Housing Targets
Regional Planning Commissions must set housing targets for each town based on the Vermont Statewide Housing Needs Assessment. This assessment estimates how many homes may be needed by 2030 and 2050. The housing targets are intended to help plan for future housing needs, with much of the growth expected to occur in areas that are already more developed.
These targets are benchmarks, not requirements. Local decisions will continue to guide growth and development. Towns will use the goals, actions, and strategies in their Town Plans to make planning decisions. In towns with zoning and subdivision bylaws, those local regulations will continue to guide development. In towns without those regulations, Act 250 review will continue as it does today. Click here CVRPC 2030 and 2050 Municipal Housing Targets to see the regional and municipal housing targets.
State-wide housing targets calculated the number of new housing units needed to:
- Replace the 15% of Vermont homes that become second homes, seasonal homes, or are converted to short-term rentals each year
- Increase the vacancy rate to a healthy market level (3% in for-sale housing stock and 5% rental vacancy rate)
- Provide housing for the approximately 7,000 people who are homeless or housing vulnerable
- Replace the .15% of homes each year that fall into disrepair and become uninhabitable, or are lost to casualty like flood or fire, and
- Accommodate population growth rates as outlined below.
Growth rates used in the 2025 Vermont Housing Needs Assessment were:
- Low 2030 regional target: 2,540. This continues the 2016-2019 pre-pandemic population growth rate of 1.02%
- High 2030 regional target: 3,864. Continues the 2019-2022 pandemic population growth rate of 1.77%
- Low 2050 regional target: 8,045. Calculates a .8% growth rate based on a “component cohort projection: which uses Department of Health age-specific birth and death rates, and annual estimates of net migration from the Census Bureau.
- High 2050 regional target: 15,856. Continues the 1950 – 2020 household growth rate of 1.4%
Click here Statewide and Regional 2030 and 2050 Housing Targets to see the targets and how they were calculated.