Vermont housing leaders urge targeting of energy incentives to low‑income apartments as costs rise

Vermont housing officials told the House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee on May 1 that rising construction and operating costs are squeezing affordable housing developers and that state energy incentives should be redesigned to make code‑compliant and high‑performance construction feasible for low‑ and moderate‑income (LMI) housing.

Mia Watson, special manager at the Vermont Housing Finance Agency, told the committee, “We’re in the midst of an affordable housing crisis ... one of the highest rates of homelessness in the nation,” and said project costs have climbed roughly 40 percent over the past five years, driving difficult tradeoffs between building more units and investing in higher performance construction.

The testimony centered on three linked problems: (1) low‑income households face substantially higher energy burdens than median households, (2) affordable housing development often shifts utility costs to property owners, complicating incentives, and (3) existing utility incentives pay mainly for savings above evolving building codes rather than for meeting code. Kathy Beyer, vice president of real estate development at Evernorth, urged targeted incentives and said, “as we move forward with our clean energy future, we need to make sure we’re not leaving behind our low and moderate income households and that we’re not increasing their energy burdens.”

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