Burlington Mayor's Press Conference: Updates on Burlington’s Housing Strategy

Thank you for being here for the mayor's press conference. Today we're going to be providing an update on the housing strategy that the administration launched in January. Very excited about that. Just a quick reminder that at the conclusion of the remarks, we will take uh questions related to housing with the speakers up here at the podium. Uh so please keep your questions focused on that topic just to ensure that we can cover everything during the a lot of time that we have. If you could also just give your name and the media outlet that you are representing when you ask your question, that's also helpful for us so that we can follow up if needed with additional information. And then afterwards, time permitting, um we can take one-on-one interviews with the mayor, with other speakers. Just come find me. I'm Jen Monro Zakaris, the mayor's deputy chief of staff. Come find me after and I will help facilitate that for you. So, thanks so much. >> All right, everyone ready? >> Okay. All right. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you all for being here this morning. Today, I'm pleased to share an important progress on my major second priority as my in my first term of as mayor, which is the creation of ample, safe, affordable housing. Our three-part housing strategy was launched at a press conference in January, and I look forward to providing key updates and next steps with my city team here today. here behind me or actually quite over there actually you can see a major example of a new partnership that well sorry behind me you will see the example of a major partnership that will deliver strong results for our community eventually thousands of new residents from diverse backgrounds will call this corner of the south end home enjoying a beautiful and accessible neighborhood the parcel that way though immediately behind behind all of you is 68 Sears Lane it is a city-owned parcel that will become affordable housing in the next handful of years that is part of our um our ability to activate public land for the benefit of the public good. More on that to come in just a few minutes. The south end coordinated uh the south end coordinated redevelopment project known as court shows us that we don't have to accept the status quo when it comes to housing. By thinking differently and trying new approaches, we can find ways to tackle our housing challenges both with innovative partnerships like CCORD and where where the city can be a key partner and in projects like 68 Sears Lane where we can take the lead. The CCORD project shows what happens when City Hall helps unlock the potential of a strong partnership. The city saw that potential in this opportunity and brought partners together and helped accelerate the project from an idea into action. And there is active vehicles going behind you. So don't walk backwards. Okay. A huge shout out to the Jonathan Rose Company, Ride Your Bike LLC, and Champlain College for being those strong partners in this endeavor. That's the approach at the heart of my housing strategy. Find new ways to work together to remove barriers and turn good ideas into homes for our community. Before we get deeper into our housing work, I want to start with appreciations and acknowledges acknowledgements of my fantastic city colleagues who are working with me to advance our housing development. Deep gratitude to our housing team that's here with me today. From CEDA, we have director Carl Arwari who's behind me. Where somewhere behind me? Yep. Our housing program manager Maggie Callahan and real estate development manager Gumi Jansen who is there you'll be hearing from momentarily. In the office of city planning, we have our director Charles Dillard, our principal part planner, Sarah Morgan, our senior planner planner, Stella Jordan, and senior policy and data analyst Nancy Stson. Supporting our existing housing stock is central to any good housing policy. And I want to acknowledge the important and often unseen work of our department of permitting and inspections and our lead program which is embedded in our CEDO department. They both ensure that our housing is safe, legal, and well-maintained and contributes to the neighborhood vitality of each part of the city. So, thank you to our DPI director, Bill Ward, and Will Verman, who who is our lead program, a le program manager, for being here with me here today. Come on, tablet. Okay. Uh, also a shout out to Burlington's affordable housing advocates, many of whom were have been active on this issue since the days of Mayor Bernie Sanders who worked tirelessly to innovate and establish the legacy tools and policies that launched Burlington as a housing leader in this country. Their success and continued commitment provide a strong foundation for us to build upon here today. This includes the core values of perpetual affordability in our housing stock and affordability that actually targets those who need it most, our lowincome residents as well as workingclass people. I want to recognize our housing partners, Champlne Housing Trust, Cathedral Square, Evernorth, VHFA, and VHCB, and all the private developers who are ex accessing state and federal tools or even going out on a limb on their own to to finance affordable units in order to make sure affordable housing continues to grow here in Burlington. A truly equitable housing policy that centers affordability for for all must contend with our historic homelessness crisis and work towards a full spectrum of shelter and housing options that will meet all people where they are and at different phases of their life. I am so grateful for the critical work of our many of our community partners on shelter and homelessness. And a special thank you to CBO or the Champlain Valley Office for Economic Opportunity and CHT Champlain Housing Trust for their tenacious leadership and partnership in getting our region more of the shelter beds we desperately