Mayor Miro Weinberger presented the city council Monday with an 18-point plan for solving Burlington’s affordable housing crisis.
The mayor has said that addressing this issue is a top priority during his second term. His administration has been working on the plan — with input from city councilors and members of the public — for roughly a year. Earlier drafts proved controversial, providing campaign fodder for his opponents.
The plan calls for building housing for another 1,500 college students on campuses and downtown; considering more housing in the South End; and overhauling the zoning ordinance by adopting form-based code. It calls for making it easier for developers to build downtown by reducing permit fees and no longer requiring them to include a minimum number of parking spaces for each project.
Among other recommendations:
- Consider changes to the inclusionary zoning ordinance to reduce the costs of development. Created in 1990, the ordinance requires that at least 15 percent of new units in a project be reserved for lower-income households.
- Double the funding for the Housing Trust Fund, which supports permanent affordable housing.
- Encourage construction of small mother-in-law units as a housing option for elderly residents.
- Support a permanent cold-weather shelter that doesn’t turn away homeless people who’ve been drinking or using drugs.
The public’s response on Monday was mixed. The plan didn’t draw a huge crowd, but the residents who did show up were clearly invested — at least six of them took notes throughout the meeting. Some people asked the council to slow down; others urged the opposite.
One of the most common refrains: Do more to encourage the local colleges to house their students rather than create housing for them downtown.
The plan pledges to pursue strategies to avoid “over-gentrification.” When Progressive Councilor Max Tracy asked the administration to get more specific, Weinberger offered the idea of building housing set aside for artists in the South End.
The term “affordable housing” was bandied about throughout the meeting, with little agreement about what income brackets it actually referred to. “I am for real affordable housing,” said resident Andrew Simon. “I’m not convinced that the housing plan as proposed really achieves that.”
Brian Pine, former housing director for the Community & Economic Development Office, said people shouldn’t be paying more than 30 percent of their income toward rent. According to the plan, the majority of Burlington residents shell out 44 percent.
The council was originally expected to vote on the plan on April 27, though it may delay doing so in response to feedback from the public.
The entire plan can be viewed here.
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Why are the words ‘housing crisis’ in scare quotation marks? Does Seven Days mean to imply that there is no housing crisis in Burlington? Surely not in a city with inflated house prices and rents, in which landlords capitalize to make a quick buck on college students, where a middle class person might as well forget a decent home in a safe, quiet neighborhood.
Hay, I’m no one’s conservative nor shill for any developer. But it seems to me that the pressure from the housing market in the newly-minted “East District” (Wards 1 and 8) can spill over into the Old North End where students (and single professionals who might make use of a studio apt) might be competing with low-income folks for affordable housing (which is what some landlords capitalize on). This can be an unfair pressure on these folks that pushes some of them outa Burlington. I wonder how the elected councilors (from our friendly Progressive Party) of the the Old North End feel about rent pressure pushing out their constituents?
So it makes sense to me to responsibly develop housing in parts of Burlington that are already developed. (… like across Colchester Ave from the hospital, or hay, why not tear down that Midway Motel and put up some mixed-use housing there? Even build it over the parking lot.) The more we do that, maybe the less we end up developing undeveloped parts of Burlington. Like avoid repeating what’s happening to the parcels behind Burlington College.
Wait- what? His plan to reduce the housing crisis is to *build less affordable housing*? Did I read that right?
It’s already getting difficult to go more than a block or two without passing by one of the giant-box developments that have become the signature of Miro’s mayorship: North Ave, North Winooski, Cherry Street, St Paul street, etc.
It definately makes Burlington feel much more suburban–perhaps Miro should be working for South Burlington instead of trying to re-envision Burlington itself.
Housing Summit, Contois, May 7 at 7pm. Pros and con’s of the mayor’s housing plan, and ideas about how to create communities of housing that preserve the uniqueness of Burlington. For small group discussion of how the plan would impact your neighborhood, check with your Neighborhood Planning Assembly (NPA). NPAs meet monthly in every ward.
All this tells me is that the section 8 scumbags will get more housing (nice new apartments for them to destroy) and the hard working middle class is stuck with paying an even higher rent because all the other apartments will cost more to make up the difference. The shitty way over priced Handy or Bissonette units will remain the same (most are in a condition worse than am abandon murder motel) and we will still pay over half our salary to live in a building that is not a complete shit hole. People need to wake up and fix the real problems! This is in no way a fix. It only makes it worse!
Date change: Housing Summit, Contois, May 20 at 7pm.
Pros and con’s of the mayor’s housing plan, and ideas about how to create communities of housing that preserve the uniqueness of Burlington. For small group discussions of how the plan would impact your neighborhood, check with your Neighborhood Planning Assembly (NPA). NPAs meet monthly in every ward.
Keynote speaker, Tom Angotti, The New Century of the Metropolis. He builds on the work of community planning by neighborhood groups in NYC that are similar to Burlington’s NPAs. He is a professor in the Hunter College Dept of Urban Planning, former Peace Corps in Peru, land use columnist for Gotham Gazette, co-edits Progressive Planning Magazine, chaired the Pratt Institute Graduate Center for Planning and the environment.
Come think outside the big boxes!