 the land on the other side of Lakeside Avenue here and it is a vision of a new neighborhood that would have hundreds of new homes and jobs and that will take what is currently and has been for many years an underutilized parking lot and turned it into a vibrant new Burlington neighborhood. We've been working towards this goal since the end of 2021 when we announced a housing action plan that had 10 steps to it this was one of them and the we have achieved some significant milestones on the road towards this vision already most significantly last summer when in July new zoning was approved for 84 acres of the south end and it was the it was zoning that did a number of things and we could get into some of the details but the probably the most consequential element of it is it legalized housing in the south end for the first time in decades. What we have been doing since is working with the partners who are are here at the table with us today Champlain College and ride your bike which is maybe John and Todd can explain really what it is but it is many of the many of the people that have been behind the incredibly successful hula development have are at the table well and the reason is these three parties is because each of the us owns a significant parcel of land in in this area that can become the south end innovation district so we have sort of move from the city's role as a regulator and putting the zoning in place that would make a new neighborhood possible to now the cities of the table because we are a property owner and because there will also need to be very substantial infrastructure work that will need to play take place in public infrastructure for this this vision to become a reality the on Monday the council will have before it what a pre-development or kind of a pre-development agreement between the three parties that will at a high level commit the three parties to attempting to create a master plan for what what this neighborhood would look like how it would be laid out it commits us to attempting to figure out these these infrastructure issues as well as to do transportation planning in a moment Megan and Samantha will walk you through some some of the details of what is is in this pre-development agreement I think it's important to say what this doesn't do it is it does not lock in any kind of agreement terms at this point what it does is set that vision of where we're trying to get to and lay out goals for for the for all the parties including my successor if she chooses to continue to pursue these goals it lays out a framework and process for how they could be achieved 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 some of its parts of what it would be if we each tried to just develop our individual parcels and it would be another major step towards the goal we have been working for for years of making good on the promise that housing should be a human right here in Burlington if this effort succeeds it will create new homes comparable to the number that are being built that can be in rise perhaps even more so with that I wanted to to turn over the microphone I'll pass them over here in a moment to Nick Anderson a former member of the city team who for a number of years now has been playing a leadership role at Champlain College and Nick you want to share your perspective thanks bro yeah so I'm Nick Anderson I'm the AVP of planning and operations at Champlain College and Champlain College is is one of those players that have a key asset in this institutional district and Champlain College can you know sees itself as being the the educational anchor for this part of town for this South Indian innovation district so a true mix district is all about people being able to live work and play all in kind of close proximity to the home we like to add a couple of things to that live work play learn and intern so you're looking at this area as being a key piece for Champlain College to improve our education outcomes for our students and also provide some direct connection for internships and career opportunity within this district where it's just going to get better and better in terms of our partnership with Hula but partnership with new and innovative businesses that come up through this institutionals on awesome great help I'll pass things over to John and Todd and the biggest property owner in this partnership is the ride-your-bike parcel and really much of the driving energy to try to pursue this together has come come from you and we're excited to be sitting here with you today and excited about where this this partnership could go. Todd Sarandos and I represent the ownership entity at 125 Lakeside Avenue which is ride-your-bike it used to have another word in there and I the owner Russ Scully couldn't believe that he was buying a six-acre parking lot and his wrist he was like you got a ride-your-bike so that that was the genesis of the name but we're happy to be here with the city staff with Champlain College staff and with the mayor that you know you must be reading my mail you know that I was just preparing comments was used the word milestone in connection to Monday night's action and that it transforms a transitions an idea into a framework in broad strokes the idea is how does a big town in a small rural state transition to being a contemporary urban city and and in doing so how do how do you how does it do that in a way that you know fulfills some community goals more immediately and is how do you 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 you know but you know and speaking just from ride-your-bikes perspective you know our primary motivation was how can we support the job creation that's occurred at Hula you know by creating walk-to-work conveniently located housing think of it as as the 21st century version of the lakeside neighborhood in the proximity to the mill you know that so you know that's kind of you know from our perspective what's driving this but it's not really about just us I mean there's