need, including the current effort to stand up a 100 bed emergency shelter. It is a moral imperative for all community leaders both here locally in this region and state to stand up with them to advocate for this acute to meet this acute human need that we have in our region today. And finally, I just want to acknowledge uh I have a few other department heads here as well. I was going to acknowledge city councilors, but they aren't here as well. But I just want to acknowledge that there's a lot of city staff who work even behind the leaders I have behind me here today. So, we're here today because Burlington is at a critical juncture on housing. The city has long been a national leader in making housing a public responsibility and a public good, and it's time to reinvigorate that legacy with a bold vision for bringing housing back to the people. This is more about than hitting housing numbers. It's about reimagining what affordable, sustainable, and thriving communities can look like and activating our city in new ways to get us there. It is about Burlington continuing to lead with the creativity, the vision, and the values that have inspired communities across the country. And if we don't innovate now, we will not meet need meet the moment here today. The complex economic conditions we face are unlike anything we've seen in the housing field. Construction costs are so expensive that they jeopardize any kind of housing development. The tariffs and the economic policies of the Trump administration only worsen this already difficult reality. Complex regulatory systems, limited land, labor shortages have all become perennial challenges. And rents, rents, and home prices have risen far faster than wages in this state. And nearly onethird of renters are now paying more than a half of their income to keep a roof over their heads. A quick reminder, the definition of affordable housing is to not pay more than 30% of your income for your housing cost. We are truly at a critical moment with how to keep our city both affordable and housing is such a huge piece of this policy challenge. And we saw in the past legislative session that our state keeps stalling on badly needing pol needed policies that protect and support renters and give working Vermonters a break. All of this and more has created a housing crisis that affects our workforce, our economy, and the ability of people, especially families, to put down roots here. We are now here to change this reality. I'm excited to share updates on my administration's public housing strategy that puts the people of Burlington at its center. Our three-prong strategy approach gives guides on how we are activating our city in new ways to build housing of all types here in the Queen City. The first, we are revitalizing our two major housing legacy tools, our inclusionary zoning ordinance and our housing trust fund. We're act we're um we're modernizing them to meet today's housing challenges and to support affordable housing investment citywide. This work will keep inclusionary zoning effective at producing permanently afford affordable housing under current market conditions. and it will grow the housing trust fund's f financial capacity and strategic impact to leverage more affordable housing investment. The second piece, we are activating our neighborhood code by removing barriers and increasing public awareness to support inclusive neighborhoods through more infill housing throughout the city. This work is truly democratizing housing by helping residents take full advantage of the neighborhood codes opportunities and to realize its full vision. And the third piece, we are reclaiming the public sector's role as a housing leader, strategically using the city's authority and its land, just like 68 Sears Lane, to reduce the construction costs, create long-term public wealth, and ensure housing investments advance the community's priorities around affordability, equity, well-being, and climate. This work will make underutilized public land available for mixed income housing through public private partnerships. use the city's participation in the CHIP program, the community housing infrastructure program that the state stood up recently uh with projects to build more housing and maximize our current housing stock by holding owners of vacant properties accountable and using the city resources to rehab the aging housing uh housing stock we have. Across these three pillars, we are testing new tools, learning what works, and scaling successful approaches. The spirit is at the heart of my housing strategy, finding practical ways to move projects forward and deliver results for our community. This work is deeply rooted in values. It centers housing as a human right and housing as a public good. This means that we don't view housing as a for-profit market commodity. We see affordable homes are a public good that each one of us is entitled to. We treat housing as a vital public infrastructure that is essential for our communities to function and to thrive. And because housing isn't a means to an end, it is the foundation that makes everything else possible. With that, I'm going to turn it over to our housing team to delve into some of the details of how we've been putting this housing strategy together and the actions we've taken so far since January. So, first I'd like to introduce our CEDO director. Is that the first one up? Yep. Cedo director, Carl Araswani. Thank you. Good morning. Uh I'll be very brief because uh my team is going to delve into all the details and I also don't want to repeat what the mayor just said. Um while the ambitious housing goal of 7,000 units um is a key driver for our work. The other key driver is current economic conditions. And again, not just those created by the federal administration, but also conservative bank lending practices, bond market volatilities, and the intense wealth disparity we're seeing in this late stage of capitalism. This changed and changing economy is the reason