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2/25/2025
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Media Advisory: Municipal Government and Housing to vote on Speaker’s emergency housing bill Thursday
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STATE HOUSE — The House Committee on Municipal Government and Housing will meet Thursday to vote on a bill from House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi to enable municipalities to allow for temporary emergency housing structures for people experiencing homelessness, addressing the zoning issues that have delayed projects like the Echo Village pallet shelters. The committee is also scheduled to hear several bills relating to local homestead tax exemptions, lead service line replacement and transparency of municipalities that are named in legal actions.
The committee is scheduled to meet Thursday, Feb. 27, at the rise of the House, sometime after 4:30 p.m. in the House Lounge on the second floor of the State House. The committee is scheduled to vote on several bills, including:
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2025-H 5100 — This legislation introduced by Speaker Shekarchi (D-Dist. 23, Warwick) would amend the state building code to enable cities and towns to allow for temporary emergency housing structures for people experiencing homelessness during severe weather or other disasters. The committee will also consider an amendment to the bill.
The committee will also hear several bills, including:
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2025-H 5308 — This legislation introduced by Rep. Brandon T. Voas (D-Dist. 57, Cumberland, Central Falls) would permit every municipality in the state to offer a homestead tax exemption of up to 20% of assessed value on residential properties, while allowing municipalities that already grant a homestead exemption of over 20% to continue to do so.
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2025-H 5375 — This legislation introduced by Rep. David Morales (D-Dist. 7, Providence) would allow municipalities to enact ordinances that would permit municipalities and water suppliers to enter properties to perform lead service line replacements and permit tenants to request and schedule private side lead service line replacements with the local water supplier when the property owner is unresponsive to a request for service line replacement.
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2025-H 5510 — This bill introduced by Rep. Jennifer A. Stewart (D-Dist. 59, Pawtucket) would require each municipality to disclose on its official website the specific issues, details and costs of any legal action of which it is a named defendant within 60 days after the close of their fiscal year.
Written testimony must be submitted to HouseMunicipalGovernmentandHousing@rilegislature.gov. Testimony must include your name, the bill number, and your viewpoint, whether for, against, or neither. Sign-up sheets for in-person testimony will be available in the hearing room.
The meetings will be televised by Capitol Television, which can be seen on Cox channel 61, on i3Broadband channel 15 and on Verizon channel 34. They will be live streamed at capitoltvri.cablecast.tv.
For more information, contact:
Tristan Grau, Publicist
State House Room B20
Providence, RI 02903
401.222.4935
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