By Joel Banner Baird, Free Press Staff Writer • May 31, 2009
Flotillas of sofas strapped atop hatchbacks offer clues. Still-to-be sorted piles of possessions on porches and lawns hint at the annual scramble in full swing.

The rental trucks are a dead giveaway.

Beginning this weekend, a hefty portion of Queen City residents submit to a frantic rental roulette.

Leases expire, new leases are signed; safety deposits are transferred to new landlords.

Thursday, Stuart Jackson, 20, a University of Vermont junior with a South Union Street address, accelerated the process. He went online and found a more desirable dwelling on Greene Street; “a more college-student environment,” he said.

Jackson said he was optimistic about his move to the northeast quadrant of downtown Burlington, a student-rich quarter termed, often affectionately, as a “ghetto.”

The neighborhood’s appeal to students are obvious: it’s within an easy walk to urban diversions as well as the campuses of the UVM, Champlain College, Community College of Vermont and Burlington College.

The young demographic gravitates to (and contributes to) the city’s lively, walkable center.

Friday, Jackson and his roommate, Henry Lindon, 22, hauled the last of their belongings into Lindon’s SUV. Jackson paused as he slid what he called an underused fishing rod at the cargo’s summit.

“We’ve got to be out of here by 8 o’clock Saturday morning,” he said, “And I can’t move into the new place until Monday.”

He’d already phoned around to ask about self-storage units. The nearest facility with a vacancy was Leo’s Self Storage, in Essex.

Living in limbo

Calls to self-storage facilities confirmed Jackson’s findings. Douglas Greig, manager of Burlington Self Storage (in South Burlington) said of 475 units, he had only two very large spaces available.

“If I had another 50 to 100 smaller units here, I could rent them right now,” he said.

Parents phone him as early as March to inquire about availability. He takes their numbers and calls back when space opens up. Some rent units year-round for their acquisitive offspring.

Michael O’Leary, who manages Easy Self Storage in South Burlington, said his facility was likewise “stuffed” with college students’ (and other renters’) belongings.

Parents are often too happy to foot the bill, he added.

“The majority of them don’t want to take their kids’ stuff home,” he said.

How low can we go?

Students provide Burlington with “a steady stream of demand,” said Mark Brooks, a real estate analyst and principle in South Burlington-based Allen & Brooks.

As the most conspicuous and seasonal of Burlington’s migrants, students have perennially triggered discussions over the availability of apartments, he said.

The urgency of those discussions often hinges on a few numbers, and Brooks supplied them on a single, simple chart: Compared with the national average of 10 percent for rental housing vacancies (and a 3.5 percent average for Vermont), Burlington residents contend with an average vacancy rate of about 1.5 percent.

Brooks said he had no simple explanation for the Queen City’s dubious distinction. But, he added, Vermont’s time-consuming permitting process for new construction probably results in proportionally larger logjams in the state’s biggest city.

By another standard, he continued, small is not beautiful: Large-scale developers haven’t rushed here to build apartments for the modest (by national standards) college-student population around Burlington.

Other recent anecdotal evidence points to “more price-sensitive” rental consumers, Brooks said, adding that the phenomenon might be “a hiccup” rather than a solid trend.

But, he added, the current financial downturn would certainly account for parents of college students hoping to trim housing allowances.

Civic duties

Most Burlington renters will remain in “a real crunch” until the University of Vermont and Champlain College provide more attractive on- or near-campus apartment housing, said the city’s Assistant Director for Housing & Neighborhood Revitalization, Brian Pine, this week.

Thursday, he summarized recent letters of understanding between the city and both institutions that formalize a strategy linking dorm room (or apartment) construction directly to enrollment growth.

Most dramatically, UVM agrees to increase its on-campus bed-count by about 160 by this fall; another 400 at the beginning of the 2011 academic year.

The agreement with Champlain College aims to slow — and reverse — the school’s sprawl into neighboring communities.

Pine said the memorandums might promote improved town-gown relations.

“In the 1990s, when UVM was in the midst of leadership transitions, housing was largely forgotten or opposed,” he said.

Past time

A 1998 real estate study, “The Impact of the University of Vermont on Housing in Burlington,” completed by Allen & Cable (now Allen & Brooks) for the city found “a direct relationship” between rental rates and student density.

“The current level of student demand serves to inflate rents and lower vacancies in the Burlington market,” the study states, adding that the city benefited, at least in part:

“In turn, the higher rents translate to higher property values, which serve to increase the City’s taxable grand list and property tax revenues,” it states.

