Brattleboro nonprofit seeks capital-bill funds to upgrade water system for planned housing at Winston Prouty campus

Alex Farrell, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development, told the Senate Institutions Committee on Feb. 13 that the department is seeking capital-bill support to upgrade municipal water infrastructure serving the Winston Prouty campus in Brattleboro.

The upgrade would support an anticipated multi‑phase housing project on the nonprofit Winston Prouty campus. "The million that is being sought in the capital bill is is not to support the developer. In this case, this is to go straight to the community, for the purposes of upgrading their water system," Farrell said. He described a first phase that the campus can support today and additional phases that require expanded water capacity.

Nut graf: The project is pitched as reuse of an existing nonprofit campus to add mixed‑income housing that the department describes as largely "small‑a affordable" (naturally occurring affordability rather than rent‑restricted units). Farrell said the campus’ own housing needs assessment complements statewide housing studies and that municipal water upgrades are a gating item for the full buildout.

According to Farrell, the full plan could add as many as 282 housing units across several building types; the campus currently has capacity only for an initial phase of roughly 27 units without the water upgrades. The department’s presentation to the committee showed a mix of townhouse, duplex and multifamily structures and repurposing of existing gray‑shaded campus buildings into housing while retaining some community spaces.

Farrell framed the funding request as a municipal infrastructure grant: under the capital bill proposals the state would send grant dollars to the municipality, which would then use them to upgrade public water and pump‑house capacity so the campus can support later phases. "In all of these cases, you probably saw in the capital bill, these are grants through us that are gonna be sent to the municipality," Farrell said.

Committee members asked for more detail, and Farrell offered to provide a fuller slide deck and arrange for developer representatives to appear at a future meeting. He said the department could oversee grant agreements with the municipality and that municipalities would, if needed, enter subgrant or development agreements with project developers.

Ending: The committee did not take formal action. Farrell recommended a follow‑up briefing with project developers to review permitting timelines, the water‑system scope and how the capital dollars would be administered through municipal grant agreements.