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Fairhaven town manager tells Vermont committee SPARK could unlock stalled housing projects
Summary
Fairhaven Town Manager Joseph Gunter told lawmakers Feb. 11 that without a program like SPARK the town cannot attract developers for large housing projects and that municipal capacity and finances limit local ability to build infrastructure needed for housing.
Joseph Gunter, town manager of Fairhaven, told the Vermont House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development on Feb. 11 that his 3,000-person town has multiple housing needs and lost at least one large proposed development because the municipality could not offer financial incentives or undertake major infrastructure work.
Gunter said a private developer with plans for about 100 acres and housing-ready designs abandoned the proposal when the town could not assist with road, water and sewer upgrades. “My community is 3,000 people. We don’t have $4,000,000 to drop on roads and lights and expanding that waterline,” Gunter said.
The town manager described Fairhaven’s efforts to address housing through zoning updates, reuse of existing land and a local project called the Skyline plant, but said these partial steps are not enough to meet demand. He said SPARK or a similar locally driven increment tool would let Fairhaven “put something on the table” to attract developers, pay for necessary infrastructure and make a long-planned project feasible.
Gunter summarized Fairhaven’s current administrative capacity: a three-person town office including himself, an accountant and front-office staff, and said the town has experience administering federal and state grants. He said that while administrative burden is real, small towns can manage projects with state technical assistance or by using retained increment to hire consultants or project managers.
Why Fairhaven matters: Gunter told the committee the proposed SPARK tool could unlock a 700-unit housing prospect that, in his view, will not occur under the status quo. He described the town’s loss of potential development revenue and the shift of some planned land to non-housing uses (for example, a utility substation).
What Fairhaven asked for: Gunter urged the committee to provide towns clarity and tools that make projects feasible, including SPARK authority or other mechanisms to assemble capital stacks and leverage state and federal planning and loan programs. He said the town is not waiting passively for help and is pursuing zoning and project-level work while requesting tools to attract private investment.
No formal actions resulted from the testimony. Committee members followed with questions about administrative capacity and whether small towns could shoulder project management; Gunter and other municipal speakers said state technical assistance and the ability to use increment for consultants could mitigate capacity constraints.
Ending: Fairhaven’s testimony reinforced the hearing’s central tension — municipalities want stronger financing tools to spur housing and redevelopment, while fiscal staff and some legislators want clearer modeling of statewide fiscal impacts before broadening increment retention authority.
