MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) – Vermont administration officials are seeking feedback on a plan that could shape the future of housing development in the state for decades to come. It comes as a report last week shows Vermont needs over 24,000 new housing units to keep up with demand.
Vermont lawmakers this spring overrode Governor Phil Scott’s veto on a bill that creates a new tiered system for where Act 250, the state’s signature land use law, would be applied. A map released last month shows where there are Act 250 exemptions for housing projects over the next two years. Lawmakers intended to have more construction in downtown areas and away from natural resources like streams, forests, and farms.
Local planning commissions are now beginning the process of determining how Act 250 should be applied in towns over the long term. And Vermont Gov. Phil Scott and administration officials are calling on Vermonters to get involved so that more housing projects will be exempt. It comes as the governor continues to criticize lawmakers for not going far enough to allow more development.
“It’s a very small area when you look at what we’re really doing, and some of the areas that are going to get these exemptions, it doesn’t do anywhere near enough to counter this crisis we’re facing,” Scott said.
But a robust debate continues at the Statehouse and elsewhere about to what degree the state’s housing shortage can be attributed to Act 250 versus other factors including short-term rentals, workforce and supply chain limitations, land availability, and the climate for lending. Democrats last session also floated a tax on the state’s top earners to fund millions in affordable housing over the next decade. That proposal didn’t make it over the finish line.
The governor and his team acknowledge the workforce and supply challenges but say it’s really an issue of supply and demand. They also point to a program that gives money to landlords to fix up old apartments, or another that helps people access new mobile homes. The programs are intended to create any kind of housing unit to take pressure off the market, which has around a 2 percent vacancy rate statewide.