|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
By Paul Bean
Governor Phil Scott’s housing plan includes expanding Act 250 exemptions into more towns and creating a small town housing financing program he calls ‘SPARC.’
His plan is a response to Vermont’s unprecedented lack of housing, which has reached new heights due to (among other causes) a workforce shortage and decades of slow growth laws and regulations promulgated by the Legislature.
“We need about 7,200 more homes [this year] just to catch up and about 40,000 more over the next 5 years,” Scott said at a Tuesday press conference.
“It’s no secret that in every corner of the state the lack of decent affordable housing is a major concern,” Scott said. “It’s impacting for Vermonters looking to move into an apartment or buy a home and prevents us from growing our workforce.”
“This lack of housing affects us in many other ways,” said Scott explaining that our housing crisis does not only affect the price of housing, but the ripple effects are numerous. “It means fewer kids in our schools, fewer homes added to the Grand List, which makes our schools even more unaffordable and it puts pressure on our Human Services budget and contributes to our public safety challenges.”
One of Scott’s objectives is to revamp Act 250 in places where existing infrastructure would make it easier to build more, and build faster.
“I want to be clear we’re not asking to get rid of Act 250 and land use regulation altogether, because I think we all agree we don’t want houses to litter our mountain sides or development that replaces our farmland,” said Governor Scott.
“What we’re asking for is to make it easier and faster to develop in the places where it makes sense where there’s existing infrastructure or the ability to add to what’s already there. So first we need to make it easier to build new homes or renovate existing homes that a family could live in with a little work.”
“Paired with the housing targets the state is going to be releasing the first version of its Housing Development in Vermont dashboard,” said Housing Commissioner Alex Farrell in reference to “detailed and specific data” for every region in Vermont with goals for years 2030 and 2050….That data sets an average annual production on the upper boundary of just over 8,000 units Statewide.”
The Housing Development in Vermont Dashboard “will enable regions and towns to track progress towards their housing goals and see where the greatest with the greatest degree of precision where these units are being built and what type of homes they are,” explained commissioner Farrell. “We’re working with the regional planning commissions to break these down to the municipal level so that every member of the public and the town can understand that these targets are very attainable with the right local policy decisions. This data in part will be informing and be reflected in our housing bill in the inaugural address.”
Commissioner Farrell referenced the four major goals outlined by Governor Scott in his inaugural address summarized below:
- Strengthen the foundation for growth by introducing new tools for financing and funding infrastructure to support homebuilding.
- Revitalize ‘underserved’ communities, with initiatives targeting rural downtowns, villages, and mobile home parks that have long been neglected.
- Reshape the housing market by expanding opportunities for small-scale developers, making it easier for more Vermonters to get involved.
- Eliminate procedural obstacles in areas like appeals, permitting, and regulatory processes. While this aspect will likely take center stage in discussions, each part of the housing bill is designed to work together thoughtfully and supportively.
One of the new tools mentioned by Farrell is called SPARC, an acronym for ‘Strategic Projects for Advancing Rural Communities.’ This will be a mechanism for financing infrastructure especially beneficial in communities that are smaller and struggle with the capacity to leverage other tools right now for financing infrastructure.
Another major objective within their housing plan is to raise the standard for bringing appeals of housing developments and to reduce the likelihood of “frivolous appeals, particularly when a project aligns with the stated local and state land use regulations,” Farrell said.
“We’re going to be looking at timelines for appeals to be heard in the courts to expedite the resolution of these appeals when they are brought,” said Farrell. “We’re going to work to rebalance appeals to hold appellant accountable for legal fees incurred by home builders up to a certain extent in the process of defending an appeal. Currently all the risk is on a home builder. The folks that are trying to build home-store communities with very little or no risk on appellants. We need to rebalance that.”
One of the major criticisms of Act 250 addressed by Commissioner Farrell is “The 20-person Appeal,” a provision under Vermont’s Act 250 that allows a group of 20 or more people to appeal a permit decision related to a development project.
