Planning

Due to its upward pressure on home prices, VHFA urged the South Burlington City Council this week to end the ban on home building known as Interim Zoning.  South Burlington adopted the Interim Zoning Bylaw on November 13, 2018 after protests about future home building proposed within the City.

Next to Burlington, South Burlington has been the largest community in Vermont for many years. Since 2010, South Burlington experienced modest annual housing stock growth of 2%, similar to Essex, Shelburne and Williston.  With other parts of the state facing population and economic decline, allowing for growth near jobs is considered by many to be essential for local and regional economic vitality.

If you own a home please join Champlain Housing Trust for this educational Homeowner University.  Learn how to maximize your biggest investment, your home.  Learn how to maintain, manage and protect your home and how to plan and pay for improvements.  Check out the schedule for the day and enroll today!

When?

April 28, 2018 - 9:00am to 4:00pm

Where?

Champlain Housing Trust - 88 King Street, Burlington, VT

Cost?

$25 per household, includes lunch

How to register?

National Life Group has doubled their investments in charitable giving this year to 2 million dollars. Part of the National Life Group Foundation’s giving will support Main Street Grants, a new project designed to support revitalizing downtowns. As we all know, affordable housing is often a key component of strengthening our state’s downtowns. Municipalities, community partners, and housing organizations should go to National Life’s website soon to learn more about this exciting opportunity because applications are due at the end of December.

The U.S. Census Bureau is offering Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) 2020 Workshops for Vermont cities and towns, in partnership with the Vermont State Data Center and the Vermont Center for Geographic Information. For your convenience, workshops will be hosted at two sites. A webinar is also being offered.  

Join us this Wednesday, October 25, 2017 for the Green Real Estate Symposium hosted by our friends at Vermont Realtors.

The event will include information on three main topics. First, appraisers will be educated on how to accurately evaluate a house for its energy efficiency. They'll also learn how to point out areas that could be performing better. 

Next, market research on green energy will show us why we are measuring sustainable energy in the first place. 

Finally, the symposium will cover guided techniques and phrases for articulating the true value of a green home to prospective residents.

Staff from the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board will outline specifics of the Housing for All initiative, the program funded with the state's recently-enacted bond for housing development.  VHFA will issue the revenue bond and the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board will administer the funds statewide to expand Vermont’s stock of permanently affordable housing. 

Staff from regional planning commissions, economic development corporations and affordable housing development organizations are encouraged to attend either of these two public meetings:  

Based on feedback from property managers and apartment seekers, VHFA launched this week a redesigned, user-friendly Vermont Directory of Affordable Rental Housing at www.housingdata.org. We improved search tools and expanded the site to include more information people looking for an apartment need, such as rent and income limits, property photos, proximity to public transportation, accessibility features and pet policies.  

Development of the new website was supported in part by TD Charitable Foundation, AARP Vermont and the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity’s HUD Inclusive and Vibrant Communities Vermont Grant.

John Thompson addressed hundreds of data users at their annual conference Thursday while news broke of his abrupt resignation as director of the U.S. Census Bureau. Several experts pointed out the great challenges Thompson’s resignation creates. Meanwhile, Census officials and analysts strategized about how to most effectively use the Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) estimates to provide much-needed information about conditions facing the population. 

Housing affordability challenges in high-cost cities often overshadow the enormous housing challenges in rural America. Though the situation is more extreme in metro areas, rural areas and small towns also face significant shortages of affordable and available rental housing, as most very low-income Vermonters well know.

The Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development recently published its Draft 2017 Annual Action Plan and Draft Vermont National Housing Trust Fund Allocation Plan for comment.  These and other consolidated planning materials are available on ACCD's website. 

A public hearing will be held April 7, 2017.   Written comments will be accepted through May 8, 2017.