I think we can broaden the the term of innovation to include you know education makers cultural amenities so you know we've got an opportunity here to do this in a big way but it's not just about we have to balance that interest also with just an incredible need for housing lots of housing all sorts of housing across the income ranges and so that's that's something that is you know we're also you know committed to and then finally I think that's the third goal is is is whatever improvements we make to the built environment have to be done in such a way that we're being sustainable that we're being smart you know that we can't be nostalgic you know we have to be this has to be a contemporary effort it can't be we can respect the past but we really have to embrace the future in technologies and everything than that that means so anyway so that's that's the idea that's and the goals behind the idea the pre-dev is is a framework it allows us to to move forward and do the work you know that will really kind of result in in a unified development plan and that unified development plan you know took the words I was thinking the same thing is we have the opportunity to have an outcome that exceeds some of the parts so you know I think the three parties you know have similar interests not identical interests you know Champlain College and the city have been at this for they have a very long range view private interests tend to be perhaps a shorter horizon however I think in our case that that my horizons only like three weeks now what time is it so that it's you know we're you know we I think there's a lot of shared things that can make this happen but despite all our good efforts and intentions there's not a guarantee that we're gonna get there but one thing we we can be sure of this transition is happening whether we acknowledge it or not and those parking lots are gonna be converted whether or not we come up with a unified plan but the fact that we're we're collaborating and listening to each other I think you know I think is a really good sound so great I just want to add that part of what's happening with this development and part of our objective is to create this neighborhood on this large piece of land 13 acres it's it's quite an opportunity and I think really important for us is to create a permeable neighborhood that really interacts with the existing Pine Street corridor the rest of the south and it is not to create a walled-off development so it's it's become working together we've we kind of realized that we really need to integrate this development into the whole south end so it's a really important piece of this project so here's here's I think we're gonna do now is we're gonna move the mics in a second over to our planning director Megan Tuttle and our assistant director within CEDO for for community work Samantha Dunn who have been the city leads on this project and they will walk you through a PowerPoint some of which people who were at the council meeting last week you will have seen before but I think now that it's getting ready for action you're gonna be reporting on it it's a good review of exactly you know what what is in this pre-development agreement and we'll get out of the way so you can see the screen as they do the walkthrough and then come back up here for questions after that so great and then for anyone who's interested I'm gonna walk with all these all of us are gonna go kind of walk this site if people want to get some you understand exactly the person we're talking about here in person all right thank you mayor and thanks to the partners they provided a lot of really great background about the history of the work that we've been doing here together in the south end want to acknowledge also that there are other members of the city team here Charles Dillard in particular from our office that's been really instrumental in this work the work that we've been doing so far not only to develop and help the council consider the zoning the south end innovation district zoning that the mayor mentioned has also included and been complemented by collaborative planning work that we as a group of partners have been doing under an MOU that was agreed to last year that included three phases the first of which included a more detailed assessment of the 13 acres in the middle of this district that we've been talking about and coming together to create different development scenarios for those sites that would help us think collectively about our properties in the south end and think about them from the perspective of housing economic development transportation infrastructure and open space as well as the kind of subsurface infrastructure we've used that iterative planning process to come up with a framework you've heard many people mention that we have been analyzing in terms of its impact on things like transportation and parking and wastewater and stormwater in particular and used all of that work together then to develop the outlines of this pre-development agreement which really reflects a lot of the work that has been done to date and tease us up for future and further study topics that will follow on the next slide those things are outlined here the MOU the pre-development agreement has reflects the four sort of outcomes of the work that we've done to date one is a mobility framework that foregrounds active mobility and accessibility of the district includes a conceptual development framework for around 1,100 units of housing that could be developed across these sites and also identifies some targets for wastewater parking and transportation that we will use to continue to plan around in the future and this is as Megan mentioned one of the first things was a mobility framework this is a graphic representation of that framework with Lakeside Avenue at the top and Sears Lane at the bottom and Pine Street all the way to the right and the railroad tracks to the left so this framework is imagining certainly the new Champlain Parkway