Politics of scarcity dominate Vermont homebuilding

by Ben Kinsley

I read Miro Weinberger’s recent opinion editorial “If Vermont wants a future of abundance, we must choose to build” with excitement. I too recently finished reading Ezra Klein’s new book, Abundance, and its relevance to Vermont is unquestionable.

Klein points to the “politics of scarcity” that we have fallen into over the past few decades. It’s a mindset where resources are limited and political debates revolve around who should get those limited resources. It’s akin to dividing up a pie and trying to decide who should or should not get a slice, instead of growing the pie so everyone can participate.

Klein is not talking about raising taxes here, he’s talking about growing the economic base, growing our housing base, and growing our clean energy base. In one of the examples he provided for this, he pointed to the decline in housing production in California after passing statewide zoning and land use regulations that enabled NIMBY’s (not in my back yarders) to control where housing was (not) developed. Nearly every other state passed California in housing production in the decades that followed, housing prices rose rapidly, and homelessness followed.

As Weinberger points out, “he could be talking about Vermont’s housing shortage. Because we’ve created a system that makes it incredibly hard to build the homes we need. Our state faces a critical housing shortage, yet the pathways to create more homes are gauntlets of redundant state and local rules, costly government mandates and a permit appeals system that enables obstructionists.”

We have become better at stopping things from being built than actually building them. Klein contrasted this with China, a country that seems to have an insatiable appetite for building things and the political will to make it happen. The US used to be like that, but somewhere along the way we lost it.

Vermont is a microcosm of this. Perhaps it was the hippies who moved here in the 60’s, or the old guard trying to keep the flatlanders out, or the flatlanders trying to close the door behind them, but whatever the reason, our state is more obstructionist, protectionist, and NIMBY than most.

If we don’t reject a scarcity mindset, the consequences are clear. As Weinberger calls out, “The alternative is a Vermont that becomes increasingly unaffordable, where only the wealthy or those receiving aid can live, where our schools continue to empty, where our rural communities are hollowed out, where our workforce shortage worsens, and where more Vermonters find themselves without homes.”

Maintaining policies that don’t allow the middle class to survive will turn Vermont into a playground for the wealthy, with the working class barely hanging on. It’s a system of haves and have-nots.

We still have time to avoid this dystopian future, but we need to act now. “Affordable” housing projects costing $500 per square foot will not get us there. One out of every four renters paying more than half their income on rent will not get us there. A housing market without starter homes will not get us there.

There are a number of policy decisions we can make to expedite housing development, manage costs, and reduce roadblocks. Policymakers are coming around to some of them and we should keep up the pressure. But there are also things we can do as individuals. Be an agent of change, be a yes-in-my-backyarder (YIMBY). Show up to that local planning meeting and voice support for that new housing project in town, you know the NIMBY’s will be there to oppose it.

An affordable housing developer shared a story about a project in Middlebury where, in a public hearing, an old lady who lived across the street stood up told the room that the project should be an additional story taller, exclaiming “we’re in the middle of a housing crisis you know!” We should all be like that woman.

The politics of NIMBYism leads to scarcity; we know that now. Our housing crisis is something we created. We can do better.

The author is a Burlington resident and executive director of The Campaign for Vermont.