Vt. officials, developers gather to discuss homes for the ‘missing middle’

BARRE, Vt. (WCAX) - A new effort is underway to add more housing units to the so-called “missing middle.”

State officials and other stakeholders gathered in Barre Thursday to discuss a new state project creating a toolkit for the development of missing middle homes all over Vermont. The missing middle is neighborhood-scale residential homes, including single-family, duplexes, or townhomes.

Housing Commissioner Josh Hanford says that kind of project represents a critical percentage of the upwards of 40,000 thousand units the state needs and that a better roadmap needs to be in place for their development.

“This is really about bringing people the tools, helping them with technical assistance to get more of this built. It’s a different set of developers that sort of build this type of housing -- it’s a smaller scale. We really need to bring folks along that want to do this type of development,” he said.

Project leaders are looking for five communities to use as case studies. They hope to have the “Homes for All” design guide and resources ready by February 2024.

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