The Vermont Housing Crisis and Why Dense Infrastructure Is The Answer
Solve The Crisis And Move Towards a Cleaner, More Sustainable World
Note: This was supposed to be just a section in my article on big ideas to solve climate change, but it expanded into its own article. While the article is about Vermont, it’s a call to action for us to build more dense, car-light housing and infrastructure everywhere.
In Vermont, we call ourselves, “The Brave Little State.”
Right now, the brave little state has a serious housing crisis.
The beauty of Vermont, in my view, is how much we have avoided overdevelopment and preserved it for our nature. In fact, the eye-sore parts of Vermont are where we have gotten away from this, where we have a Walmart with a big parking lot, a Target, and suburban development. We even have a Chili’s. Big L. (Sorry Williston and South Burlington, but you’re culturally lame.)
However, our lack of development has contributed to a housing crisis. There are not enough homes in Vermont to meet the demand. When demand outstripts supply, housing costs go up.
This is a huge problem for a lot of reasons. As Governor Phill Scott’s team said on their official blog, “To have healthy, safe, vibrant communities across the state, retain and attract more workers, and reverse declining school enrollment numbers we need more housing. Without more housing, we can’t fully address homelessness because the root of the problem lies in the shortage of units.”
It also, of course, means the limited available housing is mostly unaffordable.
A place where people spend a disproportionate amount of their income on housing is not an attractive place for young workers and families.
Note: the Vermont housing crisis is has been made worse as a result of “Climate Gentrification.” Many rich people are moving to Vermont because it’s relatively safe from major weather events and because of its abundant nature. As these rich people buy homes for exorbitant prices, it further increases the prices of all housing while reducing the stock available. This is especially destructive if it’s not their full-time home, as it often isn’t.)
The natural solution to this is more housing.
Is More Housing In Opposition to the Core Spirit of Vermont?
I know the fear in many Vermonters is that we’ll become filled with suburbs, big parking lots, traffic, wide highways, and chain stores. We don’t want to become an extension of Massachusetts.
I feel this fear in my hometown in Jericho. We added our first stoplight. We have a Dollar General (gross), and we’re building more cookie-cutter suburban-style homes.
Yet, we also need more housing. We need it to solve the homelessness problem, the housing affordable problem, to increase school enrollment, and to attract a young, robust core of middle-class workers.
The Solution: Dense, Urban-Like Housing Coupled With Walkable Infrastructure
Can we build housing that protects and even enhances nature? I believe we can. We need dense, urban, car-free housing.
We need to build housing where people can live car-free or car-light, and walk to get their basic needs met.
We need housing that doesn’t lead to more paved roads over our breathtaking nature.
This, I believe, is in line with Vermont’s spirit as the brave little state and our environmental values.
Solving The Challenges: Creating a Cultural Shift
There are a lot of technical challenges with the housing crisis. Zoning laws, parking requirements, and infrastructure challenge. For example, my town in Jericho is working on a rezoning, but they also need a public sewer system to accomodate an area where they could add dense housing.
There are important, but they begin by rethinking our approaches to housing, transportation, and our entire built environment.
However, at the core of making this happen, we need to recognize that a car-light life is one that many people want to live.
Walking nearly everywhere should not just be for those in our biggest cities. In our car-based culture, I believe that everybody should be able to find affordable, car-free (or at least carl-light) housing.
Walking to get groceries should be a choice Americans can make, not just those who can afford big cities. In many European towns where I’ve traveled the same size as small towns in Vermont, this is exactly the case. They use cars, but they also walk to do errand and have access to buses or train stations to get to population centers. The only way to make this happen is to build more housing close together. Think duplexes, attached townhomes, and even apartment buildings. We need to imagine that we can have this type of housing in Vermont. And along witht that housing, we’ll need to provide aminities for new residents nearby.
Dense Housing Also protects the environment
Dense housing is more efficient to heat. If amenities are nearby, it means using a car less or not at all. It can address the Vermont housing crisis without any deforestation, big-box parking lots, or an increase in traffic.
If successful, this could have a ripple effect where there’s more demand for bike lanes and bus service and less demand for widened streets and more parking lots.
It could create a situation where even more Vermonters can lower their carbon footprint by reducing their car usage.
Note: I won’t talk about this here, but there may need to be guidelines put in place so that the majority of this new housing is affordable. Otherwise, we’ll see a continued gentrification effect that attracts only the wealthy to Vermont, potentially exacerbating the problem. This will vary demanding on the needs of each town.
Next, I’ll talk about two specific places where we could build urban fabric.
Example #1: Five-Corners in Essex Junction
This is a good example because there has already been more urban, dense development here in the last few years.
I’m in favor of these new apartment buildings going even higher.
It already has an Amtrak station and decent bus service. Development here could mean hundreds of more housing units in a very dense area.
If this development is towards Pearl St, it means it could be within walking distance to an already existing grocery store.
Burlington is already quite bike-able, as many UVM students will tell you.
Dense housing along with improved bike lanes could mean an area where people live with quick, car-free access to Winooski and Burlington, connecting its new residents to the area.
More people living here, and living without cars, would also lead to higher demand for bus service, and therefore its expansion. I imagine a world where perhaps we even resurrect the only train lines.
As an example, here’s the route from a coffee shop in Winooski to a coffee shop in 5 Corners, Essex. If the bike lanes were better people would do it.
This is probably just one area of several within Chittenden County where we could do this. From my eyes it’s also an extension of what we’re already doing. There’s more, denser housing in Essex, Winooski, and Williston.
My call is for more density here and specifically, keep in mind car-light living. That means these areas need to be mixed-use. There should be grocery stores, restaurants, bar, coffee shops, and more so that people can have their basic needs met within walking distance.
Example #2: St. Johnsbury, Vermont
Until this year, I had never been to St. Johnsbury. Yet, when I came back to Vermont to support my family, my girlfriend came with me and looked for a travel nurse job in Vermont. She found a job in St. J. It’s about an hour and 20 minutes from my hometown, Jericho.
Since I’m a great boyfriend, I often commuted with her. She worked While she worked form 7-7, I hung out in the center of St.J.
This town center is incredibly walkable, with everything a person like me needs. It had two incredible coffee shops (shout out Boule Bakery and Cosmic Cup Cafe), and the coolest library I’ve ever seen, the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum.
It had a great diner too and a decent convenience store. All it needs is a grocery store in this town center.
St. Johnsbury has gone the way of much of the US as we shifted to car dependency in the 20th century. Its former train station is now a welcome center, and I dream of an Amtrak stop here that goes to Boston (and connects at White River Junction to the Train to NYC from Essex) would do wonders. I include these routes in my list of 12 rural-urban rail routes we should build.
It’s another town that I believe could accommodate more urban housing and, maybe not car-free, but car-light living.
This influx of people would probably lead to more demand for an Amtrak station, further creating a cycle of appeal of rural-urban life.
It could be an economic sparkplug for the Northeast Kingdom.
There are examples in every county
Currently, every county has a housing shortage. If it can happen in St. J, then I’m guessing there are also, semi-dense town centers in Montpelier, Brattleboro, Rutland, White River Junction, and so much more that could aim at creating car-light, dense living.
If it can happen in Vermont, it can happen anywhere
If one of the most rural states in the country can address housing crises while moving away from car dependency, then anywhere can.
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