Vermont’s H.479, recently passed by the House and now in the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy, is a sprawling omnibus housing bill dressed up as a bold response to the state’s housing shortage. But a closer look reveals a disturbing reality: behind the legislative fanfare lies a $70 million spending package with no defined goals, no oversight, and no return on investment—just a tangled web of subsidies, bureaucracy, and environmental risk.
At a time when Vermonters are being crushed by housing costs and rising taxes, they deserve real solutions backed by accountability. Instead, H.479 throws public money into a system that doesn’t even bother to define the problem it claims to solve.
No Metrics, No Mission
Despite the bill’s repeated references to a “housing crisis,” neither the House version nor Senate committee testimony (Senate meetings:5/13, 5/14, 5/15, 5/16) provides any hard data on Vermont’s actual needs. There are no benchmarks for how many units should be built, where the need is greatest, or who exactly is being left behind. Is the shortage primarily in urban centers? Rural towns? Is it driven by long-term Vermonters being priced out, or an influx of new residents seeking taxpayer-supported housing?
You won’t find the answers in this bill. What you will find is a laundry list of grants, loans, and “revitalization” programs handed out without clear expectations or tracking requirements. There’s no provision requiring agencies to show how many units are brought online, how many remain occupied after a year, or what portion actually benefit Vermont residents versus out-of-state transplants.
Worse, many of the programs funded by H.479—including the $70,000-per-unit Rental Housing Improvement Program—don’t even attempt to define success. Loans are forgiven not based on outcomes but simply on the passage of time.
The Case of the Vanishing $2 Million
One of the clearest examples of how casually taxpayer funds are handled comes from Section 23 of the bill, which deals with Vermont’s Brownfield program. A Senate committee discussion casually acknowledged that a previous $2 million appropriation to the Agency of Natural Resources had already been spent—but without tracking or authorization.
Rather than demand accountability, lawmakers simply rewrote the bill language to authorize the spending after the fact. Problem solved? Hardly. This kind of retroactive budgeting signals a complete breakdown of fiscal oversight, and it sets a dangerous precedent: spend now, justify later.
No Deliverables, Just Bureaucracy
In total, H.479 allocates over $70 million across a half-dozen agencies and politically connected nonprofits—$20 million to the Vermont Housing Finance Agency (VHFA), $15 million to the Vermont Bond Bank, $4 million for landlord rehab grants, and another $2 million for mobile home parks. HomeShare Vermont, NeighborWorks centers, and the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board (VHCB) are all on the dole.
But here’s the kicker: not a single dollar is tied to enforceable performance metrics. The state isn’t requiring a certain number of homes to be built, a reduction in homelessness, or even improvements in affordability indexes. This isn’t outcome-based policy—it’s a blank check.
A Future Love Canal?
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the bill lies in its treatment of “development soils” and brownfield sites. Section 19 allows the Agency of Natural Resources to approve the disposal or on-site burial of soil that exceeds residential safety thresholds for known contaminants—as long as it’s capped with clean fill.
In other words, the state is greenlighting the construction of housing atop potentially hazardous land, while releasing developers from long-term liability through so-called soil management plans.
If this sounds familiar, it should. In the 1970s, Love Canal became a national scandal after homes were built on contaminated land, causing birth defects and health crises. Vermont may now be laying the groundwork for its own version—except we’re doing it knowingly, in the name of affordable housing.
And just like in Love Canal, there’s no long-term environmental monitoring baked into H.479. No water testing, no annual soil checks, no health impact reviews. Once the paperwork is filed, the state washes its hands—and homeowners are left holding the risk.
Conclusion: A Shell Game, Not a Solution
H.479 is not a housing solution—it’s a shell game. It gives the illusion of progress while propping up a patchwork of nonprofit agencies and politically favored contractors with no performance requirements, no transparency, and no accountability.
Taxpayers are footing the bill for programs that may never deliver results. Worse, they’re inheriting the liability for environmental risks that could linger for decades.
Real housing reform starts with honesty: define the problem, measure success, and protect the public. H.479 does none of these things. If Vermont’s lawmakers want to claim victory on housing, they need to do more than write checks—they need to answer to the people footing the bill.
Dave Soulia | FYIVT
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