City: Burlington, Vermont

Reporting to: Senior Policy and Data Analyst

The Challenge

The City of Burlington faces a significant and persisting housing shortage. This pushes rental and purchase prices beyond what many residents can afford, forcing new arrivals, young professionals, families, and even long-term residents to either spend an unsustainable portion of their income on housing or leave the city entirely. The shortage particularly impacts essential workers like teachers, healthcare workers, and service employees, many of whom can no longer afford to live in the community they serve. The median house now sells for over $550,000, 60 percent higher than in 2018. Rents have also climbed, with the median rent at $2,100, 40 percent higher than in 2018. Over 30 percent of renter households in Burlington are considered severely cost-burdened, paying more than 50 percent of their income in rent. A lack of new housing construction is exacerbating these problems. Since 2000, Burlington has built less housing per capita than all but one small town in Chittenden County. The pace of housing production has increased in recent years, from an average of sixty units per year to 130 in 2025. However, this rate is less than half of the 270 annual units needed to meet the city’s portion of the state of Vermont’s overall housing goal.

Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak views expanding access to affordable housing as essential to building an inclusive community where residents at all income levels can thrive. The current shortage undermines economic opportunity and disproportionately impacts low-income residents, people of color, and essential workers. In recent years, the city has implemented a series of housing and zoning reforms designed to reduce barriers to construction and improve affordability. Key initiatives include streamlining the permitting process to reduce delays and costs, eliminating parking minimums that previously limited density, enabling homeowners to build small accessory housing units, and upzoning to allow more housing citywide. While these reforms have boosted housing production in recent years, the current pace still falls short of what’s needed to meaningfully address the shortage. Meanwhile, a dramatic decline in the construction of condominiums in Burlington has further limited pathways to affordable homeownership, which particularly affects Black households who already face significantly lower homeownership rates due to systemic barriers and historical discrimination.

City leaders aim to better understand what is and is not working to accelerate market rate and affordable housing production, both in Burlington and in peer cities. In addition, they hope to develop a practical evaluation framework to track Burlington’s progress, and garner data to guide informed decision making about implementation priorities.

Key questions include:

• What does current housing market data reveal about supply constraints and affordability trends?
• Which peer cities have implemented similar initiatives, and what were their outcomes?
• What evaluation framework should the city use to measure progress and adjust strategies?

What You’ll Do

The fellow will compile comparative data, identify similar initiatives in other cities, and develop metrics to track implementation success. Key stakeholders include internal partners such as the Permitting & Inspections Department, the Community & Economic Development Office, and the Office of Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging, as well as external partners including both market-rate and affordable housing developers, housing advocates, and resident-run Neighborhood Planning Assemblies. The fellow will also build on stakeholder engagements currently ongoing as part of the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative’s innovation training program, in which city employees are using human-centered design techniques to explore barriers to housing production and affordability. The summer fellow would continue this work by conducting research and analysis to inform implementation and evaluation.

Key deliverables would include:

• A housing market memo outlining what current housing market data reveal about supply constraints and affordability trends, including data on production and permitting by housing type, price, and location.
• A synthesis of current barriers to housing production identified through the stakeholder engagement in the Bloomberg Harvard innovation training.
• A peer city comparison memo researching peer cities that have implemented similar housing initiatives, including inclusionary zoning reforms and municipal funding mechanisms. The memo should focus on outcomes, implementation challenges, and lessons learned, and include two to four case studies with the examples most relevant to Burlington’s context.

What You’ll Bring

The fellow will be expected to possess the following skills:

• Data Analysis
• Policy Analysis
• Design Thinking
• GIS Mapping

Apply here

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