Homeowners struggling with crumbling concrete foundations are looking for hopeful signs after years of pleading for state intervention.
Sen. Peter Durant, a Spencer Republican, has filed legislation (S 3091) that would create a Crumbling Concrete Assistance Fund to help homeowners replace foundations damaged by pyrite or pyrrhotite. The legislation implements recommendations from the Crumbling Concrete Stakeholder Working Group’s March report, Durant told the Joint Committee on Financial Services during a hearing Monday.
The bill establishes a $6 fee on homeowner and condo insurance policies as well as a $6 surcharge on each cubic yard of ready-mix concrete used in residential and commercial projects, and fee revenues would be deposited into the new fund. Fees would be collected by the Department of Revenue every April 1 and Oct. 1. The fund could also be credited with state and federal funds and donations.
Durant said there are about 1.7 million homeowner insurance policies in the state and the proposed $6 fee is expected to generate $10 million per year. Also, charging $6 per cubic yard of concrete would bring in around $19.5 million per year, based on an estimated 3.25 million cubic yards sold each year, according to the group’s report
“What this does is it ties a small, predictable contribution to the product that happens to be at the center of this crisis,” Durant told members of the Joint Committee on Financial Services on Monday.
After a group of homeowners shared their stories with crumbling foundations, committee co-chair Sen. Paul Feeney apologized to them for having to repeatedly testify on the topic, telling them “it seems like there’s some momentum behind getting something done.”
“So, certainly this committee, I know, is committed to trying to figure it out,” he said.
More than 50 municipalities and counting, are affected by crumbling concrete foundations, Durant said. For years, homeowners have shared their stories with lawmakers, asking for help but watching bills stall out in committees.
One of these homeowners is Russell Dupere who learned his concrete foundation was falling apart and it would cost $325,000 to replace it. Nearly a decade later, Dupere says he is still swimming in debt on top of new financial challenges including paying for his kids’ college tuition and managing his wife’s rare blood cancer.
“We really need your help and I know this isn’t an ideal way to fund it, but I don’t know what else can happen,” Dupere told the committee during testimony where he fought back tears. “It’s impossible for us.”
According to Durant’s office, the legislation also creates a Massachusetts Crumbling Concrete Assistance Program to oversee “eligibility, inspections, contractor approval and, and distribution of aid, with limits on administrative costs and requirements for transparency and reporting.” It also updates professional education requirements and regulations to improve “identification and awareness of risks related to pyrite and pyrrhotite in concrete foundations.”