Yestermorrow, Waitsfield, unveiled plans to create a model village of affordable housing structures on the school campus as part of a new lecture series on “Building Affordability.”
On Wednesday, March 27, local design/build school Yestermorrow kicked off its spring lecture series, “Building Affordability.” These talks, scheduled for Wednesday evenings through late April, will tackle the topic of housing affordability and ‘missing middle’ housing – referring to a lack of multi-family and clustered housing types in the U.S.
In the first talk of the series, Yestermorrow executive director Britton Rogers spoke about the school’s 2024 strategic plan. Created by a team of 10 instructors and staff at the school, part of the plan includes building a ‘model village’ of affordable housing structures on the school’s 38-acre wooded campus. It would consist of several energy-efficient structures designed and built through Yestermorrow classes, possibly including tiny houses on wheels, modular units, shipping container units and Accessory Dwelling Units.
The structures would be used to house students and staff at the school, as well as serving as a collection of examples for others to learn from. Between the model village project and the school’s goal of expanding existing programming in which students build structures for community partners and clients, Rogers said he imagines that in the coming years, the school will produce three additional structures annually – with a focus on building affordably.
As far as reducing costs in the design/build process, Rogers said that a property owner who acts as the general contractor and builder of their home will absolutely save money. “We definitely believe in DIY projects,” he said.
Limiting square footage is also critical. “The average house [size] has just ballooned like crazy,” Rogers said, “and it’s not sustainable from a price-point, or for the planet – for the amount of the materials that have to go into projects.”
As Yestermorrow considers issues with housing affordability, education will remain central to what they do. Rogers said that the school is not trying to fill the role of a housing developer or management company – scaling up production, deciding whether to sell or rent a property, or determining who it’s affordable for. “We don’t claim to be able to do that,” he said. “Nor do we want to.”
Although the school hopes to partner with housing coalitions, developers, local housing management agencies and other organizations, Rogers said “we want to remain a school . . . and really focus on learning and teaching the students who come here to help produce these units, and then demonstrate to others how it can be done. And hopefully share that knowledge as much as possible.”
The next talk in the series will be held on April 10 from 6:30 to 8 p.m., in the Yestermorrow main studio or online via Zoom. Waitsfield resident and architect Mac Rood, who is also an instructor at Yestermorrow, will present “Waitsfield 10: a DIY Housing Development Case Study.”
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