State legislators appeared skeptical this week about a proposed change in Burlington’s city charter that would allow city councilors to bar evictions without “just cause.”
Members of the House Committee on Government Operations had their first opportunity Thursday to flesh out H.448, a bill that combines three proposed charter amendments Burlington voters decisively passed in March 2021.
While the just cause measure won support from 63% of Burlington voters, it still needs approval from the House, Senate and — unless two-thirds of those chambers vote yes — the governor to become law.
But as they review the proposed three-page charter amendment, state legislators can tweak the language before sending it to the governor’s desk — an authority that multiple committee members were eager to employ Thursday.
Multiple legislators harped on the proposed amendment’s level of detail, saying it lacked specific enforcement measures and did not elaborate on how landlords might have to compensate tenants for removing them from an apartment.
Burlington City Councilor Sarah Carpenter, D-Ward 4, and City Attorney Dan Richardson pushed back against those criticisms, saying the charter change itself is not a piece of policy. Rather, the duo said, it authorizes the council to pass an ordinance that would delve into such details.
That defense did not satisfy the legislators, who said they did not want to delegate power to Burlington leaders before knowing more specifically how they would use it.
“It seems to be unusual to grant an authority and say, ‘It’s OK, we’ll take care of it when we write the ordinances,’” said Rep. Peter Anthony, D-Barre City. “That doesn’t give me a good night’s sleep.”
“It basically allows the City Council to do whatever it wants,” said Rep. John Gannon, D-Wilmington.
Lawmakers floated a number of amendments that would add specificity to the charter change language, including one that would exempt landlords who own four or fewer rental units from the ordinance that arises out of the charter change.
But Rep. Tanya Vyhovsky, P/D-Essex, said that proposed amendment would scupper the original intent of the charter change since ownership of a rental unit or building is not always clear, and larger-scale landlords potentially still could evade the ordinance.
“It sounds like this creates a potentially giant loophole in this charter,” Vyhovsky said.
Other legislators had separate critiques of the proposed charter amendment that could not be amended out. Rep. Robert LaClair, R-Barre Town, blasted proponents for, in his eyes, suggesting that landlords relished evicting their tenants.
“It’s in every landlord’s best interests to attract and keep good tenants,” said Laclair, a landlord himself. “I am tired of landlords being portrayed as these cold, heartless people that don’t care about their tenants.”
The legislator also argued that landlords were excluded from the measure’s crafting, a charge that some landlords and their lobbyists previously made in testimony to the committee.
But Carpenter and Richardson dismissed those allegations and argued that the landlords’ well-publicized (and widely denounced) opposition to the ballot item disproved the claims.
“We totally understand that there are landlords who do not support this, but it wasn’t like we did not hear from landlords,” Carpenter said.
“Burlington has a very robust public process, and I think that’s evidenced in the way this original charter amendment was promulgated,” Richardson told legislators, noting that the City Council held public hearings about the ballot item before it went to voters.
Richardson also dismissed a contention by LaClair that the ballot language presented to voters was misleading, pointing out that argument was rejected by a superior court judge.
In addition to the just cause eviction charter change, legislators considered Thursday a Burlington charter amendment that would give the City Council authority to disincentivize carbon emissions through leveling fees but did not seek to amend the original language.
H.448 also includes a charter amendment promulgating ranked choice voting for City Council elections.
The committee plans to vote on the proposed charter changes Tuesday, Anthony told VTDigger on Friday.
Clarification: This story has been updated to more precisely describe the vote by which the just cause eviction measure was approved in Burlington last March.
