BURLINGTON — Mayor Miro Weinberger and city staff laid out a handful of housing reform ideas at a lively Wednesday night meeting at City Hall, including new regulations for short-term rentals and energy efficiency standards in rental housing.
The city is also considering efforts aimed at increasing the city’s Housing Trust Fund, eliminating requirements for parking at new developments and making it easier for residents to create “Accessory Dwelling Units” in their homes.
Weinberger announced a renewed focus on addressing the city’s housing crunch during his State of the City address in April, and the city held a Housing Summit in June to kick off the discussion.
Sixty percent of Burlington renters pay more than 30% of their income on rent before utilities, and the city’s 1.5% average vacancy rate for rental apartments over the last seven years puts the city below what is considered a healthy housing market.
Proposed policy reforms
The city is considering raising its standards for energy efficiency in rental housing, including requiring landlords to weatherize their units. Property owners have little incentive to improve energy efficiency of their units as the costs are passed onto renters, Weinberger said.
The reform would expand minimum housing standards to require better insulation in rental units where tenants are responsible for paying heating costs.
The city is also reviewing ways to encourage the creation of accessory dwelling units, which are independent housing units in single family homes or on their lots. More of these units would create more options for renters and be a source of income for residents in the larger homes.
“They’re a really flexible housing option,” Ian Jakus, a housing projects and policy specialist for CEDO, said. “Additionally, they provide housing without the complications of larger development projects (and) they have a minimal impact on neighborhood character.”
The proposed reform would allow ADUs in single family homes regardless of zoning district and tweak zoning standards to be more accommodating of these units.
The growth of Airbnb and other short-term rental options has reached Burlington, with a 25% increase in short-term rentals in the city in the last year.
The city is considering increased regulation on these short-term rentals, including limiting the number of units in each building that can be short-term rentals and requiring a fee when homeowners replace a long-term unit with a short-term rental.
The city is also considering eliminating minimum parking requirements. A third of downtown parking spaces are vacant during peak times, and around 40% of Burlington workers do not drive to work.
“These parking requirements lead to an oversupply of parking, they make new development overly expensive and complex and undermine our goals for a more walkable community and better transit,” said David White, the director of the city’s planning department.
The city’s Housing Trust Fund has provided housing to 1,800 households since its creation in 1990, with a dedicated tax of half a penny per $100 of assessed property value city-wide. This translates to $12.42 a year for a single-family home with the median value in the city of $230,000.
The city is proposing a charter change that would increase that tax to a penny per $100 of assessed property. HTF funds primarily go toward creating new housing and supporting non-profit organizations who create and preserve affordable housing.
The increase could lead to the creation of 13 new permanently affordable homes for low-income families each year, Todd Rawlings, the housing program manager for CEDO, said.
Varied reactions
Weinberger’s speech discussing the city’s housing efforts over the years featured a handful of interruptions from a group of renters and a protest by opponents of F-35 basing at Burlington International Airport.
“We live here, we work here, we don’t get heard and we’re angry,” renter Mayami Cornell yelled. “I grew up here, I can’t afford to live here without Section 8.”
Weinberger said the purpose of Wednesday’s event was to hear from the community, and said there would be additional opportunities for input before the proposals go to the council.
Local housing activist Charles Winkelman said he believes the city should ban Airbnb from the city.
“We do not think Airbnbs should happen, and be allowed, until everyone had a home,” he said.
Representatives of local housing organizations were more supportive of the ideas.
Kirby Dunn, the executive director of HomeShare Vermont, said she was particularly in favor of the focus on ADUs.
“We know that houses have gotten bigger over the last 30 years, and there are fewer people living in them,” Dunn said. “So there’s a lot of potential in terms of housing out there that can be used in different ways.”
Chris Donnelly, the director of community relations for Champlain Housing Trust, said he was hopeful the proposals would lead to positive changes.
“Certainly I think it’s long overdue to dedicate that money to the trust fund,” Donnelly said. “The mayor’s been putting in that money each year for the last few years, but it makes sense to tie it to the property tax.”
Councilor Jack Hanson, P-East, said he was generally supportive of the proposals being discussed, primarily the efforts to eliminate the parking requirements and improve energy efficiency in rental housing.
“I think they hit on affordability as well as climate,” Hanson said. “Climate, to me, is the most important issue, and we need to move away from car-centricity and shift our transportation to more sustainable options.”
