Burlington City Council to consider South End development agreement

BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – The Burlington City Council Monday is expected to consider a pre-development agreement that is part of a vision to provide badly-needed housing to the city’s South End.

A 13-acre parking lot in the South End in several years could be transformed into a living breathing neighborhood with upwards of 1,100 units of housing. It’s part of a zoning change approved by the Burlington City Council last year

“It would be another major step towards the goal we’ve been working on for years of making good on the promise that housing should be a human right in Burlington,” said Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger said on Thursday.

The city, Champlain College, and the group that developed the nearby Hula tech co-working space, all own portions of the property. The city is looking to enter a pre-development agreement with those partners to determine the viability of the project. “If this works — and at this point we have to acknowledge it’s an if, it will create a neighborhood that is greater than the sum of its parts, of what it would be if we each tried to just develop our individual parcels,” Weinberger said.

Hula’s owners, called Ride Your Bike LLC., envision housing for people working at Hula and other nearby employers. They hope the development will attract other businesses like child care, doctors’ offices, and restaurants to the area as well.

“How do you transition? How do you convert 12-plus acres of surface parking lots into, you know, vibrant, mixed-use neighborhoods in a way that satisfies goals like economic development, especially in a part of the city that’s been the employment engine of the city of Burlington?” said the group’s John Caulo.

Champlain College sees the spot as a place for new student housing and more classrooms as well. If the city council approves the pre-development agreement, design work will begin which could lock an official development agreement into place by the end of the year.