Fall is here, and with it, UVM students are scrambling for housing. 

“[The housing search] is kind of like a lottery system. You get what you get,” said junior Maria McLaughlin, a Catamount Run resident. 

To address the housing shortage, UVM added Catamount Run and Catamount East to its student housing options in 2024. Both apartment complexes are located in South Burlington, over two miles away from campus.

In 2024, UVM students seeking housing faced a rental vacancy rate of 2.2%, according to BTVstat’s housing report. 

When the vacancy rate is less than 5%, the demand for housing significantly exceeds the available supply. This market pressure pushes up prices, offers fewer living options, and decreases the quality of available housing, said Troy Headrick, Vermont State Representative for the 15th district and assistant director for community standards at UVM. 

UVM guarantees on-campus housing for undergraduate students’ first two years, then housing is not guaranteed and students are released into the neighborhoods, Headrick said.

“[Students] are scrambling with one another every August and September to try and find a suitable place to live,” Headrick said. 

UVM has been working to increase housing units to relieve this housing pressure in Burlington and ease the burden on UVM students, faculty and staff, said Adam White, executive director of University communications. 

Catamount Run was developed in partnership between UVM and real estate development firm Snyder-Braverman, while Catamount East was leased by UVM from Larkin Realty. 

Catamount Run consists of six buildings containing 620 beds. Five of the buildings are in use, with the final one opening in the spring of 2026, said Julianne Heisler, director of real estate operations for UVM.

Catamount East has 164 beds and is a mix between a dorm and an apartment. Each apartment has a kitchen and living room, and every floor has a Resident Advisor, Heisler said.

In both Catamount Run and Catamount East, undergraduate, graduate, medical students, faculty and staff are eligible to lease apartments, she said.

Unlike Catamount Run, Catamount East is open to underclassmen. For sophomore Cheyenne Schwaller, living in Catamount East gives her a space to herself. She enjoys being able to cook and the ability to walk to the University Mall and Target, she said.

However, its distance from campus is inconvenient. A shuttle bus operates during the weekdays, but it stops running before her final class of the day ends, Schwaller said. 

“[Catamount East] feels far from campus, especially with the inconsistent bus,” Schwaller said. 

Other students don’t mind the distance. Green Mountain Transit has a bus stop a short walk away from Catamount Run, McLaughlin said. 

“It’s definitely worth being over here. You are in proximity to lots of stores, the mall, Trader Joe’s,” McLaughlin said. “It’s a prime spot.”

However, UVM is terminating its current lease with Larkin Realty for Catamount East, Heisler said. 

Residents were not given the option to renew their leases through UVM, Schwaller said. 

However, these units will be rented to the public through Larkin Realty, according to Larkin Reality’s website.

“When you get to junior or senior status, you don’t necessarily want to live where there are RAs,” Heisler said. “It didn’t get the excitement that we thought it would. It also was a bridge for helping with the housing until Catamount Run was fully built.”

Catamount Run is also experiencing vacancy, McLaughlin said.

“As of right now, there is a lot of vacancy due to how expensive it is. There’s a very limited number of people on my floor,” McLaughlin said.

Apartment prices range from $2,029 per person for a one-bedroom to $1,123 per person for a three-bedroom, according to the Catamount Run website. 

“The only issue [with Catamount Run] that I can think of is money. It’s ridiculously expensive, especially for a single,” McLaughlin said.

The price of Catamount Run and East apartments reflects current financial realities, Heisler said. 

High construction costs and tariffs in Vermont have posed an obstacle to the building of new housing, both for UVM and other developers, Heisler said. 

Between 2025 and 2029, the average costs of developing a single apartment within a multifamily building were around $500,000 according to the Vermont Housing Needs Assessment. 

“As you can imagine, [creating new housing] is a costly project, but we know that it has to happen,” Heisler said.

Despite the additional housing units created, Headrick remains skeptical about whether it will improve Burlington’s housing market. 

“Every time this institution has built new housing, within five years they have increased enrollment to expand beyond the capacity of that housing,” Headrick said. “That is more and more students who are putting pressure on the surrounding neighborhoods.” 

To combat this, Headrick introduced H. 170 to the House Legislature in February. The bill proposes to limit UVM’s enrollment until Burlington’s vacancy rate is at or above 5%, require that UVM housing meet municipal housing codes, rental health and safety standards and establish a task force to ensure compliance, according to a Feb. 24 Cynic article.. 

“By doing that, it would essentially eliminate the use of triples,” Headrick said. “Students have a regulatory right in Burlington to have a certain number of square feet, and right now UVM is well below that.”

White pointed to factors outside of the University’s control that have exacerbated Burlington’s housing crisis. In 2021, Vermont’s population increased by 14,548 people from net inbound migration, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Additionally, financial and regulatory barriers through municipal zoning and Act 250  regulations, Vermont’s land use and development law, make it difficult for developers to meet increasing demand, White said.

“UVM takes very seriously its role as a member of the greater community, and the ways it can work cooperatively with surrounding city and town governments to help them address challenges,” White said. 

UVM is maintaining a target total undergraduate enrollment of less than 12,000 students to reflect UVM’s scale of operations, White said. 

For the fall 2025 semester, 11,595 undergraduate students enrolled at UVM. Including graduate students, a total of 14,425 students are enrolled, according to UVM’s Office of Institutional Research and Assessment.

UVM’s R1 designation will likely lead to increasing graduate enrollment, which will continue to put pressure on Burlington’s housing market, Headrick said.

Additionally, UVM has a financial incentive to increase enrollment. Maintaining current operation levels becomes increasingly expensive as the cost of living rises. As salaries go up, increasing enrollment, specifically out-of-state enrollment, covers these increased costs of operation, Headrick said. 

“So when you increase enrollment, where are you going to put them? You’re going to put them into triples, and then two years later, you’re going to release them into the community. That has a really significant impact on the quality of housing in this town,” Headrick said. 

While raising Burlington’s vacancy rate will take time, Headrick is confident that an agreement between the City of Burlington and UVM can be formed, he said.

“We have a new mayor. UVM has a new president. I am incredibly optimistic that the people at the table are going to be better at that conversation than they have been in the past,” Headrick said.