Blog

December 19, 2023

To the Burlington City Councilors and Mayor Weinberger,

Thank you for the due diligence you are applying to your evaluation of the recently publicized Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the University of Vermont and the City of Burlington detailing UVM’s plan to construct additional housing in its stated commitment to positively impacting Burlington’s crisis regarding the availability of sufficient affordable housing. I write today to express my concerns that the MOU leaves out critical consideration of factors that are especially pertinent to that crisis.

Let me begin by stating that I am not, in any way, opposed to new housing for UVM students. Nor am I opposed to the consideration of an increased enrollment plan for the university. I could talk in detail about how I feel the East Avenue corridor, the Colchester Avenue corridor, and the Centennial Stadium area are currently underutilized as a potentially vibrant arena for an improved campus district. I say this as a long time resident of Bilodeau Court situated centrally in the midst of those areas. Additionally, I began my position as a staff member with the Division of Student Affairs at UVM in 1996. I have interacted directly with UVM students on a daily basis for my entire professional career. I chose and have honed my profession precisely to interact with the college student demographic. I deliberately choose to live within walking distance to my job and under the shadow of the university. I would be perfectly fine if that shadow increased in size and my neighborhood evolved to include more college students. I am grateful for what UVM offers to our community and how it has served me and my family. My daughters are both graduates of the institution, one with a bachelor’s degree as well as a graduate degree. It is from this gratitude and love for the institution that I remain so vocally critical of the current administration’s disregard for the impact they are having on its staff members, its faculty, its students, and the neighboring community.

That being said, the housing crisis and, specifically, UVM’s contribution to the crisis remains the number one issue presented to me by the residents of the district I serve as State Representative. This issue is presented to me by long term residents of the community as well as current students (both on-campus and off-campus residents). We have a clear obligation to hold UVM accountable to those concerns as they request any zoning exemptions for new housing within the context of any long term enrollment growth. New zoning exemptions to accommodate an increase in campus housing must be accompanied by a clearly articulated long-term enrollment plan from the university administration.

I’ll summarize my critique of the MOU with four main points (focussing only on undergraduate enrollment).

1. An overall skepticism and lack of trust in the university administration based on the recent track record for enrollment expansion beyond campus housing capacity and in disregard for how continued enrollment is negatively impacting the quality of life for so many neighboring residents.
2. A concern for the continued impact increased enrollment will have on the surrounding rental market when UVM does not offer a clearly stated commitment to housing upperclass students, even with a stated intention to build apartment style residences. Simultaneously, the current MOU does not commit in any measurable way, to address the current overcrowding of on-campus first and second year students.
3. A continuation of the current trend to move away from the mission of serving Vermont students as the flagship state land grant institution.
4. A continued and consistent increase in undergraduate enrollment is impacting the capacity of the faculty and staff who serve those students.

Overall Skepticism
UVM has a terrible track record of keeping enrollment within the available housing capacity for on-campus students. The two most recent construction projects for on-campus housing validate this concern and skepticism.

Opening of the University Heights

• When the University Heights on-campus residence halls opened in the 2006 fall semester, undergraduate enrollment was reported at 9,040 students.
• Five years later, in the 2011 fall semester, undergraduate enrollment was reported at 10,459 students.
• This represents an increase of 1,419 students seeking off-campus housing following their first two years of the on-campus housing requirement. If these students moved off campus in living groups of four students, the increase over those five years would have required a need for 355 dwelling units of at least two bedrooms each.

Opening of the Central Campus Residence Hall

• Please note that the Central Campus Residence Hall replaced three previously existing residence halls (Chittenden, Buckham, and Wills halls – AKA “the shoeboxes”)
• When CCRH on-campus residence halls opened in the 2017 fall semester, undergraduate enrollment was reported at 10,513 students.
• Five years later, in the 2022 fall semester undergraduate enrollment was reported at 11,326 students.
• This represents an increase of 813 students seeking off-campus housing following their first two years of the on-campus housing requirement. If these students moved off campus in living groups of four students, the increase over those five years would have required a need for 203 dwelling units of at least two bedrooms each.