and then the additional streets that are going to be required for that integration that Todd mentioned both across this neighborhood and outside of the neighborhood into the existing neighborhoods in the south end on the left you see sort of primary vehicular transportation and then on the right the primary pedestrian paths as you can see there's a street that runs sort of through the middle of the 13 acres that is right now anticipated to be primarily for pedestrians so that would be restricted vehicular use starting to think as John mentioned how do we create this neighborhood of the 21st century that's car light it's not it's not it's not the neighborhood that was built a hundred years ago and making sure we're learning from from everything that we can in the past and understanding what the future will need of this neighborhood the other piece that came into this was a conceptual development program this is still a preliminary conceptual program we do not know exactly how many homes are how many square feet of non residential space or how many parking spaces there will be on the site but we did need to come up with a conceptual program in order to be able to do the infrastructure analysis required for us to understand where the challenges and opportunities were and so that this is sort of this 1100 homes that we think is probably the minimum that will the site will hold a very exciting number and as John mentioned this one of the things that is in the pre-development agreement is a development of a housing plan where it shall bring in additional partners in addition to the ones that are signing on to the pre-development agreement to help us understand how we're best going to achieve affordable housing housing for the missing middle that we sometimes call in Burlington is at market rate housing home ownership rental all the different types of housing that we know are needed in the city and then that housing will be supported it's not going to be just a residential neighborhood it will be supported and surrounded by some non residential uses we know that childcare is a priority for everyone in the city ensuring that we continue to have space for artists and makers in this district and creating new space because it's still quite limited in the south end and then sort of the educational components of course as Nick mentioned it's it's not a you know it's hard to have an innovation district without that education component and then the services that would support you know 1100 new homes like places to eat and get and get coffee and do your laundry the next thing so that conceptual program was used to start to look at what how the infrastructure would the existing infrastructure would respond that we need to be tying into we know when anyone that has been in the south end in a severe wet weather event knows that there's some wastewater stormwater infrastructure constraints in this area so we started to understand what the impacts of this development would be on the existing system and what kinds of interventions are going to need to be made for us to be able to build in the pre development agreement will be digging deeper into what the options are and how the project could be phase to best under you know understand it's one thing to have a model tell you something but it's a lot better to start small and see how that actually in interacts with the system so it'll be a combination of studying of options and and phasing to but to again continue to iterate on how this will work in addition to the water we've been looking at parking and the car trips in and out of the district we talk about wanting to be car light it's certainly a goal and Vermont we are pretty far away from a car free neighborhood I think although we will be designing for that to be a possibility in the future so the goal is to have a shared parking district to minimize the number of new parking spaces that need to be built and for those spaces to essentially be able to evolve into non parking if and when we get to that to that car free future and I think I talked a little bit about the car light neighborhood in the mobility infrastructure but again the idea the concept is to capture cars for folks that live and are visiting this district on the edge and have the majority of the mobility through the district beyond bike or foot or through public transportation so in the I've alluded to some of this what's in the pre-development agreement is a set of agreed-upon design goals some of these might look basic and I think John may be alluded to this a little bit being in partnership with a municipality of college and a private entity is a is hard it's very hard and it's taken work and I think we talked about you know since SEID passed we've been moving towards this pre-development agreement the reality is these three parties have been working together for over three years and figuring out how to work together and and being able to come up with that a set of agreed-upon goals is really it's a pretty big deal and it's exciting so it we felt it was important to share those and I think there you know these are goals that are reflected in the zoning amendment and I think we think shared by many of the residents of the city of Burlington and the existing neighborhood and then the other thing in this pre-development agreement is a set of commitments for how we're going to continue to collaborate I mentioned coming up with a housing plan there's a shared goal that that plan will have a minimum of 20% of affordable housing as well as mixed tenure on the site we're going to be working on a public realm conceptual design what is the look and feel of the streets and paths that we're designing with some support from the state ACCD and then we will be working towards hopefully joint plan unit development application so the city Champlain College and Ride Your Bike will be joint applicants to for a PUD zoning application that goes across all three sites and this again is the opportunity for us to be