 I will forewarn all the witnesses. If you don't know this yet, we are due to have a surprise building evacuation at three o'clock, so nobody knows. So I'll tell you, okay? I hope you brought your coats because you will be expected to evacuate the building as well. I really don't know how much time all of this conversation will take place. That will make a big difference as to whether or not we actually come back and reassemble after they tell us we're back in the door. So that's just the heads up. Just by way of introductory purposes, I'm Joe Benning. I am the chair of this committee from Caledonia County. We have Senator Mazza from Grand Isle and Senator Hooker from Rutland. We are waiting for Senator Ginny Lyons to show up. We're not gonna wait with testimony, but when she comes in, you'll at least know who she is. We also have a fifth member who is not here today. That's John Rogers from Essex, Orleans. So Jim, if you'd like to begin, tell us who you are, please. You are on the record. Great, thank you. So I am Jim Levinsky, I'm the executive director at Lamoille Housing Partnership. I also live in Hardwick, so. My senator. So up and coming down. We are doing great for us to see McRocks. I'm a criminal defense attorney. We used to joke that most of our clients came from the town of Hardwick. Right, when I first moved to Hardwick, I would come to meetings that I learned, and I'd introduce myself and say I'm from Hardwick, and then I would pause and wait till everybody finished their Hardwick jokes. I've got a few I can tell you later. Well, thank you so much. And thanks for having us here on this day for housing. And I also want to thank you for continued support for affordable housing across the state, and of course, Vermont Housing Conservation Board, and our important work for all this time. I also want to mention and commend you all for your support for the recent housing bond that we did, and just give you a little bit of an update for that. I think it was $37 million that it ended up being, and those efforts leveraged an additional $198 million for affordable housing and creation of 800 new homes for low and moderate income Vermonters in 24 towns across 11 counties of the state. Pretty good work. And besides the new homes, the investment will add significantly to the grand list in those towns, and result in over $172 million in construction activity across the state, which is obviously incredibly important when we create jobs and get money out into the private sector. So about us, the Memorial Housing Partnership is one of many local nonprofit affordable housing developers who work with BHCP and others to build safe, decent and affordable housing. Our work focuses in Memorial County and Hardwick. We currently provide homes for individuals and families in nearly 300 apartments, almost to 300. We also provide homes to seven businesses in our portfolio. We have housing at Hardwick, Morrisville, Johnson, Jefferson and Stove. Our residents include seniors, working people, veterans, people with disabilities and formerly homeless families and individuals. The need is real. In our area, the vacancy rate hovers around 2% at any given time. Because of the lack of housing, rents have gone up, really gone up significantly, making more and more people become rent burdened. By husband definition, housing should cost no more than 30% of someone's income or a family's household income. A recent study that we've done has that percentage as high as 50% for a growing percentage of area renters and homeowners alike. Rents have increased to the point even where some standard vouchers that are available cannot cover the market rate rents. They're just too high. So, to give you an example, currently market rate, one bedroom rents in our area started 900 and go up to as much as $1,200. Two bedrooms started 1,100 and go up as high as 1,350. Three bedrooms start at 2,500. And they, in addition to that, have to pay, in most cases, heat and electricity. What area is it? On top of that? Lemoyle County. A lot of them. Really? Yes. And some of it has to do with Stove and the cost in Stove. So, a lot of people, if they can't afford rents in Stove, they're moving out into Morrisville area and the rents are just going sky-high. You ought to come to the county. Oh my God, I just can't believe. I have one question for you. Yeah. No, I'm gonna say I have a three-bedroom rental that I'm renting out for $550. Good for you. Thank you for doing that. Next time that leases up, I'm coming. Why is it Chicken County? That's right. They're building every day hundreds of new apartments. The rent is right through the roof. And I don't know what affordable means because when they say affordable housing, I've yet to see one in Chittin County. And yet, they're all being filled. The population is not growing. So why is there such a demand, and you know Chittin County, how many people they are building complexes? Every day, there's one on North Avenue, they're gonna have like 400 apartments. But why is there such a demand with no population growth? Well, I can tell you in Memorial County, the Memorial County's population is growing. There's Morrisville, if you're looking at Morrisville, they have a really strong business community. There are people that are coming in because they want jobs. And there's jobs there to be had. So they're recruiting people to come in and work and there's supply and demand, right? So if you have more people and not enough housing. Well, I guess I'd have to ask some of them in Chittin County because it's not working there. And it's when I hear affordable housing, it doesn't mean anything. It's crazy what they're charging. And yet they're filled. There's no population growth in Chittin County. And I don't know, the housing market is high price. And it's puzzling when we say we support affordable housing, but it's not affordable. I don't know what affordable housing is. I can address that piece for what we do. So to understand how to do that. So we're looking at a new project and our proposed rents will start at $600 per studio up to $1,100 for two bedrooms. And that will include heat and electricity. See, that's within the ballpark. Right. And that's what we do. And I can leave it to someone else. I didn't