Copied and presented courtesy of the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus


Administration is moving forward on 'land bank' idea

March 16, 2006
By Carla Occaso Times Argus Staff

ST. JOHNSBURY – Gov. James Douglas plans to ask state agencies to turn over unused real estate to a state land bank to help solve a growing housing crunch.

Land owned by the state considered surplus to an agency's core mission could be parlayed into housing development sites, John Hall, commissioner of Housing and Community Affairs, told the St. Johnsbury Selectboard Monday.

Many communities have excess state-owned property. Bill Lafferiere, director of facility operations with the Department of Buildings and General Services, said there are some 2,851 acres that are not parks or forestlands owned by the Agency of Natural Resources.
The agency holds 386,279 acres of Green Mountain National Forest considered off limits for new housing, Hall said, but other agencies own parcels potentially able to accommodate far more development than the buildings they house.

For example, the state owns 899 acres at the Windsor prison site, which makes up about a third of the total available surplus land, Lafferiere said. There are 165 acres at a tree farm off Colchester Road in Essex and St. Albans, Springfield and St. Johnsbury have excess land surrounding their correctional facilities.

Hall said this type of land with municipal infrastructure such as water and sewer could be developed into affordable housing sites, which are in dire need in the state.

"We have 600,000 people in this state to accommodate," Hall said. "We are finding people moving in from out of state and buying primary homes (to use as second homes)."

The Douglas administration is also hoping to relax Act 250 land use regulations for such developments based on popu-lation percentages. For example, St. Johnsbury, with its population of 7,000, would allow any development under 100 housing units to avoid Act 250 scrutiny while a community like Danville, with around 2,200 residents, would allow around 50 or 60 units.

St. Johnsbury is a good site to focus affordable housing efforts, Hall said, because the town has ample municipal infrastructure including the school system and water, and sewer systems, able to accommodate growth. St. Johnsbury has a relatively small portion of the overall state owned land, though, limited to about 58 acres at the prison and a couple of acres at the Court House being used as a public park.
Another example given by Hall is municipally owned land such as a 20-acre parcel in St. Johnsbury Center owned by the St. Johnsbury School District. The school no longer uses the land and the school board has recently discussed selling it.

"We think we can do a lot of this without any legislative input," he said, but noted the Legislature would have to be involved in the actual property transfers. He also said getting property out of state hands and into private ownership would benefit towns by bringing in more taxes.

Windsor's Assessor Maryanne Blake agreed, estimating if the 800-plus acres not being used by the prison were in private hands the town would get five times the amount it gets now in taxes, including school property taxes.

"In most cases, there would be a benefit to the town in terms of an enhanced tax base for any land owned by any agencies," said Bill Johnson, director of property valuation for the Department of Taxes. Some agencies pay host towns property taxes and others don't, he said, explaining much of the agreements with towns were individually negotiated on a case-by-case basis. "Municipalities would get more in tax revenues if it were held by a private entity," he said.

But the Department of Corrections pays host towns about 44 percent of the going municipal tax rate, Johnson said, so a town with unused land owned by Corrections would get at least double the money for municipal tax.

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