Winooski looks at ways to boost family-size rental housing stock

Graphics by Heather Carrington

Amid a shortage of affordable, family-size rental units in the city, the Winooski Housing Commission is taking a data-driven approach to incentivize developers to build larger units.

 “About 55.6% of our rentals are one-bedroom or smaller, whereas Chittenden County [the average] would be 36.9%,” said Heather Carrington, Winooski’s Community and Economic Development Officer and the creator of the Housing Commission.

“As a refugee resettlement community, when you have larger families coming in and you have great affordable housing, but it’s all one-bedroom or studio housing, that’s a problem,” said Carrington.

Carrington explained why constructing larger units is not feasible for developers, who see smaller units as more lucrative.

“When you build a one-bedroom unit and you look at what price you can charge for that—in Chittenden county on average that would be a little over $1,000,” Carrington said. “Whereas if you build a three-bedroom the median rental would be about $1,500—but you’ve doubled the space that you’re using, you may have doubled the number of parking spaces that you have to build, you’ve doubled the amount of construction materials that you need to purchase, so it just doesn’t pencil out.”

And the percentage of one-bedroom or smaller units is only going up. Of the 173 rental units developed in the city over the past two years, 84% have been one-bedroom or studio units, while the remainder have been two-bedroom units—while zero have been the three-bedroom or larger units better suited for a family.

Robert Millar, the Housing Commission’s Chairman, noted that he believes it is important that the Housing Commission “is not just reacting to our perceptions or anecdotal evidence,” but is instead striving to be “a data-driven commission.”

 Along with the American Community Survey data from the US Census compiled by Carrington, the Housing Commission has been making use of an online inclusionary housing calculator to determine which types of incentives can be most impactful for encouraging the development of larger unit projects.

“We’re looking at tax incentives—although that seems unlikely to be recommended out of the commission—we’re looking at density bonuses, which we already have in the city; parking waivers, which is a pretty big cost for construction” said City Councilor Jim Duncan. “Then waiving some fees around development like impact fees.”

A top consideration for the Housing Commission at the moment is a reduced parking minimum requirement.

While it is currently required that approximately 1.25 parking spaces be constructed per unit, 80% of rental households in the city have zero cars—and Carrington said she believes it would be sensible “if we got those required minimums down to closer alignment with the number of people who have cars.” 

The construction of parking spaces also incurs a hefty cost for developers.

“A parking space actually costs tens of thousands of dollars, particularly if you’re talking about a garage or an under-building sort of situation. So just reducing those parking minimums even a little bit could make a huge difference,” said Millar.

Millar and Carrington each noted that pursuing this incentive as a solution would not exacerbate parking issues in the city.

“There is a perception that there’s a parking problem in Winooski, and I think a lot of that come from our downtown where people are not aware that there is a 913 space parking garage in the middle of our downtown. We masked it really well… people just don’t know it’s there,” said Carrington.

Duncan and Millar are also hopeful for the impact the city’s housing trust fund could have on the issue.

“We’ve spent a lot of time in particular in building a housing trust fund… I think that’s one of the things that we’ve worked on that has the most potential to affect affordable housing,” Millar said. “The first thing you’ll hear from any developer is that it’s money—it’s more money. That’s where the housing trust fund could potentially come in.” 

Duncan believes that federal funding coming into the city for pandemic relief may, too, be able to jump-start the process of developing larger, family-size rental units in the city. Millar said that there has been a longstanding lack of funding for housing.

“It always comes back to funding. And not just for individual developments, but there’s just a lack of funding on a federal and state level for affordable housing development—and there has been for decades,” said Millar.