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by Austin Davis, Lake Champlain Chamber
Appeals reform looms large in a draft housing bill under review this week by the House Committee on General and Housing. The bill:
- Prioritizes housing appeals at the Environmental Division of the Superior Court, requiring cases to be heard within 60 days and resolved within 90 days.
- Raises the municipal zoning threshold for who can appeal housing projects
- Instead of allowing 20 individuals to file an appeal, the new standard would require 20% of a municipality’s residents to participate.
- Appeals must demonstrate a clear and substantial departure from land use laws that directly affect the appellant’s property.
- Introduces financial penalties for unsuccessful appeals:
- If the court rules in favor of a developer, the appellant could be required to pay up to $50,000 in legal fees and costs, though the court could waive penalties if the appellant proves undue hardship.
Infrastructure is a focus of the bill. It envisions a Vermont Infrastructure Sustainability Fund, a revolving loan fund administered by the Vermont Bond Bank, to help municipalities finance water, sewer, and public infrastructure projects that support housing with low-interest loans (not grants), with repayment replenishing the fund over time.
Conspicuously absent is any form of infrastructure financing, such as the SPARC and HIT programs that have been proposed. Members seem assured that the House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development will proceed with one of those proposals.
It also includes over $45 million in proposed appropriations for rental housing rehabilitation, homeownership assistance, and infrastructure projects to support new housing development, though it is unclear what revenue would support that.
In a potentially controversial move, the bill includes a rental housing registry, which received bipartisan condemnations and failed multiple times in previous bienniums and might be a veto target.
The author is the Director of Government Affairs for the Lake Champlain Chamber.
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Categories: Housing, Legislation
Last year when a percentage number was discussed in committee, Sen. Cummings noted that it would require more than 100 people to participate in a zoning hearing in Montpelier and that it would take a lot longer to get through the process if they changed the requirement for participation to such a high percentage of the population. So, yeah, go for it if you want to slow down the process on the local level.
This is for their own pet projects only. We are going to build out your down town with incredibly expensive rental property and if you object we’ll fine you. And you’ll need the whole town to come out against it, we are making it 5x more difficult (5%. Is usually needed for a revote).
You are going to get migrant, homeless rental housing and you are going to like it! You will own nothing and be happy, or broke if you sue us for turning Vermont into a ghetto.
The set people are nuts
unbelievable
Yes, the nonprofit scam, building “affordable low income housing” paying no taxation on multimillion dollar housing whose organizers have an “IN’ on the grant pipeline and inflate the value of their offering to reflect 5-9 times the value that could be found in the private sector, eg, a 300 square foot unit in an existing motel costing 500k ave to upgrade to homeless housing, or building big box housing on the same inflated value, as in occurring in S VT PUTNEY, however, raising the property tax in preparation for by 40%, to move the costs of services onto the people, and, though building a 13+ million building of only 23 units, that could be found in the village in individual homes that contribute to the tax base, this housing trust company will not pay taxes, they have shifted the burden to the people. And what do they offer? They offer housing on the condition of enforced poverty, residents are not permitted to emasse enough capital to move out! or move up in the world, they each have a surveilled cap of 2k in additional assets or they get the boot. This, ladies and gentlemen is not only rico, of a non profit nature, it is also a violation of the 1st article of the Vermont constitution. What good is our constitution if the people do not apply it?