Report: challenges and opportunities for increasing the supply of accessory dwelling units

Recent legislative changes at the state level have aimed to ease restrictions on Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) development in Vermont. ADUs are gaining interest from local groups seeking to increase the supply of affordable housing in their communities. With their capacity for affordable housing development and management, Affordable Housing Trusts like Addison County Community Trust (ACCT) are potentially poised to help in this effort.

This report is the second in the series of reports produced by ACCT's Privilege and Poverty intern, Ella Jones from Middlebury College. Ella explored various program models to determine the feasibility of ACCT creating a similar program in Addison County. Through her research and interviews with various program officials, she determined that in the current construction environment, the amount of support ACCT would need to provide, both for up-front costs and ongoing property management, makes ADU development unlikely to be an effective tool for stimulating affordable housing development.

While our exploration of this topic did not yield promising results for ACCT, there are several avenues that Addison County might consider moving forward:

• Employer partnerships to address the workforce housing crisis;
• Targeted outreach to homeowners with the potential to convert existing finished spaces (such as walk-out basements) to ADUs, as these conversions are the most economically feasible and therefore most likely to come to fruition.
  
• Incentives to existing ADU owners who use them as short-term rentals (STR) to convert them to long-term rentals at affordable rates.
  

To learn more, read Ella's full report or our Executive Summary.