This post was updated on January 24, 2017.
The South Burlington City Council voted 3-2 Monday to pass a resolution intended to raise strong concerns about the continued purchase and demolition of homes near Burlington International Airport under a federal noise-mitigation program.
Councilors Meaghan Emery, Tim Barritt and council chair Helen Riehle voted for the resolution. Councilors Tom Chittenden and Pat Nowak voted against it, saying they feared it could jeopardize or slow home sales for property owners who are eager to sell under the Federal Aviation Administration program.
But Emery countered that the demolitions are unwarranted, based on outdated noise studies and threaten the affordable housing stock in the city’s Chamberlin neighborhood.
The resolution was “a really important undertaking that this council will be remembered for and I am grateful to be a part of that,” said Emery, who proposed it. “And I think we are doing right by the City of South Burlington.”
The testy meeting was four hours long.
“It wasn’t just the homeowners that got emotional; it was council members as well,” Riehle said to the crowd after the vote. “And these are tough things to pass as a council because of that emotion.”
The resolution asks the FAA to undertake a new noise study and meet with the council by February 7 to discuss the purchase of the homes, the land acquisition program and other matters.
The resolution was triggered by the surprise announcement in September that Burlington International Airport would seek to purchase and remove an additional 39 homes, not long after completing the demolition of 100 homes in the same neighborhood.
More than fifty people attended the meeting. During it, council members disagreed sharply and quoted both the U.S. Constitution and the Bible to defend their points of view.
Emery, while pushing for the resolution, met strong resistance from fellow councilor Nowak and the two had numerous heated exchanges.
Nowak also clashed with fellow councilor Barritt. At one point Nowak exclaimed to Barritt: “I’ve taken snowballs all night; be nice.”
Just as the council was divided about the resolution, so was the crowd.
“Please try to protect us from the predator that the airport has become,” said Carmine Sargent, who has lived on Elizabeth Street in the Chamberlin neighborhood for 45 years and opposes the continued buyouts and demolitions.
She expressed support for the resolution and suggested Nowak was not doing enough for city residents in her role as an airport commissioner.
“Pat, excuse me, it’s like you want to be queen of the world,” Sargent said, adding: “You are not necessarily advocating for the people in the neighborhood.”
Others, though, said Nowak’s concerns about the resolution were well-grounded and thanked her for raising them and for serving on the airport commission. Some critics of the resolution also made it clear that they saw it as something that could reduce their potential to sell their homes in the future.
“This is voluntary. We should have that right to sell,” said Jason Tucker, of the buyouts. He lives on Kirby Road with his mother and daughter. He asked the council to reconsider the resolution.
With noisy planes and helicopters often flying overhead, his family’s home has little value, he said. The family is hoping someday to sell to the airport, Tucker told the council. “That house is my mother’s future. It’s a piece of crap. If we don’t sell to the airport, who’s going to buy it?”
The meeting also turned into a debate about when Nowak knew the latest round of buyouts would occur, with South Burlington lawyer James Leas reading from airport commission minutes from last May and suggesting that Nowak was aware more buyouts were coming.
Nowak said Leas was confusing the facts, and that the minutes were referring to grants connected with the previous buyouts. But the questions persisted and Emery accused Nowak of not reporting information back to the council when she should have.
The council discussed but did not take action on a proposal to repeal affordable housing covenants on three properties slated for purchase under the airport program; the sales could be held up if they are not removed. The council agreed to meet January 30 on that question.
The resolution, meanwhile, might not have much influence over the FAA, based on a letter a regional administrator sent to South Burlington city manager Kevin Dorn earlier Monday — before the council met, and in response to a letter from Dorn.
In the letter, regional administrator Amy Corbett declined to conduct a new noise study on the F-35 jets before their expected arrival in 2019 or 2020 as replacements to the older F-16s now based at the Vermont Air Guard. Corbett also rejected the idea that noise would decline in either the short term or long term at the airport. City councilors had argued that could justify new noise-modeling studies and possibly a reduction in the buyout program.
“From our review of the data provided by the Department of Defense, it appears the F-35 deployment will increase noise in the local community. This data indicates that the F-35 noise signature is louder than the F-16,” Corbett wrote, and went on to say that the number of homes experiencing high noise levels will increase by “several hundred.”
Corbett did indicate a willingness to meet with South Burlington officials and honor their request for a “seat at the table” when decisions on noise are made at the airport.
Related Stories
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
Some very valid points on both sides tonight. An airport owned and run solely by one city (Burlington) but geographically located wholly in another city (South Burlington) is proving a disaster. Whether it is the F-35, a desire to build adjacent hotel, expand parking garage, etc., Burlington incentivized to do everything they can to expand airport because they get the financial gain and avoid the worst negative impacts of noise, neighborhood destruction & loss of property tax revenue. Especially when federal taxpayers are giving them “free” money to buy houses & take over more land in South Burlington, immunizing Burlington taxpayers from true financial cost of Burlington’s F-35 support. Make Burlington taxpayers pay for these acquisitions and watch Weinberger’s tune change.