we very much need to revitalize our legacy housing tools, inclusionary zoning and the housing trust fund, which the team will talk about shortly, as well as creating deeper pathways for the public sector to influence this market. These tools need to be modernized so that they can adapt and react to the current market conditions that we're seeing. My team will also talk about their work to update these legacy tools to function better in the economy. This will include changes that will spur the development of more mixed income housing while also ensuring the creation of affordable units. Individuals and families of all income levels should be able to find housing in our community. The team will also provide details on how we are working both internally and externally to create easier pathways and financial support for infill housing that is already allowed in much of our city due to our neighborhood code. Housing can and should be developed not only by our trusted affordable housing developer partners, which the mayor mentioned, but also by our private sector and not only large private development companies, but also individuals, people who can utilize land that they already own. Individuals like you and me. City staff will touch on the work they've been doing to leverage the power of the public spect sector to spur this development, align with climate goals and community well-being and protect and preserve the housing stock that we already have. And then to wrap us up, we will be giving some upbeat announcements on housing production in the pipeline and new housing coming online very, very soon. Thank you. All right. Next up, we're going to hear from our on the inclusionary zoning and housing trust fund from Mag Maggie Callahan. Maggie. >> Thank you, mayor. Uh, good morning everyone. My name is Maggie Callahan. I am the housing program manager at CEDO. I'm here today to provide an update on two of Burlington's longstanding affordable housing tools, our inclusionary zoning ordinance and the housing trust fund. Burlington has long been a leader in affordable housing. We were one of the first cities to pass an inclusionary zoning ordinance and establish a housing trust fund that would use city resources to help create and preserve affordable housing. But the housing market that we exist in today is different than the one in which those tools were created. So our goal is not to simply preserve these programs as they are. Our goal is to make them work better together for Burlington today and the years ahead. Over the last several months, city staff have undertaken a comprehensive review of inclusionary zoning ordinance, looking at program performance, development feasibility, stakeholder and community feedback, as well as peer town and city comparisons. We interviewed dozens of people whose work touches all aspects of housing, including those who created these legacy tools. That work has led to a package of proposed amendments that a joint committee of both the city council ordinance committee and planning commission have been discussing. The proposed updates are focused on making these programs more effective, flexible, and better aligned with Burlington's current housing goals. We're looking at ways to modernize the program, reduce barriers to affordable housing development, and create more opportunities while also giving the city more flexibility to respond to different types of development. At the same time, we're strengthening the city's approach to enforcement and monitoring. It's necessary that when affordable housing is created, those units remain affordable and that we have systems in place to ensure requirements are being met every single year. Another important part of this work is making sure that when affordable housing cannot be created at a particular development site, the value of that affordable affordability requirement can still contribute to creating affordable housing elsewhere in Burlington. often through our payment in L fees which funnel into the housing trust fund system. The housing trust fund gives the city flexibility that inclusionary zoning alone does not. It allows us to invest in projects to create new affordable housing, preserve existing affordable housing, and support opportunities that may otherwise not be feasible. So, as we look at the future of the housing trust fund, we're also thinking about how to make it stronger and more effective tool, including how we can diversify recipients and leverage these resources to maximize the number of affordable homes we can support. We're looking at how we can use the fund to help activate the neighborhood code as well as providing greater pro greater uh protections to renters facing eviction. Ultimately, inclusionary zoning and the housing trust fund are not separate pieces. They work together as pieces of the entire housing strategy ecosystem. Inclusionary zoning helps ensure that new development contributes to Burlington's affordability goals and when the payment in Lu is the appropriate path, those resources can be reinvested through the housing trust fund to support affordable housing where is most needed and where the city can have the greatest impact. Combined with all the other work that you're going to hear more from my peers behind me, we're ensuring that these tools give us more ways to respond to Burlington's housing demands. This is about taking the tools Burlington has built over several decades and making sure that they meet the moment in housing challenges we face today with greater flexibility, stronger accountability, and a clear focus on creating and preserving affordable homes for all Burlington residents. Thank you, >> Maggie. All right. Uh to continue the updates, we're going to hear from our principal planner from our office of city planning, Sarah Morgan. No, we're gonna hear from Charles Dillard, the director of planning, and then we'll hear from Sarah Clerk. >> Thank you, Mayor. Um, we had a late night at the planning commission last