Windham Regional Commission outlines practical steps towns can take to expand housing

Matt Bachler, senior planner at the Windham Regional Commission, and Sue Westa, the commission’s associate director for community development, led a workshop for towns in the Windham region explaining the municipal actions that can support more housing.

Bachler said the workshop was intended to help town leaders and staff understand what local governments can realistically do amid a statewide housing shortage. "There is a statewide housing crisis and a very urgent need to provide additional housing to help bring down housing costs," he said, noting that the regional plan update must incorporate housing targets from the Vermont Housing Finance Agency under Act 181 (2024).

Those targets, Bachler said, include a range for the Windham region of roughly 2,500 to 3,700 housing units by 2030 and about 8,000 to more than 15,000 units by 2050, depending on growth assumptions. He emphasized that those figures account in part for an existing deficit of housing in the region.

Why it matters

Westa told participants that the targets are planning guidance rather than mandatory quotas but that towns’ zoning, infrastructure, and intermunicipal cooperation will affect whether the region can approach the goals. "One of the primary services we provide to communities is technical assistance," Westa said, listing zoning bylaw updates, town plan updates, infrastructure planning, and brownfields funding as examples of support WRC provides.

Key municipal tools

- Infrastructure: WRC staff urged towns to consider public water and wastewater when planning for higher-density housing and recommended preliminary engineering reports to define needs, build community support, and qualify for larger grants. Bachler said such projects are multi-year and expensive; he cited a village wastewater program he identified in the transcript as "Londereerry" that received a little more than $4 million in ARPA funds and is about to begin construction.

- Financing programs: Presenters described multiple funding sources—federal and state grants, the Northern Borders Regional Commission, and the state Clean Water Revolving Loan Fund—and gave a brief overview of the Community Housing Infrastructure Program (CHIP), which uses project-based tax-increment financing: towns lead CHIP applications with developers, extend infrastructure to enable development, and use new property tax revenue from that development to repay infrastructure costs over time. WRC pointed participants to Vermont League of Cities and Towns (VLCT) webinars and staff for technical assistance on CHIP.

- Local financing and incentives: Towns can donate or discount municipal land, establish local revolving loan funds (municipal or nonprofit-managed) to cover predevelopment or bridge costs, and consider tax stabilization measures or density bonuses to encourage affordable units. Westa and participants described an example in which a town-supported nonprofit received ARPA funds ($50,000 in the example cited) to operate a revolving loan fund used as bridge financing for housing projects.

- Zoning and permitting: Bachler urged regular updates to land use regulations to align dimensional requirements with village-scale lot patterns, permit accessory dwelling units, allow small multifamily buildings as permitted uses (rather than conditional uses), and streamline administrative approvals to reduce uncertainty and speed permitting.

- Consensus building and regional coordination: Westa recommended local housing committees, intermunicipal cooperation (for example, Deerfield Valley towns working together), and use of state toolkits—Homes for All and the 802 Homes ready-to-build catalog—to support small-scale infill and ready-to-build designs.

Act 181, Act 250 exemptions and designation program

Bachler summarized recent state changes: Act 181 (2024) requires regional planning commissions to incorporate statewide housing targets and created targeted exemptions to Act 250 permitting for some housing projects. He explained two exemption tiers: Tier 1A (full exemption) and Tier 1B (housing-specific exemption for up to 50 dwelling units on 10 acres or less), subject to statutory criteria. Eligibility depends on whether areas are mapped as village centers, downtown centers, planned growth, or village areas, and on local regulatory capacity and infrastructure. WRC staff said only a limited number of towns will initially qualify but that WRC will assist towns after the regional plan is adopted by amending maps and supporting applications.

Westa also outlined reforms to the state designation program (now centers and neighborhoods) and said participating communities can access state affordable housing funding priorities, state water/wastewater fee reductions, and property tax incentives for rehabilitation work in designated areas.

Questions and local examples

During Q&A, attendees asked about smaller-scale or "cluster" wastewater systems, local revolving loan funds, tax stabilization, and rehabbing vacant homes. Bachler and Westa confirmed municipal village-scale wastewater systems and smaller communal septic systems both exist and described differing ownership models (municipal systems, developer-managed systems later run by homeowner associations, or nonprofit-managed revolving funds). Stanley recounted multi-lot developments with deeded access to a community septic system overseen by homeowner committees; Edie (Halifax) described vacancy inventories and a UVM resource for dealing with abandoned homes.

What happens next

WRC staff said they will continue outreach as they complete the regional plan and stand ready to help towns with zoning updates, subdivision bylaws, mapping for designation/exemption eligibility, and examples/templates for loan funds and tax stabilization measures. Staff closed by encouraging attendees to follow up with WRC for templates and technical assistance.

Ending

The workshop emphasized municipal, intermunicipal, and state-level tools—particularly infrastructure investments, zoning reforms, and financing mechanisms—that towns can use to support housing production in the Windham region while noting the limits of local authority in the face of broader market and economic conditions.