In other words, if a project receives a permit but at least 20 individuals or organizations believe the project will negatively affect their interests, they can collectively file an appeal. “You don’t have to be a neighbor or have any other standing,” Said commissioner Ferrell. “You can just sign a petition and appeal a project. The current 20 person standard in Vermont is far out of line with national standards and is largely just used as a tool to prevent home building and mostly harming those who are most in need of housing here in Vermont.”
Discover more from Vermont Daily Chronicle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Categories: Business, State Government
How many ranch style housing are being built in Vermont????? All I see is two hundred fifty thousand dollar one bedroom goat herder apartments and over five hundred thousand dollar single family homes. The state should not be building housing using tax payer money. Stop the bonding. Stop agenda 2030 now.
This is all government-run housing. It is not Free-Market Capitalism. Vermont is a government-run state, full of lobbyist-yes men & women. Taxpayers are funding their own demise in Vermont. All the programs sponsored by the government of Gov. Scott is a farce, a way to grift off the taxpayers. There are no private pro-business job opportunities in VT that mean anything affordable, because VT does not allow them. Without good paying jobs there will be no single family private homes. Housing is spurred by pro-business capitalism which also spurs private wealth.
I have in my yard a small cabin providing proof of concept that a superior material to be named in a moment can be used in modular fashion. This material will not burn, even when a torches held next to it for hours. This material sequesters carbon, for those who are interested in that, by the poundful per cubic foot. It will not mold when installed correctly, and it will not cause sick building syndrome. It will provide great insulation from heat or cold and additionally from excessive external sound. This material can replace trailer parks and forward our green agenda, it can replace homes and last for well over 200 years, it can be implemented. The State has a tendency to build for corporate profiteering, using grants to built homes where the people that lives there do so on the condition that they remain helplessly in bondage to poverty, since a savings account of more than 2 k is disallowable. This is indenture. The State wants to build fall-apart stupid buildings, so that the industry is continually tapped for rebuilding. The State is of course interested in surveillance of its people, so they call themselves and their initiatives “smart” but there is nothing wise about these. The State wants subjects, and they are too stupid to free the people with the right tools to spare our lands the disaster of poisons that state promotes. Hempcrete, a material I like to call Hempstone, is the material the State will ignore, just watch, they will, since their objective is NOT as they suggest, for the good of all, its for the good of the greedy. This material is one of the very best wall systems to implement, given all its gifts, fire proofness, clean, pest proof, long lasting, sound proofing, carbon capturing, simple, and yet it needs great interest by those who are not interested in solving real problems, and are only interested in cashing in on the backs of all that is innocent, including Nature. Its needs great investors, to build the processing plant at 40 million to equip the farmers for this tough tough plant, to bring forward the kind of collaborative care absent the privilege of greed we all need to stand with honor in Nature. I am calling out the State’s actors, for their phony intentions of self service to greed. Who amongst you will bring the wise solutions that give great relief to Nature and the people? Someone ought to litigate the heck out of nonprofits providing homes with clause that the occupants must remain indentured to poverty to live there, like Windham Windsor Housing Trust, and all the rest of them around the state promoting learned helplessness.
“We need about “7,200 “more homes [this year] just to catch up and about “40,000 ” more over the next 5 years,” Scott said at a Tuesday press conference………… What !!
So, who’s coming to Vermont and why? The economy is dismal, taxes are high, and jobs are low to middle-pay scale, so who’s buying or can afford a new home interest rate are high and a new house is $350-$550k……….. help me understand !!
Let’s see we need 7,200 new homes this year alone, so let’s say this housing pipe dream is real, who’s paying for the upgraded Infrastructure that will be required, I assume the hard-working taxpayers…………………. Yeah!!
Wake up people, let’s see who the developers are, and what they are building and to protect Vermont……………… follow the money, the money you won’t have to survive, now let’s throw in the 40,000 needed in five years, where do we find these people.
