 Well, good evening everybody. I hope you can all hear me and I apologize for the delay. We are here tonight for the Special City Council meeting. I will call the meeting to order at 6.15 p.m. I'll skip over the general discussion of meeting logistics except to point out that we will have a public hearing on the proposed just cause eviction proposal. I would hope that if there are public comments I would not necessarily hold people to the normal three-minute timeline but I would like everybody to be conscious of the time and not talk too long. First item on the agenda is to approve the agenda. Is everybody satisfied with the agenda? Everybody's saying yes. The agenda is approved. The next item on the agenda is general business and appearances. This is an opportunity for any member of the public to address the council about any topic that is not on tonight's agenda. I will pause briefly to see if anyone is interested in being recognized either here in the room or participating by Zoom. Okay. Not seeing anyone seeking to be recognized. We will move to the public hearing for the petition Charter Change. This is a requirement for an item that's Charter Change that's been placed on the ballot by petition. The item has already been approved by the council to be on the ballot and so will be on the March 5th ballot. We are required to have this our second public hearing within 10 days of the first public hearing which was last Wednesday and we will have a presentation hopefully briefer than the previous presentation. Because we've already been through it one time and then we will have an opportunity for members of the public to comment. And with that I will open the public hearing. Why don't you come on up and sit at the chair there. Thank you. Is there any way to be able to present for us? Yeah, now try to share your screen. I'm winging this. But how hard can it be? I'm not as connected to the Zoom yet. Right, but I would share my screen. I don't want to share my screen. It says you can allow multiple of us. Oh. See, it's really simple, Charter. Thank you. Oh my gosh. So if I join the Zoom would I be able to share my screen? You need to join the Zoom. Excellent. Give me a second then I'll look. That's the way to do it. Yes. Brilliant. Sorry about this. I'll just go. Pardon? It's okay. Me too. That's as long as anyways. Trying to find the Zoom meeting link. There was there. No. Is that me? Are you on this hearing? No, that's theirs. Oh. He's left me. He's left from the other one. He was the future. Recording in here. Okay, Tom. I see you're logged in. I am. Yep. I've got a share screen capabilities. I'm just getting this up. Okay. All right. You're on. I need to move things around. So good evening, Montpelier. Thank you so much for attending this public information meeting. I'm just called to vision a charter change proposal. That will be question 14 on the Montpelier tell meeting day ballot. My name is Tom Proxer. And I'm the housing justice organizer for rights and democracy. At rad. We have successfully organized tenants. Homeowners and landlords in Burlington, Winooski, Essex and Brattleboro and now Montpelier. To place a robust sensible just cause of vision charter change on town meeting day ballots over the last three years. Tonight, I will be going through specific texts that will be on your ballots this town meeting day and explaining what each portion means. Following that, Montpelier resident and just cause of vision activist Beth Burgess will do a short presentation on why we need this policy and the implications for Montpelier. Finally, we'll open the meeting up for a Q and a. If you do have any questions during the presentation, if you could write them down and hold on to them for the Q and a section that that would be most appreciated. Could you close the window so I wouldn't see the pictures. Oh, yes, I can. You can just make that. Arrow that. Sweat. You see across the top there. Yeah. Yeah. Hit that one. Okay. You're welcome. So to best understand this question and its implications, it will be helpful to go through the language that will be on the ballot. So this will be the first part of the the language on the ballot. Shall the charter of the city of Montpelier as amended be further amended to give amended to give the city council the power to provide by ordinance protections for residential tenants from evictions without quote, just cause by adopting and adding a new section 301 B 9 to read. So this is asking if you the voter agree or disagree that the city council should be given the authority to create a just cause eviction ordinance in Montpelier. So a lot of words for not really saying a very much. This is the next section. So to provide by ordinance protections for residential tenants as defined in chapter 137 title nine of the form of statutes annotated. So this is the section of Vermont statutes that pertain to renter tenant agreements. So from eviction without just cause where just cause shall include, but it's not limited to. So let's take these one by one. A tenant's material breach of written rental agreement. So these are the things that you can get evicted for. So a tenant's material breach of a written rental agreement is, for example, if the lease says there is no smoking allowed on the property and the tenant. Could you pause for a moment? Yes. I think something we're getting feedback. I think somebody's laptop is microphone is on. So I would ask you where it is. Are we setting out? You're unmuted. No, you're still unmuted. Yeah. We can hear you. So you have to unmute on the screen and on the computer. Oh, there you go. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you. So these are the four reasons why one can get evicted under just cause eviction ordinances. So the first one is tenants material breach of a written rental agreement. So for example, if your lease says that there is no smoking allowed on the property and the tenant ignores that rule, that would be a violation of the written rental agreement and grounds for eviction. The landlord will get to decide what rules are in the lease at the beginning of each new lease cycle and it would be within their rights to change these rules as they saw fit at that time. Second reason, someone can get evicted, a tenants violation of state statutes regulating tenant obligations in residential rental agreements. Now this is actually quite a very long list of reasons why one can get evicted. These are state statutes on rental agreements and tenant obligations and landlord obligations. So some examples, for example, is being abusive to your roommates or people that live within the neighborhood around you or defacing the property. These are all grounds for eviction. Nonpayment of rent, sorry if your tenant does not pay rent within 14 days of the agreed upon date, that is fair grounds for eviction. And a tenant's failure to accept written reasonable good faith renewal terms. At the end of each lease cycle, if the current tenants have stuck to the rules, paid their rent on time, have been a good tenant, they will get the right of first refusal on a new lease. However, the lease does not have to be identical to the lease agreed on in the previous cycle. The landlord is free to change a lease as they see fit. If the tenant does not wish to sign this amended lease, they have forfeited the right of first refusal and the landlord is free to offer this lease to any other interested parties. In short, a failure to accept a new lease would be grounds for eviction if the tenant does not accept a new lease. Let's get to the next section. So the next part says, search ordinance shall exclude from just cause the expiration of a rental agreement as sole grounds for termination of tenancy. In addition to the exemptions in Chapter 137 of Title 9, the ordinance shall exempt from this provision subject to mitigation provisions, sublets and in-unit rentals as well as the following properties were not limited to. They were created by the Montpelier City Council and that a lease expiration would not be grounds for eviction. So as I said before, at the end of each lease cycle, the current tenants get the right of first renewal on any new lease, so they kind of outland that. And so, yeah, after this section, it will outline what properties are going to be exempt from any just cause of eviction rules. So first one, owner occupied is a duplexes and triplexes. I.e., if you own a property and rent out a room, or it's a duplex or a triplex and you rent the other units, you'd be exempt from a just cause of eviction ordinance. Landlords who live on the property, they rent to get a dispensation. This clause allows landlords to evict who they please whenever they wish for whatever reason, so long as they live on the property. Two, those being withdrawn from the rental market, including those primary residents. This clause allows landlords to remove the house from the property market whenever they wish to do so. If they no longer want to rent the property privately, they are under no obligation to do so, and therefore can evict tenants without a cause if they take that action. Number three, accessory dwelling units on the same property as a single family, owner occupied home. So again, this is kind of a duplex and triplex. If your landlord rents out their ADU, which is on the property boundary, that ADU is not grounds for just cause of eviction ordinance. It gets excluded. And those in need of substantial renovations preclude occupancy. So for similar reasons to withdrawing the property from the rental market, if the home needs renovations and the renovations are needed are so extensive that it requires the property to be removed or I don't know, wall collapse is something major, a landlord is going to evict those tenants without a cause because obviously the home is unfit for habitation. All right, next part. So search ordinance shall conclude provisions that one miscaped potential negative impacts on tenants and property owners, including but not limited to requirements of adequate notice and reasonable relocation of tenants without a cause, i.e. a family member moves in or there needs to be substantial renovations made, so a no fault of eviction effectively. Then the tenants should get adequate notice of that eviction and some moving expenses paid. How long the notice should be and how much the music expenses would be up to the city council to decide. When we put this through the state house on the Burlington House, and this is just an acknowledgement of the fact we've got such a small rental availability rate right now, it takes a long time to find a new place and obviously it costs a lot of money to move. I don't know who moved here last, I moved in the last year and a half, it costs money every single time. So number two, provide for a reasonable probationary period after initial occupancy. So this clause allows the landlord to put a probationary period on any new course in which they would still be allowed to evict without a cause. This is to