Reasonable_Expert_23 t1_j8mnwdw wrote on February 15, 2023 at 1:03 PM

Whenever I read something like this, I think of Sharon and Hartland. Both are in the Upper Valley and pretty close to major employers (DHMC, etc). Neither town has any kind of zoning and there has been minimal housing development, which bucks the theory the author is presenting. That’s not to say that exclusionary zoning in rich towns isn’t a problem — it is — but rather to say that we shouldn’t accept it as the being the only problem.

Turns out, solving the housing market is not as simple as opening up the “supply spigot.” Land prices, costs of goods, labor cost, etc all matter for getting housing developed. And all of those things are sky high in Vermont. So when developers are targeting places where they think their projects will pencil out financially, it leaves out a lot of Vermont.

On top of that, when you zoom out and see that the housing crisis is a nationwide crisis, there’s not much hope for the market to correct itself.

When you have this type of market failure for an essential good/service, the only viable solution is government intervention. We need community land trusts, more investment in affordable housing for low- and middle-incomes, and increased tenant protections (such as just-cause eviction). We pay for that with things like higher transfer taxes on sales of second homes. This won’t solve all our issues but it’s better than just hoping the market will fix itself.

[deleted] t1_j8myxn7 wrote on February 15, 2023 at 2:33 PM

You make some great points, especially how it is a multitude of issues (municipal, state, and federal, economy, etc.) that are contributing to the housing crisis here. I think the article emphasizes the problems with zoning and development, but I also think it touched on the larger issues in play, as you did. Also I just wanted to say I appreciate your amicable dialogue in the discussion. Too many folks go off the rails in here, so it is always nice to see folks keeping it civil. :)

Reasonable_Expert_23 t1_j8mzw87 wrote on February 15, 2023 at 2:40 PM

They were touched on briefly in the piece, but the author spent a lot more energy blaming “anti-capitalism” then he did digging into the obvious failures of capitalism that led us to this point.

[deleted] t1_j8n112n wrote on February 15, 2023 at 2:48 PM

Not sure I agree with your assessment in the tone of his article, but I ABSOLUTELY agree with you about "the obvious failures of capitalism that led us to this point"! 100 effing percent behind you there!

KingKababa t1_j8nk7dc wrote on February 15, 2023 at 4:58 PM

Someone mentions the words "failure" and "capitalism" in the same sentence.

Quick guys! DOWNVOTE! /s

Jeez people, we can't criticize capitalism at all?

[deleted] t1_j8nm85s wrote on February 15, 2023 at 5:11 PM

I may just be getting downvoted because I didn't agree with the tone of the article vs. the points about the failures of capitalism. No big deal, but thank-you for the support. :)

vtkayaker t1_j90ycq4 wrote on February 18, 2023 at 11:45 AM

> Whenever I read something like this, I think of Sharon and Hartland. Both are in the Upper Valley and pretty close to major employers (DHMC, etc).

Thank you.

Hartford (even closer to DHMC and Dartmouth) has put in several major developments in the last 20 years, including a condo block and a cookie-cutter suburb. It has one of the best elementary schools in the state, and the high school was finally improving last I heard. And they've been building condos and fairly nice cookie cutter suburbs since WW2. At least some stuff is obviously getting permitted. And it's a reasonably attractive town, with a nice mix of neighborhoods.

But it's not enough to keep up. DHMC, Dartmouth and the shopping in West Lebanon can create more jobs than developers can build houses.

> Turns out, solving the housing market is not as simple as opening up the “supply spigot.” Land prices, costs of goods, labor cost, etc all matter for getting housing developed.

Yeah, this is one of the major bottlenecks. Pre-COVID, anything with 3 bedrooms below $300k was either tiny, weird, or needed about $50,000 in urgent roof work. Or had a foundation from hell. It was a really tough market even then.

But part of the problem is that a lot of Vermont houses need work. I've seen countless houses that have gone 25 years too long since they were last painted, and more than a couple that are visibly starting to lean. Look closer, and you'll see warped roof lines.

When so many people bought Vermont homes during COVID, they realized how much work some of those places needed. And so they started employing contractors. If you needed a contractor for something quick, they might be booked out for the next 8 months.

It's getting better now. I can call the usual folks and get someone on site in a week or two, for something quick. And some new people went into business.

But you won't be able to build tons of new housing until you can get enough skilled people to do the work. And many of those people were busy doing major repairs to older houses that were bought without inspection.