MONTPELIER — Burlington’s effort to ban “evictions without just cause” took a step forward Thursday, as the state Senate gave initial approval to a measure that would empower city officials to more stringently regulate housing.
H.708 is an amendment to the city’s charter that would let city councilors pass an ordinance restricting when landlords can evict a tenant or not renew their lease. The Senate advanced the bill on a voice vote.
The legislation was one of three Burlington charter changes that saw action in the Statehouse on Thursday. Another bill, which would enact ranked choice voting for city council races, won preliminary approval on the House floor. Meanwhile, the House Committee on Government Operations heard testimony on a measure that would strip city leaders of their ability to regulate sex work.
The just cause eviction charter amendment passed the House in February after lawmakers slightly narrowed the language that 64% of Burlington voters approved last year. Pending a final procedural vote, the charter change is bound for Gov. Phil Scott’s desk, where it faces an uncertain fate.
Scott hasn’t decided whether he will veto the measure, spokesperson Jason Maulucci said, but the governor has concerns about the “unintended consequences” it could have on one of Vermont’s tightest housing markets.
Scott worries that the legislation could reduce housing stock in Burlington — which has a roughly 1% vacancy rate for residential units — and make landlords less inclined to lease to tenants who have “little or checkered renting histories,” Maulucci said in an email.
“If the bill does get final approval from the Legislature, the Governor will work with our Department of Housing to analyze all its impacts before deciding whether he can sign it,” he said.
If Scott vetos the charter change, it’s unclear whether the Legislature could override that veto. The measure received 98 votes when it cleared the House — short of the two-thirds margin it would need if all 150 members were in attendance — and the Senate did not conduct a roll call vote.
Under the charter change, city councilors would gain the authority to pass an ordinance declaring that landlords cannot evict their tenant or decline to offer a lease renewal, with a number of exceptions.
The language states that landlords would not be obligated to house a tenant who damages or commits a crime in their apartment, fails to pay rent or in some other way violates their rental agreement. The landlord also could choose not to renew a lease during a “reasonable probationary period” set to be detailed in the City Council’s ordinance.
Landlords can take a rental unit off the market if they are reclaiming it for personal use or are making “substantial renovations that preclude occupancy,” but in those cases, they must let renters know about the move ahead of time and pay for up to a month’s rent in relocation expenses, according to the bill.
The proposal sparked ardent pushback during hearings in the Senate Committee on Government Operations. Burlington landlords said the measure would hamper their right to make decisions about their property and effectively render the notion of time-bound leases moot.
But Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden, said those concerns demonstrated a desire by landlords to dump tenants who, because of state rental regulations, require more attention.
“While landlords would like to keep the tool in their toolbox that allows them to simply not renew a lease with a so-called ‘problem tenant,’ this kind of label can be placed on a tenant who is speaking up for their rights to repair or peaceable enjoyment, who is in the way of a sizable rent increase, or who is simply experienced as a nuisance to the landlord,” Ram Hinsdale said.
Ranked choice voting
The House also gave initial approval to a Burlington charter change via voice vote on Thursday. H.744 would establish ranked choice voting for city council elections.
Passed by Burlington voters on Town Meeting Day in 2021, the charter change would resurrect in part the city’s former method of tabulating election results. Under the ranked choice model, voters list their candidates in order of preference. If no candidate gets a majority of first-place votes, the tally factors in second-choice votes (or third, or fourth) until one candidate claims a majority.
The system was abandoned a year after Progressive Mayor Bob Kiss won reelection in 2009, even though Republican Kurt Wright received the most first-place votes.
On the House floor, Rep. Woodman Page, R-Newport City, balked at Burlington asking to return to its former method of voting after dismissing it 12 years ago.
“It didn’t work the first time around, so why would you turn back to it?” Page asked.
Rep. Jim Harrison, R-Chittenden, expressed concern that the measure would lessen the uniformity of voting systems around Vermont.
“Some of us have been concerned about consistency through our state in terms of voting laws, and this, it seems to me, goes the opposite direction,” Chittenden said.
But Rep. Laura Sibilia, I-Dover, said the change was good for Burlington’s civic health, because it would elect candidates who were top-of-mind for the highest number of voters.
“Ranked choice voting is a way to help remove the more partisan aspects of our elections and to find more common interests among voters,” Sibilia said.
Regulating sex work
Proponents and detractors of a third Burlington charter change, which would remove the city’s authority to pass ordinances about “houses of ill fame,” testified before the Committee on Government Operations on Thursday.
City councilors already struck any measure referring to prostitution or sex work from Burlington’s ordinances, but removing the phrase from the city’s charter would bar the council from putting any rules back on the books in the future, unless they passed another charter change.
The measure would not change anything about the enforcement of sex work or sex trafficking because those crimes are cited using state statute, not municipal ordinance. But supporters say the charter’s current language condones sexual violence similar to what occurred in last year’s Atlanta spa shootings, and repealing it would demonstrate support for women and those who engage in sex work.
Yet a vocal band of anti-trafficking groups has organized against the change, saying it will make it harder for law enforcement to catch those who traffic women and girls in the state.
Maggie Kerrin, who testified before the committee on behalf of the group New Englanders Against Sexual Exploitation, said the amendment’s ostensible purpose of striking antiquated language from the charter was a cover-up for the legislation’s true mission: to loosen the bonds on the city’s sex work industry for when the state gets rid of its prostitution statutes.
“This act is not simply about removing antiquated and offensive language from Burlington’s city charter,” Kerrin told lawmakers. “It is about paving the road towards full decriminalization.”
City Councilor Perri Freeman, P-Central District — who sponsored the charter change at the city level — has said they personally support the legalization of sex work, but do not see this charter change as accomplishing that.
The committee nearly voted on the charter amendment on Thursday, but held back after three Republican members who opposed the measure requested that the amendment be formally introduced as a bill and then referred back to the committee.
Correction: An earlier version of this story included an incorrect surname for a representative of New Englanders Against Sexual Exploitation. She is Maggie Kerrin.
