Read the full article in the Manchester Journal. Introduction below and photo excerpted from the article.

DORSET — Like many other parts of Vermont, the typical price for a home in Dorset has risen sharply since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. It’s now around $709,000, a 50 percent increase over the past six years.

Unlike most other towns in Vermont, the average age of the population of Dorset is trending younger, not older. But that is due more to people moving into the town from somewhere else, not because of the organic growth of the resident who were already here.

At the same time, a significant number of Dorset’s residents are unable to find housing that fits within 30 percent of their annual incomes, the rough guideline to what housing costs – mortgages, rents, maintenance – should pay for. If a household is spending more than 30 percent of its income on housing, they are termed “cost burdened.”

Meanwhile, local incomes haven’t kept pace. A home that would be affordable to an elementary school teacher, often used as a metric for “workforce” or “middle income” workers, would price out at $245,000.

These were among the findings presented to local residents during another housing forum held on Wednesday, May 20, at the Dorset Town Offices, part of an ongoing study on how – or whether – to develop town-owned property off of Raptor Lane, a parcel the town acquired in 2018 near the Dorset Quarry. Town officials have been exploring how to develop part of the more than 300 acres included in the parcel for additional housing, some of it likely to be “market rate,” and some of it intended to be priced in the affordable or workforce range.

The approximately 30 community members attending the forum, one of several in recent months, heard Jeff Sauser, a principal at Community Scale, a consulting firm hired by the town of Dorset to scope out the housing challenges and opportunities presented by the Raptor Lane site, walk the audience through a housing market analysis the firm had developed which explored how the town’s housing supply aligned with local needs, the barriers to building new housing and the options for developing Raptor Lane.”