Greensboro’s town hall could become the home of 20 new apartment units — if Greensboro residents can agree on what the historic building and surrounding green space should be used for.
Local officials and employers say the new housing would secure a stable future for the Northeast Kingdom town of about 800, attracting young families to move in and bolster its workforce and school system. But some residents believe the project is too large for their small town, and they fear that turning a treasured gathering space into a bustling residential center managed by a third party will quash the community spirit.
RuralEdge — the nonprofit that proposed the project and runs about 700 other apartment units across the Northeast Kingdom — is in the process of negotiating a purchase and sale agreement with the Greensboro selectboard that would allow the town offices to remain in the building and preserve the nearby green as a public space.
Residents of the lake community — where many others live seasonally as second home owners — will get the ultimate say on whether the project happens, however. Because the proposal involves selling a town building, residents must vote on the matter at a special or annual town meeting.
Patrick Shattuck, RuralEdge’s executive director, said rental housing is key to supporting small towns’ economies in the face of a changing housing market.
“We are feeling housing pressures in the Northeast Kingdom that many people have never seen in their lifetime,” Shattuck said. “The rapid increases in rent and the lack of supply and the impact of the secondary home market are all adding up.”
The Greensboro units — including eight one-bedroom, 10 two-bedroom and two three-bedroom apartments — would be built partially inside the town hall and partially in an addition that would double the available space at the back of the building, Shattuck said.
The proposal comes at a time when there is “constant demand” for affordable apartments, according to Shattuck. He said some local families have been on waitlists for RuralEdge apartments for years.
‘We need young families here’
The Northeast Kingdom isn’t alone in facing housing pressures. Vermont saw the highest year-over-year home appreciation rate of any state, according to a recent Federal Housing Finance Agency analysis. Many Vermonters have had to pivot to rental options as buying a home has become less accessible, Shattuck said.
In Greensboro, rental options are especially limited for year-round residents. According to the town’s 2019 housing needs assessment, 18% of its year-round housing stock is rentals, lagging behind the rest of Orleans County at 22% and Vermont as a whole at 29%.
Opportunities for renting are further squeezed by the prevalence of seasonal second homes, according to RuralEdge’s 2023 housing needs assessment, which found that about 25% of the Northeast Kingdom’s housing stock is only used seasonally. Greensboro has the highest rate of second home ownership in the state, with 81% of its housing stock used as vacation homes, according to a 2019 study conducted for a Fidelity National Mortgage Co. subsidiary.
A lack of available, affordable housing for young families creates a domino effect in which fewer new families move into town, Shattuck said. And if there are no rental properties available for older residents to downsize into, housing stock won’t turn over to families looking to purchase their first home, he added.
According to Greensboro’s housing assessment, nearly a third of its residents are 65 or older, giving the town one of the highest median ages in the state. That causes problems in hiring, local employers said in interviews, and in the school system: Lakeview Elementary, like other small Vermont schools, is questioning how long it can keep its doors open for its 27 students.
Some residents worry what the aging population means for the future of the town.
“Civil society in Greensboro is totally at risk. In 10 years, who’s going to run this town — the selectboard, the library, the fire department, all of that?” said Mateo Kehler, co-founder of Greensboro-based cheese maker Jasper Hill Farm, in an interview. “We need young families here.”
The proposed apartments would offer what Shattuck calls “modest income housing” to fill that gap in the town’s housing market. Rents would not be subsidized and would range from $833 to $1,387 a month, he said during an informational meeting about the project in April.
According to a letter submitted by Shattuck to town officials in March, the apartments would cost RuralEdge about $10 million to develop. The town wouldn’t have to contribute any finances, the letter said, and would actually get revenue from RuralEdge through property taxes.
The project would bring new purpose to an empty space, said Greensboro selectboard member Ellen Celnik. The building — which houses town offices on its lowest floor but is unoccupied in the two floors above — costs the town up to $70,000 a year to maintain, she said. With the new plan, the town would save money by paying rent to RuralEdge for the town office spaces rather than owning the entire building.
Proponents of the project say the apartments will bring broader economic benefits beyond cost savings.
Kehler said the lack of local housing has slowed his hiring — “It all means that we aren’t really able to attract people from away, because there’s nowhere to live.”
He had about 115 staff members five years ago and now struggles to keep more than 75. He’s provided temporary free housing to new hires in the past, he said, “but now all our housing is clogged up with people that have nowhere to go.”
“It’s one thing to have an economic engine in town,” Kehler continued. “But it doesn’t make any difference for Greensboro ultimately, right, if people aren’t living here, shopping here, volunteering here.”
The new housing, he suggested, could change that.
Carolyn McTigue, director of nursing at Greensboro Nursing Home, said she’s running into the same problems. Of her 48 staff members, she said four of them live in Greensboro and the rest commute from up to 45 minutes away. She’s been relying more and more on traveling nurses, she said, which cost double to triple the amount of resident nurses and drain the nursing home’s resources.
‘The center of our town’
Opponents of the proposed project acknowledge the need for housing in Greensboro, but they question if the location and the scale of the complex are beneficial for the town.
RuralEdge is proposing to build 20 apartment units at the Greensboro town hall. The units would be spread between the upper floors of the current building and an addition attached to the back of the building. Schematic design courtesy of the Town of Greensboro.
At a public meeting about the proposal in April, residents expressed their concerns that the project would put undue stress on water infrastructure, traffic patterns and parking. Many suggested the project would change the character of the town, which has been historically defined by its rural charm, according to the meeting minutes.
Elissa Mackin, a resident who was born and raised in Greensboro, is among those who worry that the apartments would take away the town’s only community gathering space.
Currently, the town hall and surrounding green space is the “focal point” of Greensboro, she said, where residents come together to celebrate holidays, run a community garden and shop at the farmers market. Within walking distance from Willey’s Store, the library, the post office and more, Mackin said the town hall is the center of Greensboro.
“What will become the center of our town if we lose this space?” Mackin asked in an interview. “How are we supposed to feel like a community if we don’t have a space to call our own?”
Mackin said residents haven’t had enough opportunities to share those concerns or learn about the project.
Greensboro’s housing committee has been working with RuralEdge since 2019, and the town hall has been considered as a location for housing since the fall of 2022, according to the April public meeting agenda. But plans for the project were not presented to Greensboro residents until Town Meeting Day in 2023. And, Mackin said, “the town has been talked to, rather than asked to engage and collaborate” at the meetings held since then — none of which have involved a town vote.
Mackin said she’s concerned by what she deems a “lack of transparency” from town officials, citing instances when town officials “refuse(d) to hear” opposing opinions at meetings and made decisions about the RuralEdge project in executive sessions. She said the lack of “up-front” information is evident in the fact that some town members still don’t know that the project is being considered — even though they will be asked to vote on it at the next annual town meeting or at a special meeting after a purchase and sale agreement has been finalized.
Celnik said the selectboard has presented information to the public as it has become available — which may have felt slow at times, she said, due to the amount of research and studies that RuralEdge has needed to conduct to prove the project is feasible.
Shattuck said he is “committed to keeping the green as a community space” and “preserving the historic integrity of the building” as he negotiates the details of the purchase and sale agreement in the coming weeks, which he hopes will ease residents’ concerns.
But Mackin said it’s difficult to trust those claims as plans are being considered to install the complex’s septic system on the town green.
“I’m not against housing. It’s not about that,” Mackin said. “It’s about the town — the people of the town — being able to make decisions about a town space.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Amid a housing crisis, Greensboro proposes putting apartments in its town hall.