“Coming together is a beginning.
Keeping together is progress.
Working together is success.”
— Henry Ford
Affordable Housing (Saturday AM)
Participants:
Facilitator/Scribe David/Corin
Barbara Gilmore Milton Gilmore Greg Brown Jane Noyes Pat Munson Diana Wahle Richard Epstein Cindy Jerome John Wilcox Kim Amanna Bob Suitor
We broke our broad topic up into three parts:
1) Senior Housing
2) Intergenerational Housing
3) Young Family Housing
1) Senior Housing Discussion Points
A) A facility with services – this is expensive to develop – it
requires a larger population than Dummerston to sustain
B) In-Home Services – many residents want to stay in their homes
as long as possible which depends on having a pool of caregivers available.
In our region, this caregivers pool is weak due to low pay, high turnover,
lack of good benefits and professional development.
C) Recommendation to have Town offer a tax break for families that
require in-home health care.
D) Recommendation to have more education in town on end-of-life
care
2) Intergenerational Housing Discussion Points – we need appropriate
housing for people of all ages (and incomes)
A) Universal Design – construction choices (lever doorknobs, wide
doorways) that work for the very young and the very old and disabled.
B) Intergenerational Housing: Combine the need for senior housing
(over 55) with young family housing
C) Plan village style cluster development
D) Sustainable funding – taxes
E) Make it affordable
F) Energy efficient - appropriate scale and economy
G) P.U.D. (Planned Unit Development)
H) Zoning approvals
I) Research different physical models: Co-Housing
- Burlington and Amherst examples include a series of apartments
clustered together with common room, weekly communal meal, shared utility
cost.
- Trend for elders to move to “cities” to access services. Instead,
encourage intergenerational family living. Use existing villages as focus
for development.
3) Young Family Housing Discussion Points
Site housing on a major road that has public transportation and
is near the school.
Young mothers may be interested in being paid to provide care to
their elderly neighbors.
We closed our discussion with agreement to target Intergenerational
Affordable Housing. A next step would be to create a Housing Commission/Housing
Advisory Committee in Dummerston that would serve all age groups. Windham
Regional Commission has information on the creation of Housing Committees.
INTERGENERATIONAL AFFORDABLE HOUSING
IMPACT High Town build facilityPrivate Investment Land TrustHousing
Advisory CommitteeEducate the Community
IMPACT Medium Maple Valley DevelopmentMixed UseSocially Responsible
Selling Habitat for Humanity
IMPACT Low Tax IncentivesSubsidized HousingCo-Housing
Low Medium High
FEASIBILITY FEASIBILITY FEASIBILITY
INTERGENERATIONAL AFFORDABLE HOUSING:
Summary of Our Priorities For Voting Purposes
Create a Housing Advisory Committee for the Town of Dummerston
with the following tasks:
· Community education on housing issues to allay fears of who this
would attract
· Collaboration with the Brattleboro Area Community Land Trust
· Promotion of Maple Valley Development – multiple use (housing,
recreation, café)
· Promotion of socially responsible selling
· Design of tax incentives
· Development of subsidized housing projects
· Recruitment of private investment
This topic received a high vote tally: 80