Fifteen years earlier, a city study explored the nature of what seemed then — as now — to be an upward spiral in rents, where “student purchasing power” inflates the market.”

“Landlords tend to use what a student is willing to pay as a benchmark for setting higher appraisal values when rental real estate changes hands,” the 1983 document continues, “and rents must be raised to amortize those transactions.”

Some landlords, the study added, might find themselves with “little incentive to properly maintain their properties.”

Collegial approaches

Burlington’s “crunch” is not confined to the student district, Pine said; tenant families with children contribute their share to properties’ wear and tear.

Because building inspections are designed only to maintain minimum codes of health and safety in a structure, Burlington’s quality of life for renters ultimately depends on new construction, he added.

“Housing shortage results in lowered quality,” he continued. “As a renter, you’re going to take what you can get. A shortage of supply takes away all the bargaining power a renter might have. Market forces alone aren’t going to improve the condition of rental units. It’s a race to the bottom.”

Yet Pine said he was encouraged by a common sense of purpose by the city, UVM and Champlain.

“We’re all developing a more collegial approach these days. It’s really just a challenge now,” he said.

Tom Gustafson, UVM’s vice president for student and campus life, seconded that.

“We’d love to work with some private developers in order to migrate some of these students out of the Victorian houses,” he said.

“We’re making some progress. The problem is finding the resources and the room to do it,” he continued. “And the challenge, of course, is it has to be attractive to students.”

Stay or go?

On Friday, as Jackson and Lindon hauled their belongings to Essex, Spencer Richter, 22, cleaned out his remaining possessions from an adjacent apartment.

The rental truck parked outside was nearly full.

Richter, who graduated this year from Champlain College with a degree in hotel and restaurant management, said the vehicle allowed him to hedge bets between several housing options he’d entertained for the past month or so.

On Thursday afternoon, he’d settled on a four-way share of a house on Williams Street. The truck would serve as a mobile storage unit until Monday — the day he can move in.

Richter’s shuffle won’t end with his upcoming one-year lease. His job at Loretta’s Restaurant in Essex ends in late September, as will some catering work in Stowe.

He whistled his dog back inside and wondered aloud: How and when he might best sublet his new lodging to yet another transient tenant.

See the rest of this article here

By Matt Ryan, Free Press Staff Writer •

ESSEX JUNCTION — The owners of a student housing complex in Essex Junction have begun to plan for life after those students leave.

Last month, the New England Culinary Institute decided to move its 120 students living in the village to its Montpelier campus by September. Their departure will leave behind 13 buildings on Franklin Street near downtown Essex Junction — buildings village officials hope fill up soon.
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Kurt Montgomery, vice president of 222 Franklin Inc. of Essex Junction, which owns the property, said his company intends to convert the nine dormitories into one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. The company has no plans for the four administrative buildings located in a mixed-use commercial zone, Montgomery said.

After a series of meetings with NECI officials, 222 Franklin Inc. agreed to terminate the institute’s leases, some of which ran through 2017. Construction of the campus began in 1996, when NECI moved to Essex, and continued through last year.

“It’s in our best interest to move forward and make these conversions,” Montgomery said, adding, “It is unfortunate for us.”

Converting the dormitories will involve moving around partitions and refurbishing the apartments, he said.

“I’m anticipating in six months, we’ll fill the units; that’s a guess,” Montgomery said. “We have other rentals in the area that have done well.”

Village trustee George Tyler said he welcomed more housing to the area, but wanted to see the administrative buildings put to good use.

“I would like to see some businesses in there as well,” Tyler said. “We need to expand the tax base.”

Village President Larry Yandow said he would like to see students from another school live in the dormitories.

“I would like to see another campus situation,” Yandow said. “NECI’s been awfully good down there. I would like to see the same situation.”

Montgomery said his company rents other property to Vermont Technical College students, and might consider renting the NECI campus to more students.

The Essex (formally The Inn at Essex) will retain NECI chefs and pick up 20 to 40 paid interns from the institute to fill the void of the departing students, said Jim Glanville, the culinary resort’s general manager.

Contact Matt Ryan at 651-4849 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it To get Free Press headlines delivered free to your e-mail, sign up at www.burlingtonfreepress.com/newsletters.

By John Briggs • Free Press Staff Writer • April 9, 2009

The residential portion of Ward 1, which houses many college students in sometimes ramshackle rental housing, has a parking problem.

Up and down Weston, Loomis, Isham and other streets in the Ward, the yards of house after house have been converted into parking lots, and the public greenbelts — the space between the sidewalk and the curb — into expanded muddy driveways.