Increase in enrollment since the MOU discussion began in 2022

• Since debate began on the zoning exemptions requested by UVM in 2022, when UVM publicly stated that “enrollment is where we want it”, undergraduate enrollment has increased to a reported 11,614 students for the 2023 fall semester.
• This represents an increase of 288 students in the span of one year. If these students move off campus in living groups of four students, they will need an additional 72 dwelling units to become available when they sign leases as early as September, 2024.

UVM is presenting its growth in disingenuous ways when viewed in the context of on-campus and off-campus housing. We continually hear that they hope to keep undergraduate enrollment at or about 3,000 students per incoming cohort. It is critical to realize that this is above the current enrollment of 11,614 students by 386 students (requiring an additional 97 dwelling units needed for off-campus housing).

UVM has consistently demonstrated nothing other than the pattern of requesting permission to build new housing, expanding enrollment beyond the capacity of that housing within five years of opening, and then depositing the increase in students to the off-campus housing market. Given that the currently proposed MOU expires only five years from now, it is imperative that we consider its approval within the context of this trend.

The MOU offers no stated commitment to house upperclass students.

Source for enrollment calculations:
Enrollment | UVM Office of Institutional Research and Assessment | The University of Vermont

Current Overcrowding of On-Campus Students
In addition to the concerns explained above for how the continued increase in undergraduate enrollment will also continue to stress an already unsustainable rental vacancy rate, we must require UVM to commit to improving the over-crowded conditions for students living on campus. 

UVM has been accommodating the persistent on-campus student increase by housing more and more students within “forced triples”, a practice by which the university houses three students in a space that has historically been designed to accommodate two students.

The UVM Department of Residential Life utilized 433 triple rooms for 1,299 students during the Fall 2021 semester.
Source: UVM predicts uptick in dorm triples – The Vermont Cynic

The Department predicts that approximately 30% of its students can expect to be housed in triples.
Source: Triple Rooms | Residential Life | The University of Vermont 

It is noteworthy that these accommodations result in habitable floor area per student that is below the city’s zoning requirements. The City of Burlington code requirements necessitate that “Every dwelling unit shall contain a minimum habitable floor area of not less than one hundred fifty (150) square feet for the first occupant, and one hundred (100) square feet for each additional occupant, up to a limit of three (3) and at least fifty (50) square feet for each additional occupant after four (4).”
Source: Article III. Minimum Standards, Division 4. Space and Occupancy

The average square footage of a double room at UVM is approximately 186 square feet (93 square feet per resident). When housing three students in what has historically been termed a double room, the square footage per resident drops to an alarming 62 square feet in an average sized room.
Source: Halls | Residential Life | The University of Vermont

The MOU offers no stated commitment to alleviating the current overcrowded conditions for first and second year students living on-campus (forced triples).

Continued Departure from the Mission of a Land Grant Institution
As the flagship land grant institution for the state of Vermont, UVM has an obligation to provide a quality public education to the residents of Vermont. We simply must ask how increased enrollment within the context of a small population state impacts that obligation. It is no secret that a continued increase in enrollment will alleviate the funding gap resulting from sparse support from state allocations. While I remain available for continued discussion on how to best impact that conversation at the state level, I am not convinced that current trends serve the mission of a land grant institution.

Out of state students provide more tuition revenue to a university that is continually struggling to respond to the increased commodification of higher education in a state that underfunds its public institutions of higher education. While this MOU should not necessarily address the ways in which we are becoming increasingly out of balance in our service to Vermont students, it is worth noting the ways in which the current enrollment scheme is shaping the optics of the land grant mission.

The class of 2026 was composed of only 16% of Vermonters. The class of 2027 did not significantly improve and is composed of only 18% of Vermonters. This worsens the current trend by which UVM is made up, proportionately, of fewer and fewer Vermont students.

