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GREENSBORO — Two days before Greensboro voted on a contentious proposal to redevelop the town hall into affordable housing, longtime resident and brand-new select board member Judy Carpenter wrote a post on Front Porch Forum. “Residents and friends of Greensboro, the big decision is coming,” she said. “No, I don’t mean Tuesday’s vote on the future of the Town Hall. I mean what we all do as community members after that vote.”
The housing project saw more than a year of passionate debate, spanning meetings, some organized by the town and others organized by community members themselves, a petition, yard signs, letters, a community website, numerous information sheets and a myriad of internet postings.
In the end, residents delivered a clear message, voting 227 to 147 against signing a purchase and sale agreement with nonprofit Northeast Kingdom housing agency Rural Edge. However, the small community, which has the highest rate of second home ownership in the state, is left with a dire shortage of housing as well as a divided community.
“Greensboro has survived contentious changes in the past. Can we do it again?” Carpenter wrote. “No matter what the outcome of this vote is, we have many community projects in need of our efforts. Let’s get back to work.”
The seeds of the town hall redevelopment project were planted around 2019, when both the town plan and a housing needs assesment detailed Greensboro’s “great need” for moderately-priced housing, especially for local employees. According to town documents, the planning commission’s housing committee began a relationship with Rural Edge around that time to develop housing, but had trouble finding a feasible site.
In 2022, local non-profit WonderArts decided not to pursue renovating the town hall, a former high school, due to the expense. Town officials turned to the possibility of redeveloping their town hall into rental housing.
Rural Edge is proposing to build 20 apartment units at the Greensboro town hall. The units would be spread between the upper floors of the current building and an addition attached to the back of the building.
Had the plan been approved, Rural Edge would have bought the building from the town for $500,000 and created between 16 and 20 affordable one- to three-bedroom apartments split between the current town hall and an addition at the back of the structure. The current town offices would have been rented back to the town at operating cost and the Giving Closet, a free community donation space, would have been maintained in perpetuity in approximately half the space.
Shattuck said the town hall redevelopment would have been a really impactful project.
“One thing that struck me is just the amount of need in Greensboro for housing and people’s willingness to share their personal stories of really being unhoused and the struggles that caused,” he said. “And these are folks who work in the businesses that are so imperative to Greensboro being Greensboro.”
Shattuck expressed regret that the need won’t be addressed with a project that would have added a significant number of housing units.
“It’s sad and frustrating, but you don’t want to force something when it isn’t necessarily the right time and place,” Shattuck said. “Hopefully some of these folks who voiced their concerns, you know, it will mobilize them to continue to work for the change they want to see in their community.”
Kent Hansen, current chair of the Greensboro planning commission and a member of the housing subcommittee back when things began in 2019, said last week he was surprised by the outcome of the vote.
“I thought that the vote would be closer,” he said. “But you never know until you have an election.”
According to Hansen, there were several distinct complaints about the project. One was the scale: A number of people would have felt more comfortable with 8 or 10 units. Another group, he said, thought the town should be holding on to the building and fixing it up for community use.
And a third group, he said, was upset with the process, feeling like the select board didn’t build up community consensus before signing the initial option agreement with Rural Edge in May 2023.
David Kelley, a select board member at that time, disagreed with that characterization, stating in an email that there were “plenty of meetings and opportunities to learn” about the project before the option agreement was signed. However, he pointed to another complaint: that the concept of affordable housing “is not fully embraced by significant and influential segments of many communities.”
One other struggle the select board faced? Rampant misinformation.
On Wednesday night, at the first select board meeting since the vote, Ellen Celnik, a current select board member and an original member of the housing subcommittee, spoke up. She was happy there was a vote and happy the town made a decision, she said.
“The one thing that I am truly saddened by is an anonymous mailer that was sent to voters that had an enormous amount of misinformation,” Celnik said. “A part of me, who has worked on this since 2019, really was disappointed with the level of divisiveness that was put out there that was coming from other sources . . . I hate seeing a small town being hoodwinked by a very small group of people.”
At the meeting, the board noted a need to think long-term about the town hall, what it’s used for, and where the money is going to come from to make it useful; the building needs major repairs and the third floor is currently not usable.
Looking ahead, Hansen said the planning commission has received a $25,000 municipal planning grant from the state, which they applied for before the vote. The grant aims to help Greensboro build consensus on where they want to grow geographically and what types of housing structures townspeople support.
The process is slated to include major public outreach and meetings, an expansion of a survey and several community conversations the commission conducted this past winter. Hansen expects the work to be completed around September.
“Hopefully people can pull together,” he said.
In the meantime, other smaller housing projects and initiatives are in the works. For one, Shattuck said the very same morning he heard about the results of the vote, he signed a check to fund an accessory dwelling unit in Greensboro. Local businesses have encouraged such units, and a panel discussion about them held last fall in neighboring Craftsbury is thought to have generated at least six such dwellings.
The Greensboro Initiative, associated with Central Vermont Habitat for Humanity and whose steering committee is chaired by Hansen, is in the process of constructing a new duplex in Greensboro Bend. The proceeds from the sale of those homes are planned to be reinvested in constructing additional affordable homes.
One major local employer, Jasper Hill Farm, continues to take matters into its own hands. Mateo Kehler, co-founder of the artisan cheese-making business and an outspoken proponent of the town hall redevelopment project, wrote in an email that Jasper Hill currently provides housing for employees in eight houses.
Kehler said the business recently purchased an additional six housing units (currently occupied by inherited tenants) to support their team, and is in the process of subdividing and selling another house to one of its key employees. Following the vote, he said Jasper Hill is reassessing its ambitions for future growth, particularly in Greensboro.
“To make sure our efforts have the most impact, we will be shifting our direct support and investments towards surrounding towns that are more aligned with our mission,” Kehler wrote.
Kehler said Jasper Hill also plans to continue its focus on housing by engaging local organizations, including Let’s Build Homes, a pro-housing coalition (Kehler serves on its board), and the Headwaters Community Trust, a community land trust serving Greensboro and three neighboring towns, both of which were launched this year.
Kelley, when looking back on the rejected project, noted that Greensboro’s struggle to create affordable housing is not unique. The problem is accelerating across Vermont and the country, he said, and the anger that has fueled recent national and local elections is not going to solve it.
“It is going to take education, communication and stronger leadership,” he wrote. “And as a member of our select board, I think we failed on those accounts.”
