This summer, Champlain Housing Trust will break ground on Riggs Meadow at the Windy Ridge neighborhood in Hinesburg. The first phase of this new development will include 36 permanently affordable rental apartments, created with with partner Evernorth, and eight shared equity homes built with Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity. These are the first homes in CHT’s portfolio that will include geothermal heating and cooling, which will keep costs low for residents and prevent about 30 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year.
Made possible through a partnership with Vermont Gas Systems, this innovative geothermal system will extract energy from the earth and provide stable heating and cooling costs.
“The efficiency of the geothermal system allows us to stabilize that energy cost that we’re including in the rent, so we won’t need to be looking at larger rent increases,” said CHT Chief Operating Officer Amy Demetrowitz.
The second phase of the Windy Ridge neighborhood includes another 22 permanently affordable shared equity homes for sale plus another 10 parcels of land available for market rate homes. A new child care and early education center is also part of this planned phase.
By combining apartments for rent and homeownership opportunities, Windy Ridge will be a vibrant new mixed income neighborhood. This vision started with a generous donation of 46 acres of land in Hinesburg by local business leader and philanthropist Jan Blomstrann.
Funding for Riggs Meadow Apartments came from more than a dozen sources with significant support through the Vermont Housing & Conservation Board from an appropriation they received from the state budget, and the Vermont Housing Finance Agency.