Impact of Continued Enrollment on the Service Capacity of Faculty and Staff
I’ve described the impact of increased enrollment on the neighborhoods within the district I represent as a State Representative. As a long time staff member currently employed by the Center for Student Conduct, I can also discuss the very specific ways that current overcrowding within on-campus housing is impacting UVM students. Beyond the general complaints of a decrease in personal space and an inability to find areas for even momentary seclusion, I also hear on a very regular basis about how an unhealthy reliance on cannabis and alcohol to cope with the resulting stress culminates in an intersection with the conduct process. These frustrations are frequently echoed in conversations I have with parents who also recognize the added stress on their students that derive from the detrimental conditions that associate with living in forced triples. We’re also creating an equity issue when families with the means to do so simply purchase a more reasonable living situation despite the added cost.
Source: Costs and Fees | Residential Life | The University of Vermont

I urge you to also seek testimony from the UVM Faculty Union (United Academics) as well as the UVM Staff Union (UVM Staff United) who will provide additional evidence for how the increased enrollment trend is impacting classroom dynamics and various student services we are asked to provide.

In closing, I urge you to consider requesting the addition of at least three critical statements to be included in any approved MOU.

• New zoning exemptions to accommodate an increase in campus housing must be accompanied by a clearly articulated long-term enrollment plan from the university administration.
• The MOU must offer a stated commitment to house upperclass students.
• The MOU must offer a stated commitment to alleviating the current overcrowded conditions for first and second year students living on-campus (forced triples).

I disagree with a statement provided by Richard Cate, the UVM Vice President for Finance and Administration, during last night’s discussion. With his statement, he indicated that he felt the MOU offered indicates a final offer as dictated by the Board of Trustees. I will remind all involved with this discussion that UVM is, ultimately, a charter of the General Assembly. I remain committed to keeping this conversation active at the state level to whatever degree I am able and that feels supportive of the City of Burlington’s efforts.

Respectfully,



Troy Headrick
State Representative for the Chittenden 15 House District
Ward 1 Resident

The General Assembly received a briefing this past Friday about the current trends in housing across Vermont. As our community here in Burlington is about to select new leadership, it is critical that we ask questions from a well informed perspective. Information here was provided by The Vermont Housing Finance Agency (VHFA), Capstone Community Action, and the Vermont Housing Conservation Board.

The full presentation is available at the Vermont Legislative Joint Fiscal Office website within their list of recent briefings. I’ll post a few slides here along with some brief comments.

So many of the concerns I hear Burlingtonians discuss can be sourced to our housing crisis. The increased visibility of our fellow Vermonters who are suffering from opioid use disorder, the inability of those we love to stay in Vermont due to low availability and increasingly high costs of rent and mortgages, and the impact on our workforce when employers are unable to recruit or retain workers due to the many hurdles involved with finding and affording housing — all of these can be directly sourced to this crisis. It becomes common practice to focus on one or two factors as we then look to leadership to create policy as the fix. I’m guilty of this myself as I continue to scrutinize UVM, one of our biggest employers and a significant factor impacting housing in the Chittenden 15 district, and their stated unwillingness to share any sort of enrollment plan while seeking exemptions to build new housing. I’ll continue to apply that scrutiny and will end this post with a graph that identifies the continued increase in enrollment for undergraduate students.

It is important, though, to consider all of the factors as we select leadership that will guide policy in the coming years — policy that will hopefully return Burlington as a city in which working families can afford to live and spread roots. I don’t pretend to have solutions to each of these factors. I do know that collective and collaborative problem solving will be required. Anyone willing to join in that collaboration will need the data presented here.

It’s no surprise to anyone that the rate of change in housing supply continues to decrease at alarming rates.

Simultaneously, the cost of building new affordable housing continues to escalate.

When you factor in the recent net migration to Vermont along with the predicted trends for climate migration and influx of those who will seek a more accepting political climate from areas of the country that are enacting hateful policy, we are likely to have more and more people searching for affordable housing that is currently not available.

These factors, combined with the increasing cost of borrowing money to build or buy a home leaves more and more current renters stuck in the cycle of spending more on increasing rent while saving progressively less for houses that stay out of reach. Currently, fewer than 5,000 Vermont renters could afford to by a median priced home. This is down from nearly 25,000 just two years ago.

