Housing Project Prepares for Permitting
By Chris Mays, Brattleboro Reformer, January 25, 2025
“The Winston Prouty Center has embarked on an ambitious project to build housing on its 184-acre campus,” village.winstonprouty.org states. “In 2021, the Brattleboro Housing Study determined that 500 units of housing were needed to meet local demand. Four years later, the demand is even more urgent.”
Permitting work for The Village at Winston Prouty has now begun. A state stormwater permit is expected to take three to six months to obtain, said Chloe Learey, executive director of the Winston Prouty Center for Child and Family Development.
Her group is about to submit a request for the state for a jurisdictional opinion to determine if the project is exempt from Act 250 permitting.
“[W]e think it is,” Learey said. “So hopefully that will go smoothly.”
On the Brattleboro Development Review Board’s Feb. 19 agenda is a site plan approval request to demolish an existing building and construct a three-story apartment building with 28 units and parking lot. Learey said her group will have a neighborhood meeting beforehand to discuss the project.
Up for DRB approval is Phase One of the project, which Learey expects will help her group figure out the next phases. The plan calls for using a modular building design.
Contributions continue to come in as word spreads about the project. So far, fundraising from donations has reached $120,000.
Learey said the money is being used to hire a civil engineer, construction consultant, landscape architect and developer to start permitting. She doubts grant funding will be available for a project like this. Instead, she anticipates it will likely rely on a mix of debt and equity investment then fundraising for the gap.
A rough estimate for the total project currently stands at $9 million. Learey said her group can borrow 80 percent of the value of the project.
A website devoted to the project, village.winstonprouty.org, shares updates and information. Articles dating back to May 2022 on the site mention brainstorming about housing on campus. Donations also can be made on the site.
Funds from organizations included $175,000 from Strolling of the Heifers, $75,000 from a private trust, $50,000 from the Thomas Thompson Trust, $50,000 from the town of Brattleboro, $50,000 from the Community Development Block Grant program, $47,000 from the Windham Regional Commission and $10,000 from the Crosby Gannet Fund. Earlier on in the process, money was used for brownfields and a water/sewer study.
Learey said the project will be undertaken in “the best way we can, on behalf of the community.”
“We have a resource, an amazing campus that it is our responsibility to investigate as a possible solution for housing,” she said. “Because if we didn’t, then we’re just sitting on something that the community could be using for a really important, good thing.”
Learey said her group sees themselves as “stewards of the property,” addressing “something that the community needs.”
Housing “helps our community be healthy,” she said. “And a healthy community is essential for kids and families to thrive.”
A temporary family shelter on the campus currently has a wait list.
“We’re in the process of doing intakes,” she said. “Within the past month or so, maybe six weeks, we’ve had four families move into homes. It’s so heartening.”
For three winters until March 2020, the campus also hosted an overflow shelter in partnership with Groundworks Collaborative.