VHFA Executive Director Sarah Carpenter joined affordable housing partners and elected officials to celebrate the start of construction of Garden Street Apartments on Market and Garden Streets in South Burlington. The apartments will be built by Snyder Braverman Development and sold to Champlain Housing Trust and Housing Vermont upon completion. The project will create 42 affordable apartments for low-income Vermonters as part of a 60 unit mixed income building. The affordable units will be rented permanently at well below market rates. The project was funded in large part by tax credits and a loan awarded by VHFA.
Garden Apartments is part of South Burlington’s City Center project, and reflects the importance of affordable housing in local economic development. The City of South Burlington is reconstructing Market Street into a downtown main street with office and retail space, bike and pedestrian pathways, and green spaces. Having affordable housing like Garden Apartments and its neighbor, Allard Square senior housing, can supply a consumer and employee base for local businesses, providing a more robust tax base and increasing overall economic vitality in a community. Meanwhile, accessing affordable housing close to jobs, schools, and transportation helps low and moderate income families succeed.
Among the funding for the project were $777,000 in federal housing credits awarded by Vermont Housing Finance Agency (VHFA), which were then sold to investors to raise an estimated $6.9 million in equity for construction. VHFA also awarded the project a $3.7 million loan. In total, the $16 million project received nearly two thirds of its funding from VHFA. Other funding partners included the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, the Vermont Community Development Program (VCDP), the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s HOME program, the South Burlington Housing Trust, and Neighborworks.
The apartment building will be managed by Champlain Housing Trust and is expected to be open by winter 2019.
