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New statewide housing dashboard rolled out; municipalities asked to review by Dec. 1
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Summary
CCRPC staff and VCGI demonstrated a new statewide housing data dashboard designed to meet Act 181 reporting; municipalities were asked to review and submit corrections by Dec. 1, 2025, as partners work to add CAMA data and improved change detection.
CCRPC staff on Oct. 8 heard a demonstration of housing.mapvt.com, a new statewide housing data dashboard developed by the Vermont Center for Geographic Information (VCGI) with the Department for Community Development and Housing (DHCD) and the Vermont Housing Finance Agency (VHFA) to support Act 181 reporting.
"The Census’s building permit survey has only a 17% response rate in Vermont," VCGI’s John Adams told the Planning Advisory Committee, explaining why VCGI used E‑911 addressing as the dashboard’s foundation and plans to add other sources such as municipal CAMA (appraisal) data.
Why it matters: Act 181 requires annual tracking of municipal housing targets. The dashboard centralizes multiple data feeds and a feedback tool so town officials can flag inaccuracies. CCRPC staff said the dashboard will help municipalities and state agencies track progress as housing targets are finalized next year.
Presenters from CCRPC and VCGI described current and planned data inputs. Adams said E‑911 updates are currently processed on a weekly cadence and that VCGI is partnering with the UVM Spatial Analysis Lab on an imagery-based change detection project to generate more frequent flags when new buildings appear. VCGI staff also noted Green Mountain Power connection data may be useful; Vermont Division of Fire Safety data currently lack usable spatial addressing but an overhaul of that system may improve identification of buildings with more than four units.
Town staff described early use of the feedback workflow. Harmony Cism (Westford) said she built a step into her certificate-of-occupancy process to enter new units into the tool and found it easier than compiling data annually, though she reported seeing some inaccuracies. VCGI’s Ian Knapp demonstrated the feedback interface and clarified that to tag affordable units in a single structure staff must enter separate records for affordable and market-rate units.
Committee members pressed for clarity on how "affordable" will be defined in the dataset. Knapp said the definition is still open-ended; Melanie Needle (CCRPC) said she will share CCRPC’s prior methodology with VCGI to help refine standards. Adams said housing funded by VHFA or VHCB and other state-funded projects will be tagged as "affordable" once a data standard is in place.
CCRPC staff requested that municipalities review the dashboard and provide edits. "Please look at [the] feedback tool by December 1, 2025," Needle said, outlining next steps and offering technical assistance from VCGI and CCRPC staff. DHCD’s Nate Formalarie told the committee DHCD must now report annually on housing development and hopes to align an annual municipal review deadline with DHCD’s reporting timetable.
What’s next: CCRPC staff advised municipalities to use the feedback tool to submit corrections; VCGI plans to integrate additional data sources and imagery change detection to improve update cadence. CCRPC earlier noted it will finalize municipal housing targets after the regional future land use map is settled, likely in early 2026.