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Housing still a problem in Burlington
by John Briggs
Free Press Staff Writer

Newsflash. Burlington has a housing shortage.

It was true 30 years ago. It's true now.

For Mike Stienss, 24, who was waiting for the shuttle bus in front of the Fletcher Free Library on Tuesday, it's as much a part of life in Burlington as the view down College Street to the lake.

"I've been apartment hopping since I got here," he said grimly, taking a drag on his cigarette.

That was four years ago. He came with his girlfriend. She's moved on, he said, but he's still working at Fletcher Allen Health Care and taking classes at Community College of Vermont — always looking for "a better, more affordable place."

His apartment is on Bank Street: $725 a month, including utilities, for one bedroom.

"I spend half of my paycheck on housing," he said.

That's too much. Housing that's affordable shouldn't take more than 30 percent of a household's income, according to the Web page of the city's Community and Economic Development Office.

"In the late '70s," said Brian Pine, CEDO's housing director, "they were looking at the problems we're looking at now. The rents are too high. College students are driving them up. Starter homes are occupied by students and others who pay enough rent to keep the owner from selling to the next owner-occupier. There's no silver bullet to solve this problem."

The high cost of housing, he said, puts Burlington's self-regard as a "livable community" at risk.

Fifty-eight percent of the households in Burlington are rental, according to the 2000 census numbers. The average rents in September: $660 for a one-bedroom apartment, $860 for two bedrooms, and $1,213 for three, without utilities, according to CEDO.

It's hard for those who want to buy, too. The average cost in Burlington of a single-family house in 2004 was $210,000, Pine said.

There might be no silver bullets, but the City Council wants to figure out which direction they should be shooting. The council's "super housing committee" holds the first of three public hearings tonight. The "super" designation indicates that the council has made this one of its top concerns.

Committee Chairman Phil Fiermonte, P-Ward 3, said the council's earnestness is not feigned.

"We want to come up with recommendations that will have an impact," he said.

Everyone is welcome at the hearings, Fiermonte said: tenants, homeowners, landlords, developers; anyone who wants to talk about housing issues in town. And the point, ultimately, he said, is to find a way to "create more housing units."

Committee member Carmen George, D-Ward 7, said it would be helpful if those who come to talk to the committee put more complicated observations in writing, so the committee members could fully understand and consider them.

The committee has taken the Mayor's Affordable Housing Task Force report from 2002 as its blueprint, Fiermonte said, and is looking at which of the 67 recommendations have been implemented, which haven't been, and which could be.

Some of the recommendations are relatively simple, such as allowing landlords to charge a deposit for pets, which could open up a wider range of apartments to pet owners. Others, such as obtaining annual feedback from developers, landlords and homebuilders "on local barriers to housing development," could lead to changes in the city's regulations — a process that is necessarily time-consuming.

Fiermonte pointed to another familiar sore point. The committee, he said, will ask University of Vermont President Daniel Fogel to talk with them. "We'd be looking at what can be done to make UVM take more responsibility for housing students on campus," he said.

UVM is working to add housing on campus, including an 800-bed University Heights complex.

Other housing problems in Burlington are less visible and less openly acknowledged.

Lorraine Murray, who was putting her daughter Camille, 3, in her bike trailer Tuesday in front of the library, said she and her partner have rented in Burlington for four years. Housing in general, she said, is expensive here and landlords often don't take care of apartments.

"They say they're going to take care of problems and don't," she said.

Contact John Briggs at (802) 660-1863 or jbriggs@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com.