know if you were representing me. To talk about it in Chittin County. I'm sorry. But I know she can do that. Okay. But I can talk about where I live. I can also tell you that in the past 12 months, we processed about 400 applications per housing to fill about 100 available units, which also speaks to the need. We have some subsidized senior properties. They have a standing waiting list of between 70 and 100 people waiting to get into those units. And that's a lot of people looking for housing. We have businesses again that need housing for their workers. We have a lot of seniors who are looking to downsize. They're trying to fill in the wood stove, taking care of the farm. They want to move into a village where they can have access to services and walk and not have to have two cars and all the things that go along with living in the countryside. So recently, with our partners, Housing Vermont, LHP completed renovations of 18 units of housing and hard work in three properties. It's now called two-to-fine housing LP. These apartments were created nearly 30 years ago. The self-made street one was, there was a fire in 1991 and a whole block burned down. I don't know if you remember that or not. So that building was built at that time. So we've rehabbed those now. And in addition to the low-income housing tax credits, we received money from BHCB and from the housing bond that actually provided over 20% of the cost. And I just want to show you, yeah, these two boards. This is after pictures, but this is the building on Main Street that had burned down and was rebuilt and we just kind of rebuilt it again. It's, you can see it's really beautiful building. We fixed the clock, it tells the right time now. And this is a commercial space on the first floor. We also own this yellow building in the back with Housing Vermont as a partnership for ours. There's three, a restaurant and a bookstore and a retail space as well in this building. Is all of your retail space downstairs in the building built? Yes. Ashley, the clip drone company, she's been in there for a long time, but we're all established business. We're happy to have her there. And then the other two buildings were historic buildings in town. This one used to be a tenement house for grant workers at one time. And then this one was two buildings that were put together, two houses that were on this adjacent lot that were put together, I think back in 1998. This one, you'll see a lot of historic detail. The porch was actually kind of falling down. It was in need of a lot of work. And so now we have pretty much 18 brand new apartments here for folks. They're really nice apartments and well done. So I want to tell you about a little part of a story from one of our residents. We had a ribbon cutting and she came and spoke to us. And I'm gonna quote here what she sent me. Last year at this time, I was panicking. I was scared I was going to lose my apartment. I was going through a divorce from a man that lied to me for several years and put our family under some crippling financial struggles that not only destroyed my credit, but jeopardized my housing since he left me responsible for all of the background that we had accumulated. I still had two babies that needed me. And since I was granted full custody, I knew that I needed to swallow my pride and ask for help. Not only for me, but for my children who never asked to be put in this situation. The Moyal Housing Partnership worked with me to get all of the back rent paid in a manageable way. They set me up with services through the Vermont State Housing Authority that made it financially possible for me to be a full-time mom with a full-time job. I was able to make a career move without worrying and put money in my savings account, afford all my bills and function on a day-to-day basis without having to wonder how I'm going to put dinner on the table. It was a beautiful feeling. Knowing that I could do it, I could take care of my family. These are the success stories that we strive for. And I wanted to tell you this because of that success story. I wish they could all be the successful, they're not, but we certainly try hard in all of the work that you helped to support us. This is a result in many cases. So we're currently, I know this young woman, we are currently in the process of involving a new project in Morrisville with our partners in Housing and Water. They will add 24 brand new units to the area. This is new construction in the village where we are working closely with the municipality to develop parking in the area and apply for a VCDP to support the project. Filming in villages in towns as to the long-term viability of the village, adding foot traffic and economic opportunities. It also prevents sprawls and allows us to take advantage of municipal services including water and sewer and transportation. More importantly, in many cases, it allows our residents to live more affordably being close to services, shopping, healthcare, transportation and even recreational opportunities that they probably won't have access to living out in the countryside as so many people do. And they can do it all without driving if they don't want to. These add significantly to their overall well-being and quality of life in their lives. Yeah, so these are renderings we haven't finished. Obviously, we haven't even started this project yet. Yeah, thank you, Kathy. So this is going to be 24 units. The renderings at the top, this is from the top of the Hill of River Rides looking down into the village. This will be our new building. The other rendering is from the bottom, looking up the street. If you're familiar with the Bezier Theater, you'll be down on that side and looking up. This property will have two walkouts in the lower level. This will be the main entry, and there's an elevator, of course, up to the other levels. We're looking, the unit mix is smaller units, studios, one-bedrooms and some two-bedrooms. All of our marketing and our housing needs study point to needs for smaller units for both seniors and young people trying to get into the workplace, and they need to be smaller and affordable. We have some amenities in here for folks. There's a laundry onsite and a community room. There's actually up in the