This story, by Report for America corps member Carly Berlin, was produced through a partnership between VTDigger and Vermont Public.

SHELBURNE — Once the site of an Econo Lodge motel, a nondescript lot tucked off Route 7 has been transformed into this Chittenden County town’s newest neighborhood.

Called Bay Ridge, it is one of the largest affordable housing developments built in Vermont in recent memory. Nearly 100 new homes will be either rented or sold at permanently subsidized rates.

At a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday, elected officials hailed the project — a joint effort by the nonprofits Champlain Housing Trust and Evernorth — as a model for addressing the state’s housing crisis.

“We want to make more dollars available so that this kind of project can be replicated across the

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