Dear Ward 6 neighbors,

Happy Saturday! I hope you have great plans for the upcoming weekend, and maybe a little football with appetizers tomorrow. On Monday, we have a packed agenda for our Council meeting.

At 4:30pm, we will begin our evening with a work session with our Legislative Representation Team (ie the City's lobbyists) on developments in Montpelier. This year, for the first time, with significant Council advocacy, we have a much more robust level of engagement in the Statehouse. With all the needs our community is facing, I am confident that having a greater level of advocacy than we have in years past will hopefully prove beneficial to our city.

At 5:30pm, we will have a presentation from Bruce Baker and his team on his plans for the FORMER YMCA PROPERTY with time for questions from the Council. If you have questions, please be in touch with me and I will do my best to ask them on Monday evening.

Following an expected executive session on two real estate agreements, the South End Coordinated Redevelopment Predevelopment Agreement and Gateway Block Predevelopment Agreement, we have a busy deliberative agenda including the appointment of a new Assistant City Attorney, the final report from the Council created Dog Task Force that features 6 key recommendations to address the need for dog park venues and services for our canine residents and the following items:

We will be voting on a SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT WITH CITYPLACE PARTNERS. I attended the press event Thursday when this agreement was announced. CityPlace Partners have finalized their building program for the entire site and received approval by permit from the Office of Permitting and Inspections. The plan will include a minimum of 350 residential units including 70 permanently affordable units, a maximum of 350 hotel rooms in two separate hotels, 40,000 square feet of retail ground level space, and 172,000 square feet of parking. The Partners will be developing the 70 affordable units themselves in the North Tower and they will be interspersed throughout the building as opposed to the original design that had all affordable units in one location and built by CHT. (Instead, CHT is building 70 affordable units at Cambrian Rise and 30 are affordable home ownership units.) The Partners entered into a partnership with Giri Hotel Management, a hotel operator mostly in New England. All told, these changes will allow the project to be well resourced and able to achieve the financing needs of this over $200 million project and continue the full development to completion with an end date in the summer of 2026. I have supported this project since the beginning. I do appreciate the intense need for housing in our community as evidenced by my voting record on every housing initiative. In an ideal world, 420 units of housing would be far better than 350, but the realities of the current economic climate are such that in order for this project to succeed, given its enormity and complexity, we must accommodate changes - and these changes will still deliver significant housing, more retail and commerce and a project that will benefit our downtown and community for years to come. am grateful to the local partners, Dave Farrington, Al Senecal and Scott Ireland for all their efforts and will be supporting this amendment.

We will be voting on a resolution SUPPORTING STUDENTS AND EDUCATORS THROUGH STATEWIDE EDUCATION TAX RELIEF. Recent news out of Montpelier regarding education funding makes it clear this is a work in progress as we may be delaying our vote on the Burlington school budget. We need to address this system and find a way to give tax relief while supporting our students and our valued educators.

We will be accepting a GRANT ASSOCIATED WITH THE CITYPLACE PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS PROJECT for construction of the Great Streets Bank and Cherry project, to build two new segments of Saint Paul Street and Pine Street, and for a workforce development program. The grant amount is $22 million with no local match. Other than the federal grants we have received for the Airport, this is the single largest grant the City has ever received.

We will then vote on a request to convey THE NORTH HANGAR BUILDING AT AIRPORT TO BETA TECHNOLOGIES, INC. AND EXECUTE A GROUND LEASE AGREEMENT with Beta. Then, given all the construction going on and planned in the next year or two, we will get an update on the SOUTH END COORDINATION SCHEDULE.

The last item on our agenda is a resolution regarding a CARBON POLLUTION IMPACT FEE asking for the City Council to draft language for a ballot question in August 2024 to give the City Council the authority to implement a carbon pollution impact fee for a larger subset of Burlington's buildings than is currently authorized.

Public forum will begin at 7:30. As always, I welcome your questions, concerns, and comments, so please be in touch. Your voice matters and I am grateful for your input.

My best,
Karen

Event Info

Nov 29, 2024, 2 to 6 PM

Nov 30, 2024, 10 AM to 4 PM

Dec 2, 2024, 5:30 to 8 PM