Housing Dilemma

Douglas Administration officials are at their wits’ end trying to pass a housing bill that will result in more affordable housing.

An Administration bill, spearheaded by Devin Dorn, Secretary of Commerce & Community Development, was introduced in the legislature last year and was given the cold shoulder by the Democratic majority.

Its fate this year is even worse. Dorn’s bill, which would have removed some regulatory barriers to the building of new homes, has been transformed into a bill that will make it MORE difficult to build new homes. The Democrats’ bill would offer regulatory inducements only in the very limited areas that have been designated as "growth areas," some of which have no room for more housing. For housing projects elsewhere, the bill actually adds more regulatory roadblocks.

Secretary Dorn is serious about affordable housing. When an attractive development of 20-24 small homes was proposed in East Randolph, he weighed in with the authority of his office. That same parcel of land, however, would be given no encouragement by the Democrats’ bill, because East Randolph and environs has not been designated as a growth center.

To insist that housing builders turn all their attention to designated growth centers smacks of statewide zoning of the sort that was soundly rejected after the passage of Act 200 in the Kunin years. It will discourage the creativity of private enterprise, and—because there will be fewer places to build—will result in higher prices.

The Democratic changes in the bill stem from the conviction that Vermont is threatened by the demon Sprawl, a vision of waving fields of corn being overrun by marching columns of condominiums. The truth is that this type of sprawl may be a legitimate fear in a few parts of Chittenden County, but not in many other places in Vermont. When the perceptive former director of the Randolph Area Community Development Corp., Jeremy Ingpen, left office, it was with a plea that Randolph pay attention to its single most important need—more housing, especially affordable housing. Even though the housing market has opened up since that time, housing still remains a long-term need. And we don’t need the state to tell us where the housing should go.