HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Sustainable Agriculture Subcommittee - 04/07/2015Sustainable Agriculture Subcommittee of the Planning Commission
Meeting Minutes
7 April, 2015
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The Sustainable Agriculture Subcommittee of the Planning Commission held a regular meeting
on the 7th of April at 7:00pm at Healthy Living Upstairs Conference Room, 222 Dorset St.
Present: Rosanne Greco, Betty Goldberg, Sarah Dopp, Rebecca Adams, Bronwyn Dunne, Sophie
Quest.
1. Agenda, Additions, deletions or changes in order of agenda items. Added agenda: Jess Hyman.
2. Open to the public for items not related to the agenda. None
3. SusAg committee member announcements. Sophie reported on City Council Meeting of 4-6-15.
The staff is requested by Pat Nowak to develop a proposal for the use this summer by Common Roots
of the Spear St. end of Underwood Park property. We need to give this information to staff. Tom
Hubbard proposed taking one half of the open space fund money to fund maintenance and new work on
parks, borrowing money now and asking taxpayers to authorize payment of this loan with one half of
the open space money. This could be considered during the next public vote
Sarah commented that one half seems like too much.
4. Update on the UVM student work on the Underwood Property. Passed over because Allan
Strong is out of town.
5. Update on website development individual. Bronwyn will speak to the student intern she is
working with and invite her to our meeting if she is interested in helping us. Rosanne will check with
Kevin Dorn to see if the city IT manager could help us. What is necessary is simply one page of
information, with dates of public presentations, that is linked to the city site.
6. Update on meetings with landowners. Sophie and Rosanne were scheduled for a meeting which
was cancelled because of a snow storm. After that several landowners went away on vacation. No new
meeting has been scheduled. Sophie will follow up with them.
Rebecca spoke of her meetings with Stacy, in charge of the Intervale program linking farmers with
land. Stacy said that most are wanting to buy land. Larkin Realty has too much work at the moment
with their new orchard project and possible plantings under solar to be able to think about what their 40
acres, hard to access, now in corn, might become.
Michelle Auclair has offered one acre for community gardens or food grown for the poor (Common
Roots).
Betty wonders if we assisted people in getting together, if we would need a legal disclaimer in case of
problems. Rosanne will speak to Kevin Dorn, asking about passing this question on to the city lawyer.
Sophie will talk to Mike at “Land for Good”, a professional match organization about this possible
problem.
7. Discussion on “Growing Connections” presentation on April 16. Sophie will notify Paul of this
event in case Sus/Ag has a quorum present.
a. Format, agenda, presenters: 1. Rosanne will begin with an introduction of how this project came
about. 2. Sarah and her gardening friends will talk of their experiences as a gardening match. 3.
Rebecca will talk of her home matching experience. Rebecca will also ask Stacy of the Intervale
Foundation, if she'd like to come and talk about her program. 4. Sophie will briefly introduce the
handout of “Considerations and Contracts”. 5. Rosanne will wrap up the discussion and talk about
next steps. Rosanne is willing to be the contact for interested parties.
Sustainable Agriculture Subcommittee of the Planning Commission
Meeting Minutes
7 April, 2015
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b. Status of flyers and articles in FPF and TOP. TOP has promised an article this week, April 9.
FPF has sent out this message once and Sarah will ask people to send it out again. Everyone will put
flyers wherever they can. Sophie has already put them in the usual places.
Rosanne will inform the Burlington Garden Club. Bronwyn will put the event on the Facebook page of
the South Burlington Community Gardeners.
c. Food. Sophie will bring cider, cheese and plates and cups. Sarah will bring the fancy breads from
the Cider Mill, Rosanne will bring fruit, Becky will bring bread.
8. Continuation of topsoil language for LDRs. No action.
9. Discussion of No Mow Yards. This is a presentation that Sophie has been working on for May 21
at the SoBurlington library. Its name is now “Shrinking Lawns for a Bountiful Fruit Harvest.” Betty
wonders if this is an unpleasant subject which needs to be approved by the Planning Commission if it is
to be sponsored by the Sus/Ag subcommittee. After much discussion, everyone but Sophie agreed that
all projects will be announced to the Planning Commission before they take place. Sophie felt that it
would create unnecessary work for the Planning Commission. Rosanne will be responsible for this
notification.
10. Other business. Jess Hyman has officially dropped from representing “Community Gardens” in
Sus/Ag. Bronwyn Dunne will replace her and will request that others of the SoBurlington Community
Gardens group will replace her when she cannot be here.
11. Suggest next agenda topics. Rosanne has done this and will write out an Agenda.
12. Approval of Minutes from March 11, 2015. This will be done next month.
13. Adjourn. Next meeting Tuesday, May 5.
Respectfully submitted.
Sophie Quest, Clerk