These are all factors largely outside of our control. We can’t create policy that lowers the cost of construction or forbids those that wish to migrate to Vermont and to Burlington for any variety of reasons. We can however consider a few factors that are impacting the amount of housing available for purchase or rent. We can also hold employers accountable for bringing Vermont wages out of compression and in line with what comparable salaries are across the country.

The amount of short term rentals have most certainly increased across the state. Burlington recently passed an ordinance that seeks to end the ability for landlords to utilize many of their properties as short term rentals. It will be critical that we enforce this ordinance and I will work to create legislation that replicates Burlington’s ordinance into state wide policy.

We can encourage our employers to respond to the need for more competitive wages here in Burlington and across the state. Wages are not keeping up with the cost of living and certainly not with the cost of home ownership.

As we watch to see what happens with the Vermont State College system, we must support our UVM workers locally as they find increasing leverage through the unions that are developing across the entire campus workforce. In my estimation, morale at UVM is at an all time low. This is evidenced by the fact that nearly every employee has overwhelming voted to form a union for collective bargaining. I belong to UVM Staff United and am pleased that we raised the minimum wage for all workers included within our bargaining unit to a minimum of $20 per hour. The UVM administration is currently stalling continued negotiations that would evaluate our outdated system for job classification and compensation. Our initial contract tabled those decisions until this past summer of 2023 and the response from UVM to resuming those negotiations has been nothing but concerning. Recruiting and retaining a skilled workforce will require all employers to reconcile decades of compressed wages.

Finally, we must continue to pressure UVM to house more of its students and to remain transparent about its enrollment plan that has a disproportionate impact on the city wards and legislative districts immediately adjacent to campus. Recent history shows the clear trend of UVM expanding enrollment to beyond capacity within 5 years of building any new housing. Within this past year, UVM refused to provide any public statement on their enrollment plans when seeking a zoning exemption to build even more housing. With that refusal they assured the City Council that “enrollment is where we want it”. Since that statement, UVM again increased its undergraduate enrollment by 288 students. If those students move off campus in group of fours, they will require an additional 72 housing units and will be looking to sign those leases as early as September, 2024. Our neighborhoods simply cannot currently sustain this continued growth.

UVM is an obvious partner in our immediate neighborhoods as we navigate the factors listed above. Any new campus housing must commit to eliminating the need to house students in “forced triples” while providing attractive options to upperclass students for staying within the campus district after their initial two years. We must not allow any new housing to be approved until UVM commits to managing its enrollment plan and meaningfully contribute solutions to our city’s housing crisis.

That being said, UVM is one part of this puzzle. Returning Burlington to a vibrant and safe city with affordable housing for anyone who seeks it will absolutely require us all to remain open and imaginative to how we will accommodate the continued migration of people wanting to join our community. We are currently witnessing the increasingly frequent impact of decades of neglect to a “housing first” commitment. The increase in burglaries, along with the obvious and open impact of the substance use disorder escalation, are such examples. When we deny the basic need of shelter, it should not surprise us to find the resulting impact becoming more and more visible.

Our city will change. We must envision housing that becomes more dense and remain open to building up. Housing has to trump parking and driving. We can do this by building a more walkable and bike-able city center that houses working families closer to an improved public transportation infrastructure. We have a simple choice between building more housing in our neighborhoods or witnessing the continued impact of more and more of our Vermont neighbors without homes finding ways to survive nonetheless in those same neighborhoods. In short, it becomes critical to shift our prevailing paradigm of Not In My Backyard (NIMBY) to Yes In My Backyard (YIMBY).

As you consider the factors outlined within this post, please do not hesitate to contact me for continued discussion. As I’ve already stated, the solutions to these factors that will remain outside of our control will most certainly require collaborative head scratching and plenty of compromise. Know that I am committed to those conversations.

I’ve already posted my full comments on why I personally opposed extending the VTANG lease without first considering the continued housing of the F35 war machines. You can find that full statement on my most recent blog entry.

I’m posting today with the concerns that have persisted for me since the decision resulting from Monday’s City Council meeting. Those concerns now reside with the approach itself that was used to strong-arm the new policy that extends the lease until 2073.  I remain appalled by how 8 people, under the guidance and direction of our exiting Mayor, are able to impact this community for so long without input from impacted stakeholders. This impact will persist well beyond our lifetimes and, for many of us, beyond our children’s lifetimes. As we ponder the climate crisis that was handed to us by policy makers that have preceded us, we have to honestly acknowledge that we are making the very same mistake for future generations with this policy.

