The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink AboutCU-24-01 - Supplemental - 1820 Shelburne Road (5)The Other Paper • February 1, 2024 • Page 13 PU B L I C N O T I C E S PUBLIC HEARING SOUTH BURLINGTON DEVELOPMENT REVIEW BOARD The South Burlington Development Review Board will hold a public hearing in the South Burlington City Hall room 301, 180 Market Street, South Burlington, Vermont, or online or by phone, on Tuesday, February 20, 2024 at 7:00 P.M. to consider the following: Conditional use application #CU-24-01 of Heartworks, LLC, for after-the-fact approval to amend a previously approved plan for a mixed-use building consisting of a 76-student childcare facility, 3,780 sf of general office use, and 2,790 sf of personal instruction use. The amendment consists of adding a 6’ tall fence on top of a 5’6” tall retaining wall, for an overall height of 11’6”, 1820 Shelburne Road. Board members will be participating in person. Applicants and members of the public may participate in person or remotely either by interactive online meeting or by telephone: Interactive Online Meeting (audio & video): https://zoom.us/join By Telephone (audio only): (646) 931-3860 Meeting ID: 814 2050 9910 A copy of the application is available for public inspection by emailing Marty Gillies, Development Review Planner, mgillies@southburlingtonvt.gov. February 1, 2024 Currently, the city’s fire department is responsible for inspection of rental hous-ing properties, but only does so when a tenant sends a complaint. The department has received only 55 complaints over the last two years.If passed into law this month, South Burlington would join Burlington, Winooski, and St. Albans in creating a rental registry. Essex Junction is also currently in the process of passing a rental registry into law, according to reporting from the Essex Reporter.It comes as planning officials project the city will soon shift away from single-family suburban housing and be primarily composed of multi-family housing units. By passing the ordinance, the city would have a better grasp of what its housing stock looks like.“My son rented a college house in South Burlington for a year, and the conditions there were quite despicable,” city councilor Tim Barritt said. “And there was nothing that he or I could do.”Barritt said that’s because there was nobody his son could complain to. “In Burlington, it’s entirely the oppo-site case,” he said. “They’re the ones that (mandated) that all their older housing stock had to have hardwired, interconnect-ed smoke detectors, and they saved lives, especially with a carbon monoxide detec-tor as well.”The second function of the ordinance would be to rein in short-term rental units in the city. Residents have told council-ors that these rental units were having negative impacts on the character of their neighborhoods.Data from March showed 75 total active rentals in the city. About 60 of those were considered whole units — entire homes rented out as opposed to renting a room — and of those, about 45 were single-family homes and about 15 were units in a larger building. The number of available short-term rentals has increased by nearly 25 percent over a three-year period.The city, in its crafting of the law, also sought to curtail the negative effects that the short-term market may be having on the overall housing market.The only way South Burlington could affect the stubborn vacancy rate, which has remained at less than 1 percent in Chittenden County for several years, is by “retracting those houses that are owned by anoth-er entity in neighbor-hoods and being rented out in a very short-term time and put them back into the housing stock for long term rentals,” Barritt said.Residents have repeatedly expressed concerns as the ordi-nance has been crafted. South Burlington resi-dent Ryan Doyle, during the meeting last week, said that, because of the fees imposed on property owners, the ordinance would create “an expensive new tax on renters.”In the past year, significant tweaks have been made to soften the blow for short-term rental owners, using compa-nies like Airbnb and VRBO to list their homes. The council heard from dozens of residents worried that the new regula-tions would impact their ability to earn an income from their properties.The city in November moved to exempt current short-term rentals in the city until the property is sold. The ordi-nance would also allow for short-term rentals in owner-occupied housing only, or housing where the owner resides for at least six months and one day.If passed into law at its Feb. 20 meet-ing, the city could begin collecting fees as soon as April 1, Locke said. RENTAL REGISTRYcontinued from page 1 If passed into law this month, South Burlington would join Burlington, Winooski, and St. Albans in creating a rental registry.