night, and I just decided to switch it up. Um, and apologies also, I'm going to be squinting through most of this. So, thank you, mayor, uh, for your leadership and the team, uh, for all your hard work to address this housing emergency from every angle. For more than 10 years, communities across the United States have been rewriting zoning rules to allow more homes to be built in residential neighborhoods. Burlington joined this movement in 2024 with the adoption of part one of the neighborhood code, which was one of the most ambitious missing middle housing reforms in the country. One year later, under this mayor, the city adopted part two, which created new rules for town houses, pocket neighborhoods, and larger planned developments. We are starting to see the results of this hard work, and you will hear hear more from my colleague Gumi Jansen in just a moment on some exciting updates. The reality is though that simply rewriting zoning rules is not enough. Building homes is expensive and costs are only going up. As you've just heard from the mayor, building is also a complicated process for normal people in Burlington. City staff from across departments have united and addressing these barriers. My team along with colleagues from CEDO public works, Burlington Electric Department and REIB and the mayor's office worked hard over the last year to engage tenants, small-scale developers, local financial institutions, and others to understand better what the barriers are and how we might approach them. This work has resulted in a list of eight strategies, including empowering a new staff role that will track and remove persistent regulatory barriers and foster the work of small-scale developers in this city. We're also excited to share that Burlington has been proactive with our state colleagues in creating a local pathway for the state's 802 homes program which will be bring pre-approved ready to build homes to communities in Burlington and across the state. The work will not stop. We will continue to work with our colleagues in the Department of Permitting and Inspections to make Burlington a community that builds. Now, I'm going to talk about the third plank. Revitalizing the city's critical legacy tools and creating one of the city country's most ambitious missing middle zoning reform packages are two significant steps in the city's effort to address Burlington's housing emergency. This emergency though is so widespread, so unrelenting, and how long it has impacted Burlington and Vermont's residents that new tools are needed. More than 90 years ago, as the United States grappled with a devastating housing crisis on the heels of the Great Depression, I'm going to let this fellow move. More than 90 years ago, this country's most well-known housing policy leader at that time, Katherine Bower, wrote that the old methods of providing shelter for people of average income or less are today so thoroughly unworkable and obsolete that any positive attempt to solve the housing problem can only be achieved by drastic measures. No backdoor or halfway measures will do the job anymore. We find ourselves in a similar situation today. Our housing crisis is also a climate crisis. It is a drag on our economy, a problem for our society and how we thrive as individuals and communities. Indeed, the crisis is structural. And so to address this crisis, we have to address the missing foundation of our housing system, active public sector leadership. To be clear, asserting a more active city government role does not diminish the role of our private sector housing partners, this project taking shape behind us is a great example of that. But if we truly believe this is a crisis, and it is, we cannot leave tools on the table. And yet we choose this path not merely because we are forced under pressure to identify new solutions to the problem of supply, but because housing and the neighborhoods where our homes are located should be sources of hope and well-being. And it is the public sector around the world in faraway places like Vienna and Singapore to places closer to home like Seattle and New York City that is leading with municipal innovation to demonstrate how resilient community first housing and urban design can transform lives and prepare communities for an uncertain future. So how do we innovate here in Burlington? First, we make underutilized public land available for mixed income housing and new community spaces. The first step is identifying which city properties make the most sense as sites for housing. We are engaged with Burlington residents in the plan BTV 2050 process and will begin soon a public land study that will guide our efforts here. To do this, we are reforming the way we procure projects. Gone are the days of the city merely asking the private sector what it would do with this property or that. Instead, we will lead with development with community engagement to identify precisely what kinds of homes and community spaces and programs Burlingtononians want. And then we will seek out development partners who share those values to build just that. Then through long-term leases, selling only when absolutely necessary, the city will contribute its land, typically 10 to 20% of a project's cost, to make projects feasible in this time of out of control cost increases. This process should give Burlingtononians comfort in knowing that their land is being marshaled to build public wealth uh on public land permanently. We don't have to imagine what the results will be. These practices are common across the world and we are in touch with colleagues from Boston to Berlin who have pro who have a proven track record in building beautiful climate and community supportive housing and neighborhoods. Burlingtononians can trust that their land will be used for the common good. This plank is not just about city land though. Burlington is creating other new tools and reinforcing programs that have proven effective. One significant new tool is the problem