top floor. This is kind of amazing views, by the way, all around the basin and Norrisville and the lines around it. And this is a view from the front with the lobby and the entry. And as you can see, we've worked hard to try and match some of the buildings in town and keep it in character with the village. And this is right in the village, walkable to everything, 24, so it's gonna cost over 300. How much are they gonna rent for? The rents for the studio started just over $600, including the electricity. And then we, so we'll be at a low and moderate income up to market rate for a little bit higher income so that we can allow some workers, young professionals, for instance, to come in and rent and not be restricted by that. And those rents on the top will be around $1,100, again, including heat and electricity. So in addition to partnering with our friends at Housing Vermont and VHCB and VHFA and VCDP, to do these projects, we also partnered with a lot of local agencies, ranging from community action and mental health to community gardens down at the oxbow right down the street so people can rent a garden for $10 a year, $10 a season and grow their own food if they want to. We have SASH services, you may have heard of them, they help take care of our elderly residents or senior residents if they so choose. We work with the community, hosting what we have been calling housing summits. The goal is to bring landlords, service providers and tenants together to learn more about things like fair housing and eviction, recovery housing, innovative solutions to solving barriers to building new housing and ways for people just to add housing in the region without having to do more than maybe renovate a garage. We strive to build, as you see, high quality, the most energy efficient, I think, at long lasting buildings that we can. We incorporate materials and methods. It helps to reduce maintenance costs and ongoing affordability issues. We also use new and innovative mechanical systems to not only last long and be energy efficient, but to provide warmth, comfort and ventilation for our residents' health and well-being. So in closing, I would urge you to please continue to support our work on behalf of so many Vermonters who live in your towns who need safety, decent and affordable housing. Please continue to fully fund VHCB and if the opportunity comes your way for another housing bond, please stand up for that. It was so incredibly great. We do fantastic work across the state, all our partners do, and it's well worth your investment. It really is. So I was gonna tell you that, you know, there's ice cream at two o'clock, but I think you're right in this one. It's gone. It's gone. I'd like to introduce my colleague, Kathy Byer from Housing and the Mont. I don't know if you have remarks, but if you have questions, please ask away. Thanks for your percentage of your view that's sent out to the council. We do. We do. In this new building, we're gonna set aside five units and we will work with local service providers to come up with memorandums of understanding on how we're gonna fill those units. We've also applied for some place-based vouchers and we'll see how that works out. Hopefully we'll get them, they have really critical to our work for people who work at homeless. I'm curious, what is the total cost per unit of the new Morris filler unit? This new building is gonna be around $300,000, total cost per unit, per unit, yeah. And how many units are there? 24. 24. We talked about that a lot. We're also gonna have ways to keep our costs down, but I will say that that is in line with regional and national affordable housing. Also point out to you that we usually do the hardest places to develop by far. This is actually a vacant lot that we're gonna develop. It was a house that burned down in 1986, I believe, or no, early 2006. It's been vacant ever since. Nobody wants to deal with it. So we're able to deal with this thanks to some zoning changes by the local community so we can actually put this on that property in the village. There's a lot to what we do. Does it require ongoing, what I call it, subsidy because I just don't know the language. Obviously, there are property taxes associated with that building once it's built. The rent is gonna be lower than I would guesstimate is capable of covering the basics. I don't know whether I'm miscalculating or not, but. For the taxes. For the taxes. There is a formula that we use provided by the state, by all of you, that we get a little bit of a savings. So some of our taxes are based on incomes and expenses that we have. And so we get a little bit of a break. Maintenance. That's what happens after I was on the board at the mine, senior housing and coal chest through after 15 years, you got roofs, you got siding, you got the boys, that kills you. Well, we begin by settling aside and be part of that $300, $300,000 a year. When we finish, when we bring our project online, we fund reserves, operational reserves and maintenance reserves. And every five years, I think we do a CNA, which is a capital needs assessment. So we assess what those needs are and we use those reserves for continued maintenance needs to keep the project and the property really up to date. There probably isn't any coincidence that the fact that both Hardwick and Morrisville appear to be growing. The fact that they're both smack dab on the Memorial Valley rail trail, that's the point. Yeah, well, we're gonna finish that little session and we'll be working on it. That's our discussion for tomorrow afternoon if you want to come back on this. All right, we'll be back. Okay. Thanks, I'm gonna turn it over to County. Thank you. You're welcome. Hi, thanks so much. I'm gonna be brief because I'm coming back at the end and talk about a project in Colchester, what SDR Island is the master developer and we can answer some of your questions then about Chippin County. I haven't got an answer out of Chippin County. I have some answers for you. Thank you, appreciate it. I'm gonna talk briefly about a project in downtown St. John'sbury that has benefited from the HRV money and I wanna be cognizant of our conservation friends since this is the Housing and Conservation Coalition Day so I'm gonna be brief to