Latest news with #SB391
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
At Lombardo's request, Hansen ‘reluctantly' blocks bill to rein in runaway corporate home ownership
Democratic state Sen. Dina Neal listens while her Republican colleague Ira Hansen explains he's reluctantly voting against her bill to limit hedge fund ownership of housing at Gov. Joe Lombardo's request. (Legislative stream screengrab) Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo asked the Republican legislative caucus to block a bill that attempts to limit cash-rich corporate investors from purchasing large swaths of housing in Nevada, Republican state Sen. Ira Hansen said on Tuesday. State lawmakers passed several bills on Friday that seek to bolster tenant protections and make changes to the eviction system, many of which were based on similar proposals that were vetoed by Lombardo in 2023. Democratic state Sen. Dina Neal also revived 2023 efforts vetoed by Lombardo to rein in corporate landlords. Senate Bill 391, which failed to pass Tuesday, proposed restricting corporate investors from purchasing more than 100 units per year. Unlike the other housing bills that passed this session, SB 391 needed a two-thirds majority to pass since it imposed fees. A yes vote from Hansen, who had supported the bill, would have given the legislation the 14 to 7 vote needed to meet the two-thirds threshold. Instead, the vote was 13 to 8. 'For the first time this session, I have actually been asked by the executive branch to support a caucus 'no' position, which I have agreed to do,' Hansen said in a floor speech Tuesday, adding he was doing so 'very reluctantly.' In an email to Nevada Current, Lombardo's press secretary Josh Meny said the governor was asked for input on SB 391 and 'voiced technical concerns with the initial draft of the legislation.' The efforts to block legislation is disappointing, especially since Nevada is in the middle of a housing crisis, Neal said. 'Going into today's vote, this bill had bipartisan support because preventing corporations from robbing Nevadans of the American Dream should be a bipartisan issue,' she said in a statement. 'The only reason it didn't pass is because of Gov. Lombardo's intervention. Senate Democrats will continue to fight to enact this bill and protect Nevadans from predatory out-of-state investors.' Hansen voted in support of Neal's 2023 bill. On Tuesday, he reaffirmed he still 'supported the concept' of the bill to do more to crack down on out-of-state investors, adding he was 'a little frustrated' that he had to vote against the legislation. He warned that private investors are buying up the housing in Nevada, adding that 'in Clark County 15% of all the residential housing is owned by hedge funds.' The estimate comes from Lied Center for Real Estate at the University of Nevada Las Vegas that found investors own roughly 15% of homes in the City of Las Vegas. Las Vegas Review Journal has reported that corporate investors purchased 264 homes in a single day for $98 million. Hansen said it creates a system where regular Nevadans are unable to purchase a home when up against out-of-state private equity investors. 'If me or a couple other ordinary people were bidding against Elon Musk, who is going to win that bidding war?' Hansen asked. Hansen said he hoped that 'some of the better elements' of Neal's bill 'could somehow be incorporated in the last waning days of the session.' In response to the state's growing housing shortage, Lombardo has brought forward Assembly Bill 540, which unanimously passed out of the Assembly Ways and Means committee Saturday. AB 540 seeks a $133 million budget request to establish a Nevada Attainable Housing Fund and Council. The legislation originally sought an allocation of $250 million in funding for housing projects. Christine Hess, the chief financial officer of the Nevada Housing Division, said during the bill's hearing in April that $50 million of the funds would be directed toward 'loans and will remain assets of the division's trust so that we can continue to issue the hundreds of millions of bonds annually for home ownership and multi-family rental housing.' The bill also proposed exempting projects from paying prevailing wages to construction workers that state law typically requires of publicly financed projects. In addition to reducing the dollar amount, the legislation removed language around the prevailing wage. 'Any plans to address our state's housing crisis, including the Governor's own housing bill, mean nothing if there are no guarantees or protections that support access or attainment,' said Ben Iness, coalition manager of the Nevada Housing Justice Alliance. 