allow the landlord sometime to assess whether this tenant is likely going to be an issue and if so, can evict them without cause before that probationary period is over, after which just cause provisions would kick in. How long this probationary period would be again would be up to the city council to decide when they write the ordinance. Number three, limit unreasonable rent increases to prevent de facto evictions or non-renewals. Although this shall not be construed to limit rents beyond the purpose of preventing individual evictions. So this rule would prevent landlords from raising the rent to a point where it effectively be an eviction. For example, if your rent is $1,000 a month, you should be so lucky and your landlord were to raise it 100% to $2,000 per month, that would be seen as an, that could, could be seen as an unreasonable rent increase designed to evict without going through the proper channels. It effectively closes or this cause closes an eviction loophole. But by design is not meant to stop the landlord from raising the rent. By what percent would be deemed unreasonable rent increase again would be a decision for the city council to decide. And last but not least, this is a last section of the chart, of the chart question. It outlines that terms such as reasonable and adequate notice shall be defined by the city council when they write the ordinance. It also states that if this charter change were to pass and an ordinance was created landlords would have to inform the tenants of their rights when they sign their lease agreement. This is a long process. Once we pass this on the charter change, it has to go through the, to the state house, the state house then have to approve it. Then it comes back to the city council and only have the city council got the authority to write the ordinance. So there's a marathon and not a sprint. So we're a long way off yet but once that does happen it will be up to the city council to define things like what's reasonable, what's adequate notice. I just want to say I said this last week at the city council meeting but to be clear this charter change if it passes is not a silver bullet to fix the housing crisis. To do that we need to build more housing at this way second and third homeowners from leaving their properties empty, regulate the short-term rental property market like Airbnb's and create a statewide rental registry so we can understand the true extent of what's happening to housing in Vermont. Things like grants for first time home buyers and rental assistance for those trying to get off the streets are also very important and much needed policies to curb this housing crisis. What this charter change will do is protect good tenants from bad landlords, landlords who neglect their properties and punish tenants making reasonable complaints, landlords who are competing against and undercutting good landlords that look after their homes and their tenants. These good landlords spend money to make sure their homes are secure, safe, warm and dry, the bad landlords do not, safe in the knowledge that for tenant complaints they can be replaced. This policy will also protect those good landlords from bad tenants, tenants that don't pay their rent, tenants that destroy property, tenants that threaten their neighbors and community members. Those tenants will be no safer from eviction than they currently are. In fact, by removing no cause as an option for landlords looking to rid themselves of tenants, we will free up the housing courts slightly allowing for just and reasonable eviction cases to move quicker through the courts allowing landlords to rid themselves of problematic tenants all the faster. We need to create safe and secure housing for everyone in Vermont and while this may not get a step closer, if you share this vision of a safer fair in Montpelier I urge you to vote yes on question 14 of this town meeting day and become the fourth municipality in Vermont to become a just cause eviction town. Thank you and we shall now hear from Montpelier resident and just cause eviction activist Beth Burgess. Thanks, sir. Thank you. Are we adjusting the other meeting? We're four minutes into the meeting. We're going to allow some. A note for people who are here for the Board of Abatement meeting. We had anticipated that the City Council public hearing would be done by 630 because of technical issues. We didn't get started in time and so we're running over and I think this is a public hearing. It's something that's provided by law to do and so we're going to complete the public hearing and then we'll do the Board of Abatement hearing after that. So sorry to keep people waiting but anyone who's here for the public for the abatement request we will definitely get to you and as I say I apologize for not starting already. This will not take long. Before you start, Chris Lumberie if you're listening please mute your microphone on your computer. Okay. Are you ready to start? Yeah, I'm just going to slide show. Thanks, Chris. So this is kind of a one-on one-on-one. It was created as a kind of a I'm going to ask you to start by introducing yourself. Of course. I'm Beth Burgess. I'm a resident of Montpelier. I became involved in this group. I am a landlord. I ran out the top floor of my house so I'm a very small scale landlord but I felt that this was a really good cause and this is a short presentation based on something I did in grad school so it first is aimed at more of a national audience and then narrows