Infrastructure: A key to both jobs and environment

August was "I told you so" time for members of the Northern Vermont Homebuilders and Remodelers Association.

After years of warning that Chittenden County towns were creating too many roadblocks to housing development, and that the lack of housing could impact job creation, that view was validated by a major study commissioned by the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board. It estimated that northwestern Vermont - defined as Chittenden, Franklin, Grand Isle, Addison, Lamoille and Washington Counties - would see a 41,450-person increase in population by -1010. related to the creation of 44,250 jobs.

Governor Howard Dean proposed state efforts to help with the shortage of affordable housing, including a one-time extra appropriation for the Housing and Conservation Board, which has created 5,700 units of affordable housing in the past decade. He also promised to work with the state's Congressional delegation to boost Vermont's allotment of federal tax credits for lower-income housing from $750,000 to $2 million.

Such credits were recently the key to South Burlington developer Peter Holmberg rehabilitating three buildings for family and senior housing at the former state facility for the retarded in Brandon. Those units in turn will be part of the "critical mass" for creating a fullscale assisted living community for seniors there, Holmberg has said.

The affordable housing element is prominent because half of the new jobs are expected to be relatively low-paying service Jobs. Dean observed that the rental vacancy rate for Chittenden County outside Burlington is now zero, and for Burlington it is only a quarter of a percent of the available housing units. In all, the region will need 23,600 more housing units in the next 10 years, the study said.

"The reason that we, Are having this growth is because of the economic growth we've had," Dean said. Federal, state and local action will be needed to solve the problem, he said.

It may have been news to some, but not to Bill Fitzgerald of Fitzgerald Construction, the current president of the Northern Vermont Homebuilders and Remodelers Association. He said that potential home sites have become scarcer and scarcer, which of course has driven up prices, along with the ability of many home buyers to pay.

"More upscale and a lot more amenities" was his summary of what's being built. And that's just fine with the towns around Burlington, he said, because they don't want working families with modest homes and several children to burden the tax rolls.

Some towns have put absolute limits on the number of housing permits per year, Fitzgerald said, such as Williston's figure of 84. Meanwhile, more than 700 potential home sites wait in the wings, while businesses like IBM, Husky and IDX seek to attract qualified employees.

Milton may be an exception. Tony Stout, a former Act 250 coordinator now

working from Ferrisburgh as an independent planning and permitting consultant, said that town has rezoned one area for high-density housing, and has seen a surge in proposals.

"The availability of lots is as low as I've ever seen it," Fitzgerald said. "The problem is, everybody wants the good jobs, but the municipalities don't want the housing that goes along with it, and that's an integral part of it."

Nor is the housing stock the only type of infrastructure that the area hasn't shouldered its responsibility to create, said Otto Engelberth. head of Engelberth Construction in Colchester. The Circumferential Highway is overdue as a way of coping with growth-related traffic, he said, and the, failure to put in adequate transportation routes to handle the growth of Burlington's Old North End shows the ill effects of neglecting such infrastructure.

"We need to create more housing stock," echoed Tom Serrani,

executive director of the Associated General Contractors of Vermont.

That group has lobbied long and hard for better upkeep of the highway

type of infrastructure - an area where Serrani is now swing positive

developments - but that isn't the only thing companies considering

expansion to Vermont will took at, he said.

Vermont wants to be environmentally sound, but them is a link between infrastructure And environmental planning, Serrani said. If St. Albans Bay is polluted, think about the wastewater treatment plant that might have been built. If traffic barrels through once-quiet neighborhoods, think about the unbuilt roads whose absence causes byways to be pressed into service as bypasses.

And if there is housing sprawl, think about the more concentrated housing developments that could have kept dwellings from spreading all across the landscape. Yet "nobody equates infrastructure with the environment," he said.

Copyright Boutin-McQuiston, Inc. Sep 01, 2000
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