Despite efforts by politicians and housing organizations, Chittenden County isn’t meeting its affordable housing goals.
That’s according to new data released Friday by a coalition of housing and regional planning organizations.
The annual scorecard for the Building Homes Together 2.0 campaign shows that 909 new homes were built in Chittenden County in 2021, falling short of the coalition’s goal of 1,000.
Meanwhile, only 151 of the intended 250 affordable homes were completed that year.
Building Homes Together 2.0 is the second iteration of a five-year campaign to address the county’s housing shortage. The campaign has set a target of seeing 5,000 new homes — including single-family dwellings, condominiums and rental apartments — built from 2021 to 2025, with 1,250 intended to be affordable.
The first campaign was started in 2016 by the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission, Champlain Housing Trust and Evernorth, a nonprofit organization that provides affordable housing in Vermont.
“We're still not achieving our goals,” Charlie Baker, executive director of the planning commission, said at a press conference on Friday. “We need everybody, all hands on deck really — municipalities, the regional planning commission, regional partners, the state — to get to our goals.”
Although Michael Monte, CEO of Champlain Housing Trust, said that he foresees the housing goals outlined in the Building Homes Together 2.0 to be met in the coming years, the demand in Chittenden County is continuing to worsen. According to the report, the vacancy rate in the county for rentals is at its lowest point since at least 2010.
According to the Champlain Housing Trust, in June, Chittenden County was suffering from a rental vacancy rate of 0.4%, a rate that has continually declined since 2016. A healthy rate is 5%, according to the trust.
Becca Balint, the president pro tempore of the Vermont Senate and the Democratic nominee for Vermont’s sole U.S. House seat, said she believes that public and private investments, as well as state and federal action, would “turn the tide on this housing crisis.” Balint said that, if elected to Congress, she would continue to work on housing as one of her “top issues.”
“The rising cost of housing is a statewide problem and a problem that requires sustained resources to build new housing, as well as structural changes to the housing, zoning and economic policies,” said Nancy Owens, co-president of Evernorth.
Owens said that without continued attention to the need for affordable housing, Vermont’s affordable housing numbers could drop to only 50 to 60 affordable homes being built per year, a level she called “unacceptable.”
Baker said he hopes that the Legislature will put more emphasis on the planning and zoning stages of development and get closer to by-right development, a policy that prioritizes the development of higher-density multifamily housing with uniform zoning.
Baker also pointed to inclusionary zoning, a framework that Chittenden County has used for decades, as a way that other counties could require affordable housing to be built.
House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, said state lawmakers will be “taking a deeper dive” into specific housing policies in January.
Friday’s press conference was held steps away from the site of the long-delayed CityPlace development, where construction is set to begin in weeks.
“The housing crisis in Chittenden County, it threatens the economic well-being of the state. The whole state has an impact if we can't house our workers and the people who are living here,” Monte said at the site. “There is hope. We're standing in the middle of some of it.”
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger also pointed to the forthcoming start of construction as a signal of housing progress in Burlington. He said CityPlace will be one of the largest permanently affordable family housing developments that has been built in Burlington in decades.
At a city council meeting on Oct. 17, the project’s developers said that they had filed a building permit with the city to begin the construction at the corner of Bank and St. Paul Streets. According to the plan, 87 of the 427 new housing units would be permanently affordable.
Monte said at the council meeting that the rents at CityPlace would be “deeply affordable,” with at least 20% of those living in the affordable units in the development being “formerly houseless.”
Weinberger said on Friday that he will be calling a special city council meeting next Tuesday to take action to amend the development agreement and timelines related to the construction contract.
Weinberger urged other counties to have the “same kind of focused efforts” to meet permanently affordable housing goals in Vermont.
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With Chittenden County trailing behind affordable housing goals, leaders call for ‘focused efforts’ and funding - vtdigger.org
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