This story, by Report for America corps member Carly Berlin, was produced through a partnership between VTDigger and 开云体育.
After an hours-long debate on Friday afternoon, the Vermont House advanced a major housing package that would set up a new financing tool for infrastructure that supports new residential development.
The over S.127 comes after more than a week of discord among House lawmakers over the marquee infrastructure program, and it follows the Senate鈥檚 passage of a separate housing package a day prior. That makes the path to a final product uncertain as the Legislature inches closer to adjourning.
The debate in the Democrat-controlled House centered on what guardrails lawmakers ought to place on the Community and Housing Infrastructure Program, a new initiative aimed at allowing municipalities and developers to use the increased tax revenue from new housing projects to pay back debt for infrastructure like water lines, sewers and sidewalks.
After advancing the bill out of committee last week, House lawmakers faced blowback from Republican Gov. Phil Scott鈥檚 administration, senators and housing advocates, who said House members had made access to the program too restrictive, particularly for smaller towns.
In response to that criticism, key committee leaders put forward an amendment to ease some of those rules, like taking away geographic criteria for where projects could go and adding a pathway to exceed an annual cap on tax increment a state board can approve each year, at the discretion of the governor.
But many House members felt those concessions did not go far enough. Members of the tripartisan rural caucus brought forward an additional amendment on the House floor on Friday which would, among other measures, strike a controversial 鈥渂ut for鈥� test included in the legislation.
The test, a for tax increment financing programs elsewhere in the country, essentially requires that a development can only be approved for the program if it wouldn鈥檛 happen 鈥渂ut for鈥� the public financing boost.
Proponents of the test said it would play a critical role in protecting the state鈥檚 overstretched Education Fund.
鈥淚f the development would have occurred anyway, or would have occurred somewhere else, then the retention of the statewide education property tax to pay for it is effectively foregone revenue from the Education Fund, which could actually end up increasing property taxes for all Vermonters,鈥� said Rep. Charlie Kimbell, D-Woodstock, on the House floor.
But opponents argued that the test amounts to an added barrier to housing development amid Vermont鈥檚 acute shortage of homes. The state needs upwards of 24,000 additional year-round homes by 2029 to achieve a healthy housing market, according to a report released last year.
鈥淭he 鈥榖ut-for鈥� test is bureaucratic red tape,鈥� said Rep. Monique Priestley, D-Bradford. 鈥淭he need for housing is self-evident.鈥�
The amendment to scrap the test failed, even after gaining the support of some rural Democrats, in addition to Republicans 鈥� 53 members voted for it, and 86 voted against. Some members who voted for the shot-down amendment ultimately voted in favor of the overall bill, expressing a desire to see it tweaked yet again in a committee of conference between the House and Senate.
But it鈥檚 still unclear which housing bill will make it to that near-final step. As senators watched the House delay a vote over S.127 on Thursday, its members took the dramatic step of suspending all rules to get their version of a housing package, , to the finish line 鈥� a move that required cross-party support. That bill contains a version of CHIP with fewer rules attached.
Staff for legislative leadership indicated late Friday that they did not yet know which bill would be the ultimate vehicle.
