By Carly Berlin/VTDigger
Editor’s note: This story, by Report for America corps member Carly Berlin, was produced through a partnership between VTDigger and Vermont Public.
During the first days of his fifth term in office, Gov. Phil Scott emphasized a familiar priority: create more housing across Vermont. At a press conference at the Statehouse Jan. 21, members of his administration outlined how they want lawmakers to do that.
They began by underscoring just how sluggish homebuilding across the state has become, pointing to a new set of legislatively-mandated “housing targets” (see story on page 24) unveiled by administration officials alongside a map to track them. If Vermont wants to ease homelessness, grow its workforce, fill its schools and encourage more people to move here, the state will need over 41,000 additional homes by the end of the decade, and over 172,000 by 2050, according to the analysis.
“Right now, we’re only building about a quarter of what we need to meet our targets,” Scott said. “Which is why it’s important we focus on housing this legislative session — especially in areas like appeals and Act 250 regulation to make it faster, easier and less expensive to build here.”
Administration officials want to make it harder for opponents to block new housing projects, particularly in areas where local and state land-use rules have sought to encourage more housing growth. Reforming the appeals process was a priority for the Republican governor’s administration last legislative session, but few of its recommendations made it to the finish line.
This year, the administration will push to raise the standards for when a neighbor of a proposed housing development can challenge it in court, said Alex Farrell, Scott’s housing commissioner.
“Unless you can demonstrate that the project is out of line with the local and state land-use regulations, it’s going to be really hard to bring an appeal, unless, then, you can demonstrate some really undue harm,” Farrell said of the administration’s proposal, which he said is modeled off a law from Washington state.
The Scott administration also wants to make changes to a major housing and land-use reform law passed last year. That law took aim at Act 250, Vermont’s statewide development review program, and made temporary carve-outs for some new housing projects while a yearslong mapping process gets underway to determine Act 250’s reach in the future.
Those near-term exemptions have already shown signs of success, prompting developers to move forward with projects they said they wouldn’t otherwise have pursued. The carve-outs are mainly tied to state-designated downtowns and villages, Farrell said, and administration officials want to expand them to areas served by water and wastewater infrastructure, to give more housing projects a chance to bypass Act 250.
Scott has long cited the added cost, time, and risk the Act 250 process adds to new housing projects. He said his goal is not to tear down the law, which is heralded by some environmentalists.
“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 mountainsides or development that replaces our farmland,” Scott said. “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.”
Officials also want to create more opportunities for smaller towns to build that infrastructure. They proposed creating a new financing program called “Strategic Projects for Advancing Rural Communities,” which would function like a smaller-scale tax increment financing program. The new program would allow municipalities and developers to borrow funding for infrastructure upgrades needed to build a new housing project against its future value, said Lindsay Kurrle, secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development.
The administration’s housing policy priorities largely mirror the platform of Let’s Build Homes, a new coalition that launched in January to lobby for loosening barriers to building housing for people at all income levels.
But legislative support for the proposed package is so far unclear. Last January, when the Scott administration unveiled its housing omnibus bill, a tripartisan group of backers joined the governor to voice their support. Yet on Tuesday, no legislators took the podium alongside Scott.
Asked if the administration has legislative buy-in for the package, Scott said, “there will be a number of people, I think, that will be interested in this.” Despite last year’s long list of sponsors, the 2024 bill was never taken up in a committee, he noted.
“This is our initiative, and we’ll be able to point to that and hopefully find some support along the way,” Scott said.
Rep. Marc Mihaly, D-Calais, who chairs the House Committee on General and Housing, said in a brief interview that his committee plans to “carefully consider” the administration’s bill.
“It’s really, actually, I think, a good thing that he stepped up and is proposing something concrete,” Mihaly said. “So in the next weeks, we’ll be dealing with it piece by piece.”
For more information visit: governor.vermont.gov.