property citywide task force that is coordinating the enforcement of new vacant building rules, unpaid property taxes, and public health and safety violations to bring properties into compliance and better use. staff from across departments are bringing their collaborative expertise. Many of those folks are here behind me uh to make sure that Burlington's neighborhoods are not brought down by the presence of these problem properties. Yet another new tool is a policy framework that will guide the city's participation in CHIP projects. The community housing and infrastructure program that the mayor spoke about earlier brings infrastructure dollars to projects that create housing and other community benefits. Our framework will ensure that Burlington's values, the values of Burlingtononians are prioritized in these projects and that Burlington will not just rubber stamp any chip project. Finally, Burlingtonians should be proud that for years the city has led, no pun intended here, in crafting and managing extremely meaningful lead and healthy homes programs. Since 2003, the lead program has completed work on 611 apartments, turning $5 million in direct improvement grants from the federal government into homes that are safe for families. That is an incredible return on our investment. We should think of each property the CEDO lead team works on just like a new home that is built. Beyond the homes themselves though, the lead team is fostering a local ecosystem of contractors to do this work. And more broadly, the city is exploring in much of our housing work how we can bring more Vermonters into the construction trades to make all of this work possible. This work too is an example of the city leading in the supply of safe homes for Burlingtononians and we look forward to working with our neighbors in the coming months and years to advance all of this important work. >> All right. Thank you, Charles. Appreciate that. >> All right. And now we will hear from our principal planner, Sarah Morgan. >> No, again wrong. That's totally fine. Okay, Gumi, are you ready? So, we're going to hear now also within CEDO, uh, Gum Jansen, who is our CEDO's real estate development manager. >> Loud noise. Feel free to take a break. >> The last thing we wanted to do was to stop construction at a housing press. So, you know, they'll have to keep going. But yeah, good morning. My name is Gimson and like the mayor mentioned, I'm the city's real estate development manager. Thank you, mayor. Thank you colleagues uh for all the work that has gone into the housing strategy you've heard about this morning. I get the privilege of going last which means that rather than talking about another policy or a program I want to spend a few minutes talking about what all of this means in terms in practical terms which of course is building uh more homes. So let's start with the numbers. Burlington's housing target is roughly 7,000 additional homes by 2050. That's about 280 homes every year. Uh, another useful way uh to look at that, especially as we think about the work right in front of us, is in five-year blocks. To stay on pace, we need to build roughly 1,400 new homes every five years. That's an ambitious target. Since 2000, Burlington has added an average about se of about 77 homes per year. Over the last decade, we've increased that number to about 145 homes per year. So, we need to pick up the pace, but I also think there's a lot to be optimistic about. Right now, we can identify a pipeline of about,00 homes that are nearing completion, under construction, approved or moving through the development process. That includes City Place, the first phase of Seort, the redevelopment of the former YMCA, new housing proposed on Pine Street, and new affordable housing at Cambrian Rice. And importantly, more than 250 of those homes are expected to be affordable. Those affordable homes are coming in different ways through private development, inclusionary zoning, and the work of our nonprofit housing partners. We need all of those pieces working together. Cambrian Rice is a good example of what can happen over time. What once was mostly an underdeveloped site is now a real neighborhood with hundreds of homes. And right now another 40 affordable homes are under construction by Champlain Housing Trust at Cambrian Rice. Where we are standing right now has the same potential. Hopefully a decade from now there will be thousands of people living right here. People raising families, going to work or just going about their daily lives. Some of them may never know that this was once just a surface parking lot. That's the kind of change we're talking about when we talk about adding housing in Burlington. But the big projects are only a part of the story. We're not going to get to 7,000 new homes through a handful of large projects alone. There are many smaller projects happening across Burlington that play an important role, too. a duplex here, a backyard apartment there, four or eight homes on an infill site, a 16-unit project on North Avenue. Individually, these projects may not make headlines, but together they add up. And that's why the work you've heard about today around neighborhood code and making it easier to add housing across the city matters. We need housing at every scale. And there's one other point I think is important when we talk about these targets because we spend a lot of time talking about units because units are easy to count but the quality and mix of those homes matter too. We're not just trying to hit a number. We're building places where people are going to live their lives. That means natural light in our homes and public spaces, clean air, access to parks and places to gather. It means being able to walk, bike, or take the bus. And it means easy access to things like car share programs and parking when people need it. It also means thinking about the type of homes we built from studios and one-bedroom to larger homes for families. And we need homes that give people