Sweeney: Housing proposal could pull vacancy rate back from the brink

January 26, 2025  |  By Kane Sweeney

When I arrived back here in 2016, I lived on my buddy’s couch while I saved enough to get an apartment. Back then, we cooks were paid about $14 an hour ($29,120 a year), and I worked as much as I could. It only took a little over a month to save enough, find a roommate and move into a crappy apartment with holes in the walls, stained carpeting and water that never stayed hot for the duration of a five-minute shower. 

Rent for that two-bedroom crappy apartment was $1,100 a month with heat included (when it worked). That was $550 a month for my half, or about $6,600 a year. If I'm doing my math right, that was approximately 22% of my income. Well within the affordable margins set out by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, even if you exclude the full definition. 

To recreate this scenario today, we need to do some more math. Today, cooks make about $23 an hour (or $47,840 a year), and the average monthly rent on a two-bedroom apartment in Waterbury, according to Zillow, is $2,450. That's $1,225 per roommate per month. This adds up to almost exactly a third of each roommate’s income, 30% to be exact. 

This illustrates that rents have more than doubled in the last decade. This also illustrates that wages have not kept up with the cost of housing in Waterbury. However, this rent may not include heat, and the HUD definition of affordable housing includes heat, electricity and water, which would potentially drive that ratio up to almost 40%. 

The larger problem that has arisen in Waterbury isn't simply the lack of affordable options, but the lack of any rental housing at all. As I’m sure most readers will have their own theories about what has caused wages to fall behind rents or what exactly happened to all the rentals in Waterbury, I will say this: a healthy vacancy rate is 5%. Ours is nearly 0.

At this point, it doesn't matter what has caused this crisis; what matters is how we solve it. What matters is making sure Waterbury does what it does best. It circles the wagons and lifts up the community.

Right now, there is quite a to-do over a proposed project at the site of the former Stanley and Wasson Halls at the state complex. The developer DEW Construction has proposed a project that seems large by Waterbury’s standards; however could very well pull that vacancy rate back from the brink. 

Before I continue, I should note that I recognize that there are opponents to this proposed project, and we hear you. Your concern about building in a floodplain is valid. Something I’ve said publicly and something I'll repeat now is that, if I don't feel that their design meets the criteria set out by the Select Board and, to an extent, the state, I will vote no to send them back to the drawing board. If their proposal does not include a multitude of affordable and senior units, I will vote no. 

There is no universe in which I would vote yes on something that I felt would add undue burdens to the residents of Waterbury, or if I get a whiff that we may have a CityPlace situation on our hands. There are, in reality, far more reasons that I would vote no than reasons that I would vote yes. You may call me a housing hardliner, and you’d be right to say so. I firmly believe that housing is a human right. However, I don't believe in developers taking advantage of communities, and I don't believe a new development of exclusively market-rate housing units will do anything positive to meet the immediate housing needs of Waterbury’s working people, as I illustrated in the above paragraphs. 

Now, back to the proposed project: The developer gave the Select Board a rough estimate of 90 units with a mix of market-rate, affordable and senior housing. That may seem like a lot of units at a glance, but what needs to be taken into account is the 200 short-term rentals that operate in Waterbury throughout the year. Now it feels like more of a drop in the bucket, doesn't it? I don't know how many of those short-term rentals used to be long-term, and I’m not writing this to make myself a target of Vermont Short-Term Rental Alliance ire. So we’ll skip the debate over the morality of short-term rentals at large, and I will simply say that there are short-term rentals on the market in Waterbury that used to be long-term rentals. Every time that switch happens, the remaining long-term rentals on the market become more valuable, and it drives the price up. So, in theory, 90 units coming online at once should shock the system and stabilize rents. 

There are certainly other reasons to add housing to Waterbury other than rent stabilization. As inflation drives prices higher and higher, so go your taxes. If more property owners, more buildings and more development are added to the pool, the more taxes the town can collect without having to raise tax rates past inflation. To be clear, I'm talking about municipal taxes specifically, as I do not serve on the school board, nor do I wish to. What's important is to make sure that the Select Board’s policies reflect both working-class positive housing policies and to make sure that working-class homeowners are not punished financially by these policies. Big housing developments are the best way to do that right now, in my estimation. 

I see this project as the circle-the-wagons option that has the best potential for benefitting Waterbury’s working people, and I’m asking you to support it. We have a chance to make Waterbury affordable for everyone. I really hope we can seize it and continue to equalize opportunities for everyone in Waterbury. 

Kane Sweeney is vice chair of the Waterbury Select Board.