House Committee on General & Housing hears regional planning director on housing targets, CHIP and ADUs

Catherine Dimitryk, executive director of the Northwest Regional Planning Commission, told the House Committee on General & Housing on May 6 that the region allocated 60% of its long-term housing targets to municipal centers and planned-growth areas with water and sewer infrastructure and spread the remaining 40% across rural areas.

"This is a planning tool," Dimitryk told the committee, describing how the regional plan — adopted in March and now before the land use review board — translates statewide targets into town-level goals and land-use mapping. She said the plan uses municipal plans as the starting point and that planned-growth areas must have the infrastructure to accommodate higher density.

The committee pressed several practical questions about how the targets were disaggregated. Dimitryk said the region used a 60/40 split for 2050 targets (60% in centers and planned-growth areas, 40% in the rest of the region) and applied finer adjustments for the nearer-term 2030 target to reflect recent growth trends. She warned that small absolute unit counts in many towns make percentage changes appear large: in some places a single development could materially change a town’s growth trajectory.

Dimitryk also described how affordability and unit mix shaped the analysis. She said the region’s 2022 housing needs analysis showed that about 60% of new households are single-person households while roughly 70% of recent housing growth had been larger single-family homes, a mismatch the plan seeks to address by encouraging a mix that includes smaller multiunit buildings, accessory dwelling units (ADUs), manufactured homes and starter units. For rental housing, the regional breakdown the witness offered aimed for 9% of new units affordable at 80% of area median income and 18% affordable at 50% of AMI.

Committee members asked whether the targets force towns to build. Dimitryk repeatedly framed targets as tools to shift community sentiment and guide municipal decision-making, not as mandates: she said only a legislative change would convert targets into requirements. "It's up to you," she told lawmakers when asked whether targets could become mandates under a future bill.

Members and the witness discussed two policies drawing local developer interest: the CHIP program and changes to Act 250 that allow certain exemptions for small projects. Dimitryk said she had heard from developers planning projects in St. Albans and surrounding towns and described those signals as evidence the market may respond when infrastructure, regulatory streamlining and gap financing align. "I'm bullish on it until proven otherwise," she said of CHIP. Local consultant Corey, who identified himself as interim town manager for Saint Albans and a developer, told the committee he was aware of an 80-unit project seeking CHIP support and several other projects — in total representing roughly 400 units of developer interest in the town.

At the same time, Dimitryk highlighted persistent barriers. She recounted an ADU pilot in which 12 homeowners applied but only four continued because costs — particularly water and wastewater upgrades and permitting complexities — made projects prohibitive. She outlined statutory constraints such as size limits (statutory ADU limits that the witness recalled as a 900-square-foot threshold or roughly 30% of the main dwelling) and an owner-occupancy requirement that can restrict how ADUs are used.

Dimitryk recommended several complementary approaches for small communities: tax-stabilization agreements, manufactured and modular housing strategies, targeted technical assistance, and making temporary Act 250 ADU exemptions permanent. She also said regional tracking will continue: the RPC had developed a housing dashboard and will report annually on progress by town, by affordability tier and by whether growth is occurring inside planned-growth areas.

The hearing closed with lawmakers and the witness agreeing to continue the discussion in future sessions; the committee recessed and scheduled the next witness to appear at 10:30.