Press: News clips

Central Vermont faces looming housing crisis
By Kelly Sullivan
Correspondent

MONTPELIER - With one of the tightest housing markets in the nation, shrinking household sizes, long commutes from rural locations and housing costs outpacing wages, central Vermont faces a housing crisis that could slow down the area's economy.

"We all know Vermont is facing a serious housing shortage," said Hal Cohen, opening a panel discussion on housing Wednesday at the Central Vermont Chamber of Commerce's annual meeting. Those attending the meeting at the Capitol Plaza heard plenty of evidence that a problem exists, as well as several possible solutions.

Panelists recommended preserving existing housing, increasing in-town housing and cleaning up and developing "brownfields," or polluted land, as options to consider.

Cohen, of the Central Vermont Community Action Council, said that housing shortages have driven up rental and homeownership costs, making Vermont one of the most expensive states for purchasing or renting a home. And earned wages in the state have not kept up with these costs, leading to a sharp decline in available affordable housing.

According to a forecast commissioned in 2001 by Central Vermont's Regional Block Grant Partners, the population in central Vermont in 2020 will increase by more people than currently live in Barre. Such an increase would demand 8,000 new housing units, and if these units were built on one-acre lots they "would consume an area of land the size of both Barre and Montpelier," according to the January 2006 issue of the Central Vermont Economic Collaborative newsletter.

The four-person housing panel at CVCC's annual meeting addressed these issues and many others in a presentation and discussion moderated by Dan Pudvah of the Central Vermont Medical Center.

Kevin Dorn, secretary of the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development, represented the state's perspective on the issue of housing. He said the housing challenge is clear and that Governor Douglas addressed a major component of the problem - affordability - in his state of the state address.

Cohen reported that the median purchase price of a house in Vermont in 2005 was $174,000. That price is well out of reach of the state's more than 55,000 low-income Vermonters - defined as income at or below 80 percent of the state median income, whose maximum affordable purchase price of a house is $75,000. In 2004, only 1,150 houses statewide sold for that price or less.

And "affordability is not the only issue," said Cohen. "It's also about the very old housing stock we have in Vermont." Almost one-third of the houses in Vermont were built before 1939.

The situation is not much better for renters. According to the Vermont Housing Council and the Vermont Housing Awareness Campaign's 2005 report, "Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Housing and Wages in Vermont," a Vermont household would need an annual income of $27,914 to pay the 2004 "fair market rent" of $698 for a two-bedroom apartment. This equates to an hourly wage of $13.42. The housing wage for Washington County, adjusted for the fair market rent in the county, is $12.62.

"Fifty-seven percent of Vermont's workforce is employed in jobs whose median wage is below that figure," the report said.

The lack of affordable housing, defined as housing and utilities that cost homeowners or renters 30 percent or less of their income, means that prospective employees cannot remain with companies in Vermont because they cannot afford the cost of living, said Cohen. This limits the growth of companies, and harms the Vermont economy.

The Central Vermont Economic Collaborative identified the region's housing needs "as the most critical economic issue of the years ahead," in its newsletter.

Shrinking household size, not a dramatic population increase, drives the lack of affordable housing, says the CVEC newsletter. This is exacerbated by an increase in the purchase of second homes and vacation homes. According to "Between a Rock and a Hard Place," "about 10 percent of primary residences sold in Vermont in 2004 were converted to vacation or second homes after the sale."

Cohen said his college-age daughter would like to live in Vermont, but "she's not going to be able to buy a starter home and I'm not sure she's going to be able to afford rental housing."

Dorn echoed this sentiment. Vermont faces housing and economic challenges "because we are losing the youth of our state at a pace that has to scare all of you," he said.

"Vermont is the most rapidly aging state in the country," he claimed, and will soon surpass Maine as the oldest state in the nation.

"We have the lowest birth rate in the country. We have the highest percentage of our high school youth leaving Vermont to attend (colleges and universities) in other states," Dorn said.

Panel member Tim King, representing the Central Vermont Community Land Trust, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing affordable housing and educating homebuyers, said in addition to building more housing another solution is preservation of existing housing. Part of what his organization does is "buy old housing, rehabilitate it, maintain it so it doesn't fall back into disrepair."

The Central Vermont Community Land Trust also works with homebuyers and homeowners to educate them about mortgages, purchase and sale agreements and credit issues. "We all know that homeownership is a good thing," King said, "but it's a good thing only if it lasts" and homeowners sustain ownership by keeping homes in good repair and not defaulting on mortgages.

Panel member Tim Heney, of Coldwell Banker Heney Realtors, said the private sector must help ease the housing crisis by creating housing that is sustainable and dense. "I think we've got to find a way to increase in-town housing," he said, but noted that providing low-income or moderate-income housing demands changing overall community attitudes and making changes in zoning regulations so that new communities can develop within walking distance to amenities.

The private sector also must provide more housing at multiple levels of affordability, Heney said, because this will free up affordable housing that moderate- to high-income households occupy.

Both Dorn and King spoke about cleaning up and developing "brownfields" - properties where expansion, redevelopment or reuse is complicated by hazardous substances, pollutants or contaminants - as potential "smart growth" solutions to housing problems.

"Our brownfields ... are a great resources for this state," Dorn said. The Agency of Commerce and the Agency of Natural Resources have committed funds to cleaning up these sites, he said.

King said that the CVCLT Barre Street apartments project in Montpelier is located on a reclaimed brownfield. He points out that brownfields are a great resource because "you tend to find them in the urban areas, the old granite sheds, the old factories. ... They offer great potential housing in the downtown areas."

"Smart growth" is a primary concern when addressing the problems of housing shortages in central Vermont. "More housing is not just the answer," said King. "We don't want our state and our communities to develop into sprawl ... so we'd like to see some incentive or ease in the permitting process to develop housing in downtown areas."

Heney agreed. He said there's a lot of development going on in Washington County, but that much of it is in rural settings, where municipal water and septic are not available and lot sizes tend to be larger. This kind of growth is "not in a planned fashion," he said.

Dorn praised CVCC for its efforts in addressing housing issues and said the leadership on housing development must come from the local level. "Organizations like this chamber will make the difference regionally," he said.

Dorn also pointed out that the governor has proposed some initiatives for dealing with the housing challenge, including a draft "Homes for Vermonters" policy initiative to "promote the creation of housing that is affordable for Vermonters."

The Central Vermont Chamber of Commerce in collaboration with Central Vermont United Way, Central Vermont Community Action Council, Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission and others have organized a "task-force" to look more closely at issues of affordable housing and growth in central Vermont. The group will meet at a summit on Feb. 23 and will bring proposals and ideas to the larger community later in the year.