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Friday, February 8th, 2008
As we conclude our fifth week of the session, we are beginning to spend more and more time on the house floor. I was remiss in reporting to you about an issue that came up last week that had the potential to save and then re-allocate $1 million to assist low income Vermonters with their heating costs. While we were discussing the budget adjustment act for this fiscal year, an amendment was proposed to establish April 12, 2008 as the final day of this legislative session. By ending the session on that date the state would have realized a $1 million savings related to the cost of operating the legislature. I voted in favor of the amendment but, it was eventually defeated.
In the house General, Housing and Military Affairs committee we worked the entire week on housing issues. Our goal was to vote out a housing creation bill on Friday. However, after much debate that lasted into the evening we were only able to resolve one of the four remaining controversial issues. The issue that we resolved pertained to the actual location of the new neighborhood. The bill that the committee was working off stated that the new neighborhood had to be contiguous to one of the currently designated downtowns or a village center and that its size could not be larger than 50% of the currently designated area. H.299 the administrations bill used the word adjacent instead of contiguous and it had flexibility built in for the downtown board to approve areas not adjacent to these existing designated downtowns or village centers in extreme circumstances. The entire debate centered on how many communities could actually benefit from this bill with the more restrictive language. After a failed vote to include the very restrictive language, the committee compromised and voted 6-2 to use the contiguous language and increased the potential size of the new neighborhood from 50% to up to 200% of the existing designated downtown or village center. This is not exactly what either side wanted but, it will allow the communities more flexibility and potential area for housing. The three remaining controversial issues involve the following components of the bill: Act 250 modifications to the 9(L) criterion which pertains to character of the neighborhood, defining affordability for the purposes of this bill and the rental property registry and inspection language. We took several hours of testimony from many different view points on these issues throughout the week. However to date, we are still not near consensus on either of the issues.
I believe that we have some serious affordable housing issues in this state and that we need to make the process less cumbersome. If we can resolve these remaining non- consensus issues, this new law will help alleviate some of the hurdles in the development process and create new affordable housing for our children and their families.
One of the things I enjoy most about serving in the legislature is hosting friends and constituents at the Statehouse. If you would like to visit the Statehouse please feel free to contact me to arrange a date and time. I am very interested in hearing from you so, if you have any questions, concerns or comments please feel free to contact me. I can be reached at the Statehouse by calling 1-800-322-5616 or by cell at 373-5960. My e-mail address is dturner@leg.state.vt.us. My web-site address is www.donturnerjr.com
I look forward to representing you and your concerns in Montpelier. Thank you and have a great week!