provisions we'd like to comment on. Last summer in fall Katie Gallagher or sustainable penis program director and I participated and I don't know maybe a dozen meetings of stakeholders with stakeholders who were convened by representative bond guards to define common ground on how we could improve our existing practices in the state by changing chapter 117 to try to eliminate some of those exclusionary practices that have created barriers to the type of housing that I think Vermont needs. And I really want to commend the representative bond guards and state my appreciation for really having found a lot of common ground a lot among diverse interests I think that was an important thing. I think that many of the provisions of this bill reflect that effort and and should be to go forward. Before I talk about specific provisions in the bill though I would like to have addressed the overriding issue of whether to focus on zoning or act 250 are our advice and what we would urge that the committee to do is really to focus on the specific provisions for several reasons. This is part of the national trend where it's fairly well documented I know you're going to hear from other witnesses who have done some of that documentation that zoning practices have created barriers across the country we have a national housing crisis not only of Vermont housing crisis. The factors of affecting that crisis may differ a little bit from state to state, but we are a lot of states are dealing with the same issues. You're not alone in looking at how towns regulate land use through their zoning regulations and other land use regulations to try to accommodate more a greater mix of housing types and affordability. Act 250 and zoning serve different purposes. Act 250 addresses the environmental community impacts and community impacts of larger developments including those with regional impacts. It doesn't prescribe the use, the location, the density, the dimensional characteristics of any use except as they relate to site specific details, you know, whether it's impacting a wetland or a form of wildlife habitat. You can define where development should be with the exception of whether it complies with the municipal plan and whether it's in certain designated locations I'm going to talk more about that later because that's an important consideration I think as you consider the bill moving forward. But really whether a community supports compact neighborhood development and a mix of housing types really depends on the local zoning. We have a 10 acre lot that has very similar characteristics is flat it's wooded. One community might allow 50 units on it another community might allow 10 units on it another community might allow one unit on it. And that's based on a lot of variables a lot of legitimate where the properties located on what the purpose of that zoning district is what the overall plan for the community is and how that 10 acre lot fits into that overall vision. Moving to the conclusion, I think, working with the stakeholder group last year is that in those areas where we have water and sewer infrastructure, we should accommodate as dense and as compact a pattern of development as is appropriate with certain caveats, and we should make sure that we're promoting a mix of housing types, not just single family homes and single family zoning has been one of the probably significant nationwide barriers to diverse housing and greater affordability in the country and this bill addresses that issue. And it does so in a way that maintains the ability of communities in the state to also protect our natural resources, especially those in outlying areas outside of those areas by water and sewer. And one of one of our concerns as we talk about the zoning and act 250 dichotomy is the legislature has been dealing with act 250 and trying to make adjustments to it to promote affordable housing for at least 20 years. The legislature has not dealt with zoning in the barriers that zoning might prevent present to affordable housing for over 20 years the last meaningful effort that I'm aware of was in 2021. The legislature established a committee to look into barriers to affordable housing that are embedded in chapter 117. I had the distinction of being a consultant to that committee, and a lot of the pieces that are in this bill were considered by the committee at that time requiring duplexes to be treated like single family homes, requiring certain densities where communities had the infrastructure to support it. They were considered a little too controversial at the time they weren't pushed forward by the legislature. Looking back that was probably a mistake I think we could have made a lot of progress on housing affordability had to take an action at that time. However, since that time there's been a lot of a lot of land use change is a related act 250. The legislature has significantly increased the jurisdictional trigger for mixed income housing in downtown development districts. We've created other designation programs the new town center program which has been amended over time to create housing in those those communities that don't have a historic downtown but have one to create one. Probably most significant we've created a growth centers program to help communities plan for regional centers of compact development that also have exemptions and meaning for act 250 and probably most significantly during the Schumlin administration, the neighborhood development program. And that program is intended to look at our village centers are downtown's are other designated areas in the area around them that are within walking distance to our downtown to our village centers and create a pathway where priority housing projects which is a defined term certain certain mix of housing types can be exempted from act 250 provided the community has gone through kind of that pre screening project to get designated as a new town center. I'm, I know Chris Cochran and Jay Cameron have folks from department housing community affairs have testified on the programs they are much better than I am at talking about the nuts and bolts of them. But they're all important programs and and they're all programs that were intended for different purposes, not necessarily to be a substitute for act 250 and I'll expand on that in a second. With regard to the new town, the neighborhood development area program. My understanding is that nearly 3000 priority housing project units have been created in those areas since the program was initiated about six or seven years ago. In just last year the legislature makes significant changes to that, that law we were involved in that to make it easier for some of the smaller communities to use the program. It also last year increased the cap of how many housing units could be considered a priority housing project in those areas that could be exempted from act 250. That just went into effect I believe July one of last year. So really hasn't been given a lot of time, but there has been a steady. A steady work done on trying to align act 250 with the state's land use goals. This committee or I guess your predecessor that many on natural resources, fish and wildlife has passed two bills out of the two comprehensive act 250 reform bills out of the house. At least one of them was passed out of the Senate, which really took a comprehensive approach to saying how does act 250 work. So if you look at different locations differently, our position is that actually 50 probably doesn't add the value that it used to in certain areas that have been through the designation process. It's also failing to protect natural resources in other areas where we're seeing fragmentation of our forest land development and river corridors and other issues so we have been encouraging that comprehensive approach. The only way to get it act 250 passed in the law you know it's one thing to pass it out of this building it's another thing to get it signed in the law prompted the legislature last year to direct two different studies the allocated funding for the Department of Housing and Community Development to study the designation programs and take a hard look at at all of their different purposes, whether they're all needed whether they can be streamlined whether they can be improved and how they should interact with with land programs like act 250 to really try to better align them to to serve the purpose of saying okay these are the areas we want development these are the areas that we've we've identified the barriers and the environmental impacts that might be avoid avoid make those designation programs work. The state's just hired a group of smart growth America and national organization has been a leader in promoting smart growth policies across the country, working with some local folks local planning consultants to do that work and we're really excited about this legislature also directed the natural resources board to look at two different things to look at locational jurisdiction, which is what we've been moving to with all of those designations in the neighborhood development area development district jurisdictional triggers to say how do we make locational jurisdiction a consideration and active 50. As it was passed there was only one location that triggered act 250 automatically and above 2500 feet elevation, and that was recognized that those areas are very sensitive. We need to make sure that even even a single home and a large driveway can have a significant impact in those areas. Are there other areas in the state that should be treated so similarly to the nrb is looking at that they have money in the budget and are are seeking out a facilitator to help them with that work now. The other issue that they're looking at is is the administration of actually 50 in this committee or this committee's predecessor did a lot of work on the administration back to 50 last year. There's one thing I'll say about changes act 250 that have been made over the years in 2002 2004 when active 50 was last overhauled in a comprehensive way. The legislature eliminated environmental board and and the appeals process went to the courts research that we've done recently show that the appeals process takes about twice as long now in the environmental board as it did under the environmental board, every developer I've ever talked to says time is money, and the appeals process, although rare in active 50 of only one or 2% of projects and that's all projects not just housing are appealed in a given year. And there's a lot of good data available from natural resources for that one or 2% is don't hold me to it any one year but that's pretty much my understanding of the average. So that that process that the administration of active 50 is in need of repair, and that should be an important consideration we're glad that the NRB is looking into that as well so. So that's my background on before getting to the bill I would like to talk about some specific sections of the bill. That's okay, unless there's any questions before I go ahead. Yeah, the numbers have a back questions on the background representative Tory question on these studies one of them. My understanding is by next legislative session, I believe I don't know which one was supposed to be done in July, and it likely won't be and they're going to be seeking an extension. But our goal and I and our hope and I think the goal of the legislature and passing those studies was that they'd be available for you for consideration next year. And I know be we joke sometimes in our office that yeah studies great it's better than taking action. But I think these are the most meaningful studies when it comes to an important law that's guided development in the state over the years and we really should get the information in the public process that's going to be coming out of them. So, yeah, I do want to be sensitive to that. Thanks for your testimony. I think that we have a housing problem in the state that we need to build housing the state. Do I think so. Yes. And do an opinion as to where we should build that housing. Yes, I believe that we should respect what has been a land use kind of overarching policy of the state for years of compact settlements surrounded by open countryside, working lands and natural areas. So before coming to remind just so you know I was spent a short time as the policy director for an organization called the Vermont farmers fraud who became smart growth for my and we were a proponent for smart growth. That organization went away and we incorporated their tools and policies and programs into VNRC sustainable communities program I believe in 2011 2012. So, going section by section we support. Oh, sorry. Thank you. Regional planning. Different towns that have town plans that already have something along these active 50 rules in place. You feel that there might be enough. Or do you think there needs to be more legislation rule overruling local planning. I don't know that I don't know that over rules local planning I do believe that there are instances where active 50 may not be required, and when communities who are regulating development. And let's still come into play anything. Yes. Yeah, I'm also I would have to say I'm a proponent of regional planning in a region, setting a regional vision and having some accountability for communities in their zoning processes are playing processes. So we support section one which puts a cap on the amount of parking that communities can require it's important to point out that we would propose that one parking unit per dwelling unit would be adequate. And developers will likely continue to provide more parking as an amenity, you know, perceived amenity for their, their tenants or customers. But, you know, what we can do to decrease our reliance on this single occupancy automobile and build compact developments that serve by other transportation options is important. So just, I'm not going to get into a lot of detail or time sake but just tell you what we support and where we might have concerns so we support that section. We do support section two, which is probably the most consequential piece of legislation or piece of this legislation to require that duplexes be treated equally as single family homes, and it doubling up our density even in rural areas. You know a single driveways serving two families in a single building as opposed to serving one. That was a consideration 20 years ago and as I said it was probably a mistake not to have done it then we also support where you have water and sewer service areas, allowing for plex as a use by right. In all of those areas. We also support the provision that requires a minimum density in areas that are served by water and sewer with one concern. We are concerned about the provision on page five nine lines nine and 