down to Montpelier. So this was started earlier last year when moratoriums had ended against eviction. There were rent hikes that were seen during the pandemic. The federally funded rental assistance had ended transitional housing for people needing emergency shelter was ending at that time. Far more people of color were affected nationally in this situation and nationwide there's a low-vegancy rate and certainly in Vermont there's a very low-vegancy rate. This is just showing the difference between people of color on the left and white people the greater effect on people of color. So in looking at the research on health effects based on eviction or the fear of eviction there has been documented research of health problems a greater risk of more serious health problems in the community trauma and mental health issues the effects can be long lasting it affects children as well as adults we know that eviction can lead to homelessness at times people who are evicted can have this appear on their rental record and it can go on the record and stay there even if the case was dismissed if there was a settlement and the rent was paid some people may be unable to get a subsidy if they've been evicted so this is kind of looking at it nationwide no cause evictions are legal in most states no reason is needed it can be in retaliation for in some states what is illegal like sexual harassment complaints about racist sexist behavior on the part of the landlord or other tenants and complaining about needed repairs at times greatly increased rent as Tom was mentioning can be cause for eviction essentially because the person can no longer pay if it's doubled there's also what's known as informal evictions this is something that's been documented recently nationwide these are not recorded you can't estimate it there seem to be as up to five times as common as court ordered evictions a lot of it is prompted by as you see this graphic here the notice to quit so just before someone is even given an order of eviction there's just the fear of eviction appearing on the rental record people may just leave at the hint of a possible eviction some people lack knowledge about their rights and may just want to get out of a situation and then immigrants and people who don't speak English as a primary language may be confused and may end up leaving in Vermont the data is as recent as 2021 I don't have the most recent data so it may be declined somewhat since then but looking back in 2017 18% of evictions were related to no cause that same year 70% were related to non-payment of rent by 2021 50% were without a reason for eviction on the right you see low rates, rural differences so before the pandemic there was a basic statistic of 2.3 per 100 units that rate of eviction during the pandemic it went down because of eviction moratoriums but they found that non metro areas because they're looking at big census areas non metro areas which include rural areas had higher rates so just summing up just cause eviction protects tenants who are in a difficult situation they don't have heat or there's leaking into their apartment or there are other problems with the apartment and this would give them a chance without retaliation landlords must give one of the approved causes and our old competitor New Hampshire already has just cause eviction and there are four other states that do cities major cities in some states and three cities or towns in Vermont do have just cause eviction so the following causes are allowed violation of terms of lease and property damage criminal activity unsafe and dangerous conditions of an apartment caused by the tenant engaging in threatening behavior towards other tenants or that disturbs the environment and there are exceptions for owner occupied buildings with three or fewer units and intent to do major rehab for the owner moving in to want to occupy the building fully these are some things that are part of some just cause eviction ballot measures Tom already mentioned a cap on rent hikes to be determined by the city council what the mechanism will be for determining that and it doesn't apply to rentals where tenants do not plan to continue to stay so the rent could go way up for the new tenants arriving some states also offer mediation which needs to be funded by a non-profit or state funding most likely they've found in research that it can save landlords who would pay up to $10,000 for eviction and tenants are saved from court costs they've also found that two-thirds to nine-tenths of tenants using mediation avoided eviction and most property owners who are represented in court by an attorney but most tenants do not have an attorney our US Constitution guarantees the right to a free attorney for criminal cases but not for civil cases so the opposition claims that this creates rent control limits property owners rights, limits investments in quality housing prevents landlords from evicting bad tenants or creates the potential for perpetual tendency it does not do that it does not create rent control which caps rents across the board everywhere this is only in limited circumstances it does not limit what a property owner if they want to renovate if they want to move back in if they want to get rid of a bad tenant they still have that as a just cause that does not change with just cause eviction it allows the eviction of tenants as Tom mentioned for trashing an apartment and all the reasons that most people would think of would be a cause for eviction and it exempts