A Senate committee that has focused on providing more workforce housing is hitting the road this fall to visit constituents across the state.
It’s a fairly rare move for an entire legislative committee to travel the state for a series of meetings, but Sen. Michael Sirotkin, D-Chittenden, said the housing shortage has become a major focus in economic development and he wants to make sure he’s hearing from as many people as he can, in as many areas of the state as he can reach.
“What we kept hearing last year in committee was that housing was viewed as close to No. 1, if not the most serious challenge to finding people to work,” said Sirotkin, chair of the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs, whose committee tried and failed to pass a major new housing bond last winter.
“There will be a lot of business leaders locally at these hearings who generally tend not to come to Montpelier during the session, so we’re bringing the committee to the business community, the housing development community, and housing advocates,” he said.
Housing construction in Vermont – as in many other states – has failed to keep up with demand over the last several years. Developers say that factors like overly restrictive zoning and environmental rules make it too expensive to build mid-level private housing. There’s a much higher return in building housing for the top end of the market.
Vermont home prices have been rising every year since 2014 at an average rate of 2.7%, according to the Vermont Housing Finance Agency, which studied property transfer tax records for a report on housing this year. The VHFA said the median home price in the first half of 2019 was $219,500, a 2% increase from 2018.
A housing needs assessment regarding Vermont’s housing supply from 2015 to 2020 carried out by Bowen National Research for the state Department of Housing and Community Development found vacancy rates of just 1 percent for multifamily apartments.
Vermont employers often say they see prospective employees change their minds about jobs after assessing how much it will cost them to live in the state.
The first of this fall’s meetings is scheduled for Sept.18 in Hartford.
The slate of invited officials includes several people from the affordable housing community as well as Clay Adams, CEO of Mascoma Bank; Karen Colberg, CEO of King Arthur Flour; Joe Perras, CEO of Mt. Ascutney Hospital, and developer Matt Bucy.
“We are hoping we will learn from them,” said Sirotkin. “We want to know the specifics of the problem in each region of the state, and what their ideas are – like reforming Act 250,” the state’s 50-year-old land use law. Other legislative committees are also in the midst of reviewing Act 250 with an eye on major reforms, however it was slow moving last session.
At the heart of the affordable housing conversation is the $37 million housing
bond that the Legislature approved in 2017. Sirotkin and other Democrats had sought in this year’s session to win support for another bond, this one $50 million, to continue building housing. They abandoned the effort after State Treasurer Beth Pearce told the committee that a recent state bond rating downgrade made the move inadvisable. Instead, the committee asked Pearce to come up with some more feasible ways to pay for more housing.
Sirotkin and others hope to show Vermonters that the first housing bond paid off, and that another would also reap dividends.
By the end of September, the Vermont Housing Conservation Board expects to have awarded $33 million of the bond to 30 developments with 682 homes in 20 communities, said Jennifer Hollar, director of policy and special projects for the VHCB.
Hollar said the first 127 homes are finished and occupied, with another 190 due to be completed by the end of this year. Private developers built 2,080 units of housing in Vermont last year, according to the U.S. Census.
Sirotkin publicized the upcoming meetings on Front Porch Forum, the online community information service.
“By all accounts using low interest bonding for additional housing was a resounding success, with the additional benefit of promoting economic development and job creation,” Sirotkin said of the 2017 bond. He added that the meetings this fall will emphasize the connection between housing, jobs and the economy.
Three meetings have been scheduled so far: Hartford on Sept. 24, Rutland on Sept. 24 and St. Albans on Oct. 29. Sirotkin said there will also be hearings in December in Windham County and in early January in Chittenden County, and he added that he’ll be taking written comments through lawyer David Hall at the Vermont Legislative Council.
Senate President Pro Tem Tim Ashe in 2017 asked every committee chair to get out into the field to talk to constituents. With housing, every community has slightly different needs, said Ashe, D/P-Chittenden.
“In one community the issue might be funds to rehabilitate desirable buildings that have fallen out of repair; in other communities it might be downtown lots that have been sitting empty that could be brought to life, or new construction,” he said.
“My hope is that the committee will not only get an appreciation for the specific needs of these communities, but will be able to work with the treasurer to figure out how finance more housing units,” Ashe added.
Chris Donnelly, director of community relations for Champlain Housing Trust, said the meetings will provide a useful refresher for people who are preparing for the upcoming legislative session. “Let’s all come in with shared knowledge and shared experiences so we don’t have to rehash stuff,” he said, adding that he hoped it would result in “an interesting approach.”
