House accelerators vs Senate brakes on housing

In this legislative session, as was the case in the session prior, the House has chosen to act as the accelerator, forcing the Senate to act as the brake. That is particularly evident in the Legislature’s efforts to address the state’s housing crisis.

The House has passed legislation to focus on the homeless and a variety of housing options. It also creates a $900,000,000 revenue stream for the next decade that would "maintain" the Legislature’s attention on the state’s long-term housing needs.

The Senate is considering legislation of its own and is leery of the big-money approach by the House. The state has, and continues to spend roughly half a billion dollars on housing programs. As Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D/P Chittenden Southeast, was quoted saying: “We should see how much that half a billion dollars benefitted us in the next couple of years before we decide the path forward is more money.” Ms. Ram Hinsdale is chair of the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing, and General Affairs, and she said she thinks it would be wiser to place the state’s focus on “regulator reform because that unties the hands of the rest of our housing developers and providers to provide lower-cost housing for all Vermonters.”

Ms. Ram Hinsdale’s approach has been seconded by Sen. Jane Kitchel, D-Caledonia, who chairs the powerful Senate Committee on Appropriations. “Our resources, they are finite. People forget we’re a very small state - our tax base is relatively small. And so what’s realistic, and sustainable, is really something that is very much on our minds at this point.”

Sanity. Nice to hear. 

Not only does the House’s approach require a major tax consideration [raising the marginal tax on the wealthy and corporations] it does so without any power to bind future legislatures. The legislative language can suggest that the money should be set aside for housing over the next decade, but it can’t mandate such.

It’s a simple exercise to imagine how easy it would be for future legislators to decide the money could be better spent elsewhere. And then, where are we?

Let’s hope the Senate’s regulatory-based approach prevails, the approach taken by the House, which is to focus development within existing municipalities is not only expensive and uncertain, but limited in its impact.

The differences between the approach taken by the House and the Senate have taken on a political element as well. In an op-ed on the opposing page, Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman makes his appeal on behalf of the House’s approach. It’s deserving of a careful read because it shows, in part, why Vermont has a housing crisis and why any change in our regulatory approach [Act 250] is seen as heresy.

Mr. Zuckerman’s bias begins with the 1960s headline: “Vermont is not for sale.” He refers to developers as profiteers and Vermont as a pristine wilderness that should not be disturbed. He writes that the House bill will “reduce regulatory burdens in village, town and city centers and will help us build smartly instead of succumbing to sprawling overdevelopment.”

Our Lieutenant Governor’s head seems stuck in the past as he makes his concluding appeal: “Do you you think we should irreversibly alter the landscape of Vermont in order for investors and real estate developers to make massive profits? Or do you think we should take a balanced approach and increase our development in our town and village centers, create more walkable communities, and invest more resources in affordable housing for everyday Vermonters?”

Painting one side as evil and the other as virtuous promotes the divisiveness that keeps progress at bay. It’s a throwback to a time that has little to no relevance to today’s challenges.

We have a 40,000 home shortage in Vermont and it’s not going to be addressed one house at a time. Housing that is affordable can only be reached if the numbers are large enough to scale so that materials, labor, etc., are more affordable. As a state, we can’t afford to forever bear the individual burden of higher and higher taxes to subsidize the huge gap between the housing stock we have and the housing stock we need.

As a state, we also have the relatively certain prospect of a large [17 percent] property tax coming our way. It seems a less than prudent time to push additional costs on Vermonters, particularly when the promised outcomes are so uncertain.

At first blush, the Senate seems to get that. The House and Mr. Zuckerman do not.

By Emerson Lynn