many properties so again this reduces eviction it helps enhance housing and neighborhood stability it saves money for both the landlord and tenants from having to go through a court process it prevents related stress and health issues and gives tenants the freedom to complain about lack of heartbeat and need for repairs and that's my presentation alright thank you this being a public hearing there's opportunity for members of the public to comment I'll start by seeing if there's anyone in the room who would like to comment okay I'm not seeing anyone raise their hand so I'm going to see if there's anyone participating by Zoom who would like to comment oh could you please unshare I'll ask now if there's anyone who's participating by Zoom who would like to be heard indicated preferably by activating the raise hand feature because that is the easiest way for me to see it Daphne Kenny Landis Hi, my name is Daphne Kenny Landis I live on State Street in Montpelier and have lived in Montpelier for about 8 years now and just want to voice my support for this ballot measure especially to Beth's last point in her presentation about communication and being able to voice concerns that definitely is something I've experienced as a tenant the anxiety around voicing those concerns to landlords and to someone else's point in last week's meeting about just the power disparities between landlords and tenants I think this kind of ballot measure will really open up channels of communication so that tenants can share about concerns around whether it's eating not working, whether it's in the aftermath of flooding which is what I experienced just being able to feel like you could voice concerns about the habitability and safety of your dwelling without any kind of negative consequences in terms of lease renewals so that's all Okay, thank you Anybody else participating by Zoom would like to come in? Please raise your hand Is that a question? Yes, come on up What's the purpose of the lease? Can we start by identifying yourself? I'm Lisa, it's an event I'm not here for this at all What's the purpose of the lease? If we have a lease with a tenant and there's how does that work if a lease comes to an end? That one I think we need an answer to that Yeah, so lease is still a contract You have to be in this So you can be fixed up near a mic Sorry, I didn't catch your name Lisa Tom Hi So a lease is still very much legal binding contract that lease will go on for as long as it says the lease will go on for so let's say for a year long lease it will have the list of expectations that the landlord has on the tenant so it might be like no pets or no smoking or make sure you put the bins out at this day, that kind of thing At the end of that lease the landlord will be required to give a new lease to the current tenant so long as that tenant didn't break any rules so as long as they because that's kind of the cause of eviction because if they don't offer a new lease that's effectively an eviction for that tenant because we've got very very few houses available to rent so if you don't get a lease renewal even if you've done nothing wrong what that means is you might still have to move town or even move state and in some circumstances you might end up finding yourself homeless and you've actually done nothing to deserve that you've paid your rent on time and if the landlord is still going to rent the property out, if he's still going to use that property as a business and you've done nothing wrong what this charter change would do is say that that tenant deserves to be able to stay in that place Yeah, but when you have a lease it has a specific time period and the obligation is for both parties for that time period so why would this automatically extend that time period? It wouldn't if you were a business It doesn't it says that any new lease that tenant gets the right of first refusal and a new lease so once that lease expires that lease expires but if the landlord is planning to rent out the property again that current tenant gets the right of first refusal on that new lease so then you would have another lease that again would have an expiration date and that landlord can change that lease at the end of the at the end of the lease expiration expiring and a landlord has another lease in planning to rent out again they can change all the stipulations if they now all of a sudden don't want pets or all of a sudden they want the things to be out on a different day or anything reasonable that a landlord could require they can change that lease within those specifications they can even increase the cost of rent and it's up to the tenant to say re-sign this new amended lease or not if they say no the tenant has to leave but that tenant does get the right of first refusal on that lease on that new lease okay thank you thank you for the question is there anybody else on Zoom who hasn't been heard who would like to be heard indicate by raising your hand and is there anything here in the room that has been heard who would like to be heard all right hearing none I will close the public hearing no action by the council is required other than the fact that we conducted public hearing on our agenda we have a slot for other business I believe we have no other business to conduct city council reports does anybody want to give a report move to adjourn second there's no mayor's report city clerk do you have a report all right we are adjourned at 6.52 pm all right thank you to everyone who came to the