Caryn Long and Sandy Wynne, both of whom say they have complained fruitlessly to the city for years, fault landlords. The absentee owners squeeze too many tenants into single-family houses turned into student tenements and ignore city rules on care of greenbelts and backyard — and, in some cases — front yard parking. But their special ire is reserved for the city’s Code Enforcement office.

The Code office, they say, has been aware for years of the parking and other Code violations in Ward 1 but has been, at best, lackadaisical in enforcement, weak in follow-through, and apparently indifferent to the concerns of permanent residents.

In addition to the aesthetic concerns — the violations make parts of the ward seem slum-like and untended — the use of yards as parking lots insures run-off pollution into Lake Champlain.

The house at the corner of Looms and N. Union Street — a house Wynne describes as “my favorite,” — had a row of cars Wednesday in its front yard. The curb in front was smashed down, and the greenbelt had become the residents’ driveway.

Beyond the parking issues, with cars and SUVs crammed into muddy, rutted backyards, many houses seem in violation of other city ordinances. A house at 55 Loomis Street, for example, has a large rental banner across it’s front offering “1-2-3-4-5BDR Apartments” with leases starting June 1. The sign was posted last year and stayed up for months, Long said. .

Long said she complained again this year when the banner reappeared and received a letter from the Code office, “with a number” indicating the complaint had been received. The letter, she said, was dated March 20. The banner was still hanging on the house Wednesday.

At 22 Loomis Street, the formerly single-lane driveway has expanded to the entire side yard of the house, and the back yard has become a parking lot. Five cars were parked there Wednesday. Three moldy mattresses lean against a building at the back of the lot.

“You’re not supposed to just throw trash in your yard,” Wynne said.

Along Weston Street, at house after house, curbs were broken down and the greenbelts turned into rutted expanded driveways.

“They park regularly in front of the door,” Long said at one house. “The greenbelt? That’s just access.”

Ed Adrian, D-Ward 1, said he hears regularly from Ward 1 residents about Code issues. “The number one ongoing constituent complaint is the inability of Code Enforcement to enforce city ordinances,” he said. “There are longstanding problems I’ve seen for myself and that I know have been brought to the attention of Code Enforcement and haven’t been resolved.”

Assistant City Attorney Gene Bergman became interim Code director on Monday. Told of the complaints from Long and Wynne, he said, “I will have to investigate and get back to you.”

Adrian said the department should make itself more visible, perhaps patrolling in police-cruiser-like cars clearly marked Code Enforcement. “Being a presence is a huge deterrent,” he said.

Beyond that, Adrian said, the Code office needs to notify owners of violations and follow through, working with them reasonably and prosecuting if necessary.

With the departure April 3 of Kathleen Butler as the director of Code Enforcement (the third director in the last five years), Adrian said the timing is ripe for change.

“I want these issues brought to the attention of the public,” he said. “I want to demand from the administration that we hire the very best Code director we possibly can. We have an opportunity to hire a director who is going to reach out and work with the community.”

Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, P-Ward 2, said she has become aware of Code Enforcement issues both through personal experience and by seeing living conditions “inside and outside” while campaigning.

As the city searches for a new Code Enforcement director, she said, it’s a good chance for councilors to learn “what is in the current city code and what should be there and “be thoughtful about how to expand (the Code office) outreach so they can be more effective.”

Adrian said the city must involve the public in the hiring of the new director, as it did in selecting Mike Schirling as police chief.

“We need a public hearing to let people come and share their frustrations with what has, or hasn’t, been going on in the Code office all these years,” Long said. “It might be a wake-up call for the city.”

Contact John Briggs at 660-1863 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Guest Post as shown in 7 Days
By Mike Ives [08.27.08]

Every fall, when thousands of college students arrive in Burlington for the new school year, one of the nation’s tightest housing markets gets even tighter.

The greatest pressure comes from the Queen City’s largest academic institution, the University of Vermont, which this year is expecting nearly 9300 undergraduates — at least a third of whom will live off campus, according to estimates by city and university officials.

UVM has made a “pretty good attempt” to keep up with the housing needs of its growing student body, said Brian Pine, assistant director for housing at the city’s Community and Economic Development Office (CEDO). Still, with a vacancy rate of just 1 percent, the Burlington housing market struggles to keep pace with the influx of several thousand renting students every year.

“I’d say we’re reaching a point where the need for greater student housing is pressing,” Pine noted.