Past time for Burlington International Airport to be managed by something like Chittenden County Transportation Authority, with equal representation from Burlington and South Burlington (and probably Winooski too). Denver has had similar problems, leading to lesson learned: “Land use planning around airports should be coordinated and consistent among affected jurisdictions.”
Or given Burlington wants to keep expanding into South Burlington by buying & destroying homes, why not reincorporate South Burlington into Burlington city limits? Burlington leaders would be accountable to voters now in So Burlington. In Boston, East Boston voters next to Logan have same vote as someone in Back Bay or Beacon Hill.
Surprised Nowak, Republican, wants to take the other people’s $ of federal tax dollars. Also, next time Knodell and Weinberger talk about their commitment to affordable housing, ask about their F-35 support and its destruction of yet more houses, including the energy efficient units with affordable housing covenants off Kirby Road. Just awful situation thanks to Leahy’s back room deal to force VT F-35 basing (see Bryan Bender article in Boston Globe).
The anti F35 lobby has lost in every court, now they have decided to attack the airport on the backs of the residents of a great neighborhood by taking away their property rights. The Council is headed back to Court, again, wasting more money that hardworking taxpayers/residents have given them in trust to manage our City. More debt, more bad decisions, more reasons for folks to live elsewhere – less toxic.
Here is the Boston Globe article:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/20…
Clearly Leahy used his political influence to change the Air Force’s decsion. A Trump-like decision on Leahy’s part.
PAM MACKENZIE – You are correct about ONE thing – it IS LESS TOXIC in other areas because other neighborhoods don’t suffer from the harmful, unhealthy noise impact of the military aircraft. Those most impacted in South Burlington are screaming to get OUT! No one wants to take away So. Burlington resident’s property rights, but they DO want a better guarantee of their rights to a quality of life that enabled the Chamberlin neighborhoods to become the great community this it is. ALL that is in jeopardy because of people like YOU that support planes over people, who dismiss significant environmental and socioeconomic damage to Vermonters, and who promote the over-militarization of our region, NOT because of the present council members who are trying to save those people and livability of their communities!
PS someone like you really doesn’t deserve to have a pink pussy hat as your icon!
Great suggestions, Chris.
Pam Mackenzie, Why attack someone personally who is expressing their pov, telling someone they don’t deserve the pink pussy hat? Pull your Big Girl pants up and stick to the issue. Sheesh.
CORRECTION: I thought Pam Mackenzie told someone they don’t deserve to wear the pink pussy hat- was wrong. It was Chris S. Please- NO personal attacks here! Take the high road, people!
Pam McKenzie is a former member of the South burlington city council who made illegal contributions to her cronies council campaigns; this after getting in trouble for having secret meetings while on the board at VPT. She’s clearly not a big fan of transparency.
Sadly, there are those who will try to conflate the South Burlington City Council’s concerns with F35 opposition. Everyone wave your flag. Nice try. An airport owned by one City, but located in another should operate transparently and legally. The Airport Commission minutes show in Jan 2016 grants were discussed and again with details- May 2016 when a motion passed for 5 buyouts AND discussion of 30 more home buyouts. Yet, SBCC learned first on 9/12 AFTER the unknown grant had been approved by the FAA. It is clear that the Airport Sponsor with a 74 page grant application and certification that required consultation with SB, the impacted community, could/did not occur in 7 days, as was stated in media. In fact, the Airport Director clearly knew many months that it was in the works, and weeks of preparation for the grant application. Was it the Airport Sponsors arrogance or incompetence? The “under the radar” plan created controversy and heartache for an entire community, placing SBCC in a horrible position. Any city would demand inclusion beforehand in such a major plan. Hard to believe a SB City Councilor on the Airport Commission who suggested perhaps she was late or did not attend the 5/16 Airport Commission Meeting, where she seconded the motion for 5 of the buyouts, then that night attended SB City Council Meeting and didn’t mention anything that occurred a few hours earlier? Is this Gas-lighting or Orwellian administration at work? We must be crazy or is black now white? I hope the homeowners are bought out by the proceeds of a $15 million dollar lawsuit against the Airport Sponsor. That would be justice.
It is called the the law of eminent domain. It has nothing to do with your neighborhood. You live near an airport. This happens at every other airport in America. Stop crying over spilled milk and grow up.
@Airoprt Guy. You best stick to subjects you are not entirely ignorant about. The sales are willing seller/willling buyer – not eminent domain. And airports do not have the unassailable right to expand into neighborhoods – not even by eminent domain.