WILDER — When Sarah McKinney bought her Wilder home in 2015, she looked at the unfinished second story as bursting with potential.

“It definitely could be a second-story apartment,” McKinney recalled thinking at the time.

She saw it as a way to help pay off her mortgage. Then, as she started to look into renovations, she “pretty quickly realized I did not have the knowledge, the skills or the time to make it happen.”

She put the project on the back burner, working on it when she had the time and the money. Then in fall 2021, McKinney decided to give it another go. Now her second-story studio apartment is the pilot project for the Liveable Real Estate Cooperative, an Upper Valley organization that provides support to homeowners building accessory dwelling units, known as ADUs.

“Creating realistic timelines and making sure you’re connected with people who are able to verify your timelines are realistic is helpful,” said McKinney, who works as a special educator in the Hartford School District.

She credits Nick Clark, of the Liveable Real Estate Cooperative, with helping her navigate the process and motivating her to keep going.

As the Upper Valley faces a housing shortage, ADUs have been pitched as two-pronged solution: Create more housing stock, while providing homeowners with another income source.

“It would be great to be able to not just add assets to existing affluent homes, but to think about ways that low-to-moderate income people can gain access to equity,” said John Haffner, housing and transportation program manager at Vital Communities. “Through adding ADUs (they can) reduce the cost burden of their housing as well, while simultaneously adding an affordable unit.”

But the process can be overwhelming, especially for those who have little experience with permits or the construction process. Vital Communities is partnering with Town of Hartford and Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission for a “Home Creators Expo” from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Hartford Area Career and Technical Center, located at 1 Gifford Road in White River Junction.

“There’s a steep learning curve to getting them in the housing pipeline,” Haffner said. “This is part of that effort.”

That could be even more true for low-to-moderate income homeowners who might not have the money to hire an architect or other professionals to help them. One of McKinney’s biggest challenges with building her ADU has been the permitting process. She’s submitted permits that she thinks are complete, only to learn from the town that they’re not.

McKinney suggested it would be helpful to have that information gathered in one place — along with options for financing ADUs — to create a “one-stop shop” for homeowners who are interested in building one, but aren’t really sure where to start.

“Some of that, finding all of that information is one of the biggest hurdles,” she said.

Lori Hirshfield, Hartford’s director of planning and development, agreed.

“It is a daunting process,” she said.

Part of the solution is education: People often think that ADUs involve building a structure to attach to a primary home, but that isn’t always the case. It could be converting the upper floor of a home to an apartment while a homeowner continues to live on the first floor. It could also mean converting the second floor of a garage into an apartment or subdividing a larger house.

“More and more over the years, the concept of doing an ADU is something people have been hearing more about and are getting more interested in,” Hirshfield said. “People are starting to think, ‘how do I accommodate this?’ ”

Hirshfield said that she is in the early stages of answering the question: “Are there ways in which we can provide some upfront services for individuals free of charge?”

“It is not something that’s going to come for free, 100%, but if we can reduce the burden on individuals to explore the idea if it is even feasible for them, I hope we can do that,” Hirshfield said.

That could mean anything from architectural consulting services to putting together information about how to finance ADUs.

McKinney is using a $50,000 Vermont Housing Improvement Program grant, through the Windham & Windsor Housing Trust to finance her ADU, which will be a 520-square-foot studio apartment. The grant requires that homeowners match 20% of the funds, either through material purchases or “in-kind services,” such as painting or installing flooring. Since she is using public money, the studio must also meet the standards for a public building and McKinney has been working with the Hartford Fire Department to figure out what that entails.

The studio will include a full bathroom and kitchen, as well as a washer and dryer. The tenant will have their own parking space and a separate entrance to the apartment. McKinney is hopeful the unit can be completed by next winter.

The grant also requires homeowners to rent to tenants at the Housing and Urban Development fair market rate for five years, which will be around $800 a month — including utilities — for McKinney’s unit.

“If I was doing this on my own I would probably have to charge an absurd amount of rent to make up the money I spent,” McKinney said. “That’s what’s going to allow it to be part of that solution for folks in that low- to middle-income space that aren’t able to find housing.”

Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.

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