That much was clear a decade ago, when the city and UVM first tried to get a handle on the university’s impact on the local housing market. In 1998, UVM commissioned an economic analysis that found students occupied more than 16 percent of the city’s 8100 rental units. At the time, about 2566 UVM students were living off campus — 90 percent of all students in the rental market.

The study concluded that student demand “serves to inflate rents and lower vacancies” in Burlington. Indeed, students living off-campus increased rents in Chittenden County by 10 to 15 percent, according to the study. In Burlington’s prosperous Hill Section, where more than half of all students lived, the price of rental housing was as much as 30 percent higher.

Tom Gustafson, UVM’s vice president for campus and student life, said that the low vacancy rate in Burlington can’t be attributed solely to increased student enrollment. For example, he said, vacancy rates were low in the mid-1990s, when UVM’s student population was significantly smaller than it is now. Moreover, two years after the housing analysis, UVM agreed to add 400 beds on campus. In fact, the university has added 1456 new beds since 2000 — for a total of 5544 — including the 800-bed University Heights complex.

Gustafson said juniors and seniors are responding more favorably to on-campus housing options than they have in the past. “We’re opening very full this fall,” he said, “which we take as a good sign in terms of how popular our residence halls are.”

Mark Brooks, of the real estate firm Allen & Brooks, which helped conduct the 1998 housing analysis for UVM, applauds the university’s campus housing initiatives. However, he said, continued growth in enrollment is bound to have an impact on the local rental market no matter how many residential halls are built.

“A lot of students prefer to live off-campus no matter what you do on-campus,” Brooks said. “It’s just a fact.”

As the number of students who seek housing off campus has continued to increase, both the Burlington City Council and housing advocacy groups have tried to force the issue with UVM. In 2005, the council’s “Housing Super Committee” directed city officials to “secure a pledge” from UVM limiting the number of students living off campus to 3100.

Pine and Gustafson acknowledge that pledge never materialized. Instead, according to Gustafson, the two parties agreed to meet regularly to develop “creative” solutions to housing problems.

“I think we all sort of informally agreed, ‘Let’s just keep working and not worry about doing agreement after agreement,’” Gustafson recalled.

A year after the council committee’s directive, Vermont Interfaith Action, a consortium of religious congregations, sought its own agreement with UVM by pressing Gustafson to commit to an update of the 1998 housing analysis. He declined, but agreed to discuss an increase in on-campus housing, said Kathy Bonilla, the president of VIA’s board of directors.

Bonilla said it was eventually decided that the best short-term solution would be for UVM to build 50 units of affordable housing for university employees on land it owned in South Burlington.

“At the time,” Bonilla recalled, “they were saying their debt ratio was maxed out, so they couldn’t create any more student housing.”

Bonilla said her organization is satisfied with the employee housing because it’s a needed addition to the local rental market. “In a way, it was more effective, because if you create more student housing, then you have to hope and pray that students actually move into it,” she said.

UVM isn’t the only campus in town struggling to house its students. Earlier this year, Champlain College overcame opposition from its neighbors before winning approval to tear down the Eagles Club, at the corner of Maple and St. Paul streets, to build 200 student apartments.

The school’s eventual goal is to build housing for as many as 600 students. In the meantime, Champlain has agreed to lease space for 272 students at Spinner Place, a downtown Winooski complex, through 2011.

David Provost, Champlain College’s vice president of finance and administration, said leasing rental housing in Winooski isn’t consistent with the college’s goal of housing its students in Burlington. But, he said, it was a necessary response to a “desperate need for beds.”

While about 30 UVM students will live at Spinner Place this year, that’s far fewer than expected when the $23.6 million complex was proposed. At the time, the idea was that UVM would aggressively market the complex to its students.

Gustafson said that although Spinner Place is advertised on the university’s website, UVM never made a formal commitment to house students there. The apparent lack of interest in the complex by UVM students is not creating problems in the local housing market, he said. The students who live at Spinner Place take pressure off the Burlington housing market, no matter where they attend classes.

Gustafson said that, while the growth in UVM’s undergraduate population is expected to taper off, the university is moving forward with a complex on the Redstone Campus in Burlington’s Hill Section that will house up to 394 students.

Pine said the city is “optimistic” that UVM shares its concerns about the local rental market, and that the university understands the need to increase options for its students.

“When they have students who are forced to take units off campus that are perhaps cheaper, but are substandard, that concerns the students and their parents, I think, and rightly so,” Pine said. “But when the university is able to offer high-quality, comfortable, state-of-the-art living units, that gives them an edge, and I think they see it that way.”