11, which we believe might be too narrow and limiting the types of environmental features that can be protected under zoning. Particularly a concern and a handful of communities that, in my opinion, have made a mistake in the past by over extending sewer and water service areas to areas that really aren't appropriate for compact development, and that in those areas. We're saying they should be allowed just to have large lot zoning served by water and sewer but they should, we should expect communities to carve out natural features. That should not be developed and that don't allow development. And we just would hope that would be clear in the bill. We do I didn't I'm sorry, I said at the beginning, I do have written testimony is still got some holes in it and I'd like to submit it after the fact I can fill in a couple of blanks, but we do have some specific language changes and one of them would be where it says municipal water and sewer service area means several things including it excludes flood hazard and inundation areas is established by statute river quarters or flu wheel erosion areas established by statute shorelands and we would add, or within zoning district or overly district, whose purpose is environmental protection and wherever new year round residential development is not allowed. And I hope you would consider that language to make sure that there's some communities that I'm aware of and I'm sure that you're going to hear from have water and sewer areas that have overlay districts that have prevented development or that they want to prevent development from being in but they're in this larger area. So that's one particular specific change that we'll provide writing for or suggest a language for and ask a question. I focus on only overlays. I'm not focusing on overlays I wouldn't reference overly I just as an example I think that the zoning could have features that are off limits for development that should be appropriate. I did. We're talking about what are in service and served by water and sewer infrastructure we often talk about water and sewer service areas. I didn't look at the statute that authorizes municipalities to manage their sewer systems. And it's pretty vague. It implies that they can manage it for land use goals or development goals. I know some communities do they will have a carve out for affordable housing for example, they'll they'll draw district boundaries that are intended to implement their land use goals or their environmental protection goals, but that's not authorized under statute explicitly. And there's no definition of a water and sewer service area or sewer service area and I'd like to suggest some language I haven't drafted yet that would change that statute to make it clear that the municipality can manage its infrastructure in a way that furthers the goals of this town plan promotes for you know housing or promotes economic development whatever their, their goals are, and protects the environment by avoiding extension into certain areas, and municipalities do have sewer service ordinances that do that. It just doesn't seem to be clearly authorized it's not prevent prohibited either so it's just maybe a little bit of a uncertainty that communities are experiencing as this legislation goes forward. Representative civilian. I just want to make sure I understand what you are talking about. So no definition of water or sewer areas. Yeah this talks about areas served by water and sewer and and municipalities adopt sewer service area ordinances or maps or boundaries or policies and the two are one in the same as I see it. They're defining where they're serving by water and sewer and where they're not in what their goals are. And I think that it's availability of infrastructure is really what this is all about we want to use it as efficiently and effectively as possible. And I think just giving that clear authority to a municipality that they're managing their water and sewer service area not just for the efficiency of the system and for maintaining public health and clean water, but but furthering their, their community land use and economic development housing goals. So that's giving them more say. Yeah, I don't know that would give them say then they're already exercising but it would make very clear that they have the authority to exercise that set. It's just it's a very vague statute now, as it relates to this. Thinking about this kind of the totality of what we're doing here is we've taken a lot, we've taken away, say, from the town. Just really quickly in section three. Two mentors said it well we do support protecting emergency shelters. The definitions are fine under section four under section six, we do have a significant concern about change to the appeals process. In the, we testified before the Senate Natural Resources Committee, they were dealing with a proposed language that would have eliminated the right of 10 residents for land and municipality to appeal of zoning or decision a local zoning decision. We supported that but what we testified at that time was if you're looking for an alternative. We would, we would hope that you would look for an alternative. And what we suggested that it be a person with a particularized interest, which is the standard for appeal of it in our permit, or an active 50 permit. The language that came out of the Senate is we have some concerns about particularized interest is not a defined term and statute. Actually, a person agreed is, we would also encourage the committee to like active 50 allow an appeal of a person not 10 persons with a particularized interest, and that we would suggest the bill is written says they that the people with particularized interest can't appeal a decision based on character of the area. We would recommend that it be you can't appeal a housing or affordable housing project based on character of the area and not apply that same limitation to core is and you know more potentially noxious uses in a town. So, we have specific language will present, we will send to the committee this afternoon that makes our suggestions. I do this is something that just came to my attention late last night. The subdivision provisions under section eight. The allowing a zoning administrator to approve a subdivision. We believe it happens in minor instances now, especially with boundary line adjustments. As some folks brought to my attention and I'm not, I'm not giving you a recommendation at this time I'm just raising an issue that I hope you'll hear more about that the carte blanche allowing the subdivision review process to be administered by his own administrator really could carve neighbors out of some large scale development project reviews. So I just want to flag that is something that I want to look into further understand how, how extensive that authority is because the subdivision review process. Maybe 18 years on our development review board land subdivisions is what we did. And it was a great interest to the community, you know, I don't think we ever denied any but we often addressed neighborhood concerns through the review process, and I want to just flag that as something that is only a recent concern that I didn't spend a lot or our staff didn't spend a lot of time thinking about, but I do want to. I think you're going to be hearing about that. So the section nine. The appeals clarification I just want to be clear that this provision that doesn't allow the appeal of a local development review board decision based on their finding that something meets the character of the area has been in statute for a while that was one of the things that was actually done 20 years ago, I believe in that that is is fine and this doesn't change that but it clarifies it. So it's it's this want to be clear that we understand that and we are fine with it. I want to raise a question about the energy codes. I understand the desire to have consistency across municipal boundaries when it comes to energy codes. As I understand this provision as it's written now, it's grandfather's the 10 communities who have more extensive energy codes than the state stretch code, and it allows communities to add additional communities to adopt new energy codes provided they go through a charter change. And I question, and this is honestly a question that I probably want to hear from the public service department from does the energy codes include heating sources because I know some communities have adapted ordinances to require fossil fuel free heating sources my understanding of the energy code as it involves insulation and energy efficiency. And I raise that as I, we would encourage flexibility for municipalities to allow for development review boards and boards of adjustment under their regulations to look at heating sources to wean the state off of fossil fuels for getting our homes and businesses. And so I'm not sure whether this covers that or not. I think that's one of the thought that. Yeah, sorry. Sorry. So section 16 does deal with act 250. The 1055 rule has been around for a long time I don't know it's inception but it's basically back when 10 units triggered act 250 in all towns that was changed when this when the city was eliminated the 10 acre loophole for septic disposal prior to I think it was 2003 2004, you didn't need any septic approval from the state if you had a 10 acre or larger lot that was eliminated in a one acre town at that town became a six lot town, six units triggered act 250 in those communities and then in the 10 acre town 10 lots still dead. There was a concern in the day that developers were getting around that 10 acre threshold by piecemealing projects doing an incremental and that at some point, even if 10 houses are more relocated on multiple lots. You know, not adjacent to one another they still could have an impact on community services or a cumulative impact on natural resources. This law changes that 25 units within five years in certain designated areas. And we are fine with that. It does sunset that provision in three years and we believe the intent of that was to allow the legislature to get those studies and to make more comprehensive overhaul of act 250 and looking at this locational jurisdiction data that comes from the NRB. Likewise, it lifts the cap on priority housing projects and designated centers also with a three year sunset. So initially when neighborhood development areas were created. The cap was different based on the population of the community, I believe, and I'm joined by memory. I believe it was 75 for the largest nostalgia over 10,000 50 and 25 and 25 being below 2500 population. Last year, the legislature eliminated the cap on the top communities and went from 50 to 75 in the next year and 25 to 50 in the smaller communities. And this just eliminates it in those designated areas for that timeframe. Those raise some concerns for us, some large scale projects in small towns that might not have the same level of review and likely wouldn't have the same level review that actually 50 provide. But we also understand the urgency of the problem, and the fact that we're hopefully on the verge of making more significant permanent changes to the law. So we're, you know, have, I'd like to say we don't oppose that change maybe more than we wholeheartedly support it. The master section 16 a the master permitting process I know it's been talked about for years master permitting is authorized it has been used in certain instances, especially around industrial parks and ski areas. Downtown's kind of provide a complication to those other examples and that you have a lot of multiple ownership and other objectives, but it's worth seeing if it works as far as we're concerned. Section 17 B is interesting. One of the changes that this what this requires is that, and I'm not reading from the legislation but that in order to be designated as an RB or to have the priority housing project area exemptions and one of the other designated areas. So it really either has to have a wastewater system, a water system or alternative system approved by an art. Last year, when the legislature made changes to the neighborhood development area, it actually eliminated that requirement and the thinking was, some of our village centers might have excellent water sources that aren't a municipal water supply or really good soils. All of those. All of all of those facilities wastewater and water supply are going to be permitted by an art. They're going to meet our basic water quality and source protection standards. So it doesn't necessarily need to be a municipal system. I'm going to look to represent a bond cards because I think he was he drafted that provision last year. This actually removes that flexibility and and will make it more difficult for these areas to be designated. I don't believe that was the intent of the Senate. I think those changes happened in some of the last days to try to make what came out of the Senate Economic Development Committee consistent with the existing law for neighborhood development areas and in turn instead of changing that we came out of the Economic Development Committee to comply with the new law in our D law it did the opposite it changed the development area in the a sorry not already law by going back to where it was before last year. So our suggestion was eliminate that provision and just allow and are permitting to do what it does. That makes sense. Okay. I'm wrapping up. So the designation for Village Centers. We feel is unnecessary. The neighborhood development area provision applies to all designated areas. It applies not only internally to the land within an existing designated area but also in for example Village Center, but also to land nearby and adjacent to it. It also has a designation process that is really designed to say are we avoiding some of those features that would otherwise be regulated under Act 250. And does the community have the capacity and the rules in place to promote the type of park growth, compact walkable residential development that we're looking for. We would like to strengthen that program not provide an easy alternative to it, and we think this provides an easy alternative to it without really adding value. That is an area that we'd like to see removed in place of the existing neighborhood development area program. So finally, in the bill, the class for road provision that's to me is just kind of a consumer protection provision people should know what land they're buying and what to expect from the town that they're moving into with regard to whether that road is going to be maintained on a year round basis and what the expectation is for them to maintain it. It's really as simple as that. So here are comment and suggestions and I apologize for not handing out draft language but I will provide some suggestions, very