working together to get to a new neighborhood that is more successful than any of us developing on our own the additional commitments include investigating if you look at the mobility framework you can see it had intersections in our brand-new Champlain Parkway that's going to require collaboration with state and federal partners the city-owned land has some deed restrictions on part of the land that was also part of the Champlain Parkway we're going to be having to work with partners and then continued infrastructure analysis as I mentioned particularly around wastewater so the next steps we will be coming to council on Monday to take asking council to take action on this pre-development agreement this is we've been working with council for a while and then we will be working we've got some meetings that we are working to set up later this month and next month to start to bring together stakeholders to do this additional study with the hope of being able to have a preliminary application for a PUD this summer and a complete application by the fall if we make it through all those steps we are hoping to be able to work towards a development agreement by the end of the year that more explicitly commits these parties to working together across our parcels I think that's it okay yes thank you Samantha and thank you Megan for this for the years of work to get to this point I think we'd be happy answering questions you have you know it's the problem with answering that question Catherine is it's really hard to know at this stage you know we are we and you know once we put a timeline out there than anything that doesn't quite meet that becomes a failure it's we are you know I I think we'll have a better handle on that when we get through the milestones that Samantha just walked through when we actually this is you know I think it's really important to understand this agreement is essentially an agreement to try to agree and and that isn't to diminish it in that you need goals structure process to get to an agreement between three parties especially when one of the parties is the city and involves you know a future mayor and 12 12 people on the city council and it's got to be an agreement that's going to last over multiple years and you know there'll be other decision-makers probably before this is all done so this is this is an agreement to try to agree when we come back that a difference between this and what hopefully will be announcing on you know a timeline like was laid out there maybe a year or so from now is that would then be an agreement with some real legal commitments to each other about timelines and and goals that were we're trying to hit so at that point I think it will then become possible to start putting putting you putting dates on when you'll actually see see houses being built here the only thing that is different that are you is there at one point maybe I'm maybe I haven't kept up with all the details of this but there was the possibility of some early construction I know on your parcel is that still something that is being considered or yeah that I think in general I mean I agree with everything you've said you know that from our perspective we're gonna try to move as quickly as reasonably possible there's a lot of externalities things that we don't have control of that you've kind of just you know identified and so you know I think part of this agreement is to try to limit those externalities doing so reduce risk and shorten up the timeline yeah we would like to get at least the first phase you know and I think the the the permitting process as I understand it can allow for a balance of having a conceptual framework that could set upper limits to a total of number of dwelling units so much gross square footage of non-residential space so many parking spaces so many you know and on and on and on that I think that in a mobility framework or road system that's something that the development review board can agree upon and perhaps on a phased basis you would then come back with the detailed plans for phase one or phase two or phase three so you know one option would be you go in to get that initial approval and as part of the initial approval you have also plans for that phase one when that would happen again as it's as soon as reasonably possible but we know it's not going to be until you know 2000 first or second quarter of 2025 my other question for private partners you have a new mayor coming in how do you intend to work with a new mayor to say that this is something that should be here at the top end well I mean I think that the community has just gone through a really robust public process about around creating this south end innovation district and I mean this is something that's been you know a goal for a long time Maroso has scars you know I mean it's you know back to 2014 but so it's more recently I think the community has embraced it and I think the unanimous support of the city council of the mayor alluded to you know is testament to that so I mean I we look forward to working with Emma and you know I've met with her and and listened to her and and she seems you know excited about the prospect and and I think the fact that we need more housing is sort of beyond debate okay if great go ahead no nothing yet no no plans for anything really we have our hands full over here all right great so our people interested in walking the side a little bit great so let's do it let's do it that's piece of one of the possible outcomes from this period too is everyone has parking needs this is really one of the areas where you know a couple times you've heard this idea that the you know the total may be more than the sum of its parts that's parking parking needs parking some facility that's shared by the different entities that can be a lot more efficient than everyone having to build their own keep walking out towards the city parcel in this agreement takes into account land on the other side of this this is the Champlain Parkway everyone