make sure you get some time as well. I know Senator Benning is familiar with what used to be called Deco Square in downtown St. John'sbury. It is smack dab in the center of downtown St. John'sbury. Before I get the other half of my criminal point, tell about it. Before you do, I have some stories about some of the people who used to live there. It was owned by the out-of-state owner. We finally got it wrestled it out of the hands of an out-of-state owner and it was some of the worst housing that I have walked into in the state of Vermont. We have relocated all the tenants who were there, the building is empty and we have started a very large asbestos abatement project. There is asbestos in all the original plaster. It was a grand old hotel in its days and so we have a $900,000 asbestos abatement project going on. There are 25 workers in the building. You never see them because they have to be under containment or asbestos abatement and they are renting 11 motel rooms for weeks because this is gonna take about three months before it's completed. When it's done, it's gonna be beautiful. I'm sorry, I didn't bring a board. You can just pass around an image. And as Jim was talking, it has 9,000 square feet of commercial space on the first floor and that's really the hardest nut to crack in our downtown, right? There's some empty space in downtown St. John'sbury and we are really fortunate, a local investor group that includes the hospital, King & Development Company and actually for the first time I've ever done a project an Opportunity Zone investor who grew up in St. John'sbury and then really is kind of an angel investor in the first floor space. So we are very grateful that the HRB funds are part of this building and I hope that when we have our ribbon cutting in July of 2021, you'll get an invite and you'll come see the beautiful conclusion. As long as there's a trail to ride on. And then the rail trail is connected to downtown St. John'sbury. Yeah, so if you're actually into riding, you should know that if you get on the bike in Danville, to St. John'sbury is all down hill. All down hill. That's what a money flow is down hill. Do these, the storefronts, do you have commitments for rentals in those? We are working on a commitment from the Academy to rent quite a bit of the commercial space along Eastern Avenue. We do not have a commitment for what everybody called the Chinese restaurant space because it was a Chinese restaurant and did not look that appealing. It's a little hard when the building looks like it looks right now to attract. We have another year and a half before it's done. I keep getting interviewed about the difference between Littleton and St. John'sbury. That building, the last time I drove through, there were 13 empty storefronts. That building is a good chunk of roads. And then I say, go across the river to Littleton and try to find an empty storefront. And it's just one of those things that we're kind of cornered in our corner of the state. So I'm very happy to hear this building is getting ready. Any other questions, guys? Thank you very much for coming. Please. Good afternoon, Chair Benning, members of the committee. Thanks very much for taking time on your busy schedule to hear from us today as a subset of the folks from around the state who are part of the Housing and Conservation Coalition that are in the building today. For the record, my name is Phil Hoffman. I'm the Director of Government Relations and Policy for the Nature Conservancy here in Vermont. I'm here today really more as one of the co-chairs of the Housing and Conservation Coalition. I'm on the conservation side. There are two of us from each side of the coalition that helped to sort of organize the coalition's efforts. And I think before I say anything more, I guess two important, one question and a point, I guess. The question just from your comment and then you go to Senator Benning, would you like us to try to get through things by three o'clock if we could try? I have no prediction how it was going to take 180 lawmakers to get back. Yeah, I can guess. Yeah, so okay, we'll try to be efficient with our time. And just to let you know, I take it you haven't had a chance to have a break and get some ice cream from the ice cream somewhere. So I sent out a flare. That's the reason why I was on my phone a minute ago. So I'm hoping that maybe there will be something coming here before we wrap up shortly. No promises, particularly. Which we can take with us outside as we speak. That's what makes it so fun. That's right, and it won't melt while you're out there. So anyway, it's a real pleasure to have an opportunity to be here today with you all. Thank you again. And I hope you've had a chance, even prior to the testimony that you just heard, to get a feel for the breadth of the turnout that we have here in the building today. I think it's somewhere between 150 and 200 people. Largely volunteers from community organizations in every corner of the state, in your districts and all the other ones who are here to help tell stories really about the impact of the HCD funding that you all have been important supporters of for a long time. So we thank you for that. The coalition and the organizations working on both sides are helping to address some of the most oppressive challenges you've been hearing about. Affordable housing, the homelessness, workforce housing on the conservation side, water quality, climate resilience, sustaining our working and natural landscapes for all the benefits that those provide, helping to bolster our communities in a whole host of different ways, economically, quality of life, all those sorts of things. Again, I want to thank you for your past support for the VHC funding and for, in particular, the capital bill funding that comes through your committee that's been an important part of helping to close the gap a bit from the funding through property transfer tax that's supposed to be the sole source for VHCB. Our ask of you and your colleagues today and over the course of this session is to close the gap from the statutory requirement of full funding of half of the annual revenues of the property transfer tax from where it is now. So get to full statutory funding. FY21, that would be $22.4 million. We're currently level funded in the governor's budget from current year numbers, so a total of $15.4 million of PTT and also capital bill money. So we got a big gap to close there, but the stories that you're hearing, I think, provide compelling evidence of the value of those investments. We need to, there is a big pipeline of demand on both sides of projects that come through VHCB. There's probably $50 million worth in total of projects between housing and conservation that are backlogged. We need to get to full funding to be able to support the treasurer back that recommendation in her report last week. So that's the ask. I'm gonna wind down and just get ready to hand it over to our folks from around the state. We have a great mix of projects. You've heard a few already, a couple more, but of the value of VHCB and investments, the projects we'll be talking about are ones that have been supported with capital bill money as well. So we wanted to try to tie back to a core focus of your work here. Coming up next will be Lynn Bondren. So thankful and pleased to say as a colleague of mine through the Nature Conservancy, Lynn has been on our board as a volunteer leader for years now. And as our current board chair, she's from the town of Danby. She'll talk about a project that we've completed down in Wyndham and Londonderry through VHCB funding with capital dollars. We'll then hear from Mary Ellen Copeland from Dumberston about a project that she's been a part of at the community level there with the Green Mountain Conservancy. And then as Kathy alluded to, Robin Jeffers, who's with SDIRL and Construction will be coming in. She's just wrapping up a meeting that I was coming from also. I'm gonna snuck in with you. I'm sorry, I'm free, all right? Robin's here. So we were just in meeting with the governor and we're talking about all of this. She'll come up towards the end and Kathy will help to sweep as well. So again, thank you. For your step aside. Please. Just one question. Senator Trevner was supportive of funding. Where did she get the money? She's telling us there's no bonded capacity. That's right, yeah. I would defer to her to answer that question for herself. I think it's four and a half billion dollars in a whole. Yes. And it's nice to say I'm gonna do that but I wanna know where she's gonna get it. Okay, thank you. And just to appreciate your question, Senator and we recognize that the state is facing a lot of pressing. No, I'm just saying she said she supports it but it's easy to support it but can't have money. Can't figure out where to get it. Yeah, it's probably a good place to let you know the bigger picture story. Our capital bill, our budget for the capital bill totals 124 million dollars. I am getting warning signs from the treasurer that we may be about 20 million dollars less in the next capital budget cycle. We are literally responsible for all the brick and mortar in this state. And so you can see there's a sizable chunk of money we may not have available to us. That doesn't mean we can't support everything that you're asking for but it would come at the expense of other things we are also currently trying to do. So as we get into that battle over who's higher on the priority list, et cetera please don't take the impression that we are somehow purposefully short changing your word at that desperation point level where we're trying to do the best we can for everybody we can. I have a question. Yeah, Charles. No, I hear you. I appreciate the constraints that you all are dealing with. So thank you. And I think it's the hope that you're hearing already and you'll hear more just of the way in which investments in VHCD, wherever the funding is coming from on both sides of the agenda. The message got through. Well, as Phil said, my name is Lynn Bonderant and I live in Danby, which is in Ruffian County. Yes, not everybody knows that I don't think. And I don't mind if people are eating while I'm speaking, so I know it's a great pleasure actually just to see that. So thank you for having me here today and for testing by. As Phil said, I currently serve as the board chair for the Vermont Chapter of Nature Conservancy. I volunteer my time for Nature Conservancy because I really love the woods and waters of Vermont and I really love the fact that we, the people of Vermont can be so connected to nature. We can be so close to it and I think it's valuable and important. And I deeply believe in the mission of the Nature Conservancy, which is to protect all the lands and waters in which all life depends. A little bit of history on the Nature Conservancy, it was founded and I'm gonna go really quick and talk really quick because I wanna make time for everybody else. Founded in 1951, today there's 50 chapters and every state there's a chapter and we have chapters in 79 countries around the world. In Vermont, we're celebrating our 60th year, which is very exciting for us. And over the course of those 60 years, we have conserved over 300,000 acres, including some of the most biologically rich landscapes and more than 1,200 miles of shoreline. Many of the lands that we've conserved are currently held by public agencies. They're not all held by Nature Conservancy anymore, but we do currently manage 56 natural areas and these are all open to the public for various forms of public activity, skiing, hiking, fishing, herding and other things. What inspires me most about the Nature Conservancy is the fact that our work is based in science. This is incredibly important because it informs our work on the ground, whatever we're doing for a project in terms of what we can serve or what we might be looking to repair or enhance in terms of water or other things, but it also informs our public policy. This way we're trying to do the best we can for our wildlife as well as our people in the state of Vermont. So we're really trying to apply that science to address the challenges facing our state, which include climate change, water quality, flood vulnerability, that's a really important one, and the health and well-being of our rural communities. So I'm here today first to thank you for your past support for the Housing and Conservation Board and as partners that do the work of conserving valuable