Director of aviation Gene Richards says he plans to issue a request soon for proposals on a 110-room hotel. The building would likely be constructed over the airport’s southern parking garage, adding two more stories to the three-deck garage.
The project has already attracted the attention of developers, who would lease the space and bear the costs of constructing and running the hotel. The doors wouldn’t open before 2018, Richards said. He declined to say which companies are interested or who might be leading the charge. “It’s just in the beginning stages,” he said. “You don’t know ’til you know.”
The hotel would employ as much soundproofing in the walls and windows as possible, Richards said, to reduce the possibility that guests will be bothered by air traffic. That traffic includes the roar of the F-16 fighter jets now flying out of BTV, or the louder F-35s that are slated to come despite local protest about the new military planes.
Housing Crunch
Speaking of airport noise, the long-planned demolition of 94 empty houses surrounding the airport in South Burlington is set to begin April 15. The airport has been buying up the houses for years under a voluntary federal program designed to help neighbors escape airport noise.
Residents who haven’t sold are being told at public meetings to expect an armada of trucks hauling out debris and hauling in fill for cellar holes. The first phase of the housing removal program in the Chamberlin neighborhood will take down 37 homes. Plans call for the rest to come down by fall. The wrecking ball will swing on Airport Drive, Airport Parkway, Delaware Street, Dumont Avenue and other streets.
Though no one was forced to sell, the program has been controversial, partly because it eliminates a chunk of affordable housing stock in Chittenden County, where rents and home prices are higher than in much of the state. Most of the homes set to be razed are modest capes or ranches from the 1950s and 1960s.
Sensitive to concerns about affordable housing, Richards spent $10,000 on advertising trying to sell or practically give the houses away to anyone who would haul them off to new lots. There were no takers, even though he placed ads in rural towns with cheaper land that he thought would make the move more feasible.
“You could have come and picked up a house for $1,000,” Richards said.
A few calls came in, but after people added up the costs of moving the house, putting in a new foundation, and in some cases new electrical and mechanical systems, their enthusiasm waned. In the end, nobody stepped up. “Zero,” Richards said. “It was very discouraging.”
The demolition project must comply with Vermont’s new construction recycling law, Act 175, which kicked in on contracts starting January 1. The law applies to commercial or residential projects of more than two units that generate 40 yards or more of waste created by materials including asphalt shingles, drywall, clean wood, plywood and scrap metal.
The law is designed to keep still-useful construction material out of landfills, said Michele Morris, business outreach coordinator for the Chittenden Solid Waste District. “Once you bury it in a hole in the ground and cover it up, you’re not getting any more use out of those materials,” she said.
Roof plywood sheathing, roof trusses, wood and asphalt shingles, and other materials will be recycled, according to Stantec Consulting Services, the company overseeing the demolition.
Morris said that for now, all indications are that Stantec and airport officials are aware of Act 175 requirements and are making plans to be in compliance. The scale of the demolition makes for an interesting test case of how the new law will work.
“It’s an unprecedented type of project,” Morris said. “There are a lot of unknowns.”
For detailed information about the home removal timetable and neighborhood impact, go to burlingtonintlairport.com.
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Kind of ironic to see the airport admit that noise mitigation efforts for their own real estate is limited to “as much soundproofing in the walls and windows as possible.” It’s akin to assuring everyone there will be no Spring flooding then going home and piling sandbags around your own house.
The affordable housing problem is not so much in far away rural towns, where Gene Richards was advertising. As the journalist states, the problem is “affordable housing in Chittenden County.” Especially for single-family homes with a yard & garage in the core of Chittenden County, exactly what the Airport is now destroying thanks to the dramatically increased noise of the F-16’s over the last decade after they reconfigured the planes. Champlain Housing Trust and South Burlington state representative Helen Head talk a big game about “affordable housing” and then both sit there and support the F-35 and the destruction of this housing. It’s incredible. Apparently the only housing they like are new-build 4 and 5-story apartment buildings to let their developer friends profit. Protecting and preserving what we have is not their way.
When those houses, which provide some sound barriers are torn down, you will have an immediate increase in decibel level of sound, forget the arrival of f-35’s. Ignoring the issues of sound damage to children and elderly while more upscale hotels are placed over the parking garage, is sort of fiddling while Rome burns. With greater sound pollution being expected in our lives as part of the new way of living in our society, it doesn’t stop the medical facts of damage to the body. Of course everyone is hyped up on military expansion while corporations and their lobbyists laugh all the way to the bank! To spread fear and gentrification, a great two shot deal that hurts both affordability and a non-militarized society, the airport is symbolizing what has gone awry.
I was just driving my daughter to the airport this morning and we were talking about how fortunate we are to have this airport as part of our community ,most people need to drive a long distance to take a flight it is also good for the economy
We keep hearing about Burlington’s housing “crisis”. Maybe it’s the one created or exacerbated by all the tearing down of all these affordable homes. What is the priority here… housing needs or development?
The ‘if you build it, they will come’ mentality of the airport continues. Perhaps a better idea would be to create an environment in the State which fosters innovation and growth for businesses, thereby enticing more businesses to enter Vermont and existing businesses to expand. This type of growth would naturally lead to more traffic at the airport, creating a need for more carriers and a wider range of flight options, not to mention more jobs. The trickle down effect of this kind of growth would then necessitate the growth of the airport and the need for a hotel in or near the perimeter. There are many larger issues that are interrelated here than just noise, housing crisis and hotels. I encourage the decision makers to look at the whole picture to gain a better understanding of what is best for our State.