The Burlington, Vermont City Council reviewed a number of proposals during its meeting this week, including a revised agreement for a major downtown development.
Councilors began with a work session to hear presentations on the status of the former and now empty YMCA building and on South End and Gateway Block predevelopment agreements.
Later during the regular meeting, councilors considered a motion to approve and authorize an amended agreement for the CityPlace downtown development. Mayor Miro Weinberger, a Democrat, said approval would allow the project to take a critical step forward.
“A lot of the discussion, public discussion, has focused on the addition of a second hotel to the current plan. However, the project described in the new ARDA (Amended and Restated Development Agreement) will have at least 350 apartments, 70 of them permanently affordable, making this project the second largest housing project in, not Burlington’s history, but the state's history,” Weinberger said. “This final version of the building plan has nearly 30% more homes in it than when the city council first approved a development agreement in 2018. And this agreement represents a major step towards addressing our housing crisis.”
A move to postpone a vote failed due to a lack of a second. The original motion passed on a unanimous voice vote.
Councilors also considered a resolution asking that the Transportation, Energy, and Utilities Committee create a ballot question to authorize the council to implement a carbon pollution impact fee on more buildings than currently allowed, increase the fee and apply the fee to any emissions that cause global warming. Co-sponsor Ward 2 Progressive Gene Bergman says despite calls for a public vote, the resolution merely sets up a process to put something on the ballot.
“It allows us to engage in a process that both opponents like VGS (Vermont Gas Systems) and UVM (University of Vermont) and UVMMC (University of Vermont Medical Center) are calling for and what many people are asking us for in terms of dealing with the carbon fee ordinance and with climate action generally,” Bergman said. “So please support this resolution and don't delay.”
North District Independent Mark Barlow has concerns that the resolution calls for expanding the carbon impact fee on smaller businesses.
“I'm not a climate denier. But I do think we need to be realistic about how we decarbonize buildings smaller than the ones we've already assessed a carbon pollution impact fee for,” Barlow said. “We saw a lot of buildings that housed small businesses like coffee shops or retailers and restaurants and it's just not clear to me that the carbon pollution impact fee is the right tool to decarbonize those buildings. I do hope there are other ways we can address it through incentives, through weatherization, through whatever other tools are available.”
The motion failed on a tie vote.