choices as their life change. Someone who wants to downsize shouldn't have to leave Burlington to find the right home. We want people to be able to age within our community, freeing up larger homes for the next generation while staying close to the people and places they know. We're not just building housing, we're building a city for people. And none of this happens without the people willing to actually build. I work with our developers every day and I think it's important to recognize the role they play in all of this. We have local developers who have continued to build and invest in Burlington through some very difficult years for housing construction. They know this city. They know the community and they continue to believe in Burlington. At the same time, we're seeing new developers from elsewhere in New England with experience in projects across the country choosing Burlington as a place where they want to build and invest. And we think that matters. It brings new investment, knowledge, and experience to our community, but it also shows real confidence in Burlington's and Burlington and its future. So, I'll leave it there. We have a lot of work ahead of us. The city can't build 7,000 homes by itself. We're going to need large projects and small ones, affordable housing and market rate housing, public investment and private investment. But we have about,00 homes already in the pipeline, including more than 250 affordable homes. That is real progress and that gives us a strong base to build from. Thank you. All right. So to wrap it up before we get to questions, I just want to remark on how proud I am of this team. This team has been really hard at work since January where we announced these three big pillars and the the uh the reflection of all the tangible work and the progress that we have made in nine months is truly remarkable. So thank you all very much team for putting your full full smart brains and hearts into this work. Our housing strategy is driving us towards our target, as Gumi just shared, which is creating 7,000 units by 2050. This is Burlington's stated target to meet our portion of the state's housing growth goals. We'll get a more in-depth look at this at the upcoming community open house for Plan BTV 2050 on November November 5th. This event uh at a I'm going to pause. This event at our wonderful new Burlington High School, because I had emphasized it's our wonderful new Burlington High School. Yet another reason to visit there is an opportunity for residents to check in on this new vision for Burlington's future and uh ask the which asks the fundamental question. How can we accommodate un the unprecedented but absolutely necessary housing growth in ways that support our local economy, steward our loved parks, open spaces, and waterfront, and guarantee that all residents, all the residents have the right to move freely and safely. Please join us in November for that event where we'll share how we think we can reach our housing target and continue to make Burlington the best place it can be. Thank you all very much for being here and we'll now open it up for questions. Morning, Abby Saxs with WCAX. Um, so you mentioned that there's a goal for housing in this parcel of land. Is there like an idea for a building or can you touch on a little bit more of what that would be? >> I'll ceue it up and then we can I'll kick it to either Gimme or Charles. Uh so part of what we really want to be thinking about and we're thinking about across the city is where does the city have underutilized city land that we own and we can activate in ways that can really use our own metrics to to really uh uh follow through on the values that we have around more affordable housing of all sizes and kinds that we need for those who live here in Burlington today and tomorrow. And so 68 Sears Lane is a great opportunity for significant number of units. And in terms of the technicality of it all where we are Charles or Gumi, which one do you want to Charles? Yep. Yeah, this is a really important question and and I'll let Gumi add anything here. Um, a few years ago when the city reszoned this land in the south end to be the innovation district, um, our office, the office of city planning, um, did really deep community engagement deeper than we normally do on a zoning amendment process to understand what the community would like to see here in terms of buildings, but also in terms of programs and who this housing could be for and what other community amenities people wanted to see. We finished that process. council adopted that unanimously and we quickly moved into a pre-development agreement with ride your bike in Champlain College where we got into more detail about urban design and exactly what folks want to see. We continue that engagement. So, we have a really strong foundation of knowledge coming from the community about this site in particular. Um, we will, like I said earlier, start to procure for this project very soon. that will include more community engagement to further refine what the objectives are, what people would like to see, how big buildings might be, how many open spaces there should be, and other things. And so that's all to come in the future. Um, but this is a three acre site. We know there's capacity on this site for 2 to 300 new homes in addition to more parks, uh, more open space, more climate supportive spaces in this city. Um, and we believe we can achieve that goal and we will achieve that goal. So, thanks Yeah, you can do better than a parking lot would be my actual succinct answer. Yeah, good morning. >> Aaron Calvin, seven days. Um, you know, talking about utilizing public land for housing and obviously it's not offending anybody to build on this parking lot really. Um, but I know that there's been a bit of push back in uh the administration's proposals to uh utilize particularly public park land in the new north end um to develop potentially develop housing. Um can you talk about how you're navigating um