'Until the state of housing is taken seriously, Nevadans will continue to be squeezed and priced out of homes by large corporate interests.' That bulk of bills proposed by Democratic lawmakers that sought broader tenant protections and changes to the eviction process passed their final House in party-line votes on Friday. Those bills are now headed to Lombardo's desk, where similar versions of several of them met their demise two years ago. Assembly Bill 283, sponsored by Democratic Assemblymember Max Carter, once again, seeks to revise the summary eviction process. Nevada's 'summary' eviction system, which is unique to the state, allows landlords to evict tenants within days unless the tenant files a challenge to the eviction in court. Legal aid and housing groups have warned it has led to lightning quick evictions and worsened the state's housing crisis. State lawmakers initially introduced efforts to change the system in 2021 when they had a Democratic state government trifecta, but the legislation was converted to a study bill. When a reform bill passed in 2023, Lombardo killed it. Democratic Assemblymember Erica Roth of Reno also brought forward Assembly Bill 201 to expand efforts to automatically seal eviction records. Democratic Assemblywoman Venecia Considine also brought back efforts that were killed in 2023 via Assembly Bill 121, which seeks to add transparency to the rental application process. Considine also carried bills to address the state's habitation laws. Assembly Bill 211 allows a third party to take over the property until the repairs are made and living conditions improved. Assembly Bill 223 seeks to remedy the process and give tenants more power to hold landlords accountable for failing to provide livable conditions such as running water, working air conditioning, and a functioning lock on doors and windows. Legislation seeking to cap rent increases for seniors, which was revived by Democratic Assemblymember Sandra Jauregui, also passed out of its final house. Assembly Bill 280 would limit landlords from raising rents more than 5% on tenants 62 years or older or relies on Social Security payments through the end of 2026 and requires landlords to refund application fees if they don't screen a tenant who applied for the unit.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Public meeting on proposed CAFOs slated for Thursday in Pierce City
PIERCE CITY, Mo. — The Missouri Department of Natural Resources will hold a public meeting from 4:30-6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Pierce City High School gymnasium, 300 N. Myrtle St., Pierce City, to hear public comments on eight proposed concentrated animal feeding operations that could be built in Newton and Lawrence counties around this area. For those who are unable to attend the meeting in person, DNR is also accepting written comments through Friday, May 30, sent to cafo@ This in-person public comment meeting is to discuss and provide a permitting regulatory framework for the draft permits on five facilities to be built in Newton County near Wentworth and Pierce City and four in Lawrence County near Verona or Monett. The Missouri Coalition for the Environment, a grassroots group raising awareness of concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, said it's trying to spread awareness of this meeting to make sure the public knows about the kind of farming operations coming close to their homes. 'This opportunity for public comment comes in the wake of the 2025 Missouri legislative session, in which the Senate Agriculture committee chair Sen. Jason Bean, Republican from Southeast Missouri, refused to schedule a hearing for a key bill that would have given local county commissions more leeway in regulating CAFOs,' the Coalition for the Environment said in a news release. 'This bill, SB 400, was introduced by Senator Tracy McCreery, Democrat from St. Louis County, and would have reinstated the authority of local health boards and county commissions to pass ordinances that impact agriculture. Missouri Legislators revoked this local control in 2019 with the passage of SB 391, which stated that county commissions cannot 'impose standards or requirements on an agriculture operation' more stringent than statewide regulations. Since then, there has been an expansion of CAFOs in the state.' The coalition said hosting an in-person hearing for multiple CAFOs at once is an unusual move by the DNR. The MCE said not all agricultural operations are equal and CAFOs create undue burdens for the surrounding community. Environmental health costs include excess nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus running off into surrounding waterways, contributing to toxic algal blooms and aquatic dead zones. 'It is unjust for communities to bear the health and property costs of CAFOs without an avenue for recourse,' said Melissa Vatterott, the MCE's director of policy and strategy. 'Communities should have the chance to work with their local government to put practical parameters in place as to where and how these facilities can operate.' More information is available at Documents concerning the CAFOs that will be subject of this meeting can be read at
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
With families getting priced out, NV legislators tackle corporate ownership of housing market
