Winooski City Council updates initiatives for affordable housing

The backside of The Cascades Condominiums overlooking the Winooski River. Photo by Catherine Morrissey

Winooski City Council members heard an overview of updates to the city’s affordable housing guidelines at their mid-April meeting and approved changes to expand options for aspiring homeowners.

Jazmine Hurley, housing initiative director, presented the council with the latest initiatives of the Housing Trust Fund, which launched in 2019 to provide less-costly opportunities for current and future Winooski homebuyers. The fund offers financial assistance for housing expenses, to create new units and to improve existing ones. Through loans and grants, first-time homebuyers can receive services such as down payment assistance and interest-rate buydown.

Winooski officials, like many across Vermont, have sought solutions for housing challenges in the city for several years. The council looked to provide necessary adjustments and clean-up to the trust fund, appropriately responding to recent inquiries by the public.

The fund previously included three programs that align with this objective. It already offered help with construction and rehabilitation, housing improvement and down payment assistance. A fourth initiative, the Interest Rate Buydown program, was introduced to the fund in December of 2023. The program assists low to moderate-income individuals looking to purchase their first home. The program helps by lowering mortgage increase rates for the first five years.

The new guidelines followed the council’s changes in rules for short-term rentals in the city. In February, the council adjusted license fees for owners of short-term rentals such as Airbnb properties, and the funds generated by those fees will help pay for the housing-assistance programs.

Hurley said she plans to give the new Housing Trust Fund initiatives a marketing push now that the council has approved them. The goal is to attract more homebuyers to live in Winooski.

The council also heard from Vermont Agency of Transportation representatives, who attended the meeting remotely to continue discussion of the Burlington-Winooski Bridge project. The council had raised concerns about right-of-way costs, expenses related to what land may or may not be used for transportation purposes, in a previous meeting and delayed their vote on the project’s financing.

At the most recent meeting, the council unanimously approved the finance and maintenance agreement for the bridge project. The city will continue to negotiate the right-of-way work with VTrans, leaving parts of the agreement subject to change. 

For more information about Housing Trust Fund policies, visit https://winooskivt.gov/1543/Winooski-Housing-Trust-Fund.