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SEPTEMBER 12, 2024
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Report: All affordable homes are in compliance
Rents and sale prices are meeting affordability requirements BY JASON STARR Observer staff
Williston resident Jayden Choquette is preparing to show off his moves with partner and professional dance instructor Allee Pineault at this Saturday’s “Dancing with the Burlington Stars” fundraiser for the Vermont Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired. OBSERVER COURTESY PHOTO
Local dancer prepares for ‘Dancing with the Stars’ Event raises funds for Blind and Visually Impaired BY INDIRA BUSH Special to the Observer
Across the state, 12 eager Vermonters are getting ready to put on their dancing shoes. Williston resident, actor and Wake Robin Activities Coordinator Jayden Choquette is one of them. Choquette is among a group of six local celebrities paired with six professional dance instructors who will perform in the upcoming Dancing with the Burlington Stars — an annual fundraiser for the Vermont Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired (VABVI). The 12 dancers will show off 17 weeks of practice on the Flynn’s mainstage this Saturday, which marks the event’s fifth anniversary, but fourth show (the event was canceled during the pandemic). Choquette’s involvement began when he got an email from VABVI’s Volunteer Coordinator Vicki Vest. She was given his name from former competitors see DANCING page 22
It’s now the Town of Williston’s job to monitor whether homebuilders who promise affordability during permitting of new construction actually keep homes affordable over time. The town took over monitoring in 2019 from Housing Vermont, a nonprofit affordable homebuilder now called Evernorth, according to Energy and Community Development Planner Melinda Scott. But until this year it hadn’t produced a public report on the topic. Scott completed a compliance report in August and presented it to the town’s volunteer Housing Committee at its Sept. 4 meeting. The report shows across-the-board compliance with keeping rents and sale prices of homes that were built as perpetually affordable below the median income standard set by the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. “(The) guarantee of af-
fordability necessarily requires that periodic audits are made to ensure that affordability is not lost when rents change or ownership properties change hands,” Scott wrote in the report,
tions of approval. Affordability is defined by the town as when a resident with an income that is at or below the area’s median income ($113,600 for a family of four in the
greater Burlington area, according to the Vermont Housing Finance Agency) pays no more than 30 percent of their income in housing costs. Currently, the town is
A six-story building planned for the streetfront on Route 2A in Taft Corners would have 12 affordable apartments. IMAGE BY VT COMMERCIAL
adding that she plans to update it annually. To create the report, Scott asked rental unit landlords what they charge for rent and the renters’ cost of utilities, and she checked that against their conditions of approval during the town permitting process. For single family homes, most recent sale prices were checked against the homes’ condi-
“A lot of people would say that’s still not affordable, when you look at the actual rents.” Melinda Scott Energy and Community Development Planner
monitoring 63 affordable rental units, with the majority in Finney Crossing and The Hamlet in Taft Corners. It is also monitoring seven single family homes, including five in the Northridge neighborhood. “All affordable dwellings … are in compliance with the affordability provisions in their respective see HOUSING page 11
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