The full extent of corporate ownership of single-family homes in Nevada is unknown. (Photo by Ronda Churchill for Nevada Current) Nevada state lawmakers are once again considering tracking and limiting the purchasing power of cash-rich corporate investors, which many believe are inflating the housing market and pricing out middle-class families. 'There are actual families who do want the American Dream,' said Democratic state Sen. Dina Neal during a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting Wednesday. 'They want to take their pharmacy job, they want to take their teaching job, and they want to translate that money into a mortgage. They want to own a home, and they're not actually able to do that in this current market.' Neal believes the Legislature could help families like that by establishing a corporate landlord registry and restricting the number of single-family housing units that can be purchased by corporate investors. She is proposing both in Senate Bill 391, which passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. SB391 mirrors a 2023 bill Neal sponsored that was vetoed by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, with one notable difference: The vetoed bill would have limited corporate purchases to 1,000 units a year. This year's bill would limit corporate ownership to 100 a year. To explain that change, Neal recalled that, shortly after the last legislative session ended, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported that corporate investors purchased 264 homes in a single day for $98 million. 'I was like, I really need to drop this number because it's amazing that someone in one day could buy 265 homes and not bat an eye,' she said. Neal said she believes the state has the power to temporarily cap corporate investors during a housing crisis. The Lied Center for Real Estate at the University of Nevada Las Vegas has estimated that investors own roughly 15% of homes in the City of Las Vegas. That percentage is expected to grow both in Nevada and across the country. The full extent of corporate ownership of single-family homes in Nevada is unknown. Companies often have multiple LLCs with nondescript names. The registry component of SB391 would provide more transparency, said Neal. State Sen. Ira Hansen, the only Republican to vote for Neal's bill in 2023, is again supporting the proposal. 'If Senator Ellison and Senator Hansen and Senator Krasner all want to buy the same house, we bid against each other' around market value, he said. 'But what if you're bidding against somebody who can … very comfortably very easily push it to a million dollars and win the bid? That's what's happening in these markets.' Hansen said Neal and the bill are up against 'corporations that have literally unlimited resources to hire lobbyists and influence legislators.' 'All the policy people are going to be like 'we can't interfere with the free market,'' he said. 'This isn't the free market. This is an artificially manipulated market.' Making each rental property its own LLC is often is a way to protect owners from legal liability. And, for large corporations with thousands of properties, the practice could also be shielding them from paying Nevada's commerce tax. Democratic Assemblymember Venicia Considine's Assembly Bill 457 wants to close that loophole. The bill proposes that if there is a controlling owner whose LLCs combined would meet the state's threshold for paying the commerce tax, then those LLCs must be aggregated into what's known as a 'combined taxpayer group' that is subject to the tax. Businesses with gross revenue exceeding $4 million in a taxable year are subject to Nevada's commerce tax. Only revenue above the $4 million threshold is taxed. The concept of aggregating business entities that have the same controlling owner for tax purposes exists in other states, including Ohio and Pennsylvania, as well as at the federal level. AB457 requires approval by two-thirds of both legislative houses because it would potentially raise state revenue. But Considine and Legislative Counsel Bureau staff acknowledged in the bill's Assembly Revenue Committee hearing Tuesday that they have no estimate of how much it would bring in. The assemblymember framed the proposal as being driven less by revenue and more by tax fairness.. 'As businesses they should be paying the commerce taxes that other businesses that meet the commerce tax are paying,' she said. It's a cause Considine has taken up before. In 2023 she sponsored a bill to remove an existing exemption in the state commerce tax for real estate investment trusts, REITs. That bill passed the full Assembly and a Senate committee but was not given a vote by the full Senate. Considine said that in 2019 three entities, which owned a combined 8,000 homes, were known as the landlords with the highest number of maintenance issues and evictions. She referenced studies that have found a correlation between how far away landlords are and how many units they have and 'community-level issues' like maintenance problems. Hedge funds, private equity firms and other corporate investors are commodifying the housing market, she added. 'They are buying in bulk without investing in communities.' The Assembly Revenue Committee took no action on AB457. The bill is exempt from standard deadlines, meaning lawmakers have additional time to move it through the Legislature. Democratic state Sen. Edgar Flores introduced a third proposal to limit the purchasing power of corporate investors. Senate Bill 242 would prohibit investment companies from purchasing residential properties unless they have been listed on the market for at least 30 days. The bill, which was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee in late February, has not been given a hearing.
