HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Affordable Housing Committee - 02/18/2020February 18, 2020, SoBu Affordable Housing Committee Minutes- APPROVED Page 1
Approved on March 3, 2020
AFFORDABLE HOUSING COMMITTEE February 18, 2020, 10:00 a.m., City Hall, Champlain Room
Members attending: Tom Bailey, Leslie Black-Plumeau; Paula DeMichele, Sandy Dooley, Mike Simoneau, and John Simson; also Monica Ostby, PC liaison Guests: Vince Bolduc (SoBu resident and applicant for appointment to committee), Joe Larkin (SoBu resident and invited guest), and Darrilyn Peters (SoBu resident, darrilynp@comcast.net) AGENDA 1. Call to order, emergency procedure, agenda review, comments from guests
2. Review and approval of minutes of 02/04/20 committee meeting 3. Chair’s Comments 4. Guest Joe Larkin to discuss future housing plans in South Burlington
5. Housing site analysis progress report – Tom and Mike
6. Further discussion of subcommittee to consider changes to promote housing infill 7. Reports and updates by committee members 8. Adjourn
1. Call to order, emergency procedure, agenda review, comments from guess: John called meeting to order at 10:03 a.m. John reviewed exit procedures. John welcomed Vince Bolduc, Joe Larkin, and Darrilyn Peterson. John asked Derrilyn if she had comments on a topic not included on the agenda. She indicated that she wants to learn about the committee’s work and that she comes to the subject of affordable housing from a public health background. She noted that public health is now placing more focus on affordable housing as a foundation for public health. Mike added that a recent UVM Medical Center community needs assessment
named affordable housing as the area’s number one health need. Sandy mentioned that, a few years back, the keynote speaker at a statewide Housing Conference called affordable housing a “vaccine.” 2. Review and approval of minutes of 02/04/20 committee meeting: Due to computer problems, Sandy was unable to distribute the draft minutes until the evening before. In light of this, she proposed that action on these minutes be deferred until the next meeting to provide an opportunity for Ed VonTurkovich and Patrick
O’Brien to comment on the draft minutes. Members present agreed to this delay. 3. Chair’s Comments: John shared that Sandy had raised the subject of members replying to everyone (“Reply All”) with substantive comments in response to articles being shared between committee meetings. This may be a violation of VT’s open meeting law. Members were reminded not to “reply all” but that replies to one or two individual members is not a violation. Sandy encouraged members to think about whether the link to a particular article being shared needs to be added to the committee’s webpage. She mentioned the “NYT article “Build, Build, Build. . .” as being worthy of placement on our webpage. Vince recommended the book, Evicted. Sandy echoed Vince’s praise for this book and offered to lend her copy to any interested member (John took her up on this offer).
4. Guest Joe Larkin to discuss future housing plans in South Burlington: Led by Joe’s father, John (who died six years ago), the Larkin family has been in the housing business for 40 years. Since his father’s passing Joe has been “learning the ropes.” Discussion focused on the Larkins’ large development adjacent to Shelburne
Road and Fayette Drive. Overall project size is 40 acres; this includes the apartments at Olde Orchard Park, the Palace 9 movie theater, the new mixed use building with Mascoma Bank branch and Bliss Bee on ground floor, and the building that houses Zen Gardens and other businesses. The family regretted that when Larkin
Terrace was demolished 60 small (and old) but affordable housing units were replaced by larger units that are not in the affordable price range. Future plans for the development include a hotel, a multi-family residential building with micro units, and several single-family or townhouse-style structures. The anticipated numbers and sizes of the micro units are: 30 studios – 380 sq. ft. and 17 one- or two-bedroom units – 400 sq. ft. The
February 18, 2020, SoBu Affordable Housing Committee Minutes- APPROVED Page 2
goal is to have rents no greater than $1,000 per month without utilities; cost with utilities would be in $1,250 –
1,300 range. Cost of the building: $6 million. Family is willing to take smaller (or even no) return to keep rents affordable. He mentioned the complexity of traffic, stormwater, and parking requirements and that developments are subject to both State and City regulations regarding stormwater; these requirements don’t
always line up. Then, there are changes that result in unexpected new requirements. He mentioned working with Paul Conner to reduce the size of a non-conforming and dangerously wide curb-cut, which they are doing though this is not required. Doing this necessitated having to comply with more recent stormwater regulations, which also cost time and money. Joe hopes that what they do with the micro-unit building is replicated by others. When asked for recommendations for changes that would result in more consistency, Joe referred committee to the engineering firm he uses, Krebs & Lansing. The footprint for the micro-unit building is one-quarter acre. It will include limited common areas, have four stories, and provide parking below the building. When asked how long a development takes from start to finish, Joe replied “five years—three years from
concept to permit and two years for construction. 5. Housing site analysis progress report – Tom and Mike: The informal working group has another 35-40 parcels to assess, assuming they assess the same parcels assessed by the IZ Open Space committee. Monica recommended that the group present their work and goals in a less adversarial manner. Vince and Sandy thanked Monica for her conciliatory remarks at the recent joint City Council/Planning Commission
meeting. The Planning Commission has 130 days to complete work on new PUD regulations and a rewrite of Chapter 12 of the LDRs. Monica anticipates that the new conservation PUD may provide guidance for combining natural resource preservation with development and noted that the new PUDs will have minimum
and maximum density requirements for development of a property. The Arrowwood report has been very helpful to the working group. Vince asked whether the Affordable Housing committee will endorse the working group’s report. Lively
discussion followed. John’s proposal (which no one present disputed) is for committee to review the report and, assuming the committee endorses it, either he or Sandy will attend Planning Commission and/or City Council meeting when working group presents it. 6. Further discussion of subcommittee to consider changes to promote housing infill: Another lively discussion. Monica suggested that committee use the IZ TDR committee’s map to identify places for more dense development. The map shows districts recommended to become new TDR receiving districts outside the SEQ. She hopes this map will be included in discussion at 02/25/20 joint City Council and Planning Commission meeting focusing on the Arrowwood report. Additional proposals included: modify ADU (accessory dwelling unit) LDRs, draft new LDRs regulating short term rentals (Airbnbs, etc.), modify congregate housing LDRs, identify parcels where housing is not permitted
to allow it to be permitted and/or to allow more dense residential development than currently allowed, and draft inclusionary zoning LDRs for city-wide application. Tom reported on the status of Brattleboro’s and Montpelier’s ADU regulations and their effectiveness and his investigation of Oregon’s ADU statute (and
Portland’s process). He offered to prepare a check list for items to include in a revised ADU regulation, should the Committee decide to focus on this. Sandy mentioned that at a recent meeting, committee had voted unanimously to request that City Council place an item on the November 2020 ballot that would add two cents
to the property tax for affordable housing. She said if we are going to act on this motion we need to get started. John asked Sandy to find out the timetable for City Council action on such a proposal. She will do so.
From minutes of January 7, 2020, committee meeting: “Sandy moved and Tom seconded a motion that the
Committee prepare and bring to the City Council a proposal to place an item on the November 2020 ballot to
add 2¢ to the property tax for affordable housing. Motion passed 4-0-0.”
7. Reports and updates by committee members: deferred to future committee meeting. 8. Adjourn: At 12:04 p.m., Tom moved and Mike seconded motion to adjourn. Motion passed 5-0-0.