Stop the spread
Game on
Successful boat steward program ends for season
Hack Club teaches kids how to code
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October 13, 2022
Hinesburg House candidates face off How should Vermont address its housing crisis? Phil Pouech: We must review and, if necessary, revise local and regional zoning regulations to ensure they do not disincentivize a much-needed build-up of lower income housing for both rental and purchase. I am presently leading an effort by the selectboard and affordable housing committee to develop new town grant funded opportunities. These funds will be used to support and leverage regional and state affordable housing organizations to help ensure new development in Hinesburg includes perpetually affordable housing. The state can and should provide tax incentives, minimize development costs and eliminate other regulatory steps that presently hinder low-cost housing developments. Low-income housing goes beyond just the initial cost of housing. For example, areas designated for such development should be coordinated with public transit corridors, which can increase affordability by minimizing the need for high-cost transportation. Funding for these programs could come from the actions that drive up housing costs such as new high-cost housing developments and second home ownership. Property tax transfer fees can be focused to support lower cost housing programs. Sarah Toscano: First, stop building houses that drive up the market rate of housing for most families. Let’s also tax second homes heavily, then take that revenue and build affordable housing with it. Politicians shouldn’t think that they know everything — they should elicit ideas from people who know how to drive down the market prices of real estate and raw materials. As the state’s voucher program winds down, some of Vermont’s homeless population could lose housing. Would you See CANDIDATES on page 8
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Resilience
PHOTO BY REBECCA FOSTER
Erin and Brian Just with their twins, Kit and Tate, seeing their picture for the first time in the Charlotte Energy Committee’s new interpretive sign at the solar-compost shed at Charlotte Central School. The sign highlights how the interconnected initiatives on the site that have been worked on by volunteers over the last few years — solar power, pollinator garden, composting, bike rack — create a more resilient community.
Regional planners confront climate change AARON CALVIN STAFF WRITER
About 100 years ago, Vermont was three degrees cooler than it is today; 80 years from now, it’s going to be anywhere from three to 12 degrees hotter, according to David Grass, an environmental health program manager with the Vermont Department of Health. “That means a lot more extreme heat days,” he said. “So, to the extent that we can begin adapting — doing the long-term planning, the mitigation work, and some short-term planning — what do we do leading up to and during the crisis, we’ll figure out the steps that we need to take to protect Vermonters and to protect each other, which
is what it comes down to.” While Vermonters are no strangers to the frigidly cold days of winter, it’s the increased frequency of dangerously hot days, when temperatures reach over 95 or even 100 degrees Fahrenheit, that could represent an increased health threat to the state’s most vulnerable populations. “Heat is not a threat that we have to deal with very frequently, and it’s because of that it looms large as a threat for us,” Grass said. “Some of the places around the world where they’ve seen high levels of death and illness resulting from heat events are those places that are least accustomed to experiencing them, so the effort here is to get ahead of that.”
To that end, the department of health is urging regional and town-level planning commissions to identify both their most vulnerable populations and cooling centers to keep them out of the heat. The Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission is taking the lead in Vermont’s most populated cluster of towns and attempting to identify and map out emergency responses to temperature extremes and other emergency events that could arise out of a changing climate. A draft of a new hazard mitigation plan is working its way through the commission, the second such plan in which environmenSee CLIMATE CHANGE on page 11