ADVOCACY
LABOR ADVOCACY
One of the greatest strengths of your REALTOR® association is its ability to influence legislation on a local, state and national level. LABOR members are actively involved locally on land-use and other important issues. On a state and national level, REALTORS® are engaged with legislators and congressional leaders in an effort to protect the dream of home ownership and to strengthen the REALTOR® profession.
Recently, LABOR was awarded a Grant from NAR to study zoning regulations and make recommendations to local municipalities that would help create opportunities to allow for more affordable housing units in downtown areas. Click here to read the recommendations that were made to the Hyde Park Planning Commission and click here for the accompanying the PowerPoint presentation.
Lamoille Housing Study and Needs Assessment
The Lamoille Area Board of Realtors, through a grant from the National Association of Realtors, helped to fund a housing study for Lamoille County and neighboring Hardwick to provide a detailed inventory and assessment of the housing stock, and recommendations oriented toward improving the quality and range of housing options to serve a broad range of incomes and household types.
REALTOR® Political Action Committee (RPAC)
If real estate is your profession, politics is your business! Your association works diligently to monitor, shape and develop policies and laws that protect your business and that make home ownership possible. Donations to RPAC help support your association’s efforts to monitor, shape and develop policies and laws.
OUR CORE VALUES
We believe that a strong and vibrant economy is essential for Vermonters to pursue their dream of home ownership. Increasing Vermont’s competitiveness in the national and international marketplace will result in more and better jobs for Vermonters and increased revenue for state and local government.
We believe that sound fiscal policy is necessary to maintain a strong business climate and enhance future economic growth in Vermont. A consistent and predictable fiscal policy should be part of the overall plan and vision when budget decisions are made. State budgets should reflect the need for investment in areas that will create jobs and increase the tax base. High tax rates discourage business investment in Vermont and make homeownership more difficult.
We support efforts to reduce and control property tax rates. High property taxes are a significant barrier to homeownership and reduce economic growth and activity.
We support the continued growth of electronic commerce. The Vermont economy at the local, regional and state levels is a major benefactor of the vast and varied opportunities provided by e-commerce. However, Internet business opportunities face challenges like transaction taxation, protection of intellectual property, privacy and security that must be resolved as a matter of public policy.
We believe that the cost of housing development in terms of both time and money is growing. There are many contributing factors such as increases in mandated closing responsibilities, increases in property tax rates, increases to landlord oversight and regulation, impact fees and by the state’s lengthy environmental permitting process. We believe that housing in Vermont can be more affordable for all Vermonters by providing strong incentives for municipalities and private contractors to develop new residential housing in all price ranges.
We support a balanced environmental permitting policy.
We recognize the essential role of safe, dependable transportation systems for a sound economy. Highway and bridge construction and maintenance delays result in significantly higher costs, decreased safety, and less reliability, affecting all highway users including tourists, suppliers and employees. The use of transportation funds for purposes other than the construction, maintenance and repair of Vermont’s transportation infrastructure jeopardizes economic growth in the state.
We support the traditional concept of allowing private sector businesses to operate free of unreasonable government regulations and workplace mandates