you know proposals to build on public land where uh you know there's already a park or you know people uh not everyone is on board with it. So in uh you're referring to a um a a project that is uh based on a certain area of the city. So plan BTV New North End is a plan for which in the it's a concept plan. So it's a concept plan of how does that neighborhood in that part of the city really want to grow and thrive and what do they want it to look like and feel like and be um as a wider community. So it wasn't just focusing on housing, it's connectivity for transportation purposes, community spaces, frankly more um spaces for people to convene and open open green space. And during that process, through many months of engagement, um we heard a lot of different feedback. Some folks who did want to support really getting innovative around all the public land we own. There's a lot of land out there both privately and publicly owned. But also some feedback where people were concerned about park space. So at this juncture, we have removed any reference to parks um as a commitment to the community because there were some concerns around uh the use of parks for for building for housing. So that's not in that plan anymore. And that is being what's being advanced through the planning commission and then eventually going to city council. It won't be a final plan until council votes in the next month or so. Um yeah or so. Yeah. Municipal time in the month next month or so. Circa circa next month or so. Um and uh so that's where we stand with that. However, there's lots of different kinds of public land. And part of what is helpful in that plan um is to be able to do a public asset study which will look at all the parcels for which we own and we own quite a number of them. So, it's it's a it's I probably the two ends of the spectrum are parking lot and a park and there's a lot of in between, but we'll get to be able to study and really be strategic on what can be activated in different ways once we have that study complete. >> For public, I know the city has been looking into a chip application for the Cword project. Can you talk about what the the status of that is? >> My team can Yeah, absolutely. >> We like chip. >> Yeah, happy to speak to that. Uh it's a work in process. Um we are finalizing infrastructure sort of budget and scope for the project. Obviously when we developing a surface parking lot there's a lot of infrastructure that has to be built. So on the city side we're collaborating with DPW and other departments on on figuring out what the actual need is. We're trying to design and and finally construct the infrastructure in a way that it's going to serve the entire development, not only the the first phase. Uh meanwhile, we're uh working on a housing development uh agreement that's between the city and the developer. So I would sort of assume that in the next month or two, we'll proceed submit the formal uh chip application to uh once it's been approved by by city council. So yeah, I think our our current timeline is is to submit the application hopefully by the end of October. Thank you. You >> mentioned some roadblocks like tariffs or cost of labor being hardships right now. That's something that we're hearing from governor candidates. Like basically anyone running for office right now is mentioning that. How are you guys navigating those challenges when you want to do these big developments like the one right here? >> Right. Well, I mean, back to uh what local government can do, but what we also need state partnership for and and frankly regional and better federal partnership. Uh tariffs that continue to happen are very disruptive to any any northern state in particular when it's directed at Canada, but it increases all the supply costs for a lot of our our our um uh developers, whether they're public or private and that is a real burden on a municipality trying to hit the kind of housing goals that we've talked about today. One thing that we are trying to take on locally uh in the workforce prices that we have, it's not necessarily the the cost of labor, it's the availability of labor who can actually be in the construction trade. So we have very proudly uh through our CEDO department been able to advance uh the education and the training of folks going into the construction field with a partnership with resource. Uh it's been great. They just graduated another class of folks who are getting jobs right in uh construction trade companies throughout the region. That's helpful because it helps us put um we're able to be in the driver's seat for helping to meet that particular need. But we need more and we also need and just as in terms of the standards and the values again, we need construction projects to be also having labor standards that actually provide good paying jobs for Vermonters. And as I talked about before, we have to make sure folks who are building these housings, these houses and these new developments can actually afford to live here and find housing that they can afford at the same time. Um I apologize if this was said already. Uh do you have a specific timeline for this project? >> So we talked about a little bit but um basically we in the next in the next coming months we'll be doing further scoping and as Charles mentioned this has the potential for anywhere from 200 to 300 units given that it's three acres. Um but we have a lot more community engagement to do to make sure that we can again this is a perfect example of the public being in the lead, the city being in the lead of the design of what we would build here and then finding the right partners to help us actually make that vision a reality. Uh so there's a lot more work to do but probably in the next uh few months we will be putting out the Is that what you said? Okay. Uh sort of like what the scope of the work might be and what we're starting to think about so the public can fully understand and engage. >> Anything else >> there is kind of the idea that