I’ve spent nearly my entire professional career as part of the process that adjudicates policy violations within the university environment. Since 2008 I have done this within the Center for Student Conduct at the University of Vermont. I have heard concerns from community members and spoken with countless students about their decisions that impact our neighborhoods and surrounding community, hopefully impacting positive change within each arriving cohort of new students. As part of those responsibilities I have been grateful for the evolving Code of Student Conduct and how consistently those that amend it each year involve our office as stakeholders who will ultimately be asked to interpret those policies as they intersect with student behavior.

Although I would still be fairly considered as new to the process by which policy is created at the state level, I have already witnessed the benefit of first hearing from all impacted stake holders before drafting new laws. The best example I can offer to highlight this is the process by which we are attempting to hear fully from impacted professionals and people with lived experiences within our prison system as we attempt to solve the problem currently presented by the inhumane conditions at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility that houses incarcerated women.

I can speak for a very long time about why I truly embrace my identity as a Progressive Democrat — a fusion P/D candidate.  The Democratic party allowed me to find a home amongst other like-minded individuals in the 1980s as I left my very conservative home to attend college. I am nothing but saddened with how party politics seem to be in the way of fair minded political conversations that guide the process of developing responsive policy in Burlington. And I regret contributing to those dynamics with this statement. Nonetheless, I feel I have to highlight the profound disappointment that has impacted me after watching the decision to extend the lease that was so clearly predetermined by the Democrats that control our City Council.

The decision to extend the lease was made in closed-door executive session, hidden from any public oversight. Our Mayor announced the lease extension just 11 days prior to the Council meeting that would formalize the decision. I watched how the Council disregarded requests to pause the decision until we could engage in a more robust debate on this only moment of leverage that might impact conditions for VTANG before extending the lease until 2073. All requests to pause the discussion were denied by 8 people, thereby closing the door to stakeholder input. This includes the deliberate exclusion of input from our neighboring communities of South Burlington and Winooski that are also impacted by this decision. It is correct to point out that the community of Winooski, the city that falls in the most direct line of impact from the F35 flight path, is our most diverse community in the state of Vermont with the highest concentration of Black and Brown residents. This is precisely what environmental racism looks like.

A commitment to Restorative Justice includes the practice of a core concept called Fair Process. This is a proactive commitment to remaining deliberate about hearing from potentially impacted individuals and communities before creating policies that may potentially cause harm.  Not only did this not occur at Monday’s meeting, all indications suggest that any sort of fair process was strategically disregarded by 8 individuals acting in concert with one another.

I hope we can all keep this profound disappointment in mind as we consider the future leadership of this community.

My name is Troy Headrick and I’m a pacifist.

I knew I was a pacifist as early as the 4th grade when my best friend punched me in the face and broke my tooth. I knew then that I didn’t like the feelings associated with how violent such a good friend had become.

When you commit to pacifism so early, and you’re surrounded by people who don’t necessarily understand or subscribe to that commitment, you become forced to find your mentors and your heroes from a broader sphere. I found and chose the non-violent messages of John Lennon and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. I’ll quote the latter here:

“Somewhere somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe.”

We have since been reminded by so many that Peace is not a destination. It’s not something you find. Peace is the journey itself. Peace is a choice. When we commit to peace, our world and our journeys become peaceful.

Making the decision to house war machines is also a choice and it will never lead to peace. I will already be 81 years old when the current lease expires. I’ll likely be dead when the extended lease expires. My daughters will be 78 and 80 when the extended lease would expire in 2073. How dare we act with such hubris right now that would lock this community into a lease until 2073. How dare we.

I’ve heard the sound of the F35s described as the sound of freedom. This is ridiculous gaslighting propaganda. The disruptive sound we hear so frequently is, quite literally, the sound of war. I’ve heard the mantra repeatedly that freedom is not free. This makes for a cute bumper sticker but it’s also absolutely wrong. Freedom and peace are most certainly free. It costs me absolutely nothing to commit to peace.

