May 3, 2007

Committee Members Present: Rocky Martin, Julie Pierson, Alan Norris, Donna Constantineau, Dale Wernhoff.

Also Present: Julia Curry and Lois Holbrook of Vermont Interfaith Action

The meeting came to order at approximately 7:05 PM.

Presentation by Julia Curry and Lois Holbrook of Vermont Interfaith Action (VIA): VIA is a coalition of local congregations working towards affordable housing. VIA cares about affordable housing because they are people of faith and feel we are all neighbors who deserve a place to live that fits our finances. With that in mind VIA is developing a slide show on affordable housing that was the core of their presentation. They plan on using this slide show to spread the word on this issue to any civic or social groups that are interested.

Highlights of the slide show included a number of statistics on affordable housing (or the lack there of) in Chittenden County along with the typical arguments against affordable housing and VIA’s counterpoints to them. Examples include affordable housing increases traffic and congestion (studies show these actually decrease), affordable housing is ugly (actually available in different shapes and sizes), and that it overburdens schools and infrastructure (the higher density of affordable housing actually lowers infrastructure costs).

Additional issues raised by their presentation were the NIMBY (not in my back yard) factor, the steady expansion of Burlington area colleges is taking both existing buildings and building sites away from the available pool of potential affordable housing locations, and the Housing and Conservation Trust Fund is not fully funded which is affecting the funds available for affordable housing.

VIA current activities, besides the slide show, are negotiations with UVM Housing to get the university to provide land for low income employee housing, initiating a county wide outreach program to form alliances between town affordable housing committees, and acting as an advocate at the state level for the Housing and Conservation Trust Fund.

VIA has a meeting with UVM’s president and afterwards VIA is sponsoring a public meeting with UVM to show the university that affordable housing is an issue they should be looking at. This meeting is scheduled for June 10, 2007 and VIA would like as many people to show up as possible. Call 651-8889 or email Julia@viavt.org for more information.

Other business: Alan brought up the concern that with so many different agencies working towards affordable housing and with all these agencies having employees drawing salaries, would affordable housing be easier to achieve without all of these layers of agencies with all of their overhead.

A discussion of a replacement for Lea Cassidy (AHC Secretary, who is looking to resign) was postponed until the June 7^th meeting since the full committee was not present at tonight’s meeting.

Next Meeting –

June 7^th - Discuss plans for the town wide survey; no speaker is planned.

Respectfully submitted

Dale Wernhoff