resources and second, I'm here to tell you about a new and really significant success story. Something I want to mention that this is one of the so-called legacy projects that was funded last year in fiscal year 20 when the Senate approved an additional $500,000 to BHCB. These dollars as well as the dollars for the Water Quality Fund made it possible to purchase 3,500 acres of land in Glee Mountain in the towns of Londonderry and Wyndham. This project has some history. TNC has known since the 1990s that this property was immensely important. It was identified back then, a long time ago now, as one of the opportunities that still existed to conserve large tracts of property, large intact blocks of forest land. And there were a lot of conversations with that landowner over the years. And, but it's only recently come about that the landowner that there was an opportunity to purchase the land. And, but since then the science has actually evolved and we now know that not only is it important to Southern Vermont as a single intact piece of forest land, it's also a really high priority for the entire Northeastern US because it's part of a resilient and connected network of lands that will allow wildlife to move and adapt as we have climate change. And this is incredibly important. So this property was really important and the fact that we were, had the opportunity to purchase it and when that opportunity rose that the money was there and could be acted on was immensely important. So thanks to the Senate and BHCB and the fact that we were able to act and purchase that property, we now have safeguarded a huge 3,500 acres of rich area of wildlife habitat. Includes one of the richest beach stands in Southern Vermont and that's very important to our black bears as many of you know, I'm sure. It also protects a number of bird species that are listed on the Vermont Fish and Wildlife list of greatest conservation need. And if anybody's bird is includes wood thrusts and four borders and various other things. In fact, 95% of the lands that were conserved and believe are on the, 95% of them contain state significant natural areas. So this is a really important piece of property. The property also, yes we've conserved the property but it also brings a lot of benefits to the people in that region of Vermont. First of all, it really helps with water quality issues and that's really significant. On this property are the headwaters of the Cobb Brook and the Cobb Brook watershed flows over Hamilton Falls at Jamaica State Park and on into the West River. So conserving that those headwaters helps protect the water quality for all those people living downstream. TNC's also undertaking watershed restoration projects there because of past management on the property there's been some erosion sedimentation things like that. And so we'll be working to replace culverts also felling timber wood to put in the streams to slow the streams down. Really protecting from flooding downstream. Yes please, if anybody wants that ice cream, sorry. I don't want to have the stream. Go ahead, ask before I'm done. So the glee acquisition is also really important because of flooding and I want to talk for just a minute about flooding because you know, Londonbury is very prone to flooding, you know, during all the big events they've had problems. And so when we change the course of the rivers and slow those courses down and help them become natural, healthy ecosystems we're reducing the impact of flooding down river which saves communities huge costs. I know I'm chair my select board in my little town in Dambi and last year our taxes went up 4.6% because we had to, you know, make dammy, make repairs because of flood damage. We had lost a major, actually not a major bit, a large bridge that served a very small portion of the town that has cost us a small fortune. So these things are very important to the people in those regions. The other thing about this acquisition is that it's helped to counter the recent trend of people not being able to get on public plans. These 3,500 acres for 20 years had been posted and had been used as a private hunting preserve and it is now once again open to the people of Vermont so that Vermont can get closer to nature. The other final thing that, you know, this does is that, you know, all this forest land allows us to pull carbon out of the air and store carbon and help us to start to, you know, be part of that aggressive climate change. Probably not surprisingly to you, the people in that area have been wildly supportive of this project, the lands protected and they have access to it again so they're very pleased and they've been very helpful with seeing the whole project come to fruition. All the benefits for Vermont and nature which will last in perpetuity that come from these properties were made possible by this funding and TNC received a $750,000 grant from BHCB and this money was really critical to closing the gap. The whole project's cost us $4 million. So that translates to a $1 of state monies for $4 of other funding raised and I think that's a pretty good return on your investment and that's not even taking into cost the savings from things like flood events and things like that that won't happen in the future that are going to save those communities money so I think this is money well invested. And half the years waiting for the opportunity to purchase Glee Mountain, it came suddenly like fast and furious. Nobody expected it just suddenly there was that opportunity. It was sort of an hour and never moment and this isn't the last critically important property in Vermont and there's others when the opportunity's arrived we're gonna have to strike when we can. So I think it's really essential that we have a reliable source of state fundings to be able to use for these projects. So in closing I also urge and would like to see love to see if possible full support and full funding for the Vermont Housing and Conservation Trust in accordance with the statute because I believe this money helps a lot of issues in the economy of our communities. So Windham Town? Windham Town, so it's the towns of Windham and London Dairy where this is located. So we've saved all the banana tree. The banana bell, absolutely. And