The Champlain Housing Trust plans to build 100 mixed-income homes in Hinesburg on land donated by a philanthropist who worked in town for decades.
Jan Blomstrann, former owner of the Hinesburg-based renewable energy firm NRG Systems, will donate about 46 acres just south of Champlain Valley Union High School for the new development, the housing trust said in a press release Friday.
“It’s important for the town, and it’s important for the region,” Hinesburg Town Manager Todd Odit said. “Hinesburg is a small town with not a huge housing stock.”
Hinesburg shares borders with Charlotte and Shelburne, plus several smaller communities.
About 60 of these new homes would be permanently affordable to households making less than 100% of the area median income, according to the Champlain Housing Trust. The area median income in Hinesburg, for a household of three, is about $86,400.
The owners of those homes would be part of the housing trust’s shared equity program, which allows people who meet certain financial requirements to buy a house with no down payment and a reduced mortgage. When homeowners in the program decide to sell, they do so through the housing trust to another qualifying buyer.
Of the permanently affordable homes, about 20 would be “more deeply affordable” through a partnership with Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity, the trust said. Habitat requires homeowners to contribute what’s known as “sweat equity” by helping to build their own house, build others’ homes or perform additional volunteer work.
Households also must earn 80% or less of the area median income to be eligible for Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity’s program.
The remaining 40 or so homes on Blomstrann’s donated land would be sold at market value, the housing trust said in the press release. All of the homes would “be built to high energy-efficiency standards,” the trust said, and the new development would include recreation facilities such as playgrounds, walking trails and sledding hills.
“This will be a model project that I hope will inspire other communities across our region and state to prioritize affordable housing development when Vermonters’ need is so great,” said Michael Monte, the Champlain Housing Trust CEO, in a statement.
The development would be in Hinesburg’s village, where plans for two other housing projects are already under review by town officials. One of those projects, called Haystack Crossing, would build about 180 units on the west side of Route 116; the other, Hinesburg Center Phase 2, would include about 20 units near Farmall Drive.
Haystack Crossing’s plans include 20 units designated as affordable, while the Hinesburg Center Phase 2 project would create 10 affordable homes.
“Neither of them will have anything like the number of affordable units that Champlain Housing Trust is proposing,” said Alex Weinhagen, who is Hinesburg’s director of planning and zoning. “This new project is a big deal on that front.”
The project will go through a more detailed design this spring, and planners could begin the local permitting process, as well as community outreach, in June.
Plans are for the first homes to be available in summer 2024, the Champlain Housing Trust said, with the entire project being completed by 2026.“I look forward to the generations of families that will have the profound opportunity to benefit from homeownership,” Blomstrann said in a statement. “I urge town and state regulators, along with the array of funders needed, to make this new neighborhood a reality.”
