LONDONDERRY — Town clerk Kelly Pajala can laugh a little now, and she’s sleeping better at night, thanks to the generosity of a unnamed town resident who offered Pajala and her family a place to stay after a 90-day eviction notice landed in her mailbox.
For the past month, that wasn’t so easy.
With the possibility that the condominium unit she’s rented for more than six years would be sold, and she and her two boys asked to leave, Pajala has been working to overcome low inventory and high prices in a white-hot housing market. As town clerk and as state Representative for Londonderry and four other mountain towns, Pajala knew housing was in short supply, and that prices were soaring.
Luckily, an answer arrived shortly after the eviction notice from owner Thomas Ettinger of Weston reached Pajala’s mailbox late last week.
Now, it’s about packing up and leaving.
The official notice gives Pajala 90 days to leave, but she’s not waiting. “I prefer to be done and out by the end of the month,” she said. “I’m a rip the Band-Aid off kind of person.”
If current plans hold, the Pajala family will pack their belongings and move to a temporary home in Londonderry, with the expectation that a second residence, also in town, will be ready for occupancy by year’s end.
The new arrangement was offered by “someone who incredibly kind and generous and offering us a place to be and place to store our belongings,” Pajala said Tuesday. She didn’t identify that person, saying they hadn’t given express permission to have their name used.
“That was silver lining to the whole thing,” Pajala said. “It really reminded me that” — she paused — “that this community is a special place, that there are a lot of fantastic people in it.”
As Londonderry’s elected town clerk, Pajala needs to live within the town borders to remain eligible for the ballot. “I’d really, really, really like to keep my job,” she said.
That said, Pajala had no interest in changing the rules to make the position appointed, and end the residency requirement.
“I never would have asked for that and would actually not advocate for that to happen,” she said. “I think it’s important that the position of town clerk remain elected.”
HOUSING ISSUES
With the state facing a housing crisis driven by high demand and low supply, and Gov. Phil Scott vetoing a bill that would establish a statewide rental housing registry, Pajala heard from “a lot of other people experiencing the same challenge,” she said. “They’re having just as much trouble as I had, and knowing how few options there are, there are definitely more people looking than places available to rent.”
The situation has informed Pajala’s views on state housing policy as well, from regulation of short-term rentals such as Airbnb to the rental housing registry proposed in S.79, the bill Scott vetoed last week.
“I felt before and still feel that Airbnb is something that should be regulated differently than it is right now, whether that be on the local level or statewide,” Pajala said. “I think it does have an impact on communities’ land use options and communities’ affordable housing options, which is contributing to the challenge of businesses finding employees.”
As for Scott’s veto? “I was hoping he wouldn’t veto S. 79,” she said.
“There were a lot of good things in S. 79 and I know the rental housing registry was the nail in the coffin for that. But I don’t think the state has a good grasp on what its residential housing stock is being used for, and I think having that information would be really instructive in terms of what kind of policy changes are made. “
MOVING OUT
Since 2014, Pajala and her two sons have lived at the Riverside Farm condominiums on Boynton Road. Pajala had a lease with Ettinger for the first year, and was month to month thereafter. Renewing simply never came up.
Things changed last month when Ettinger informed Pajala that someone had expressed interest in purchasing the unit, despite the fact it was not listed for sale. Ettinger did not return an email seeking comment for this story.
Pajala had known that Ettinger wanted to sell the unit. In fact, she said, they had talked about her buying it, until financial complications from her divorce obstructed her path to a mortgage.
But then the COVID-19 pandemic happened, and the price of real estate in Vermont rocketed into the stratosphere.
According to the Vermont Association of Realtors, the average sales price of a single family home in Vermont in May was $393,521, a 45.1 percent increase from the average price of $271,236 in May 2020. In April, the average single-family sales price was $369,207, up 21.8 percent from the year prior.
The timing was unfortunate, Pajala said.
“The same circumstances that are creating a great market for [Ettinger] to sell are also creating a terrible market to rent in,” she said.
Despite the situation, Pajala said she hopes she and Ettinger can remain on good terms.
The unit is one of several on the former sheep farm, and one of just three listed in Londonderry town records as being owned by Vermonters. The remainder are owned by out-of-state residents, from Long Island, N.Y., New Jersey and Connecticut.
According to town Listers’ online records, a unit sold for $220,000 in 2020, and sales prices for larger units have remained constant; one went for $230,000 in 2007; another sold for $220,000 in 2014.
EASING ANXIETY
The notice met the minimum conditions spelled out in state law: Month-to-month tenants who have lived at a residence for more than two years are to be given 90 days notice to quit the premises.
Pajala knew from her experience as town clerk that Londonderry was short of available rental inventory. Short-term vacation rentals were quickly eliminated as prohibitively expensive. “Couch surfing” in the guest bedrooms of other people’s homes was off the table.
That didn’t leave many options.
“I was calling people out of the blue on the off chance,” she said.
“Most of the potential options all hinged on other people needing to move out or other people possibly getting evicted so they weren’t really viable options. They were rentals that might someday be available.”
The other shoe dropped on July 1, when notice arrived in the mail.
“Getting the letter, my older son [Olav] said ‘At least now we know,’” Pajala said.
Now, the boys “feel a lot better now that they know what the plan is and the time frame,” she said. “Really, we’re going to be OK. We’ll be together, we’ll be warm, we’ll be safe. We have people looking out for us. It will be a lot of work and it will be a process, but the end result will be that we’ll have a home to live in.”
More than anything, Pajala is thankful — for the good fortune of finding places to live, for the many offers of help she received, and for the support of family, friends and her extended family in Vermont state government.
But until the ink is dried on a new lease, there’s still a little anxiety.
“Until there is a signed lease and I am moved in and settled and living there, there’s still a degree of anything can happen, anything can go sideways,” Pajala said. “So there is a feeling that there’s a leap of faith that it’s all going to work out. But I prefer to take that leap of faith.”
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