short. I do want to comment on the on a proposal that the Senate rejected and I understand maybe a float in the house, and that's to take that 2555 rule that that that that rule that says we're going to allow you allow you to build up to 25 units in these designated areas within five years within five miles and extend that to a townwide exemption for those areas which would effectively say you could have 25 units of housing anywhere in a community. Regardless of whether it's on a ridgeline river corridor or prime ag soils. And that to me is not enough. There's no affordability provision to it. It's just basically businesses usual of building large second homes or primary homes scattered in our natural resources rather than concentrating it in the smart growth locations that we're looking for. So, we don't feel like act 250 unfortunately has been an impediment to scattered residential development out in our natural resources and this would even make it less of an impediment than it, than it has been. I mean, we have presented to this committee a lot of data on force fragmentation and the impacts that scattered kind of unplanned residents development is having in the countryside. So, that's just a preemptive comment on a question that might come before the committee and we'd be really eager to come back and talk specifically to it if that does happen. And in doing that, I would go into detail about how zoning varies from act 250 and why it, how it continues to play a very important role in nearly every community, not necessarily everyone that has zoning. One position bill I think getting to representative civilian. Sorry. Another comment is, is there is a provision of the bill that looks at delegation to municipalities. And we are open to that discussion. This is this bill doesn't know limited way. Does it within for development within certain designated areas, which I don't think satisfied some of the proponents of it. You know, I'm, I think that should be part of that larger conversation when we talk about the administration back to 50 locational jurisdiction in our designation programs in more detail. But we're, we're going to pose it moving forward with the bill as is. We question whether it's going to really provide much benefit to any municipality, but we also don't think it will provide any downside to any resource or any municipality or resource or any municipality. I think that's all I have. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you for your questions. While you're here, there was a proposed provision that came up for discussion. Another committee about this to the effect that a developer could build four houses. Anywhere. Many times as the developer wanted to and not be subject to 50 jurisdiction. Yeah, you know, our problem with that is same as the 25 anywhere is basically, you know, at what point is building four units every three months for five years add up to an impact. I don't know where the number four came from I haven't talked to the anybody who has proposed that I wonder if it's this. What this bill would do is say a four plex is allowed where you have water and sewer service area. The increasing the cap on PP party housing projects maybe accomplishes the same thing, but we would oppose anything that just allows unlimited incremental development over an extended time without some review and that would do it. As I understand it without any review necessarily even, I don't know if we involve local zoning or not but it's certainly not location specific it doesn't deal with the impact that that cumulative development could have on a whole host of natural resources or on community services and facilities. Thank you for your testimony. Members, we're going to take a five minute break and come back at 10. We're going to reconvene our meeting continue. About this 100 with Sarah Phillips. Yeah, she's still on zoom. Right. Are you ready for me. We are ready for you. Great. Okay. I'm Sarah Phillips. I'm the director of the state office of economic opportunity in the department for children and families in the agency of human services. And as I understand it, I'm speaking today with you about the small portion of the bill that has to do with zoning and emergency shelters. I have some slides I can just quickly go through to provide some context and then happy to answer any questions that committee might have. Great. Thanks. Okay, share screen. Oh yeah. Okay, great. So, knowing that I'm not often in front of your community, but wanted to provide just some overview of sort of what emergency shelter looks like in Vermont. I think that's important to understand. So, we have about 28 emergency shelters in Vermont. They vary in terms of the model. This is upper valley havens in the Hartford area. This is one of their shelters shelters are both congregate and semi congregate facilities. This includes domestic and sexual violence shelters. We also have a number of seasonal warming shelters. All of them by design are intended to be a temporary to help guests move into permanent housing as quickly as possible. This is Lamoyle community house in Hyde Park. Shelters don't solve homelessness. We're very clear about that in our field, but they keep people from being unsheltered and they're really critical part of the safety net Vermont. We're really about connecting people to resources and services and supporting them on their journey. This is at the Bennington County Coalition for the Homeless on Main Street in Benton. Right now, on January 20, well this is January 2023, hasn't changed much for April. We have about capacity to serve up a little over 500 households that emergency shelter across the state. Two of those beds are seasonal only. Some of them are just winding down right about now actually closing for the season. In January 2020 right our pre COVID data just for some context we could serve about 562 households statewide, but a huge portion that was just seasonal capacity. And then of course in May 2020 you can see the impact of the pandemic how much capacity we kind of quickly lost during the height of the pandemic. Emergency shelters are full just to be really clear. That's when, and there's no appropriate emergency shelter been in a community that's when we put people up in emergency housing through a motel stay. Right, so it's shelter first and then overflow into hotels. And right now there's about 2400 households experiencing homelessness in Vermont. So you can see that our emergency shelters represent our housing about a fifth of that population, over half of the households who are homeless are in hotel or I'm sorry three quarters of the households who are homeless are in motels right now. And we do still have some folks who are on shelter. So we're doing a lot to really preserve and expand emergency shelter because you can see from the last slide that we just don't have enough capacity across the state to meet the needs. We're doing a lot to help renovate existing facilities as well so it's not just about expanding what the capacity it's about preserving as well. The pandemics really pushed us to think differently about shelter in the state of Vermont, and we've moved towards less congregate settings. One of the barriers though around shelters is their ability to operate 24 seven we actually have some zoning restrictions in the, in the state of Vermont that prohibit the ability for shelters to operate 24 seven. And so yeah, that's the picture of in Berlin the welcome center operated but good. The reality is we've actually have nine new shelter sites that have stood up around the state we and when I say we I mean the collective we I'll speak to that in a moment DCF doesn't go around and take over land and stand up shelters. This is the collective we but nine new sites between 2020 and 2022 I want to be really clear this is an equity issue families and communities are both better off when people experiencing housing crisis can stay near their jobs, their schools their doctors their family and other services, and we have a lot of communities in Vermont where we don't have enough capacity, and the impact is that families and individuals have to be housed to sometimes three counties away from where their communities are as disruptive to communities in Vermont it doesn't just impact those families negatively and I just want to lift that up is that when we cannot place shelters in the areas where we need them that's really problematic. And here's the reality shelters develop out of local partnerships, right. The community comes together, they understand identify gaps they work to right size shelter capacity to follow best practices and to expand capacity this is Tim's house in downtown St. State state role in shelters is to provide planning support data analysis we provide a lot of technical assistance on best practices we make sure that our providers understand the funding requirements but we're really there to partner. There are a lot of examples in this state. I've been in this work for a long time now. We're communities have come together based on identified clearly defined needs and have not been able to site a shelter due to restrictions and local communities. I just want to this is a, this is a main street shelter operated by cops for families and chin and county. You can get a sense of the variety of shelter models. I think the reality is, again, we don't think that we can solve homelessness with emergency shelters we solve homelessness with housing and the other aspects of this bill are really important to address our housing crisis. The shelter field and community and DCF we're responding to housing crisis fundamentally we just need much, much more affordable housing the state of Vermont the length of time people experience homelessness in this state is more than tripled. In the past four years, it's because there's no housing I think so spoke spoke very eloquently to that. Just to highlight the section of the bill that does seek to address the issue of citing of emergency shelters. I'll just, I can stop sharing for a moment and let me see. Happy to answer any questions but I think more to the point I just want to be really clear that there are, it takes years. And there are some communities where they've been working more than years to site shelters I want to name things like character of the neighborhood is specific reasons why there's an unwillingness to site shelter. Because NIMBY is and beyond what's experienced with affordable housing in the state of Vermont character of the neighborhood was cited as a reason that they would not allow for an expansion of shelter on an existing shelter site in Hartford Vermont. I think it's just really problematic and I want to lift it up I appreciate that this language is still in the bill and moving forward and just want to highlight the importance of it moving forward so happy to answer any other questions. I have a question I don't know that I understand exactly the restriction on 24 hour seven day a week on a shelter that's housing people. What would close how could it close. Maybe I don't understand your question sorry. How could the shelter close during the day. Is that what it means it closes during the day. Yeah, that's what it means it says that in the reality is people need shelter, not just overnight but during the day time hours but yeah we have restrictions place on shelters that yeah that says that they can only provide evening shelter which means that folks need to exit in the morning and aren't allowed to come back until the evening. And that's done through zoning. And through permitting processes yes conditional use perhaps. I'd have to. I'd have to look into the specific examples but yes, that is one example that absolutely happens. And it places the burden of fighting for the right to operate on the shelter provider specifically is day in day out trying to meet the basic needs of some vulnerable homeowners and I think we just need to address that issue. Can you give a number to the amount of shelters that haven't been able to be open that folks wanted to open. Number, that's hard. I think, you know, our, our emergency shelter operators would be best positioned to tell their own stories. I can speak to, you know, current projects and development. I think in LaMoyle I shared a picture of LaMoyle community house that's at a site that operates only seasonally because they aren't allowed to open operate year round they have been working over the past three years to identify three years to identify a site. And that they can be able to operate year round expand capacity, I think they're set to hopefully open this fall with capacities or 2016 or 20 individuals, and they have some funding from BHCB but they looked at dozens of possible sites in LaMoyle County. They're definitely facing opposition in the site that they've identified now and I'm not sure if they're still in the appeals process but that's an example of one community three years to try to stand up that capacity in St. Johnsbury. Essentially the shelter has been relegated to the part of town that is in the healthcare district where there's very little, it's outside of the main part of town where people would need to access other services and supports. There's very little developable land within that area. They have been searching for, they had operated a seasonal site at a shelter that at a site owned by the hospital, a hospital property prior to COVID that closed down. And they've been looking for another site to be able to operate a shelter for adults in St. Johnsbury. Again, they're restricted to that part of the, also the seasonal shelter was not allowed to operate during the daytime hours but they thankfully they have a project they're hoping to move forward with some funding this fall. That's, I mean that's been several, several years. I mean those are just two examples in Hartford. They've wanted to expand capacity at the Upper Valley Haven campus to provide seasonal capacity for adults. During the coldest months of the year, that project didn't move forward was blocked through the zoning process. So, I mean those are just some very specific examples just within the past few years and and Bennington as well and their sighting of their shelters has been a challenge as they seek to preserve capacity as they've lost some capacity and have tried to stand up others. I mean every area of the state this is an issue. So, those are just some specific examples. Thank you that that's a good answer for my question. Members have questions. Representative Bonder. Oh, thanks. Sorry. Oh, that'd be great. Kate's going to read a question from our representative who's also named Kate our committee assistant will read the question. We asked how many homeless households currently shelter in hotels while waiting for housing are expected to potentially lose their tell shelter in the coming year. Yeah, that's, that's a good question right so there are changes to general assistance emergency housing program administered by the Department of Children and Families that are coming during the current year. There's changes that will be happening on June 1 and then changes that presumably will be happening on July 1. I will say what happens at State Fiscal Year 24 is still under discussion in the legislature. I don't owe you doesn't administer the general assistance emergency housing program. It is several hundred households that will no longer be eligible in June. I don't have more specific for that program. Some of those households will exit into shelter capacity to the extent that it's available. Generally our shelters are operating at near 100% capacity most nights. That's, I can follow up with some more specific data points for Kate or the committee if helpful. Thank you. I think Sue mentor. That's what you could represent Amoris noted that it was in Sue mentors written testimony. Thank you again for your testimony. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me and thanks for your due diligence on this bill. Next up we have Jay Green. Welcome back. Thank you very much for having me. Very much appreciate the opportunity to provide testimony on behalf of the office racial equity. My name is Jay Green I use they them pronouns and I am the policy research analyst for the office. I wanted to focus in so the, the mission of the, just get my, get my notes ready again here. The mission of the office of racial equity is to work on dismantling systems of systemic racism that exist throughout the state government, including the legislature. So, I wanted to take this opportunity to point out an instance where there are racial disparities created by the statutory language. And that is specifically. If you look under section six, that's 24 BSA 4465 fields of the administrative officer. I apologize that I don't have a page. I just memorized the bill. That's good work. Yes, so. So this refers to slayers refers to who is allowed to appeal this of the administrative board. And so, so an interested person according to the subsection B one is a person owning title to property municipal or solid waste management district, etc. But then if you go down to section four, the I'm not actually talking about what has been added in this bill, any 10 persons who alleged a common injury to a particular stress, I'm specifically referring to who may be any combination of voters or real property orders within a municipality listed in subdivision two of the subsection. So, the, the sticky wicket there is voters and real property members because what has serious racial disparities in the property ownership department, the 2021 American community survey five years that 73% of white Vermonters in their home to only 26% of Vermont residents who identified as black or African American and other people of color in Vermont also respond, report lower home ownership rates than white people in Vermont so restricting the appeals process to only voters and real property owners is going to have a racially disparate impact on people of color in Vermont. So, I spoke with executive director of virtual equity Susana Davis about this and she said that she's in favor of keeping the appeals process because we do want people to have the opportunity to to make comments on the review process but the office strongly feels that there needs to be a change to that language about voters and real property owners because voters also is disproportionately exclusive of people of color in Vermont because people like for example people who have a green card. So they're lawful permanent residents but they still don't have the ability to vote. So they may live in Vermont, but they don't have a voting rights so they could so you could be a green card. You could have a green card but and be a resident of a town that the planning development and want to be able to because you're not a voter. Yeah, and that also excludes people who are undocumented so there's a couple of issues there I did note that under section 19 on page 31 line 19. There's a different definition of an interested person, which is person owning title to for occupying property within or butting the designated area. So, I wanted to highlight that as a possible remedy that occupying property be something that's a little bit more inclusive that could help. That could help to broaden who can who can make an appeal to include more people who potentially don't own property in Vermont. And then, other than that, and I'm happy to submit these comments and writing as you can see I have a draft before me that is not quite finished yet. Okay. There is kind of an outstanding question there about what does it mean to just occupy property how long does someone need to be occupying that property to make an appeal for example and how much, you know, proof is sufficient to prove that someone is occupying a property. So that might be something for the legislature to consider defining further. How long does someone need to occupy property and how long someone needs to be there to do that. And what proof do they need to provide in order to go through the appeals process but So, other than other than that I wanted to comment on several appropriations and sections that have been added to the current draft of the spell that is before the committee today that were stripped from the burden as passed by Senate by the Senate I believe that the committee would encourage the office encourages the committee to retain section 27 of this bill which includes a fiscal year 24 general fund appropriation to the Vermont Human Rights Commission to create any full time exempt housing discrimination in your position. The Office of racial equity works very closely with the Human Rights Commission and we want to support our colleagues asked for a housing discrimination later Gator because as as we expand, hopefully the amount of housing in Vermont we want to make sure that people are protected from discriminatory ranking fact renting in general related to housing. We also wanted to specifically highlight our support for the funding allocations to the Vermont Housing Finance Agency for the first generation home buyer program that program was created under 2020 of 2022 and we're encouraged to see it continue to be funded for another fiscal year. There have been some other programs that the legislature has funded for one year only that are related to diversity and equity and we wanted to highlight that this is a good opportunity to prove your investment in diversity and equity through the funding allocations process. The, there's also section 36 the middle income homeowners development program and section 38 the rental housing involved in loan program so wanted to make sure that the Office of Racial Equity support for these programs that are specifically dedicated to approaching the end empowering people in low and middle income when they purchase homes for the residents being evicted. So, yeah, that that is the that is the total of the testimony on behalf of the office but I'm happy to take any further questions if we're interested in asking. Thank you for your testimony to much numbers have questions. I don't see any thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Right. We have half an hour until the next witness schedule. Commissioner Hanford want to testify you would have maybe a little less than a minute. Well we could give you half an hour still, you're available now. Absolutely. Question. Oh, yeah, twice. I shoot. You're just going to say. Thank you for the record, Josh Hanford. Development. And I was kind of invited a little bit less minute today so I don't have written testimony. And not going to line by line just more big picture sort of champion this this bill and talk about the administration's perspective. We're happy to answer any questions along the way though, at any point. Just want to give a little bit of background about myself because I don't think I'm in here very often it's not usually where we talk a lot about a house, a lot of housing and community development work. As chair Sheldon knows we worked on natural resource stuff 20 years ago in the White River Valley and worked on repairing buffers and water quality testing and all kinds of stuff and sort of my first 10 years in Vermont was more about natural resource and rule economic development sort of work and as my career sort of moved on, I became more and more involved in housing development affordable housing funding policy work with federal funds from Department of Housing and Urban Development, and all of our housing partners here in Vermont, and then working with practically every community in the state as the community development director, Vermont community development director for 10 years, providing federal grants to address the community development needs of these communities. And the theme kept marching on housing housing housing affordable housing, not enough housings being built. My career and was appointed Deputy Commissioner under Governor Shumlin. And that carried on under Governor Scott, we had the large housing for all revenue bond, which sort of was the biggest investment at the time, ended up being about $37 million that soon was very clear that that was just a drop in the bucket of the need. In 2019 became the Commissioner of Housing, Community Development, and then, you know, March 2020 rolled around and sort of the pandemic really highlighted just how a dire our housing situation was and that if you looked at the data for the last four decades really we've been under building by by quite a bit. If you look at the last decade alone, the data somewhere around our net housing growth was 0.18%. We're barely adding any new housing stock. When you consider what was being lost from from our housing due to, you know, just on the part it's not available anymore conversion to something else, and then the net new housing and that was all housing. And so you can really see this drop off from the early to where we are now. 0.18% of growth in housing stock for the last decade. So for that was for the whole decade that was the total net growth. So each year you know you can summarize this in residential building permits. Back in the 80s they were close to 5000 permits a year. In the last decade it's been under 2000 a year more like 1300 a year. And so you could just see the drop. And there's a lot of factors out there but one thing we you know it heard repeatedly over and over again is what we don't have enough housing money going into the system. Well, I think the last five years has changed that we've seen almost a half a billion dollars into the affordable housing development and some of that money still available VHCV has resources they're still making available we have some resources for the VHIP program for my housing improvement program, which is a smaller $50,000 grant loan to match with private owners to bring housing stock back online, essentially existing housing stock that is falling in disrepair is vacant is abandoned and it needs some upkeep and reinvestment because during our years we do a housing needs assessment every five years to maintain our federal funding. The last needs assessment showed that Vermont had almost 19,000 housing units that were substandard. So we figured the best solution here the lowest hanging fruit was designed a program to you reutilize it existing housing stock meets a lot of goals from a lot of folks there's a lot of opportunity out there. And it's been very successful, I would argue we needed this 1015 years ago to not end up in the situation we're in. That doesn't work everywhere in the state you have some parts of the state where they need net new units and they needed them yesterday. You can't just repurpose or bring back online units that fall into disrepair. And so a variety of solutions to address the housing needs through resources through new money. And with the rising costs of everything from labor to materials to supply shortages. And yes, regulations zoning active 50 has become the area that government control the most can control global supply of X widget that goes into housing construction. We can't control labor costs. In fact, you know, I think we're benefiting from people receiving some higher wages. But we can control the cost of development on the side of regulatory frame, and you know there's national numbers from the National Home Builders and Remodellers Association that say about 25% of the cost of building a new home is embedded in regulations. And there is the four or five L's you know lumber, land, labor and laws they call it, you know, it laws being the regulatory framework. So, sort of in my career of working in natural resource work conservation, community development and housing work. I have sort of seen this shift in my thinking and beliefs really that we have done a better job in Vermont of ensuring we value our natural resources, protect them, maybe above our housing goals and our housing needs. You know, I think that there's often communities all often have conservation commissions much more for that a housing commission. We have all these other councils and efforts and they housing is just supposed to be left up to the free market right you know someone builds a house for you, you pay for it to rent or buy and it solves itself well it's not I mean the market is really broken in a lot of ways costs a lot more to build a home and the working class family can afford. We'll have unique programs in S 100 and started last year to subsidize that that cost of development versus what a median income family can afford, but it's still the interventions on paying the subsidy and to pay for the broken market is not going to get us out of this situation we need to address some of these regulatory issues. I was just reading over here, a new article from Pew Trust that did a study on four locations Minneapolis new new shell New York Portland Oregon and Tyson's Virginia. They've all had substantial up zoning and deregulation of housing development in those communities. You know where, and they have studied and found where they removed barriers to where you can build a home and how many they've seen a deescalation and rent. And only one in 7% whereas the same period the national average increase in rent 30% happy to share this but this is just one data point of many that yes more supply does work, it actually does bring down the cost of people. And some of the other testimony I heard heard, and it's heard throughout this sort of argument and debate about does local zoning does act 250 have impact on housing if we just allow more housing to be built anywhere isn't it just going to go to second home or there's arguments. You know