Housing 12/9/25

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Town of Richmond Housing Committee Meeting Minutes

Date: December 9, 2025

Time Started: 7:03

Time Ended: 8:36

Present: Virginia Clarke, Mark Hall (Chair), Mairead O’Reilly, Connie van Eeghen

Guest: Bonnie Waninger, VLCT

Absent: Nick Blanchet, Andrew Mannix

Committee is approved at 5 members, 2 alternates (5/16/22); quorum is 3

1. Welcome and troubleshooting (0:00:00)
2. Revisions to Agenda – none
3. Approval of the October 28, 2025 meeting minutes (0:00:01)
   1. Accepted as written
4. Bonnie Waninger – VT League of Cities and Towns – intro to VLCT  (0:00:02)
   1. VLCT is a non-profit, member owned organization serving all VT cities and towns
   2. Provides support, knowledge, legal, and other services
      1. Insurance
      2. Legal opinions
      3. Human Resources
      4. Various experts on governance at state and local levels, including funding ideas (Bonnie herself, who lives in Richmond)
   3. Bonnie saw our interest in creating a resource for a housing fund in the Housing Strategic Plan
   4. Bonnie was welcomed and will participate in the agenda item on the new Planning Document
5. Update on Water and  Sewer Commission  Meeting on Dec. 1 (0:00:05)
   1. The Water and Sewer Commission  was planning to talk about the sewer line extension for the Gateway, which has many obstacles
   2. Discussion moved to the policy on funding for new extensions by new customers only
   3. Superintendent of Water Resources noted that the septic pump from the south to the north side of the river, where the treatment plant is, needs to be replaced/upgraded and that engineer recommendation was to increase pump capacity from 100 to 600 households. However, there is no plan for hooking new housing up to the water system. He will gather more information.
   4. Chair of the Committee (Morgan Wolaver) is interested in developing this and invited us to meet every six weeks with them; we could follow up with him.
   5. Options around changing the policy or funding alternate funding exist. The new water tower was paid for in small part  by the entire town because that tower services the Fire Department in the case of a house fire anywhere. The costs of making changes are high, which make many voters reject any changes.
   6. In the past, the mobile home park once asked for water service for 160 units, which was denied, resulting in a separate, private system for water and no interest in the town water service. Afterwards, other companies on the Gateway put in their own systems (gas station, doggie day care…) until there were only 8 homes as candidates for access to the town system.
   7. Only one side of the Gateway can be developed, limiting the number of customers possible to serve, but there may be new units to be built in the mobile home park.
   8. Next steps: Mairead will create a draft email to the W&S Commission  for Virginia and Andrew to approve.
6. Update on CHIP meeting from Oct. 29th  (0:31:00)
   1. More in depth guidance coming and additional meetings in the future; this could provide a significant benefit to any town with a developer ready to add  housing after completing an infrastructure project
   2. Bonnie: The Vermont Economic Progress Council, which will manage the CHIP program, has scheduled 3 webinars in January: Community and Housing Infrastructure Program (CHIP) | Agency of Commerce and Community Development
      1. Yesterday, VLCT was awarded a 3-year grant to train municipalities to use CHIP.
      2. VLCT can’t develop the application but can assist; towns  can hire consultants to work on this
      3. Towns pay down the debt through future incremental tax revenues
   3. Mairead and Connie will attend the next three CHIP webinars in January
7. Review new Planning Documents for Strategic Housing Plan Recommendations  (0:42:00)
   1. Review of Recommendations (narrative and spreadsheet)
   2. Funding items
      1. Create a housing trust fund: Bonnie has not worked on this idea in the past but there may be guidance on the VLCT website
      2. Develop infrastructure via CHIP (see above)
   3. Bonnie: most important starting point is community conversations, perhaps for 3-5 years, before starting decision making on a project. There are informal leaders in the community, usually about 12-15, who are the influencers. Build support through developers that the town can support. Educate formal leaders.
      1. Actions to Enable Housing Development in Your Community | Vermont League of Cities and Towns
         1. This includes “Create a Housing Trust Fund”
      2. This is from Massachusetts: Creating a Housing Trust Fund – Housing Toolbox
      3. “Incremental Development” in Rockingham VT: 2-24 units of housing
         1. “Homes for All” is doing developer training for Incremental Development
         2. Webpage: Incremental Development Alliance, which is member based
      4. Bonnie will add to the spreadsheet to identify resources that can support our work
   4. This work is part of the Town Plan; supporting its passage at Town Meeting Day would help our work go forward
      1. January 5 – 1^st hearing by SB on the second draft, amended with public comments
         1. This is another opportunity for public comments, not a review of the whole plan
         2. Will review the amendments, but the focus is public comments and possibly new amendments
      2. January 21 – 2^nd hearing to put the final draft  on the ballot  for Town Meeting in March
8. New Housing Committee chairperson (0:1:06:00)
   1. No chair person was identified; the group will self-manage without one
9. Review RHC OneDrive as Mark transitions from the committee (1:11:00)
   1. Strategic Plan documents and presentations
   2. Tier 1B discussion and letter to SB
   3. CCRPC Housing Topics
   4. Town Plan working folder
   5. Annual report updates
   6. Compiled Richmond  Housing Data
   7. Housing Study
   8. Created One Pages and Materials
   9. Examples of Support
   10. Housing Committee Chart
   11. Agendas
   12. Found Resources
       1. Issues: Mairead has continual problems with access to these files; she will follow up w/ Duncan
10. Other business, correspondence, and adjournment (1:21:00)
    1. Next meeting options: Connie will check with Andrew on available times between 9-3
    2. Proposed agenda to include: Water Sewer Commission (Mairead), CHIP webinars (Connie), prioritize strategic plan items, recruitment
    3. Agreed to adjourn at: 8:36

Recorded by Connie van Eeghen