this project and the CCORD development will be sort of one big thing or two separate projects? >> Well, we're standing in what's going to be a future neighborhood. Um, and well, it is a neighborhood, but it's going to be a more robust and thoughtful neighborhood, at least on this big big big piece of parcel. So, it's really why the partnership has been so um strong and intentional from the beginning here with Ride Your Bike LLC, to make sure that what they're starting to build out on the what's my direction here? North side of the parking lot. Uh, and then when we have our idea and our um project sort of more of built out that we're really thinking about co-design of what the streetscape will be, what the livability will be. We want this to be a kite a car light neighborhood because as we continue to think about our climate goals and our climate needs, we have to be thoughtful about an opportunity like this to design in such a way and to build housing to attract people who want to live in that kind of city while also thinking about different green infill space and light and just the design of these buildings to make sure it is something that is um uh really a place where people can have dignified housing but also be able to find places that they can afford to to live in uh and keep that housing of course uh perpetually affordable. And then, you know, there's been some suggestion that just building more homes, even homes of various forms of accessibility, um, is not going to be enough to, uh, protect the affordability of housing in Burlington. Um, is your administration considering anything or proposing anything about trying to protect the housing stock uh from, you know, just investment use or, you know, particularly commercial rental properties and stuff like that? >> Well, a few of now we're going to get a train all we're going to have all the experiences. I think we have planes, trains, and automobiles and and anyway, dump trucks. Uh so just quickly and I'll pause if it gets too loud but um part of what we're really trying to do is a couple multiaceted approaches because affordability needs a lot of different policies to really address it. It isn't just through housing or even if you build enough affordable housing. One piece that we have to do I'm going to pause. We've got geese. We've got everything. Yeah. All right. Good thing it's only one. Yeah. Thank you. It's one. It's just the engine. Um, so part of what we're trying to really focus on um is ma making sure that we're keeping an eye on all of the properties that we call problem properties to make sure that they're fully activated because we have some vacant buildings um that have been out of compliance and some are um delayed in fees uh that they owe to the city based on our new upgrades or um updates to our vacant property ordinance. Um, but another piece is making sure we're enforcing short-term uh rental regulations that we've had on the books. And our team between our city attorney's office and our department of permanent inspections have done a really uh great job of making sure that they're really looking at places that are out of compliance and bringing those those properties into compliance because it does not help our underlying need for more housing, especially rental housing, to have those be commodified in a way that's not within the the uh the rules of of the city. Um, back to affordability, you will see more from the administration, from my team on how we continue to make the city more affordable through how we raise revenue through taxes. We have town meeting day coming up. We have some work we're continuing to do through the tax fairness working group, um, which is with my administration and the city council to develop policies that will make meaningful change for working people to be able to stay here and at least on the municipal side of their tax bill, have a more affordable option. Um, rather than right now, which is regressive. We don't have any incomesensitized tax policy with how we raise the local revenue for the city. >> Mayor, >> yes, >> if I may. >> Um, just to clarify for those who don't know, any housing that is built via or because of our inclusionary zoning ordinance or any housing that is built with funding from our housing trust fund is perpetually affordable. Thank you. >> Okay, time for one more. There is one. more of a question forward, but is there an update on like the problem property list? >> Sure. >> Thank you, mayor. Uh yes. Um the mayor knows this uh that there are five additional properties that we've added to that list. We hadn't formally notified the public, but uh thank you Abby. This is it. Um, we did say in the initial update that we were posting those properties on our website that we would be updating it as frequently as we could. So, for this month, we've added five additional properties. They are not overtaking the top 10 necessarily, but we've added them as additional properties just to make sure the public knows that we're continuing to work on that. And we want to be as careful as we can because these properties can change daily sometimes as far as whether they are fully compliant or coming into compliance. So that's part of why we're doing this sort slow roll out of the properties. So you'll see additions to that in the coming weeks and months. I'll keep the mayor updated first. So I'm glad I didn't announce this to the public without having her know first, but she's well aware of it. And the property owners themselves know not necessarily that not necessarily that it's on the website, but they certainly know that they've been notified by me that they're under our watchful eye and they will continue to be until they come into compliance. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Bill. All right. And then if you have anything that's not on the topic of housing, you can talk with Jen and we can uh spend a few minutes. But thank you very much for being here and good work team. Appreciate you all being here.