Why Vermont Sent $500,000 Out of State for 'Made for Vermont' Home Designs
The program depends on local buy-in, while the initial $500,000 commitment is to out-of-state expertise instead of investing in Vermont professionals.
As Vermont races to address a shortage of 30,000 housing units, the state’s flagship housing initiative has sparked an unexpected controversy: Why did Vermont hire a Boston-based architecture firm to design homes for Vermonters?
The state’s Department of Housing and Community Development awarded Utile, a Boston design firm, a contract worth approximately $500,000 to develop the 802 Homes catalog—a collection of ten pre-approved home designs ranging from accessory dwelling units to small apartment buildings. The contract includes both the architectural work and public engagement efforts to promote the designs.
For Vermont’s architectural community, the decision represents what they’ve called a “missed opportunity” to invest in local expertise at a time when the state is emphasizing the need to support Vermont’s economy and workforce.
What the 802 Homes Catalog Is Designed to Do
The 802 Homes project sits at the center of Vermont’s Homes for All initiative, which aims to restore “Missing Middle Housing”—the duplexes, townhomes, and small apartment buildings that were common in Vermont neighborhoods before 1945 but were effectively eliminated by subsequent zoning laws favoring single-family homes on large lots.
The catalog provides ten distinct designs engineered to work on small or irregular lots common in village centers and downtown areas. Each design comes with complete, code-compliant construction documents intended to streamline local development review. The designs support various construction methods including volumetric modular systems, panelized walls, and pre-fabricated components.
According to state presentations, the designs are intentionally “context-sensitive,” drawing inspiration from historic Vermont architecture to help reduce community resistance to increased density by ensuring new construction blends with existing neighborhood character.
The Local Architects’ Case
Vermont’s architectural community has not been quiet about their concerns. Local firms—including those specializing in sustainable design—argue that the state overlooked a thriving ecosystem of award-winning Vermont architects and building science experts.
Their critique centers on several points. First, they contend that Vermont-based firms already specialize in high-performance, climate-resilient building science and understand the state’s unique climatic challenges. Local architects suggest that designs developed by out-of-state firms may lack the durability required for Vermont winters or fail to align with the specific thermal envelope requirements that organizations like the Sustainable Energy Outreach Network promote.
Second, the architectural community frames this as an economic development issue. The $500,000 investment, they argue, could have supported Vermont-based businesses and kept those funds circulating in the state’s economy. At a time when the state is trying to support local workforce development and retain young professionals, sending a major contract to Massachusetts strikes some as contradictory.
The State’s Justification
State officials defend the Utile contract by pointing to the firm’s experience in large-scale urban design and production of “design-and-do” toolkits for other New England cities. The argument is that Utile brings specific expertise in creating standardized, replicable design catalogs—not just custom architectural projects.
From the state’s perspective, the investment creates a “turnkey” regulatory tool. Because the designs come with complete construction documents and have undergone public engagement, municipalities can adopt them more quickly than if they had to vet individual projects case by case. This regulatory fast-tracking, officials suggest, has value that generic manufactured housing—which typically meets HUD code but not necessarily local zoning requirements—cannot provide.
The designs are also intended to work within Vermont’s new Act 250 jurisdictional framework, which as of January 2026 exempts certain housing projects in designated downtown and village center areas from environmental review. The 802 Homes catalog was designed specifically to take advantage of these exemptions.
Testing the Designs in Real Communities
The 802 Homes catalog is currently being piloted in three Vermont communities that have committed to streamlining their local review processes.
In Essex Junction, city officials hosted design workshops in early 2026 and are looking for homeowners interested in serving as case study sites for new accessory dwelling units and small homes. The goal is to demonstrate that increased density can fit naturally into established neighborhoods.
The Town of Hartford held a public workshop on February 11, 2026, focusing on adapting the catalog’s 3- and 4-unit designs to White River Junction’s dense village fabric. Hartford is also exploring infrastructure financing to support wastewater upgrades needed for new units.
Manchester represents the rural-resort context, testing whether workforce townhomes from the catalog can overcome high labor costs in a resort economy where housing shortages are particularly acute for service workers and young professionals.
The Broader Housing Equation
The architectural controversy exists within a larger ecosystem of housing policy changes. The 802 Homes catalog works in conjunction with regulatory reforms under Act 181, which restructured Vermont’s Act 250 environmental review process to prioritize development in established downtowns.
The catalog also pairs with financing programs like the Vermont Housing Finance Agency’s Middle-Income Homeownership Development Program, which provides subsidies of up to 35% of project costs to bridge the gap between construction costs and appraised values. As of early 2026, this program has funded 125 homes with an average subsidy of $130,000 per home.
Governor Phil Scott’s Community and Housing Infrastructure Program, announced in February 2026, provides a $2 billion tax increment financing tool to help municipalities fund the sewer, water, and road infrastructure needed to support increased density.
The Core Debate: Turnkey Speed Versus Local Investment
The fundamental question remains whether the $500,000 investment in an out-of-state firm creates sufficient value through regulatory streamlining to justify bypassing Vermont’s architectural talent.
Supporters of the state’s approach argue that speed and scale matter. By creating a standardized catalog with pre-vetted designs, Vermont can potentially accelerate housing production across multiple communities simultaneously. The investment, from this perspective, buys a statewide system rather than individual projects.
Critics counter that Vermont already has manufacturers and architects producing modular and high-performance housing that meets or exceeds the climate resilience standards the state should be promoting. They question whether standardized designs from Boston will truly be embraced by local builders and developers who have their own preferred methods and suppliers. If the catalog sits unused because local construction professionals don’t trust or adopt the designs, the $500,000 investment produces little actual housing.
There’s also the practical question of building science. Vermont’s winters and climate demands create specific requirements for insulation, moisture management, and thermal performance. Local architects argue their familiarity with these conditions and with Vermont’s existing network of high-performance builders gives them a distinct advantage in designing homes that will actually perform well over decades of Vermont weather.
What Happens Next
The success or failure of the 802 Homes catalog will likely be determined over the next 12 to 18 months as the pilot communities complete their first projects. If homes built from the catalog prove durable, affordable, and attractive to Vermont buyers and renters, the out-of-state contract may be vindicated.
The 2026 legislative session is considering Senate Bill 325, which would create Residential Opportunity Overlay for Towns (ROOT) Zones. These zones would establish “by-right” permitting for projects meeting objective standards, potentially including 802 Homes designs. A ROOT Zone task force is mandated to report back to the legislature by December 1, 2026, with model codes that towns could adopt.
Meanwhile, Vermont’s architectural community continues to advocate for greater inclusion in future housing initiatives. The question of whether standardized out-of-state designs or locally-adapted Vermont expertise proves more effective in producing actual homes will be answered not by policy documents, but by construction crews, building permits, and families moving into new housing over the months ahead.
The $500,000 contract with Utile is now a done deal. What remains to be seen is whether it was $500,000 well spent—or whether Vermont’s home-grown housing expertise represents the missed opportunity its proponents believe it to be.