it's between them and I say we consider you. I know, sorry, it's the banana bell. That's true. That's true. Okay, why are you doing it? Is there any questions? Nope. Thank you. You're welcome. Hi, I'm Mary Ellen Colton and I'm with the Green Mountain Conservancy and we're working on the Deorel Nature Present and you have my PowerPoint presentation right there and you can go through it yourselves and so we don't need to go through that. So I just want to show you what we're doing to tell you what happened. In 2018 we were told by the landowner of this parcel that he needed to the best permit. It's a generational thing. He was left to him and his brother, they needed to do something with it. People in this area have used this piece for recreation for a long time. We got together, a small group of people and started talking about it. We began meeting with Joan Weir and decided that there was so much community support for conserving this parcel that we needed to proceed with it and so we did all the groundwork in 2018. In December we had a public meeting which was attended by 40 people and you can watch the video of that meeting online that tells all about it. We have Roger Haydack, Roger's there, speaking about geology and Roger has built a trail on this property which I'll talk a little bit more about and so from there we made it determined that the interest was there in the community. We went to town meeting and town meeting and Dumberston unanimously supported this project. Amazing thing, 250 people in New Zealand get along that well but they did that day and so we went to BHCB and BHCB gave us $150,000 toward the purchase of this and we raised about $50,000 from the Dumberston community which is a huge amount of money for our little rural Vermont town and so we ended up purchasing it in December 1st, this past December and but the landowner said that in the meantime we could build a trail and so Roger took that as a project and built in this trail which you see winding here is a low gradient trail which means that all of us can walk on it it's like this is the end of the Putty Mountain Ridge and so it wouldn't be accessible to people like me because it would be climbing straight up and we're done with that so but I walk on this trail a lot and it takes you up to a monument, a high point, a weird of some kind of a stone structure up there we don't know what it is and we're trying to figure out we've talked to the states. Oh that's the one. I've heard about that. I've heard about that. Yeah, yeah, it's a strange thing. I guess there's a Tiamari Stonehenge type of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So as we were doing all this work and getting all this phenomenal support and having community meetings and people were just saying, this is a gorgeous place. I wanted one comment about Roger and he's told me that when he builds these trails he goes from beauty spot to beauty spot and that's it. Go along there and you just come to another waterfall or another stone wall or another huge tree or another deer yard or what he calls a cathedral, a hemlock cathedral. And so as we were doing this these two landowners became really interested in one of those high property, that's why. And so we are in the process of conserving these two pieces, well one is Sam's actually. So we're conserving this 150 acres with the Vermont Land Trust. So it's gotten bigger. There's a wilderness school on Sam's property that uses the property. There's people using it all the time already. We've just, the flux of people has been amazing. We're working on this one and then we find out that the owner of this parcel which is contiguous has died and his family wants to get rid of it. They're not into having all this land. 646 amazing, amazing acres, Armored Ridge. And there have been more than 70 species of birds. This is a power line and that shrub habitat along with all of this deep forest is home to, ornithologists have grown up there and have found between 60 and 70 species. Some of them are species in greatest need of conservation. This is, has 2.5 miles of frontage on the West River and you've already heard about the West River. We've heard about it several times today. Over to many projects. This river is stressed because somebody convinced somebody years ago to put a couple of big dams up there to protect the flood plains in Connecticut. You're thinking pretty well. And so that stresses it. The water's being impounded. It gets warm and then they release it and it affects all of the life along the river. And so we're doing all we can to protect that. We've been talking to Marie Kedudo at the Agency of Natural Resources. She really wants this to happen. There's 45 acres here of field that protects against floods and more acres of flood plain there. There's really interesting geological features from the glaciers and from flooding events on that piece. So we have submitted another application to the HCB to get this piece and that's gonna be a big nature preserve. And I guess I would ask you any question. The community support for this is incredible. It's just been overwhelming for the community support. How long is the trail? 3.2 miles to climb about 1,000 feet. So it's around a 9% average grade. And that's a comfortable grade. The guy that has a YouTube site called Green Mountain Metal Detector. And I've always wondered where he's marching and getting some things from the Revolutionary War period. And I'm wondering if this is the area that he's marching in. You guys don't know him. We haven't met him. No. No. All right. But if you go up to just one more thing, where at least the trail starts right here, you go up here and you go up here. And as the summer begins and as it gets more into the summer, the indigo buntings up there start singing and it's the most idyllic thing. There's a couple of big logs and I just go up there and sit and it's just the music. You can't find any better music in here. I wanna get to Robin so we only got a couple minutes left. