Affordable Housing Project Moves Forward

You don't see a lot of housing construction these days. But a project in Milton, known as Cameron's Run, is an exception.

The development calls for 50 units of mixed housing, including market rate, senior retirement and affordable-- the affordable as part of the Champlain Housing Trust.

Development partner Don Turner estimates that in Milton, the real estate market for mid-priced homes is down around 5 percent and prospective homebuyers look carefully at the cost.

"Everything seems to be priced relative," Turner said. "If the price is good-- the people are interested. If it's just over that, forget it. They're not going to buy it."

The developers say land trust home sales here have actually picked up over the past year, although this housing development was already under construction when the recession hit. Still, the builders think Vermont's housing market overall may be very close to hitting bottom.

But the recession still leaves most housing construction in limbo. Erhard Mahnke of the Affordable Housing Coalition says even after the Vermont legislature overrode the governor's budget veto, spending on the state's main affordable housing program, the Housing and Conservation Board, was cut substantially.

"This year, they got about half of the flexible state funding that they got last year," Mahnke said. "There's been some backfilling with federal recovery dollars and other federal monies. But basically, you're looking at probably half of the production that we were able to do annually over the past few years."

It means that affordable housing production in Vermont will drop from an average of 300 to 500 units a year to about half that. Housing construction loans through the USDA's Rural Development office have slowed to a trickle.

"I think maybe I made one loan in the past two years, and two in the past four years, I believe," said Steve Campbell of USDA Rural Development.

Meanwhile, Don Turner says Cameron's Run is on track.

"Everything that we had planned is coming to fruition, so we're happy about that," Turner said. "And probably not as fast as we wanted, but it's taking time. But we're willing to be patient and work through this."