House amends H.829 to fund housing programs, shifts transfer-tax threshold to $750,000

Members of the House debated and amended H.829, a broad housing package titled to create “permanent upstream eviction protections and enhance housing stability,” and ordered the bill for third reading.

Representative Kornheiser (member from Brattleboro) offered a Ways and Means amendment that restores long-standing statutory percentages for the transfer tax trust fund, corrects an earlier oversight affecting the clean water fund and moves the upper marginal transfer-tax bracket from $600,000 to $750,000. Kornheiser walked members through numerical scenarios and said the amendment ‘‘makes the whole pie larger,’’ arguing the same percentage slices would represent greater investment as the fund grows.

The floor record shows the amendment would add a new marginal transfer-tax rate at 3.65% for the top bracket and the sponsor gave examples of reduced transfer tax liabilities under the change. After floor questions and committee clarifications, the House adopted the Ways and Means amendment and then, by roll call, further amended the Committee on General and Housing report; the clerk announced 92 yes and 43 no on that roll-call tally.

Several members pressed the bill’s sponsors on how funds would be prioritized. The presenter (the member from Waterbury, speaking for the General and Housing Committee) said the $110,000,000 appropriation to the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board (VHCB) would be allocated to support production and preservation activities — including permanent homes for people experiencing homelessness, manufactured home community support and housing for farmworkers and refugees — but that the measure does not assign a strict ranked priority within that list. The presenter said funding decisions will depend on project viability and the competitive VHCB process.

Floor debate turned to program-level funding decisions. Several members warned that the bill trims funding for previously successful homelessness-prevention programs, including the Vermont Housing Improvement Program (VHIP), mobile-home improvement and healthy-homes initiatives; one member said the package ‘‘wipes out’’ effective tools and that those cuts could increase emergency housing costs. Committee leaders and the bill presenter said VHIP was being carried into the bill as a permanent line item, cited a carryforward balance (about $18 million noted on the floor), and noted that the bill’s FY25 allocations include roughly $7.3 million directed to VHCB for permanent housing and additional sums for related programs.

Members also questioned whether the bill changes eviction law. The presenter clarified that the bill does not alter landlord–tenant statutes: much of the upstream eviction protection language passed last year in Act 47, and H.829 primarily provides appropriations to implement programs created previously (including a pilot to provide full legal representation for tenants in eviction proceedings). The presenter cited testimony estimating that a pilot could prevent hundreds of evictions in the counties tested if successful.

Several legislators said they plan to press for policy changes before third reading — notably just-cause (‘‘no-cause’’) eviction protections — because they consider the funding package insufficient without statutory tenant protections. Other members defended the bill as a necessary multiyear investment, arguing the revenue changes and appropriations will help produce more housing and support wraparound services.

The House ordered the bill for third reading. Next procedural steps on this item are third-reading debate and any floor amendments members bring before that vote.