It’s war that is both costly and profitable.

We have been told and we’ll be told again about the importance of the federal dollars that accompany this lease extension.

I don’t care.

We all have plenty of convictions that are not for sale at any price. My commitment to peace is not for sale at any price. My hope is that we can come together as a community and make the brave decision that our collective commitment to a peaceful existence is not for sale at any price. These disruptive machines of war do not belong this close to our communities. We certainly should not be the ones who make the decision to keep them here until 2073.

I want to thank Councilor Hightower for her recent post to Front Porch Forum that drew our attention to the recent audit of Burlington’s Juneteenth celebration for FY21 and FY22. Her motion to evaluate the impact of the audit was unanimously supported by the Council. I stand in solidarity with the Black femmes of this city who seek to interrupt the prevailing narrative that inappropriately targets Tyeastia Green, Burlington’s former Director of Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging. Former Councilors Colburn and Siegel have also written about the hypocrisy that surrounds this audit when compared to our inaction to hold Directors who identify as white and male to the same standard of accountability. Please read that letter. Burlington Representative Emma Mulvaney-Stanak has similarly highlighted those hypocrisies in her letter to Mayor Weinberger and the Burlington City Council.

More specifically, I want to stand in support and to amplify the concerns of Ferene Paris Meyer, the woman who has so bravely risen to challenge our Mayor’s decision to initiate the audit and to remind us how misogyny and racism show up in these moments when we scapegoat and silence Black women. I want to speak very clearly on how I have come to trust and rely upon Ferene’s voice.

I have known Ferene since 2008 when she introduced herself to me at a gathering for the Division of Student Affairs at the University of Vermont. She and I worked together within that division for more than a decade prior to her departure. From that moment when she introduced herself to me and we began our long standing dialogue, I have considered Ferene a valued coworker and a cherished friend.

If you were a student at UVM in the 2010s, or the parent of a UVM student in that time period as I was, or if you simply can recall that period of time when UVM became far more deliberate about building an inclusive community, you most certainly have recognized Ferene’s gift to UVM and to Burlington. This is what Ferene does. She builds deliberate communities of inclusion and respect. She and her team with the department of Orientation, then housed with the Office of Student Life, were absolutely instrumental in shifting the message we give to students as they join our larger community each year. I watched as UVM benefited from Ferene’s work and commitment to delivering the institution’s stated mission that centered around the six tenants of Our Common Ground: Respect, Integrity, Innovation, Openness, Justice, and Responsibility.

And then I watched that same institution turn on Ferene as she dared to hold us accountable to those values of justice and respect. When Black women speak truth about the reality of what it means to exist in an overwhelmingly white community we have systemic strategies we use to silence them. And there is a reason why Black women are so often tasked with standing to speak this truth. Because when Black men do so, we quite literally choke them out from ever speaking again. The silencing of Black voices within this country and within our city is well documented.

I have sadly watched far too many of my colleagues of color, especially women of color, leave UVM and our community. I worry about those that remain and the oversized burden they shoulder as they repeatedly stand to remind us of the ways in which the legacy of privilege associated with white supremacy and white patriarchy continues to evolve and morph into various practices. Practices such as scapegoating a Black woman in 2023 who left her post as Director nearly two years ago.

I am grateful that Ferene Paris Meyer remains in the Burlington community. Without hesitation, I trust her view on how our community is shaped by administrative policy and practices. Without hesitation, I believe her when she once again takes the brave step, as she has done countless times to my benefit in the time I have known her,  to remind me about how my privilege as a cisgendered, white, heterosexual, man is likely in the way of me seeing how the constructs of race and gender are protecting me in ways that are not equitable to everyone with whom I share this community. Those constructs that currently keep me from ever truly knowing what it might be like to navigate this overwhelmingly white community with identities that have been historically marginalized and oppressed.

Given that truth, my only option is to listen, to truly hear, and then to sincerely believe the stories of brave Black women who are willing to stand, to interrupt, and to speak. I urge you to do the same. Believe Black women.