It’s no secret that the Upper Valley, and more broadly the entire region, has long suffered from a chronic shortage of housing for people of lower and moderate incomes. Then along came COVID 19, which unleashed a gold rush of wealthy out-of-staters fleeing the pandemic who snapped up houses sight unseen for premiums well over the asking price, driving up prices across the board and draining the existing housing supply. At the same time, investors started buying properties and using them for short-term rentals. So what was chronic became critical. For renters, for first-time home buyers, for just about anyone whose income isn’t well north of six figures, finding housing in this corner of the world is more challenging than ever.
The past month brought news of a housing horizon that might be brightening, as well as timely reminders of just how difficult it remains currently to surmount the obstacles to replenishing the housing supply.
In New Hampshire, Gov. Chris Sununu has proposed targeting $100 million in federal money obtained through the American Rescue Plan for development of housing. This would take the form mostly of financial incentives for developers to build multifamily projects and for communities that host them to speed up approval of permits. Some would also be devoted to communities that rewrite zoning regulations to make them housing friendly. (We think it would also be wise to devote some money to helping communities expand overwhelmed planning staffs, with the aim of yielding speedier approvals.)
That incentives to communities will be required can be inferred from the comments of Margaret Byrnes, executive director of the New Hampshire Municipal Association, who downplayed the slow pace of permit approval as simply the result of the need to vet projects thoroughly. That’s true as far as it goes, but we also suspect that thousands of residents across the Twin States who are themselves comfortably housed are only too happy to have the process drag on if it discourages large-scale developments in their communities.
Across the Connecticut River, the Vermont Housing Finance Agency is proposing that the Legislature provide subsidies to contractors to build workforce housing and subsidies to middle-income buyers to help with the purchase price.
The need for such an initiative was highlighted by VtDigger recently in a story that focused on a Brandon-based contractor, Tanner Romano, who wanted to build 28-units of rental housing for his own employees and other middle-income people on 7 acres he already owned in town. Although the circumstances were as favorable as possible, Romano said, when he totaled up the costs of navigating the regulatory approval process, of permitting fees, of architectural engineering and of construction, the project simply was not feasible. The cost for each unit would have been $327,000, making rent unaffordable for people with incomes of $50,000 to $75,000 a year. “It was frustrating and eye-opening at the same time for me,” Romano said.
Closer to home, the Hartford Planning Commission recently denied an application by Twin Pines Housing Trust to build 18 one-bedroom, low-income units on a parcel to be acquired from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on Route 5, near the Upper Valley Haven’s main facility. The idea was innovative: On an adjacent parcel, the Haven proposed to build an emergency shelter for homeless people that would offer an array of support services. As they got back on their feet and into the workforce, they would get priority for the apartments to be built and overseen by Twin Pines. Given that both Twin Pines and the Haven are highly respected nonprofit organizations with strong track records, it seemed like a potential if partial answer to reducing the town’s homeless population. Neighbors, though, opposed it for a variety of reasons, as detailed by John Lippman and Jim Kenyon of the Valley News staff.
We don’t propose to revisit the complexities, but offer this thought. Some of the zoning criteria that the Planning Commission had to bring to bear on the application are so vague as to be impossible to apply objectively and consistently.
For instance, what does the requirement that the project result in “an environment in harmony with surrounding development” actually mean? In this case, a variety of uses and structures are prevalent along that stretch of Route 5, from single-family houses to institutional, educational and commercial uses. “Harmony” in such cases must lie in the eye of the beholder, which is hardly a standard that can be applied uniformly. As communities consider how to meet the urgent need for housing, more precision in the regulatory process would itself be a welcome development.