There are three things you can count on in the Upper Valley: rutted roads during mud season, the sublime alchemy of sugar and deep-fried batter at Muriel’s Donuts in Lebanon, and the knowledge that somebody somewhere has scheduled yet another public forum on the lack of affordable housing.
It’s a serious issue, to be sure. Scarce housing is one of the top reasons employers ranging from Hypertherm and King Arthur Flour to the region’s hospitals and nonprofits such as Listen Community Services say they have such a hard time attracting workers.
The problem is so acute — and perennial — that a Lebanon campground near Mascoma Lake is seeking approval to expand so it can accommodate the influx of traveling nurses and seasonal workers living in campers as they work in the Upper Valley.
So it was again when Vermont state Sen. Michael Sirotkin, D-South Burlington, and chair of the Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs Committee along with colleague Sen. Alison Clarkson, D-Woodstock, and other committee members came to White River Junction last week for the kickoff of their “fall 2019 housing tour,” to gather ideas from local leaders in support of proposing another housing bond in the next legislative session.
“We want to hit the ground running in January on proposals in housing in this state,” Sirotkin told a packed conference room at Hartford Town Hall on Wednesday.
Participants offered familiar explanations behind the shortage of affordable housing: Act 250 obstacles, town zoning restrictions, construction costs, not enough government funding, even — blame it on Nana and Gramps — downsizing baby boomers crowding millennials out of smaller starter homes.
Sure, those are all legit reasons, and it’s always good to address them.
But it wasn’t until the roundtable got to its last member, White River Junction developer and filmmaker Matt Bucy, that someone was willing to dispense with the old bromides and dare to identify the real issue: income inequality and the fact that, when it comes to wages, many people in the Upper Valley and Vermont for whom “affordable housing” is targeted are earning less than people elsewhere.
At the same time, inflation has driven up the cost of building for developers.
In short, even if developers squeeze every dollar they can in building a housing project, it nonetheless doesn’t bring down the cost low enough for it to be affordable for people whose wages are not keeping up. When Bucy redeveloped the former American Legion building on South Main Street a few years ago into apartments, he said he intentionally designed it for renters who could afford only $650 to $850 per month, knowing that workers’ wages in the region haven’t kept pace with inflation and growth elsewhere.
“But construction costs haven’t stagnated,” Bucy pointed out, noting that when he developed his first project 30 years ago it cost $20 per square foot compared to the $220 per square foot the American Legion building project cost.
In order to meet that $650 to $850 per month rental price, Bucy said he made compromises by building micro-apartments, some as small as 250 square feet. He found that people are willing to trade off those small spaces provided they are “high-quality.”
“It’s not a 1980s version of what a nice place is, but you can afford to live there,” he said.
Bucy said he didn’t know all the reasons for “wage compression” — it’s complicated, as they say — but he did have the temerity to suggest to the Vermont lawmakers in the room that “I’m not sure legislative action increasing taxes is going to solve the problem.”
“If people made $5 more (an hour) we’d be able to solve a lot of the problem,” Bucy said.
Finally, a new answer to the old problem of affordable housing: Pay workers a wage pegged to 2019 economics. Do that, and maybe all we have to worry about is washing the mud from under our cars in April and not running out of Muriel’s Donuts.
■ The Windsor Mansion Inn, whose prior owner lost control of the property to people involved with the Yankees organization, finally has anew owner: Daoud Shakkour, who heads an Atlanta firm that specializes in hotel renovation projects. Shakkour purchased the historic 18-room inn at auction this summer for $450,000, according to Windsor Town Manager Tom Marsh (it had initially been listed for sale at $1.4 million before being knocked down to $950,000 and, when there still were no takers, put up for auction). Marsh reports that Shakkour’s niece Yossy Garcia is on-site managing the inn, which is open, taking reservations and working on renewing its liquor license
■ The Subway sandwich shop in West Lebanon has a new owner: Trefor Benbow, a Keene-based operator of six Subway franchises who purchased the location in Glen Road Plaza from Tina Barton of Andover, N.H.
■ McGee Toyota of Claremont has broken ground on its new dealership to be built about a half mile from its current location on Charlestown Road. General manager Phil Gregoire said he expects to have the 28,700-square-foot showroom and service center’s exterior “up before the snow flies” with inside work done over the winter and ready for move-in by March.
The new Toyota dealership will have a sales lot that can accommodate more than 400 vehicles, per Gregoire, compared with the “couple hundred, maybe, if you squeeze them together” that can be handled at McGee’s current site.
The move to the new location follows the sale of the Toyota franchise by brothers Rob and Rick Devalk to the McGee dealership group out of Massachusetts in 2017 and McGee’s subsequent purchase of the new lot’s 28-acre property from former Claremont car dealer Peter Mans, who owned the vacant parcel.
■ The Hanover and Lebanon chambers of commerce have again snagged Gov. Chris Sununu for a “state of the state luncheon” at the Hilton Garden Inn in Lebanon on Oct. 11. Each non-election year, the chambers co-host the gov to toot his or her horn and field some questions from the audience — the last event in 2017 drew about 150 people, said Tracy Hutchins, executive director of the Hanover chamber. Admission costs $35 per individual and $300 for a table of 10.
John Lippman can be reached at jlippman@vnews.com.
