What if Burlington City Council Does What NYC City Council did with Veto Proof Vote to Suddenly Spend 6% of Budget for Fed Housing Vouchers

The VT Housing Finance Agency vhfa.com seeks comments on $1.5 million to be spent on covid relief without addressing the underlying income gap. Below are my comments submitted today, May 29, and the address for anyone to submit comments, etc. https://www.vhfa.org/news/blog/dhcd-seeks-public-comment-recovery-housing-plan COMMENTS: Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Plan for use of federal recovery funds received by Vermont. This opportunity to comment was provided by a VHFA tweet in the last day. First and foremost as anyone knows who even takes a cursory look at Vermont governmental activity in the area of housing, there is no comprehensive housing plan and the pandemic has held up a Agency of Human Services doing even a plan for older Vermonters. The housing "problem" is summed by the Center for Budget Priorities as a need for an additional 16,000 fed type "affordable housing assistance" (shelter security at 30% income max rent) for Vermont (not including homeowners and mobile homes on rental sites) with 14,000 units in place serving on in five renters. Vermont so-called "affordable housing" (tax credit non-profit and Burlington "inclusionary zoning') is best described in the annual HUD report of tax credit housing where 24% of households pay in excess of 30% of income and 6% pay over half their income for rent. So, no plan for Vermont and a need which is clearly not addressed. The use of any public for funds for homeownership makes no sense while the 1,000 households, for example, sit on the Burlington Housing Authority waitlist, for example. New York City's City Council remarkably this week passed a veto proof budget with 6%--for the first time--set for affordable fed type Section 8 assistance vouchers (30% income max rent). There really are no such City budgeted units like this today! Vermont and BTV also do zilch here while doing "pretend" short term treatments, sort of like having an emergency room of housing with no wards for longer term treatment. If Burlington employed 6% of their general fund for fed type vouchers it would create about 600 vouchers, end homelessness overnight and address a good chunk of our Housing Authority waitlist. It is also time for Vermont state government to stand up and act like an adult in the room. The 30% requirement for a household income needs to be dropped to 25% as it was until the Reagan administration--30% if frankly confiscatory and exploitive of the lower income classes. The entire are of providing transitional assistance where there is no promise of longer term assistance is in itself cruel and unusual aid--depressing to those who administer the funds and those who received them. We must--as then Sen. Harris' Rent Relief Act called for--make Section 8 type aid as universal and not dependent on the drugs you do or do not consume. Drug addiction is a health issue not a housing issue. Finally I would refer you to Mathew Desmond's book "Eviction" and particularly the 60 or so pages of notes which comprise a graduate course in housing policy--and note that he like myself subscribe to universal vouchers--when we reach that point the behavior issues can be handed off where they belong--in the human services and health fields! Thank you for the opportunity to comment and this program design--it is not a plan. There is no housing plan for Vermont or the City of Burlington. That must also be addressed! Yours truly, Tony Redington

A New Start Truly Affordable Housing Approach for Burlington and Vermont

Have figured out a possible formula for a State/Burlington approach which at much lower cost than feds Section 8/vouchers/etc. will make a real difference and provide confidence among legislators/city councilors that the money really helps make a difference.

First, it marries the non-profit housing engine in the state which knows they cannot reach the lowest income where the crisis sits—and that lots of folks in non-profit housing still suffer from an extraordinary amount of income going to rent—but know they are better off than thrown to the lions in the private rental “market” where they once were either as an owner or renter.

HUD programs cost in Vermont $700+ month or about $9,000 a household. (Remember we want to help low income homeowners and mobile home owners which the feds do not allow.) So, in a collaborative carefully worked out City/State program(s) “affordable housing assistance” tied to the recipient to the degree possible gets allocated to non-profits for a portion of their “tax credit” units which already are a few hundred below market but neither enable the lower income to pay less than 25% of their income nor are rents adjusted with a household has a sharp drop income. So, instead of 10 units of “livable housing” units per $100,000 using a strictly HUD approach, we get more, perhaps 15-17 units—and this makes a real difference. HUD should even give us $1 million (or more) to try a 10 year demo to be the first to do it. Variations are infinite, so to speak—co-op, student, senior, mixed, etc.

We can sell the $2 a night fee if we can involve all elements of the concerned groups and actors. Right now there seems to be a lack of enthusiasm. Must change. $15 for wages and $2 for truly affordable housing!

Burlington Town Center Development: Cannibal Towers?

Sinex's “Cannibal Towers”

The New York owner of Burlington Town Center Donald Sinex forces the City to change its zoning for height so he can almost triple the floors without public benefit from about six floors to fourteen, from a 65 feet limit to 160 feet. The project featuring two fourteen-story towers might better be called “Cannibal Towers.” The project doubles the Mall retail space, adds 374 units of housing, and floors of office space. But much of Cannibal Towers success depends on the demise of similar existing development and population shift from other parts of the Chittenden County. In a word there is no rationale or market demand for a project the size Mr. Sinex pursues. Besides his development can be mostly accommodated without resort to changing our zoning, as he pointed out in an early interview.  Of course no one really knows what Mr. Sinex is up to as no marketing study for the retail/office space/housing has been done by a responsible public agency. 

Look at the current retail environment and population trends here. First retail, parricularly big box and malls nationally and in this area downsize faster than the number of land line phones.  Sears nears bankruptcy and movement from stores to e-commerce has just begun. The University Mall is under water financially and we can expect even Williston big-box retail to begin to wilt. Therefore, no need to double the space of a now half empty Town Center mall! Simply, Mr. Sinex can only fill his mall by forcing other area retailers holding “going out of business” sales. Mr. Sinex proposes a “vulture mall.”

The housing and commercial space cannibal aspect gets a little more complicated. But it comes down to the numbers of area residents in a fast changing demographic picture. Overall, the population under 65 age is shrinking. During the 2010-2030 period our County non-senior population declines by 5% (double digits in Vermont overall). College age population in Vermont drops 22% or down 8,000 which means lower and lower student numbers at UVM and other area colleges and training schools. At the same time our County and statewide seniors growth doubles—over 90,000 seniors added, more than double Burlington's population!   During the 2010-2030 period our statewide population growth overall is likely 3-4% (from 2010 to 2015 Census estimates the State grew by a miniscule 300 or so residents).

So Mr. Sinex for both office space and for housing must look to draw from mostly other area towns' office space and housing there being no significant “growth” market here in the County, demographically speaking. For Mr. Sinex, the real opportunity may be just to build and then run away—cannibalizing is not an appetizing approach to “development”!