This commentary is by John Bossange, the president of Better (not bigger) Vermont. The belief that Vermont needs more housing, with the expectation that those homes will attract new families and workers seeking employment, defies our history and common sense. I believe new families and younger w orkers are not moving here for three primary reasons: New homes are too expensive; the cost of living is too high; and the winter weather is too harsh. These are the key reasons Vermont’s population remains relatively flat. Last year, it declined by 700 people. From 2010 to 2020, our population grew from 625,742 to 643,007. That’s only 2.8%. Since then, it has risen by just 4,457 in six years to 647,464 today, an increase of only 0.69%.  If new, younger families or qualified workers decide to move to Vermont, they need to find affordable apartments and moderately priced homes, which could include multifamily duplexes and triplexes, or single-family homes. Instead, developers are doing the opposite by constructing unaffordable homes that only well-off families can afford.    Here in Chittenden County a building frenzy is underway. A quick look at some local development sites says it all. Homes at the Spear Meadows development in South Burlington start at $769,500. The massive O’Brien Hillside project has homes that range from $640,000 to $1.2 million. Kwiniaska Ridge in Shelburne has houses for sale between $850,000 and $900,000. In Williston, a new home will cost between $500,000 and $800,000.  Where are the moderately priced homes that a new, younger employee or a family can afford? If we wish to have more employees for a healthier business community and want to encourage younger families to move here and gradually replace the older population, the price and type of new homes will need to be affordable for younger Vermonters, and not priced so that only wealthy out-of-state investors and second-home buyers have the money to purchase them. We need more businesses and more people to move here to create a larger tax base and take the pressure off our property taxes. Yet the homes being built now are unaffordable not only to younger employees but also to Vermonters already here wanting to buy a place of their own. READ MORE In addition, the overall cost of living in Vermont is very high. Vermont is ranked the 10th most expensive state to live in, with a 113.6 cost of living index score. The price of food, gas, heating fuel, electricity, property taxes and state taxes make Vermont unaffordable for many people, including those who might wish to move here.  Will building more homes solve the scarcity issue and create a surplus to help drive the cost of a home down? No. The surplus will evaporate with the free market explosion of wealthy out-of-state buyers gobbling it up. Upcoming legislation relating to institutional real estate investors’ purchase of single- and two-family residences, H.607, would help regulate this out-of-state investment frenzy. We might yet have a population surge from climate or so-called red state refugees. But those are unknown factors, and not enough reason to justify building so many unaffordable new homes in anticipation of a population explosion. Nor does it justify all the changes to the Act 250 approval process to encourage more housing developments presently under serious consideration in Montpelier. Data from the American Enterprise Institute shows Vermont has 342,357 housing units, with a shortage of only 3,959 units, or 1.2%, the second lowest in the nation.  The winners of the growth industry continue to be the developers, real-estate speculators and banks. Meanwhile, the losers are Vermont taxpayers who have shelled out public dollars to fund infrastructure subsidizing private development, who will now pay even higher taxes to cover increased municipal services. What we desperately need are affordable, lower- or moderately priced homes. Then, if we find our population rising over time, we can build responsibly in the appropriate locations to accommodate new residents. But until we see signs of steady, long-term growth, let’s stop building thousands of unaffordable new homes based on speculation and the belief that they will come. Read the story on VTDigger here: You can build it, but they will not come. ...read more read less