HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Sustainable Agriculture Subcommittee - 12/02/2014Sustainable Agriculture Subcommittee of the Planning Commission
Meeting Minutes
2 December 2014
1
The Sustainable Agriculture Subcommittee of the Planning Commission held a regular meeting on
the 7th of December, 2014 at 7:00pm at Healthy Living Upstairs Conference Room, 222 Dorset Street
Members Present: Rosanne Greco, Betty Goldberg, Sarah Dopp, Rebecca Adams, Kindle Loomis, Allan
Strong, Sophie Quest, Brianna O'Brien, Julia Raggio
1. Agenda: Additions, deletions or changes in order of agenda items. None
2. Open to the public for items not related to the agenda. None
3. SusAg committee member announcements: Sophie reported on the beginning of the Underwood
Park committee meetings.
4. Energy Committee presentation of South Burlington Energy Prize: Karen McKenny.
The Energy Committee is hoping to hear on December 15 that they have been advanced to the semi-
finals of the Georgetown University Energy Prize, now called the South Burlington Energy Prize. If they
are still in the contest, beginning in January, the residential, municipal and school electricity and
natural gas usage will be charted for two years. If they are not still in the contest, the Energy
Committee plans to go ahead with their 65 page plan for changes to make in South Burlington. There
will be lots of parties celebrating different stages of the work. Everyone is requested to go to their
Facebook page and “like” it. We'll be seeing the members at many community events and it's
requested that we tell everyone we meet about this great endeavor.
5. Planning for Community Design Prize.
A design prize, for a community including alternative on-site wastewater treatment, a small farm,
community gardens and clustered housing, was suggested last month. This month, lacking the
businessman, Will Raap, at our meeting, it felt difficult and not entirely a Sus/Ag project. Having such
a development built was definitely desired, but would not be an automatic response to the design
being created. The members are assuming that any developer who decides to create a community like
this could get a variety of professionals out there to design it. It was said that a good community
design would cost over $100,000, possibly one million and that that is too steep for us to collect for a
prize. Different people on the subcommittee feel that the development market is saturated at this
time or that it is still going strong.
The market is really changing. Kindle just learned that John Todd, after years of teaching and building
ecological alternatives for design is suddenly flooded with a lot of business. Part of our mission is to
encourage whatever is best for the land, conservation, farming, alternative and innovative water
systems.
6. Draft Letter to Landlords-interns.
2
Members want to work further on the letter to Landlords. Sarah will write up an introduction that will
be more explanatory to people who know nothing about our committee. Kindle suggested that the
letter as it stands is in good shape. Three paragraphs: basic messages: 1. Who we are and why.
2. We're contacting landlords in the interest of future local food and food security. 3. If this interests
you, we'd love to talk to you further.
Who should they contact? They should be invited to our meetings. There should be a special meeting
announced in the letter which will give them general information and an opportunity to talk about
what they want.
Next Step: Sarah, Kindle, Brianna, Julia will work more on the letter. It will be sent to me by January 1
so that I can send it out with the Agenda for January 6. The agenda for January 6 will be to work on
the letter and all agree to it so that it can go to the Planning Commission on January 13.
Sophie will tidy up the present list of 145 landlords to make sure every landlord has at least 5 acres to
work with. She'll ask John Jewett if she can borrow the list he has made of such landowners.
7. Other Business None
8. Adjourn
Respectfully submitted:
Sophie Quest