I just like to mention a couple things on that point that I think our existing regulatory framework both local zoning and active 50 has worked very well for second home owners. There's nothing that that in my experience they enjoy more than less dense housing that's spread out. And that reduces the economy's scales of building 25 versus nine or 10 units. You know we have the second highest rate of second homes in the nation, only behind Maine and New Hampshire's third. Some folks will point to short term rentals, you know as in having an impact here. It has an impact but I would argue that they only represent 3% of our housing stock, and half of that is an existing vacation homes. It's really impacting one and a half percent compared to 17% of our housing being owned by second homeowners. And that's been a tradition here for over a century really if you look at northern New England, being a place where folks had second homes. And so, some of what this bill and amendments that that have been floating around are trying to do is open that stock. Build more. And that the density, and that the economy is a scale of building more housing and more places will will help and will be available to lower incomes. The compromises that have been reached in the Senate, passing out sent natural resources to allow some of this increased active 50 thresholds in the designated areas is great. But it's just, I think there needs to be some level setting here that all those designated areas combined in the entire state out it up is 0.3% of the land area. It's not enough, I think that we often think our designated areas or what we think are our built environment in our downtown. They're not. You can be on this side of the street and you're in designated area and on this side you're not because they weren't designed with the exception of the neighborhood the newest one that's only been around for a couple years. They were not designed to allow housing development they were designed for commercial and civic cores to allow historic tax credits to fix up those buildings and other goals. It's been used as a practice proxy of places. We agree that are smart growth, but they're simply is not enough area in those areas to us to adequately adequately build the housing we need, let alone with an equity lens that all the new housing we're going to allow to be built is in the most dense part of the state and it's going to be apartments because that's all the room for and we shouldn't allow other housing types and choice across the state. You know, even Burlington largest city in the state, their total designated areas in the whole city of Burlington all three of them that they have only about 14% of Burlington's area. Yeah, 40% of Burlington's land mass has some sort of permanent conservation plan. So they literally have more land permanently conserved than land that is in a designation sort of with some easier passes to develop. And I if you looked across the communities that in the designations we have you would find a very similar situation. So I just think we need to be real with ourselves that that 0.3% of our land area, we're going to struggle to try to provide the housing we need for all the types of people that need housing and the frustration I see and when I'm in committees whether it's in the legislature or at town, speaking to town officials is the sort of debate around, well, it's okay to build this housing here and this type of housing to be here and we're okay seeing people live here and you're talking about where people are going to sleep at night you're talking about people's homes and if we see it on this hillside it might be ugly and we would oppose that I think that we're fooling ourselves if we're not going to be okay. We're seeing more housing to solve this problem. And I understand we have, you know, long traditions, high support of keeping rule working lands and historic settlement patterns that we also have historic settlement patterns that even those historic panels do not have the ability to build the housing we need, because those historic settlement panels aren't encompassed in these designation areas they're bigger than those. And we don't have a path to get there quickly with the compromises that have been made as the bill exited Senate natural resources to address the housing we need, in my opinion. We still have this exclusive exclusionary development pattern in Vermont that if you can afford enough to purchase 510 acres, you can have your housing needs met. But if you can afford that. We're going to try to fit you in an apartment building that some affordable housing developers going to build for you with 100% public funding. And that's been our solution to addressing the housing problem. And we need to be a little bit more realistic around knocking down barriers, trying to help the market work better. Yes, guiding to the least impactful places on our that we have concerns about impacts to our natural resources. But there's going to be a little give and take in this work. I'm happy to answer questions I just wanted to speak broadly about this and you know there's references when we hear debates about active 50 in particular doesn't add any cost or time that that is just roundly rejected from from my view. We have a study that the legislature asked us to do six years ago it's old. The costs are higher than they were then it's called the act 50s 157 study that showed it typically out of six months to housing and tens of thousands of dollars depending on how big it was. Forget that active 50 feet just the application fee alone is a is a cost based application, and it went up during this time by 25% of what it was when that study was done. And so, if an average housing unit is costing about $500,000 to build now, even an apartment, and you're doing a 10 unit development. The fee alone is close to $75,000 not to mention all the other permits that you're going to need to get along the way, and the time and if you go into the next construction season, I'm as money development, you know pressures are real and these costs add up. And folks can easily avoid that to stand in nine units and build nine big homes that aren't going to be available for folks that are moderate lower income, and you don't have to take that risk and add that added cost, I think it's not getting as the type of development we actually want and serving the type of people we serve in Vermont. And we can't keep doing the same thing and expect it to change because this problem has been growing for 40 years. Thank you for your testimony. I'm interested in the Pew study that you referenced. And also if you, it seems, I mean it'd be interested if you have specific language that you're at. I will send you that study, I can send that 157 report. And my team at the department has some small technical changes I think I've been working with a few folks on here. And I think we'll make some of the provisions that we all support work a little bit better I know things are moving very fast. I believe that the compromise that I've heard that maybe the rule caucus is proposing would add a little bit more to this act to 50 sort of relief valve that I think is needed was still this window, you know, I think the administration's view is, we actually aren't doing enough in this bill back to 50, but this has been a broad compromise a broad coalition to try to work around things. Not everyone is getting what they want there's parts of this bill that the administration is absolutely not really in support of but we're sort of biting our lip because we're getting this and that. And the whole this is good for housing. And so the, the rule caucus, sort of amendments that are floating out there I don't know if anything's official yet, based on what the happened in the Senate by Senator Chitman. It's a building upon that adds a little bit more active 50 deregulation for communities that have permanent planning and zoning. So I think that in a period of time, while these studies happen. I think is the direction that I would urge the committee to consider. Think about really what kind of, what kind of developments are going to be able to take place in that period, you know, who's, we are we really going to change the state in these three years or we're going to learn something, and maybe that is very concerning with, we're still having 2,500 households that are homeless at this point in time and having another two years of extraordinary federal money to build affordable housing that will often be targeted at all of these priority areas I mean that that is where we target these funds, and there's no benefits in those areas that aren't. I'm not being very clear here, all the funding that we use public funding to support housing development has these principles of putting it in smart growth locations, they're all the funders prioritize and that's where we try to build this housing. And the relief you're giving outside of those areas, we're not going to be targeting folks that building in those areas, you know I still think the majority of this three year sort of cause if you will, while we study is going to happen in the places we wanted to happen the most. That was a way to summarize. Just a couple more maybe but. And this is just a curiosity if you didn't. I'm back to the kind of substandard houses inventory. I've been thinking about the multifaceted causes of the situation we find ourselves in. And I really do appreciate that work. I'm also wondering about unintended consequences of other programs like. There are a lot of empty houses around neighborhoods people talk about them. They're not solely substandard but they're just not being used at all. And in one instance that I know of anyway it just came to my attention that like, there's someone in a nursing home and Medicaid somehow is involved in restricting the use of that home. So I don't know where I would get to, who would I ask that question to interesting I mean. We do see homes that you know our bank owned. There's some ownership structure that's hard to find the owner to try to get something happen in it I know representative woods on the housing committee has one on the end of her street that she's literally personally for 10 years been trying to have something done about. I mean, in the in the city of Rutland is being much more aggressive of eminent domain taking property that people aren't settling up on taxes it's been vacant, and they're selling them to developers with a year, you have a year to redevelopment and put it in use in order to sort of move this along and get a deal from the city. I think there's there's creative more creativity that could be done around that. But it's, it's hard I can walk my neighborhood and see a home or two that is vacant no one being you it's not being used, and it's not like it's a second home where there's a. It's just literally just sitting there. Everyone I talked to says, yeah, I can say the same thing. Yeah, there's just empty houses. I can't tell you this v had program. We're at about so 408 back in January, the data I just saw is another like 215 on top of that 408 that are coming online and these are all properties that were vacant. For whatever reason, most of the time it was they were in such poor condition they couldn't possibly be habitable and code. Sometimes it's not as bad as you think you open a wall and they have old tube and obwire. And that's a 30,000 job for a whole, you know, big Victorian that's a to to, you know, to two bedroom apartments to fix. But other times it's been a conversion of a, you know, a general store that's gone out of business long ago but it could be a couple apartments and it has to be existing properties right now. I think incentives go a long way to have people come to the table. But you're right there are weird situations of it's in a state owned property that bank owns it, and you just can't get control of it. And I wish I had an answer, I think the answer is promote these incentives have them ongoing and try to make people aware of them. There are other accessory dwelling units that we're using the hip for we're seeing a big uptick of that. And these are ones that are permanent they're not going for short term rental because we have conditions on them. They're court in the land records there's a covenant on them, when they the property changes hands they have to, you know, sign off from us and it goes to the new owner their conditions and so it's a way to address these concerns of short term rental second homeowners holding, taking this low hanging fruit and turning it into investment property. We can't stop that but we can do is provide incentives for folks to serve folks that live here by helping to sort of partner with them on covering some of those costs, because the rents are going to be affordable. We're not going to be able to, you know, go to the bank borrow much money, jack the rents up to $23,000 and make that back, partnering with them, keeping the rents that you know most cases it's $900 or below, maybe $1,000 below, but it's a nice new apartment and it's got a 10 year affordability for 10% of what it costs to build new through the traditional affordable housing system, as well as revitalize neighborhoods, Grand List goes up. I'm very diverse, happy that that house is repurposed and looks good and so. Yeah, I think that that is a ongoing strategy that we have to continue to support. One more for me and then I know there's others but 500 million into housing in the last five years. What can we expect from that. Yeah, so the estimates are alone and this has sort of been building, it didn't start out as 500 million. And our goal was 5000 net new units, when the first year of the pandemic we are starting to build this out and the three main housing centers, VHFA, Mount Housing Finance, BHCB, Mount Housing Conservation Board, and us sort of mapped out what we could bring in all the resources and what we could build. After about a year and a half that goal quickly dropped to about 4000 units, we've seen housing costs rise between 30 and 40% the cost of construction year over year during this period. We're just not going to have enough money to build numbers in this week, walk through the VHFA program at the average cost is about 6,000 per unit we're bringing online. The most recent low income housing tax credit. I'm on the VHFA board that we just reviewed the other day the average cost for 800 square foot apartment is about $450,000 per unit now. So, the costs are out of control. Representative Clifford, that's a good representative to my question. Thanks for your testimony. So I am interested in how we can kind of keep track of what is being built. So is that something that the administration is kind of thinking about in terms of how many units where the units are being built. Yeah, so there's this