I see a lot of places with BIG barns that look to be in good condition. My musing - a company or non-profit that would turn them into rental apts, and possibly manage them if the owner does not relish being a landlord.
I can't figure out how the financials would work though. The company would have an upfront cost, the owner would have improvements to his property, and the rental income would have to be split somehow. Like I said, musings.
Bingo. If the barn is in a rural area (likely), there is no town water or sewage, so that means septics and wells for multiple apartments, and that gets expensive fast.
Yep. Retrofitting a barn to be housing is just a crazy expensive idea; it would be a very unique situation to have it be worthwhile as affordable housing.
What about from a permitting/code perspective? If the barn is already part of the footprint then it might be easier to fix it up then go through whatever environmental permit process related to impermeable surfaces etc. etc.
Something about rich people owning second and third homes, and the peasants living in barns, feels off-color to me.
I do think the quickest solution to our housing crunch is to crack down hard on second homes. Given the cost of construction and the ability for locals to block development-it’s going to take a long ass time to build our way out of this situation-it’s kinda crazy that Vermont’s population has barely changed in the last century but we have a massive housing shortage. I say tax the shit out of second homes and create a fund for retrofitting and new affordable housing in town centers. If 2nd home owners decide they don’t want to pay the taxes they can sell to someone who wants to live there full time. Either way we get more housing for locals. Also really rein in investor ownership.
20k people moved here since 2020, that didn't help. There's no building out of this. I think as quality of life declines for all but the 10%, population will stagnate and economic growth will stop because there's no workforce. At the same time lots of old people will be dying. After a period of pain, VT could emerge from this a decent place again in a couple of decades. State estimates are around 30,000 units in the next 5-10 years. Thats almost another Burlington. It ain't happening. services will drop as the workforce hollows out. Remember, every household working from home is housing not going to someone cutting your hair, selling you groceries, delivering your mail, etc. It's already bad. Can't imagine how it won't get a whole lot worse before it gets better.
Well if a significant chunk of the housing that opens up due to the oldest Vermonters dying is snapped up by investors, second home owners or converted to short term rentals, it’s not going to help the cost of housing for the average person is it? If we are going to have any chance of getting the cost of housing under control we need policy that prioritizes primary occupants and renters not second home owners and air bnb. Also most people who will Be dead in 10 years aren’t in the labor force I’d guess.
On for sure. I would tax the shit out of homes and Air BnB's especially to a point they're not worth it. Exceptions for things like deer camps. But none of that is going to fix it. We can't build enough. Even if we build, whats to stop them just being snapped up by work from home types moving here and out bidding locals? We had a demographic problem before covid. Seems unfixable
Don't worry, I can assure you it's quite all-white
what about the rich people who transform a barn into a home?
Sounds like Mass thinking u/woburnite
I know this wasn’t the intention but like. I read this as
“There’s not enough houses let’s put the poors in barns with the other animals” and I laughed
Keep driving.
Why do they think the barn was built?
Do they know how a farm works?
Are they going to build the farmer a new barn when they repurpose their old barn?
Farming is a complicated, difficult industry that requires extremely resourceful thinking, diversification, preparation and a little bit of storage to make it work.
The offensive part of this post isn't the ignorance of basic housing standards, it's that OP sees a barn in good condition and assumes it's an idle resource.
Yeah. Keep driving, and don't stop at the farm stand, butcher, co-op or country store.
Ya'll have food at home.
Drive through my town and you’ll see plenty of barns in good order that are no longer in use. When I was a kid on my family farm there were 15+ dairy farms in my area. Now we are down to one dairy farm, 2 beef operations and another dairy farm that uses all their product to make cheese in just the span of 30 years.
that's what I was talking about, barns that are not in use.
It's like when building a house when people see all the framing up and go, "Wow, the house is going up quickly!"
No, the frame is up, the most basic and quick part of building a house. It looks like a house, but its extremely far from being livable.
Would be great, but there are problems. Zoning problems, structural problems (weight of an apartment not able to be supported with the current existing structure - need to reinforce inside) = financial hurdles to jump through. Would be cool though!
Not to mention that it is often much cheaper to build new than to retrofit or upgrade an existing structure... Then there is also the fact that the majority of barns in this state are as dilapidated as the farming industry itself...
Of the few barns that might support conversion, you would still have to deal with permitting, Act 250, getting water/wastewater/electrical utilities to the actual site, etc. etc.
They'd be Air BnB's in a week. " Come stay in a barn outside Stowe! Only $ 1K per night ! "
What a dystopian thought.
Not as dystopian as employer dorms. Talk about serfs...
I lived in employee dorms in my late teens through early twenties when I worked at seasonal resorts. Very fun for drunk kids. Hell for adults.
Yeah totally. For seasonal, young employees, Im sure it's fun. Not a solution for career employees.
On top of the other things people said, barns don't usually have septic, water, electricity, or insulation.
Honestly it would probably cost the same amount to retrofit a bar as it would to start with a concrete slab
The problem ultimately is that those with money BENEFIT from housing shortages driving up rent
At my first home I bought the barn was 30 yards from my house, I would never want strangers that close to me or my home...
The first place that I ever owned was a duplex, built in 1906, converted to duplex in the 1970s and not much modernized. Suffice it to say that the house needed some work. My family and I lived in the 1000 sq. ft. 2 bedroom apartment downstairs and rented out the 650 sq. ft. apartment upstairs. Talk about having strangers live close by. Especially awkward when your tenant has their girlfriend over and they're banging like rabbits directly over your own bedroom at night. 30 feet of separation between 2 buildings would have seemed like a mile in that situation.
There's no shortage of barns that have been converted to housing and other uses.
It's a lot cheaper to tear down the barn and build a house than retrofit. Like, probably 1.5 to 2x cheaper.
How about just fixing up (or tearing down and replacing) the houses that are falling into ruin? Might have to check if someone’s already living there though.
Alternative idea, after we tax hell, out of second homes is to renovate empty motels in affordable housing. I know this is already happening in my area, but when I drive around I see a lot of out of business and empty motels
There's a program in Vermont called VHIP (Vermont Housing Improvement Program) that provides up to $50k in grant money. This can be used to retrofit a barn to create an ADU. There is a requirement that the unit be rented at a fair housing market rate for 5 years. In my opinion, that's a win/win, as it provides funds to create more affordable housing.
But where would people from New York and Massachusetts get married, then?
My grandpa converted a bigger shed/bar into a cabin years ago. Lived there most of the summer. It was awesome. That being said, it was not cheap or easy. He claimed he made it all back via not paying home taxes or something. I think he was probably exaggerating, but felt like he stuck it to "the man".
The fact that you’re using the word “musings” makes me feel like you’re a douchebag
Just by this awful idea and your use of the word “musing” tell me that you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Let’s put the poors in a cold, decrepit barn with a bucket for a toilet. Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?
I meant, reinforce the walls, foundation, insulate, subdivide, add electrical and plumbing, make some apartments. That's what is meant by "turn them into rental apartments." Geesh.
You know, like people do when they turn a barn into a residential property.
Sounds like you’re building a project without actually framing the exterior. Sounds like you enjoy the “traditional nature” of poor people living in barns.
sixteenandseven t1_j6ykf8h wrote
Most of the expense of a house is not in it's structure, sheathing, or roof. It's in the finish, fixtures, utilities, etc. Barns are just structures with sheathing and a roof. It's actually gonna be more expensive to retrofit a barn to accommodate all the other stuff than to just build something that was meant to have insulation, finished spaces, utilities, etc.
It just doesn't save any money.