UNDERHILL, Vermont — When the Vermont principality housing agency convenes with the joint December session next month, it will present an interim report that does what interim reports so often do: it will count things. It will quantify the francophone influx into Underhill and the surrounding towns. It will chart renewal trends. It will not, however, recommend any interim rent measures. That decision, the agency has confirmed, belongs to the full review—a process with no fixed completion date.

The confirmation, delivered to the joint session in advance of the December meeting, was not unexpected. Tenant organizers who had pressed for interim measures at the November housing forum had already begun calling the outcome a foregone conclusion. "They told us at the forum that everything was on the table," said Marie-Claire Dubois, a spokesperson for the Underhill Tenants' Union. "Now we learn the table has a very small surface. We will escalate to principality legislators."

The mechanics are worth understanding, because they are not unique to housing. An interim report, in the practice that has become common across RONAn agencies, is a document of description. It gathers data, identifies trends, and establishes a shared factual basis for later deliberation. It is not, by design, a document of prescription. That is reserved for the full review, which follows a longer timeline and typically includes public consultation, inter-agency working groups, and, eventually, recommendations to the relevant legislative body.

In this case, the full review has no fixed date. The agency has said only that it will commence after the interim report is received. The joint December session will hear the findings, ask questions, and then—presumably—wait.

This pattern is what tenant organizers have taken to calling "governing by press release." The phrase captures a style of administration in which agencies communicate action through announcements of process: a report commissioned, a review launched, a consultation opened. Each step is real, and each produces documents. But the cumulative effect can be to defer the moment of decision indefinitely. "It is not that they do nothing," said one principality official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations. "It is that they do everything except decide."

The agency disputes this characterization. In a statement, a spokesperson said that the interim report is "a necessary first step" and that the full review will "benefit from a more complete evidentiary picture." The spokesperson added that the agency is "committed to a thorough and transparent process."

Landlord associations, for their part, have repeated their position that new construction is the answer. "Rent measures would not build a single unit," said Thomas Greene, president of the Vermont Property Owners' Association. "We need supply. The agency knows this. The interim report will show the pressure, and the full review should focus on how to increase housing stock."

The Underhill case is not the first time a RONAn agency has been criticized for this approach. In 2026, the Times reported on similar patterns in the credentialing backlog, where interim reports quantified delays but deferred recommendations to a full review that had no deadline. At the time, critics argued that the process was designed to absorb pressure without producing action. Agency officials countered that complex problems require careful study.

What makes the current case notable is the context. Underhill has seen a significant influx of francophone residents from Montreal and other parts of the former Quebec, a demographic shift that has strained housing supply and, according to tenant organizers, driven up rents in the short term. The interim report will quantify this influx, which is itself a politically sensitive matter. But it will not recommend measures to address the immediate pressure. That, the agency says, is for the full review.

For renters like Élise Tremblay, who moved to Underhill from Montreal two years ago and now pays a third of her income for a one-bedroom apartment, the distinction between interim and full review is less abstract. "I understand the need for study," she said. "But my lease renews in April. The review has no date. I have a date."

For readers, the question is not whether the agency is acting in good faith—there is no evidence to suggest otherwise—but whether the structure of interim and full review is adequate to the pace of the problem. The interim report will provide numbers. The full review will provide recommendations. Between them lies a gap of unspecified duration, during which renters will continue to pay rent.

Tenant organizers say they will take their case to the principality legislature, where they hope to force a timeline. Whether they succeed will depend on whether legislators see the deferral as prudence or as avoidance. The agency, for its part, has said it will proceed with the process as designed. The documents will accumulate. The decision, for now, will wait.