housing recovery group which is those three organizations plus Vermont State Housing Authority which issues the rental vouchers and those section eight vouchers that Sue Minter talked about which used to be viewed as like your ticket to getting out of poverty because 70% of your rent was going to be paid forever as long as you qualified that now 80% of those are being turned to DC because we people can't find housing to use it, but that group was has been the section eight housing vouchers, which is a federal rental assistance can't find it can't find an apartment voucher right and you only have a certain period of time before the voucher has to be returned. And so it's gotten worse. I mean, you know, a year ago we're complaining that it was 50 or 60% only 50 or 60% success rate. Now it's a 20% success rate. So, you know, anyone that has been able to, you know, take opportunity of our housing crisis, and then, you know, come in and buy some of this property invest, they're not renting to folks with section of vouchers. So, and the rents have been jacked up that maybe are above that voucher rate. And so it's becoming harder and harder and just there's no moving going on. Moving rates, I forget what the stat was but it's something like the number of moves in Vermont is reduced by like 80% in the last few years so people are stuck and they're not leaving their housing because they know they won't find anymore. But the original question. Yes, we're, we've done that informally as part of this group to try to keep track of how many we're building with this money, and how many are dedicated to those accident homelessness because you've had a commitment that at least 30% of all affordable housing we build is going to be reserved for folks exiting homelessness under the VHIP program we've been doing 70% so far. And with our affordable housing partners at VHBA and VHCB, they've been those larger developments have been reserving 30% of the units so we're keeping track for that to try to like, as these programs wind down, see if we'll be successful in housing. So folks, you know, unfortunately, we've rehoused 2800 homeless families but there's 2800 more now in the system so we can't match those those up. That that's the hard reality, but there's an annual report we do called the housing budget and investment report that we submit to legislature every year which adds up. This has been invested in housing development from federal state and other sources as well as the social service investments through HS the rental assistance that homeless shelters so we already have the inputs of the dollars into the program. What it's really hard to do on the number side is are you counting each year, the number of apartment the number of units you supported that have yet to been built, or do you want to count the number of units that came on that one year. Because you could fund any one year and that investments actually don't benefit anyone the three or four years down the road because that's how long it takes. So I think that the challenge, not that it can't be done it's just, you know, my vision would be do both. Here's what each year we combined invested in unduplicated count, because you have a lot of duplication in these numbers you know one agency says here's because that's what they funded but the reality is when you add them all up, and you sort out the duplication. There's one set of total housing investments in one year, and then another set of how many units were completed in one year, which is a combination of funding over the last five years that just happened to be completed in one year. So it gets very, the numbers get very confusing very fast. Thank you. Representative Cliff. I do have a question. Thank you very thank you. Thank you for this. Yeah. There was supposed to be a plan that was due the 15th of April. So that was, I remember, discussed in January regarding the program and the hotel. What's your program. If there is I'm not on that that committee. So it was being addressed. Yeah, the media. Yeah, about that. And they said it was going to be a study or a plan as to where you go where we go forward. Right. And it's supposed to be due on the 15th of April. I will check. I mean, the, the hard facts are, there are still people that are in these motel hotel programs. Yeah. And there are programs that are winding down. And there's three times as many how as many affordable housing units coming online than there ever was before with more reserved for folks that are exiting homelessness but they're still a gap. And I'm not sure exactly which report that is because there's been about three or four different studies or plans that have had the basic charge of show us how you're going to solve the homeless problem. And you get to the end of that period and then it's like, well, it hasn't been solved. So do another plan to solve and it comes back to the two or three legs of the stool, three legs but the number one is supply, there isn't enough supply because number two is you need that rental assistance vouchers, which we have more of than we ever had and they're being sent back because there isn't supply. And then the other is supports and services to folks that are need of that can be successfully housed. And there's more money than ever for that but those agencies and that capacity is stretched so thin that that is struggling at this point as well. I'll just remember that. So yeah, that's that's what I was curious. I'll look into that. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Thanks. Great. But they're more questions. Oh, so present sacroids. Thanks. Thank you. Do we know how much of the recent increases of housing costs to build the building costs how much those of how much of that increase is caused by tremendous amounts of money that we're actually putting into building that we're allocating that we're putting a lot of extra pressure on system that doesn't seem like it has a lot of capacity to expand to so it's you know that simple supply versus demand and so I'm just wondering what we have a sense of what it's got to be at least some part maybe it's really tiny but maybe it's not. We're paying a premium, because you don't have enough I don't know what a number would like that would be, but we do see when we look at even projects we funded, you know and then they, you know, now go out for their final bids, the increases have all gone up, but not in every area we can see which products, you know, and like the most recent one was steel and mechanical systems 65% increase. And when they bid the project just six months ago so it's really dependent, but I understand the nature of question I'm sure there's an amount of money we're putting into these programs actually causing crisis that we're competing against yourself and all brother states infrastructure climate change investments all that I think the inflation and the Federal Reserve would support what you're saying but what the counter is, do you not do anything and wait. I don't have a kind of the question of what do we do with the information but I'm wondering what you can have a handle on how much of this cost increase problem is sort of of our own making yeah It's really uneducated, but I think there's a relationship to the inflation the CPI we're seeing it's probably you can account that some of these costs that that's about what we're paying as a premium because we're competing against a shortage of supply. And we're all paying a premium for everything and, but I can't give you a exact number I don't think that the way that the bids come back from, you know the big GCs and projects they don't look at it that way they tell you the increase in their labor costs, in their materials or supplies, all interest rates, you know, all those things have all gone up and added. I think it's a really important part of the picture is, you know, how does our policy actually driving costs. And so, I don't know who would be doing this kind of study but some, you know, there could be folks out there who are sort of modeling this and thinking, you know, if we weren't investing quite this much money in this area, we would see less growth in costs because the man would be so high and the only anybody's kind of doing that work in those areas. It just seems like it would be really important for us to know so we, because we want to spend money efficiently we want to get the most bang for a buck and there's a certain point of which you know you spend more money but you don't actually get anything and just increase your own costs no be really extreme I'm sure we're not close to that but it would be nice to know kind of like where along that line we did a cost study in 2019. So it was before the pandemic and we were seeing our costs already increased then we're seeing our affordable housing costs in Vermont increase at a higher rate than our other New England states have that study can share it. There's a lot of expectations in there that people have been trying to implement. And so that was even before there was all this money to compete against ourselves on. So that that's interesting to come sort of compare that to what you just presented. We looked at what other states here but states are investing compared to the size of their housing market and compared to what Vermont's doing, you might be able to get some sort of a handle on whether a person or not are going up faster than other places maybe because we're investing money. My, my example was but it was before we were investing more money we're already seeing those cost escalation so that there could be not a universal way to sort of quantify that that theory because it was already happening before we were had more money in the system but I will, I will ask one of my data folks at VHFA that has all these cost numbers if there's any way to kind of try to quantify that. Thanks for you. All right, we have our next witnesses and need a break. Representative Tory. Really quick question. Thank you very much. I'm wondering about just your travels later in my community. How successfully towns are doing building housing trusts and capacity investments and being prepared. Yeah, we've seen an uptick in housing councils and trust. You know I think the sort of resources that can be raised are less small so the investments have to be very targeted, you know otherwise, you know if you only have $100,000 a year available and you're putting that $100,000 into a $20 million housing project. How much is it really making it happen or is it feel good, as opposed to really targeted investments like if you have a, an employer that's going to put up a match as well to maybe support a developer that's going to build some housing and the employer is going to say I want to ensure that employees have access to that and you then have a match to leverage that match. You can see it in or small incentives, you know Woodstock has got an interesting incentive right now to try and encourage folks to rent to long term tenants as opposed to short term rentals with $1,000 sign on sort of bonus. I think it's a mixed bag of how what incentives are working but I'm happy to see communities form these housing committees and these trusts and come up with creative ways and to keep finding out whether it's one person option tax or just something some ongoing investment so it's not just a one time sort of. Thank you again. Members we're going to take a five minute break, and we're going to shift gears just a little bit and welcome green power to talk about resiliency. And actually I just want to note that we do have two members who are joining by zoom today so they're here. I feel like we don't have as many people but they're, we're mostly here. Fantastic. Wonderful. Well, thank you very much for having us in today. My name is Candice Morgan, I work at the mountain power. Thank you, Mike Burke, who heads up our field operations and has been in that role now for a little bit of time. We were last here with you all back in January I think to just sort of give a brief introduction of the work that the mountain power is doing but also back in January it was on the heels of some major storms that had happened already this year. Since then we've had two additional major storms. Many of these have been hitting for the southern part of our state quite a bit but they are certainly increasing in frequency and also just an impact to talk about what our customers are experiencing these different parts of our territory and so we wanted to share with you all today some of the work that we're doing as well as some challenges that we're bumping up against in terms of how to get this done as quickly as we think we need to to be best prepared for this upcoming winter certainly but also just generally as we look out to all that we need our electric grid to do and accomplish as we look out for all of our climate goals and all the other work that folks are talking about so that's kind of I think a big overview, but we'll sort of be sharing this and happy to kind of answer questions along the way as well. So let me just advance the slides. This is just an overview of who we are all skip over that but you certainly have it to reference. So as I mentioned, storms are getting worse and I'll turn it over to Mike to really speak about what we've seen this winter and just sort of the trends overall as we look out to this space. We've been watching the former weather over the last 10 years and you know, we were at the point where maybe we had one or two heavy wet snow storms in a winter, and the other six or seven or eight were ice per scene snow that blows around in the wind doesn't stick to anything really no effect on the electrical grid at all. This winter, even though we've been watching it and ramping up and wanting to do more and more resiliency projects for prepare our customers things like that. This year I think we've had 10 snow storms, nine out of 10 of them were heavy wet snow. We've had one in November that I remember pretty well that was light and fluffy, no issues usually it's November October November that we get heavy wet. It was cold enough in November we got a nice dry snow. Every single storm since then has been heavy wet snow, starting on December 16. The same right now in Vermont that seems to be about where we don't get a ton of damage if you drew a line across route to North, we're okay. Route to south is literally every single one of these storms we've had enough total precipitation to pretty much take whole trees down break branches off, things like that, and we don't see that trend changing. The investors are telling us, even this year, I think move a little quicker, it added urgency to what we want to do. And we expect that line of warmer weather to pretty much move like it wouldn't surprise me if next year we're talking about the whole