More people living here means more people to foot the tax bill. Economics 101
My God, what a SHAM! Turning VT into a haven for the homeless, illegals, and social service recipients under the guise of needing MASSIVE numbers of government subsidized houses because…………wait for it………..there’s nobody here to fill all the jobs we have………..yet employment opportunities are nil as VT has an unfriendly business climate, is destroying its own medical system, defunds police, & some towns have been shuttered over the past two decades due to liberal politics which loathes tourism & the middle income demographic.
SURE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We’re buying it all hook, line, & sinker. Scott & Dame’s & all the RINO’s plans for the transformation of this once rural and safe state are FAR from over!
Take your socialist government housing and SHOVE it!
My takeaway is that Vermont needs 8000 housing units for next year. And 40,000 units in the next 5 years. The question is for who? No one wants to move here, and there is no work that pays a decent wage.
The state’s and nation’s birth rates are collapsing. This pending issue and solution has been known for a long time. There was a book written by Harry Dent called The Great Depression Ahead written in 2008. The book includes the global population numbers and changing demographics. The UN knew and tracked fertility rates globally, which was published in the book. Please also see UN document Replacement Migration a Solution to Aging and Declining Populations published in 2001.
This is a United Nations 2030 agenda directive dictated through the US Climate Alliance and others due to the reference made to the years 2030 and 2050.
Lastly, I have a good friend who spoke to a friend about why he is leaving Vermont. This friend owns a large hanger at the airport and was contacted by a party who wanted the hanger for all the migrants coming to Vermont. I am not making this up.
No wonder why our legislature passed bills for free school lunches, free daycare and introduced Medicaid expansion plans that amount to socialized healthcare regardless of whether people work or not. The state plans to tax the residents of Vermont to pay for this initiative if it can’t get federal funds.
No way do I believe u r making this up – All I ask is that you seriously consider contacting your friend so that he/she can contact Homan’s office to report who contacted them & all the rest of the information they provided.
Scott, Dame and all the rest of the dems & progressives are on board for this U.N. agenda & all else these radical social engineers have been basically hawking. They’re socialists at best and they will attempt to throw the average Joe a bone by promising some measly tax “cut” after hiking taxes annually for years. They are treachery embodied.
It’s all part of the 15 minute cities, Scott wants to be one of the first to implement it. Look at Taylor Street bus terminal. .there is our first 15 minute city right in Montpelier. If you believe what he’s selling, you deserve it.
The Act250 exemptions do not apply to the town of Cambridge, and the village of Jeffersonville since we do not, nor do we want, zoning. This is extremely unfortunate since we are seeing tremendous pressure in the housing market for many of our young folks looking to buy homes.
How many homeless Vermonters are in the state illegally? We better not be footing the bill for them. I hope Trump gets them deported before we start counting how much housing we really need. Oh and while we’re at it, the legislature better start carefully examining the policies that are causing unemployment. What are the incentives for people not to work? Are they properly schooled? Our education system is broken too!
“Strengthen the foundation for growth by introducing new tools for financing and funding infrastructure to support homebuilding.” When the State creates a “tool” of assistance, rest assured a compounding interest rate is attached. The State loves being the third-party benefactor – inserting itself between a bank and a borrower – creating their own fees, rules, and restrictions. They have to have their dirty fingers in every one’s business – I challenge anyone to come up with one faction of our existance that the State doesn’t collect a fee or a tax or regulate to the point of strangulating restrictions. The collusion between private corporations and the State guarantees indebted servitude from birth to death. You don’t pay one, you pay both and you will own nothing – guaranteed. Besides, building all that housing when the job market is in deep decline – brilliant. Who has the income to afford a house or rent when the State keeps draining our wallets annually?
What is that saying, “You will own nothing and be happy!”
Quite a few people get it….so refreshing to read.
Guy, thank you for allowing these people to comment. Vermonters are slowly waking up…..under the constant threat of cancelation, just think if we allowed freedom of speech and an open debate of ideas?
You really need to be holding debates and open questioning of our leaders for all to see on your site, I know you ask him some tough questions…….Keep up the great work.