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Robin, while you're running out, I wanna go back to Lynn. Lynn, the pictures that you handed out. Yes. I don't think either Senator Clarkson or Corbett live in that particular district and they pay you to have the pictures in. I'll never tell. We'll take the points away for that kind of thing. No, they do, it's in the restaurant. It's in the kitchen. Okay. We had a chance to get up there. Yeah. Five of them. Yeah. Robin, welcome. You're gonna be... Thank you. All right. Martin to develop. I can't see the clock behind me so... Well, you're gonna hear whenever... I'll hear them butchers go off. Robin had the large pictures. Yeah, just surprising. I don't know anybody in Chittin County right here in Colchester. Yes. Large, large. Beautiful. I went up to the side a little bit. Thank you. I'm Robin Jeffers and I'm gonna talk fast. I'm talking too fast. Let me know. Cool. I'm Robin Jeffers. I'm with S.D. Ireland Construction. We're the developers of Severance Corners, which is the gross center of Colchester. It's under section of Blakely Severance and Group 7 and 2. If you're not familiar with it, it's about a mile north of Costco. Because most people know where Costco is. How far from Maz's store is it? How far from Maz's store? About 2.1 miles. Oh. Just a bite. Just a bite. Just a bite right down towards the bay. We're working on that. This is the shortcut. I wish she goes for lunch, right? And breakfast. And the cocktail after work. Exactly. This is the Southwest quadrant and it's currently about three quarters developed. Most of what you see here is already in existence. There's 12 businesses. There's 285 residences. 60 of those are owned. The rest are rented. 60 of those are owned. The rest are rented. And it's been very, very successful. We have a restaurant. We have a hair salon. We have daycare. There's after school programs, dance programs. A lot of things that are right here that for the residents and a lot of the residents work in these businesses that are here. Five or six and town employees live here. So it's really started to become what it was intended to be. It's a beautiful hub in the town. And so we're seven right here. I'm just gonna put this around. And this is the Southeast quadrant and this is where we began construction about three or four months ago. And very similar idea. Commercial buildings in the front and then residences towards the back. And we're very, very fortunate and super excited to this building right here which is right next to a playground. And this is sunny hollow woods in the actual area which is full of beautiful trails. We just received the BHCB award to collaborate on that and partner with CHT in Vermont housing. For housing. And the exciting thing about that is that with all the housing that we have up here which will easily double what we've done on the Southwest quadrant is that we hit workforce housing with what we're able to develop ourselves. And so we can hit that median price, we can hit above, we can hit about 90% of median price housing. But people frequently call us or they'll apply for an apartment and they're just under that. And they don't qualify for the apartment that we have. And they want to live here so badly because it's such a wonderful place to live with schools. And it's heartbreaking to have to tell someone that they don't qualify financially for an apartment. So we are, I'm turning red, I'm sorry. I'm very passionate about this. We're really excited to have this partnership and for this project to have received the funding because now people of all incomes are going to be able to live here. Where was the CIRC? The CIRC was going to go right through there at one time, right? Yes, this is the CIRC lands right here. This is from seven right here. That's the CIRC was going to go through there. So the CIRC all funds are going to pay for the intersection of improvements here at retirement. And two, it's currently a failing intersection unfortunately, but it's going to get fixed. It's going to get fixed, yeah. It's going to be a wonderful pedestrian improvements. So there'll be interconnectedness, it'll be safe for people to go back and forth so you could live over there and work over here and vice versa. So we're really excited about the growth center. She's going over there now starting a new project. We do. They're working on this road here and this road here because this will be our first building here. The one which has received the funding. And how many units, housing units do you anticipate? We have currently 285 over here and we are expecting to have probably at least another 100 and we're hoping to mirror that on the other side. Robin, how are they all being rented seriously in Chintan County? That's a question I had asked you earlier. How are they all being rented? There's demand and yet there's, population isn't growing. Where are they coming from? Phone is ringing up. I know, I just haven't got the answer. Look at the building. A lot of people are moving into Chintan County from the outer areas. A lot of people used to commute really far to work and they don't want to anymore. They want to live close to where they were. So there is a new population coming in. There's new population in from outside of Vermont but there's also, I mean when the university is hiring, this is where people want to live. We're at that median rent level. A lot of growing units are involved with that. Especially if you're coming here and you want to live in new housing and not old housing, you're going to come to these new developments. As some of them are renters who are moving because they know they can have a more. Yeah, but they got somebody else going to rent theirs where they're leaving. Yeah, I know, but this is new. But we need to have people selling houses and they want a downsize and they want to move here. They want to be close to the medical center. They want to be close to the lake. They want to be, they don't want to spend their time commuting anymore. I can just add one thing from our perspective working in Chintan County is that one thing people don't realize is there's no companies being built. After the financial crisis, the banks became much more strict about construction lending for condominiums. So the number of rental units going up would have been condos. Correct. Now they're rental. The farms down below me are just putting in 150 houses right there. I mean, 150 on Chintan. Yeah. Yeah. All right, that's it. Okay. All right.