state, because even a few of the storms we had this year did affect the northern part of the state, but nowhere near as much as it did the southern part of the state. One more quick thing to add when we came in here. Previously, it was after a wind event. Well, the more warmth in the air and the more moisture in the air leads to the higher winds it creates a stronger low pressure system. Opposing a stronger high pressure system and that's where you get the high winds that we got in that storm where Burlington has 72 miles an hour at the International Airport, second highest wind speed they've ever had. So, the warmer weather is creating multiple effects it's not just wet snow. As Mike mentioned, and as I think we talked about previously to a few years ago we actually worked within our regulatory process to develop a client plan. And this climate plan was really focused on preparing our grid and our customers to weather these more intense climate events that we were seeing and so it includes both starting your more traditional poles and wire solutions as well as things like energy storage and batteries and customer's homes and at the grid level to develop micro grids and resiliency zones and things that are really focused on keeping areas of the communities powered up, but then also really working at the customer level to, you know, connect them with home battery solutions if that works for them, but then also really focusing on doing all that we can to strengthen our system, so that the outage events that folks experience our goals less frequent and shorter and right which would allow them to kind of ride out an event with this battery if that's what they have or with other solutions in that as well. And all of this is to say that we have been working with communities and really trying to develop plans that make sense for for their areas and so you'll see some of that work with our resiliency zones which we can talk about more. Also, hand micro grid which I had shared a little bit of information about with the committee to. So we're hoping to see more and more of that, but this all has to go hand in hand with some of our other solutions at the sort of grid level. This is just a little bit more information about our energy storage work, which I'll probably just leave for you all to refer back to, but also happy to answer any questions related to batteries. I think it's, it's sort of helps create that overall bit of work that we have to do to make sure that folks, you know, hopefully never experienced an outage in the first place. I'll turn it over to Mike to speak a little bit about some of the, what we talk about when we talk about storm hardening because we like to say that but to just sort of explain what that means. Yeah, so. When we talk about storm hardening it's really creating a stronger grid, both by going underground, which I know you didn't hear a lot about in the past or you heard reasons why you couldn't we've actually found a cost effective way that is coming in close to what it would cost to rebuild and storm hardening overhead line, but putting it underground instead. What you can see in your upper right hand corner is the new style of underground I think we talked about it last time but what we're trying to do is strengthen the main lines the ties between the substations with space or cable, which is this here that trees can lay on it doesn't knock the power out we come in later take the trees off, and then on that spurs that go out into the rural areas everywhere we can put in that style of underground. If we run into ledge and things like that we may have to pop overhead for a little bit, but the goal is to get the most we can underground when you, if you were to have driven around the southern part of the state on around March 17, you would see that it wasn't literally whole roads were just blocked with trees uprooted from the way to the snow in the trees and that that's just not. Again, we didn't have a dry snow storm from December 16 all the way till now. So it's become every storm this year which is really why we're here and why we need to get even more urgency than we already had behind this. So the last night I met with draft and to talk about the storm, and we had just finished building one of these lines and a couple of customers in the meeting. Thank us so much because there was trees on those lines that the power and that section never went out we came in at the end of the storm and remove the trees, the road was never blocked. This stuff works is what I'm trying to say. The chart from Noah, that's just the northeastern United States it shows the more intense storms coming. Since 1980 we're experiencing 74% more extreme precipitation events in the northeast, the rest of the country is dealing with other things. That's what we're dealing with here, and that you know whether it's flooding or heavy wet snow or ice. That's what's causing us the trouble. So this puts a bit of a finer point on, especially what I think the southern part of Vermont has been experiencing in terms of outage frequency and so this is data for the last three years that gives you a rough approximation of how many outage events customers are experiencing each of those dots it gets a little funky looks a little bit like a abstract artwork but in general the the red, it's not great. The red, it's those customers have experienced about 30 or more outages over the last three years that darker green is, I think one of five, so the ones that are not there have not experienced any. As Mike mentioned, no we're kind of seeing that happen. And it's really in this area that you see down here in Wyndham County and a little bit into southern Windsor, where we have been running into some challenges as it relates to the work that we need to do, and how it ties in with Act 250. So in terms of utility distribution utility projects. Yeah, you know there are various exemptions for work that happens and gets reviewed in other regulatory processes so like section 248 for generation and substations and all that kind of stuff transmission as well. In terms of regular electric distribution utility work, we do trigger Act 250 in various towns and it depends on whether or not they are one acre 10 acre whether they have local review what that threshold is and can you remind me the feet. So in a one acre town, if we try to rebuild a line that say we're out in the woods in a 25 30 foot right away and we're trying to come to the road. If we go 2200 feet in a one acre town, it triggers Act 250. And you know that's less than a half mile right it's not very far and a lot of the lines we're talking about here. So 14 miles from where they leave the main line out to where we're feeding customers. If those were in a 10 acre town, we could just follow all the same best management practices that we already have that have to do with water quality. We have a wildlife wetlands everything like that and we can go in and rebuild it and literally from the day we dream it up to the day it's done probably six months. In the one acre towns, we have to have things things like site control and things like that. There's some lines down there that were in the fourth or fifth year that we've been trying to get all the right site control to be able to meet the criteria to even file. We're running into some issues there I want to go back a little bit on the geography to so a lot of this area is mid elevation high elevation. That makes a big difference. It's also down in River Valley so they actually get a lot of the worst weather in the state even when it's not heavy wet snow. But again, we expect to get that everywhere, but that is what leads a lot to that. And, you know, this type of construction we're talking about, we've put it in in other areas, it doesn't go out. And if it, you know, if it does, we've got it back on and two or three or four hours, not two or three or four days. So, yeah. Just a clear absolute question on that so you already have active 50 permits and or you need a new one because you're revocating the line. What's the. Yeah, so the way it reads is if new corridor. So if we're building exactly where we are. And we don't have a significant change which is about 10 feet out of the ground, which normally our rebuilds do not go more than 10 feet out of the ground different than we're already are. But if we try to get that line to say a state route 30, which is wide open no trees plenty of right away already developed. If we go 2200 feet along route 30 to take the line from here to here about 100 feet difference. If it's 2200 feet it triggers act 250 whether it's in a fully developed state highway or not. If we're in a bigger town, we can actually rebuild almost five miles in a brand new corridor without triggering active 50. So the big difference is it's a, it's a linear project which none of this is new development this is feeding existing homes and existing right of ways. And, you know, I think that. Before you move off that point in some areas it's actually moving lines out of woods or out of the other more forested areas to right of ways to so it actually allow us to get out of sort of the cross country area which you know is better for overall impacts in that space and certainly better in terms of both responding to outages hopefully preventing happening in the first place as well by bringing the roadside. And do the towns have any jurisdiction over your work. Yes, so in the towns and state highways where we're not under active 50, we actually have to file for either a B trans permit or a town permit. And in those cases that the town, it's because they have zoning. And usually, we also have a right to be in those state or town highways under title 30 I think it is. And so they do the review it they'll let us know if it's a view shed or they'll let us know if the polls are interfering with the travel way where to put the polls things like that so yes we still have to get permits, even in where we don't need an active 50 permit we still go through permitting with the trans and with the local towns. So yes. And if you were in a one acre town that didn't have zoning, you wouldn't need to get a permit. If we're in a one acre town that doesn't have zoning we do need to get the permits for 20 anything over 2200 feet from that right and active 50 permit but I so you don't need a local permit or. I know we still put the select boards, we still file a town permit and we still file a V trans permit and they still sign up on those permits. And again they still do all the review that the other towns do the differences they just don't have a development review board, I believe is how the one acre 10 acre was set up. And so you said V trans or a town permit. Both. Correct. Because the town road or each. Yes. So the reason why we're here today in addition to wanting to share what we've been seeing and what we've been hearing from communities as we have gone down to visit and talk about the challenging winter and sort of the projects that we have in the queue is that, you know, we think that it's essential to have a legislative solution that would be very tailored and focused to exempt this work that we're talking about related to act 250, or potentially just a time limited period or something to the fact that allows this work to really happen to to sort of strengthen the back both lines and the main theater lines and all the work that you know it's not just us right at other utilities to, but it would be really focused just on this type of line rebuild that is directly related to reliability and resiliency work in that space, existing existing infrastructure. That's right. You know, we in these meetings we're going to these towns a lot of these towns know that we actually have been working on these lines to try to get them rebuilt for this timeframe. We definitely feel the frustration they're feeling I personally talked to a lot of customers and they're worried about their safety there they're worried about a lot that's going out there and the more we get of these storms the more that is amped up and you know, again we don't see this changing and I just don't think we can continue to wait to make sure that we can do everything we can to help keep our customers safe. That's what a lot of this has to do with these are just some example projects to as we think about and talk about both the areas that have been most impacted as well as the areas that have seen these projects kind of in the works for quite some time and that we haven't been able to advance those requirements really that and act to 50, you know, originally, if it didn't have a development review board, they were looking at a subdivision stuff like that because there was no one in the local time to look at it. A lot of these projects go from a one acre town to a 10 acre town one acre town to a 10 acre town. So it's even hard to figure out exactly what type of work we have to do and that route 30 is a perfect example of that it goes through five towns one has it's a 10 acre and the rest of one acre route 30 is the same the whole way. But again, that one we've probably almost four years now, been trying to get site control so we can even apply for the permit. If that was a 10 acre town, it would probably be have been built three years ago. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony today. As you know, having come down to some of the towns that I represent. People are getting really upset and an understanding of this out and we are definitely seeing the increase here in the length of the outages because of the severity of the storm. I cannot provide information on kind of your, your, how things turn back on but that was information that was really helpful for my constituents. But this is noticeable. Where, where I live and for my people what's happening over time. The increase in the outages to increase in the extent. I mean, we've had one of my towns boards bro, you know they have been out multiple times this year for four days. Or longer, and this is an area where we're still trying to build telecommunications infrastructure. These folks are pretty isolated. So this feels extremely urgent to me in terms of adaptation, people being able to have their medical equipment working. Food, heat, etc. So, you know, and I know we actually, we actually heard from some of the other utilities I think you talked about Christmas time there were, there was an issue up north. I think in Vermont Electric, also seeing similar issues with this wetter and wetters now. And also the difficulty of bringing projects to construction. Yes. You know the area. I'm sorry. I mean, you know last week, I was sitting here and you know in one of these areas where we are seeing these extensive outages I just started getting emails was a beautiful day but you know it was out because of the strength of the winds. In some of these areas where there's this extreme need to rebuild. Representative Pat. I have a couple of questions for as well as this kind of trigger stuff I was dealing with in the past life. In terms of when when something currently does trigger Act 250. Can you just, is there, can you generally describe how much of that is, is that is that how much of that is contested issues or whether whether it's just going through the process and getting any way you can generalize around that and then have one other question. Some of the BMPs that we have that we created with the agency and natural resources had to do with I think there was three cases in the state of Vermont where a pentapole leached a little bit. And so we came up with best management practices on water quality and surface water. Whether it's to use a different style poll something like that to keep that from happening. We had those in place already but some that can come up. But usually we've come to agreement on that and the type of poll that was being brought up as the issue is no longer man manufactured so that's gone away. And usually that's about the extent of a lot of it is review after we've already worked with wetlands with an hour with it. Not always contested, but just incredibly time consuming because of the site control and things like that. And just follow up so it sounds like any of the back and forth is with the regulators not so much with public people, you know, like affected landowner whatever. Correct. Okay, yes. Sorry, I misunderstood. No, it's just different. I was asking both. The other question is, I'm just curious in terms of whether you can make a general overall statement in terms of the work that you're doing how much of it is this new infrastructure materials and stuff in existing locations and how much of it is, you know, as a general actually moving lines from off road and in the woods kind of locations, which is I imagine it's a lot more work in the polls and places. I, our goal, if we are say 200 feet off road in a forest and corridor is always to come to the road and instantly gives you a 60 foot clearance on one side, and usually state highways are pretty well and then we in other words we're in an already cleared area where our crews can actually restore and work in a much safer condition than they can when they're out climbing poles and doing it all on foot. So our goal is to move all of those types of lines to a state or town highway. So I had to guess the percentage where we do that or where we're not able to do that. It's probably 60 to 70% move it to the road and then the other 20 to 30. Sometimes we just can't get the permits or the land rights things like that. And what we're doing those types of lines. In those forested areas, we're trying to go underground where we can. And those are places where if we can do it cost effectively where it's not a main tie between substations for feeder backup and things like that. Then we've been doing it cost effectively for more rural resident residential areas for the bigger things that we're using that spacer cable on those are the ones that we're really trying to get to the road because that the reason that works so well is there's over a half inch solid steel cable on top of the pole above all the conductors so that can take a hit from a tree. We've actually had car pole accidents. It's hit broke three poles, it stays 30 feet in the air the customers never even know it happened we come replace the poles and, but the downside to that it's pretty hard to work on off hooks, 30 feet up on a pole, climbing a pole, so that's why we want to get those things to where we can access them with our trucks. It makes it a lot safer for our crews and a lot safer for our customers so Okay, I think we may be having technical issues with our need. But I just have one, I just want to clarify one point so you still you're sort of saying that you have the active 50 processes particularly slow because you're waiting for I think landowner permission agreements right to already have those in these cases that you're talking about. You still need them even if you are getting out of active so yes we need those whether we're in and remember we're already doing everything we talk about in any town that's 10 acre. This isn't new. It's not like we're asking for something that we don't already do. It's just we can only do it in about half of Vermont. So if we to your question on on title 30 where we're already allowed in state and town right away is if we need an anchor easement or if we need an overhang easement that goes outside the three rod or four rod road, then we need private rights and the active 50 process. If you don't have those rights and you turn it in and then you have to change it, you actually have to go start it all over again so that's why we have to get the site control before we can file for active 50. So yes we do need to get those rights, either way the differences in a 10 acre town, we can build everything but that one issue we're having and maybe we just go underground through that area, and one acre town, we can even start. Okay, thank you for their questions. I think if there are further questions, probably need to take a break and make sure that we're actually streaming. So let's take a pause. Are you mailing shawty. Continue our meeting and we had a couple of other questions when I can't remember representative Morris. So, the difference between a one acre entertaining what would make this process easier. Recommendations, I didn't see any recommendations and that's right yeah so that's a great question and I were certainly we're starting this process to share our recommendations with you know both the agency of natural resources and natural resources board and other interested parties and so we do have some draft language that would provide a very narrow exception from act 250 for these types of projects which would allow us to have sort of the same treatment for all of our distribution. So I think that's a great question. I just want to give folks an opportunity to provide any edits or feedback but I would follow up with the committee with that language when folks had a chance to review that and offer any suggested changes so that would be our and offer as a solution that might be something that would allow us to get this work done. Following all the best manager practices and all of our other work that we have to do. We're happy to do that space and really allow us to build these and a much more timely fashion. Is there anything in this, do we have any jurisdiction over this from this committee or. In, yeah, title 10, if it's title 10. And it's energy. And it's energy. There you go. Both. Yes, is the answer. Representative Sebelia. Yeah, just while we have you here and thinking about increasing intensity storms. Are there things that the legislature should be thinking about that you are doing that we should know about to keep the lights on. Sure, I mean we can't we touched on in a little bit in terms of, you know, the other side of this work and all of what we're working on includes a lot of focus on you know home battery storage also resiliency zones which are areas that we have worked with communities after looking through a variety of. The social vulnerability index provided by the CDC connection from a telecom or phone service perspective we kind of looked at all of our towns and found the ones that ranked pretty high in terms of these various risk factors have been working with the towns of rattle borough grafting and Rochester to really target some solutions that will hopefully maintain, you know, maintain their power in sort of downtown areas or in key community areas so for example in the town of rattle borough we're working with a mobile home park there to provide a large scale battery that will help keep that area in the town of Rochester we're focusing on a solar plus storage micro grid and the town of grafting we're actually focusing on folks that are furthest away from the substation there and experience a good amount of outages and working with them to provide home battery backup so that's a really exciting thing that is I think replicable and we're looking forward to working with the next round of towns on all of that work as well but I was happy to talk about any of that anytime. And because there's a there's a lot of really exciting stuff that. infrastructure funds. Yeah, that's true. You know, if there's anything that infrastructure funds funds, it's less that our customers have to fund so I know that we had a group committee putting out recommendations for that. We led that so. Yeah, there's that too and then I just think an awareness and of the weather and how the wind you were talking about. We had predictions of 45 at the summit and maybe 40 at 1500 feet we got we got mid 50s all the way down to the Connecticut River. So just even the forecast and what's actually happening is changing so much and I think the models just aren't keeping up with it with with how the winds are changing. So, I just an overall preparedness for the continued changing climate, I think is something that we can all think about. It's certainly why we're here. And, you know, thinking of the actual infrastructure. This would go a long way. We've we've built these lines in 10 acre towns. I don't know if anyone here lives near the appellation gap. We rebuilt storm hardened the line literally from Bristol substation all the way up to Jerusalem store. They used to have similar type of reliability issues just based on where they were, and literally, that's not a place we worry about anymore. We have a project in Mordsboro. We have projects for root 30 all the way from Jamaica back to Brattleboro Mordsboro tabs right out of the center of that we have a project with the same type of construction going all the way up into the village of Mordsboro. This would really change things and anything you can do to support to allow us to get that done would would really change things for everybody. And we have plans all over the state for that type of construction is just right now that's where we're seeing the most damage and that's where we want to act. Any other barriers to be able to move quickly. We should be thinking about you. I mean, do you have the resources that you need like, like, what's, do you feel like you're being held back in other ways besides this. We have already been planning on how to ramp up to get these done. And there is resources that can come in and help project managers to make sure we're doing absolutely as efficiently as we can and get it done so we haven't run into anything like that as of yet. Certainly with all the broadband work and resiliency work going on. We'll see we haven't seen that yet we've had the available help we needed. And this remains a general observation right I think we've worked really hard to get what we need to get here for this type of work, but it's remains just a good question mark for lots of this, lots of different planning purposes. That's a great point we I've actually had conversations with our manufacturers about, you know, we're a lot is coming and even more is coming the DOE currently has a grant out there to create a high speed undergrounding system. And right now we're ahead of the curve in terms of utilities trying to take overhead lines and put them underground, but I think if that DOE grant is successful that where we had the chips act, we may want to look at underground cable storm hardening cable things like that to make sure there's plenty of it to go around. So that may become an issue. All right members further questions, representative Pat then bond guards. Representative Morris asked one of my questions which is which is that you are in fact working and talking with various parties on actual specific language for this. It's going to be an interim short short term proposal. And it sounds to me like this is something if we if we get, if we get this language and we choose to. We have a bill in our committee that came over from the Senate. In the last month, it's called, it's the annual and act related to miscellaneous subjects under the PUC jurisdiction, or something something like that. And it's, it's, it's very common that the very the two bodies add language to, to each other's bills as this will be another if we wanted to do this is this could be another miscellaneous item to send back to the Senate. So it's just going back to the activities want to understand this a little bit. Do most of when you are in let's say one of your town, it's harder for you. Do your applications tend to go through as miners. We have hearings or they go through. We have requested hearings and sometimes there is hearings. I think a lot of them do go through as miners. I think it's a mixture of both. So just help me understand the time because I've seen through active 50 applications before. And my years tend to be pretty easy. But there's something going there's something not not something more going on. Yeah, so a normal active 50 where you're building right you all you have site control when you bought the land. So here is, again, we could be going three miles between three towns, and there may be 200 property owners along the way. And anywhere we need an anchor easement or anything like that we have to get signed off easement rights and have that site control before we can even apply for the permit. So that I have to get, you know, you have to get that in any event right. Okay, no, if we if we don't have because they're, if we're under just our normal best management practices in a town permit. We can actually build everything but maybe the one or two property owners that we can't seem to get the site control from. So we could build, if it's a five mile project we could build 4.8 miles of it, but that into service while we continue to work with that other customer. So if it's under active 50 because of site control and if you make a change after you turn it in, you have to go back and submit a new permits. And that so that's the pre, the pre active 50 and then an average active 50 permit for everything I think is around 77 days we were told ours tend to go a little longer because of the linear versus one block. All right. Thank you for coming in. Thank you all for the time, really appreciate it will follow up in very short order with the specific language looks like so folks can consider it and we'd be happy to come back in and talk through that. Time to helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Members with that we are witnesses for the day. Tomorrow morning we're going to start over with the general housing committee on a joint hearing and the billion office building and will be in room 267 at 915, which is when they start. So we'll see you. Over there, then. That we're adjourned.