Municipal leaders tell House committee Vermont needs new tools, hundreds of millions for infrastructure to support housing

Josh Hanford, director of intergovernmental relations at the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, and Samantha Sheehan, the league’s municipal policy and advocacy specialist, told the House General & Housing Committee on Feb. 21 that municipalities are already planning water and wastewater projects to support housing but lack the financing to complete them.

“These are infrastructure that housing will be built on,” Hanford said, describing a recent league survey of 35 municipalities that reported planned projects totaling an average cost of about $14,000,000 per project and a median of $10,000,000. The league estimated an unmet funding need of roughly $240,000,000 to complete those projects.

The survey entries, Hanford said, represent projects that have voter action to start planning or construction; they include expansions of existing systems and new systems. “These are essentially projects where there's been a voter action, initiating the project,” Sheehan…