Virginia-based czb LLC, the urban planning consulting firm tasked with creating the 35-page report, will present its findings at 6 p.m. in City Hall during a meeting of the city council’s Community Development and Neighborhood Revitalization committee.
The takeaways of the document, which was released January 16: Development has not kept pace with city growth, pushing housing into the suburbs while city residences remain unaffordable. Some 58 percent of Burlington residents pay more than 30 percent of their income — the target threshold — on housing. Meanwhile, a third pay more than 50 percent. Costs end up disproportionately burdening developers and the affordable housing sector.
But the policy itself has worked well to create economically integrated housing, according to the report prepared by czb. “There is much to be proud of,” the group concludes in its assessment.
The firm proposes a laundry list of ways to improve, including an updated system of ensuring affordable housing is used by qualified tenants; providing incentives for developers to build housing that would qualify for inclusionary zoning; and increasing student housing.
Councilor Selene Colburn, who heads the three-member CDNR committee, called the report “pretty encouraging.” It illustrates “the successes of the IZ ordinance in its original goal of pushing socioeconomic integration,” she said.
The inclusionary zoning policy mandates that developments of five units or more must include a certain percentage of affordable units — between 15 and 25 percent, depending on the price range of the market-rate units.
Between 1990 and 2015, 56 projects that qualified for inclusionary zoning were built. Those buildings resulted in 1,773 total new units, including 270 affordable residences, according to the report. That translates to a rate of 15.2 percent — on the lower end of the range found in the city’s inclusionary zoning policy.
The meeting Tuesday will mark the beginning of a “significant period of public comment,” Colburn said. City officials and councilors will likely propose changes to the IZ policy, which would need to be voted on by the entire council. Colburn said she doesn’t expect a major overhaul of the existing policy.
Michael Monte, chief operating and financial officer for the Champlain Housing Trust, told Seven Days that the report is “well-presented, well-researched, well-reasoned.”
Others were less impressed. At a city council meeting last Monday, Genese Grill, who is running for a council seat, bashed the report. It “justifies the weakening of our inclusionary zoning regulations,” she told the council during the public comment period. “As usual, the outside consultants have told the administration just what it wants to hear.”
City resident Michael Long agreed, telling the council he thinks the recommendations put forward in the report would “increase profits for developers” rather than benefitting ordinary citizens.
Councilor Adam Roof, who also sits on the CDNR committee along with Tom Ayres, said on Friday that he had heard from “plenty” of constituents on both sides of the issue.
“Inclusionary zoning is … in line with what Burlington’s all about,” the Ward 8 councilor said. “It’s time to evaluate it and see if it’s an effective policy.”
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
If history is a guide, Grill bashed the report without reading it.
And yet, the Mayor and Burlington City Council think it’s a great idea to buy and demolish 139 houses (and counting) in South Burlington, including houses with affordable housing covenants on them. No wonder housing keeps getting pushed farther in the suburbs. Which page of the report examines Burlington’s F-35 fighter jet/neighborhood demolition plans?
If it’s not in there, you can start to wonder about the actual purpose of this report.
Anyone notice the map. Zero “inclusionary zoning” in the Hill Section, including near the Mayor’s house. Almost all of the “inclusionary zoning” is in the Old North End. How inclusive of the original residents of the Old North End.
If the ultimate recommendations are going to be for more subsidized/affordable housing, maybe other parts of the city (and County, for that matter) should do their part. Wonder where most of the campaign donors and developers live, I have a feeling it’s not the Old North End. . .
It’s important to look at what the report assumes and what it excludes from consideration. It assumes that the city should grow at the same rate as the county, even as many jobs have shifted to the wider region. IZ need to be extended to Chittenden County. Yes, Burlington needs more downtown density but that can be achieved in part through incentives to get owners of empty lots, now used for surface parking, to put in mixed use projects. What’s omitted is any mention of raising the minimum wage. That alone would be a significant help with housing costs. The point of contention will be about the report’s recommendation to raise the threshold at which IZ takes effect from 5 to 10 new units. Since there’s little space for large developments left, we need to keep the IZ threshold where it is or we’ll end up with a lot of small projects just under the raised IZ threshold.
Burlington goes it alone with inclusionary housing requirements for developers in the County–S. Burlington, Colchester, Winooski, etc., not lifting a finger. Now for the first time in a generation the County has a rental vacancy rate more of 4.7%, more than double the 0-2.5% dating from the mid-nineties at least. Burlington with 2000+ rental housing units built, underway or close to final approvals (not including any from the stalled Sinex Mall project) has about 500 empty rental apartments and single family houses today. We need to keep the “inclusionary zoning” (IZ) requirements with minor modifications–but no need for City financial incentives with housing to waste today. IZ units today start at $1,000 for one-bedroom and “affordable” is a misnomer for them. They do help but the crying need of the poor and the disenfranchised today is for deep subsidy down to $0 income–a proposal is before the legilature to do just that, provide about 1,500 such units statewide including about 400 for Chittenden County, many of them deservedly coming to Burlington which has expended so much effort to housing the moderate and low income. Tony Redington
Regarding Genese Grill “bashed the report”–so do most others who have actually read the report as it reflects a housing crisis of four years ago before the 2,000+ tsunami of housing development inundated the Burlington leaving a likely higher than healthy rental vacancy rate in the City before year end and as far as the eye can see now. Besides, IZ housing is a very small slice–though beneficial–element of the rental housing market. Viewed from today the IZ report is a solution in search of a problem that disappeared about two years ago.
Tony Redington
The thrust of this report is to lighten the burden on developers, increase the burden on property tax payers, and ignore the importance of fair wages in addressing the affordable housing problem. Expensive consultants should not have been necessary to describe the effects of an ordinance which have played out under the direct supervision of city officials year by year. The analysis offered is far more speculative than authoritative.
No doubt some will seek to leverage the weight of a report like this to undermine inclusionary zoning and then congratulate themselves for improving it. The most obvious target is the existing five unit threshold. The report is factually in error in calling this a low threshold. The comparables the report itself provides prove otherwise. Raising the threshold to ten will do nothing to support affordable housing while enabling multiple developments of up to nine units with no affordable housing component at all.
The recommendation to lower the payment in lieu of developing inclusionary units is another unjustified giveaway that would erode Burlington’s commitment to affordable housing. Overall, this report is more of a Trojan Horse than a source of insight.