 Alright everybody, good evening. Welcome to the wars one and eight neighborhood planning assembly or NPA meeting If you haven't signed in if you would be honest at some point that we'd appreciate that so we have your contact information I'm Cindy cook. I'm one of the steering committee members. We're going to do Well Introductions around the room if you I'd ask you to say who you are where you live and We want to move quickly so we can keep going, but we also just want everybody to know who else they're dealing with in the room So again, I'm Cindy cook. I live on East Avenue, and I'm on the steering committee of the ward one NPA Karen long I live on Henry Street, and I'm also on the steering committee. I'm Angie chapel so cool I live on North Prospect Street Martha Lang and I live next to the I round school building Tony Reddington Ward 2 invite you tomorrow night for Ward 2 3 to have a repeat performance Sophie quest old East End neighborhood Coalition Ward 1 Hi, I'm Jack Hansen. I'm the East District City Councilor. I live on Pearl Street in Ward 1 Hi, I'm Sharon busher. I'm the Ward 1 City Councilor, and I live on East Avenue I'm Sandy Baird and I live on Luma Street. I Mark Porter from Brooks Avenue Richard Hill Yard in sympathy with the Kurds Michael Long I live in Henry Street Captain Jamie value Burlington Fire Department Linda she he me and Steal the Avenue Camden Munn firefighter on Burlington Kaylee Haber Joe UVM student government Jack Fanon UVM student government Sally short UVM student government Eight in May UVM student government Mark Hughes or one Jeffrey Glassburg resident of Waltham Vermont test your geography and a guest tonight Grace Vecito Ward 2 Hannah King Ward 8 Charles Winckelman Ward 1 Christy Delfier Ward 1 Jason Stuffle Colchester have Ward 1 and old East End neighbors Dave Colley that Nash place Ward 1 Patricia Sheila Nash place Ward 1 Tom Darenthal Ward Ward 1 Nash place Nancy Kirby Ward 1 Colchester Avenue next to the cemetery Fletcher Pratt Riverside of Ward 8 Carol Livingston Calarco Court also on the steering committee for Ward 1 and 8 Brian Sewell Lumis Street Ward 1 Jonathan Chapel Sokel Ward 1 and on the steering committee. Hi. I'm Lisa Kingsbury. I'm with UVM campus planning services Great. Did we miss anybody that came in as we were proceeding? Oh, Cyril the man behind the camera here Cyril Flash East Avenue So welcome everybody. I'm good. My job is to keep things moving and but also Ensure that we have as good and rich a conversation as we can So it's a bit of a challenge tonight because we have a lot going on. So we're going to just jump right in to Speak out. Oh, no, actually, we want to talk. We first we want to get some questions The present the new president of UVM is coming to the next meeting in November And so I think Jonathan you want to speak to that? Yeah, I want to speak very quickly about a couple of things First of all, you hopefully you'll find in front of you a Survey that we'd like you to fill out if it's too much to do during the slow points in tonight's meeting Take it home and contact any of the steering committee members and we can come pick it up But what what we want to do is we want to try to make as productive a visit as possible when when the When the new president the new UVM president comes and so what What we tried to consider was what are the issues and what are the conversations that we'd like to start having To make the most constructive relationship we can with the university the university sits in the city But the university also sits in Ward one and so we are the ward one folks and eight. Thank you wards one and eight and so we are really the the we house the university as it were and What what we can do with the university what the university can do with us? We'll make for a better relationship for us and for the city So you'll find in front of you a survey It's it's questions to kind of wet your appetite or what you're thinking about what you might might want to ask What we want to do is is compile and consolidate this sort of thing and and send it to the To the president before the meeting so that he kind of has an idea of the things that matter most to us So if you can fill this out, that would be great The other thing I would I want to talk about is something we talked about last Last month and that is how to spend the extra money that we've received from the city that the NPA is received from the city And we actually handed out last month some some index cards and asked everybody to put down some ideas Going through those ideas were fantastic going through those ideas made The steering committee on realize that we didn't quite understand all the details of what we can spend money on what we Can't spend money on and so what you will probably find in front of you Also is a list of the basically the ways that we can Basically the ways we can spend money and We are going to take the suggestions that we got last month and we're going to take any other suggestions you may have but not tonight Unless you want to talk about it during speak out but not right now and We're going to go put together something like a proposed budget that we will bring back to this to the wards to the NPA The important thing to note is that Ward 1 gets funding from the city and Ward 8 gets funding from the city and it's really separate budgets and So we're thinking that because Ward 1 already has a rather extensive steering committee We probably take the take the lead on consolidating the input that we've gotten and bring something back Anybody else in the in Ward 1 who is interested in participating should just let us know this isn't a closed discussion or anything It's just for simplicity Ward wait Ward 8 on the other hand is that we don't have very many steering committee members on Ward 8 so what I want to do is I want to hand out a A sign-up sheet and any member of Ward 8 who is interested in working on this should put their name and Coordinates down on it so that we can get in touch with you Linda Rizvi would be kind of chairing that committee as we're at least organizing the meeting or the meetings And she would like some help with that so I want to just pass this around and anybody from Ward 8 if they can If they're interested, please put your name down and with that. I hope I haven't run out of time So I forgot to do something very important, which is this This is why I go over there in any case It was from the Shemenceka Park Celebration there's a bunch of bike stuff. There's a thing you can put on the back of your bike with a flashing light and Whistle light all kinds of fancy stuff So it would be great if it went away to good homes by the end of the evening so this is now the point where we call speak out and That's an opportunity for people to say briefly to make announcements about events that they think that others in the community will be interested in or Concerns that they think that this body should take up in another time So let me just get a sense of how many people are interested in speaking out of speak up four or five ish probably more as Things come out. We have 15 minutes So if you could keep your comments to a couple of minutes that would be ideal and I'm just going to go Kind of a geographically in order if that's okay two things very very briefly Jason Williams is not here but I would urge the reconstitution of the Neighborhood parking and traffic task force with UVM. I don't think it was ever disbanded But it's just defaulted and I would think that that that had some value that's been seen The lack of it has been seen in some of the things that happen around the campus The second thing is that on the 23rd, I think it was of September the city council Voted as I understand it to renew the 2009 memorandum of understanding with UVM and I'd just like to know from our city councilors. What's on it? Because previously we've been told it's been confidential Would you use your time later? My name is Sandy Barrett and I live on Luma Street And I've probably lived on Luma Street longer than anybody has lived in this ward at this point Maybe I've lived on Luma streets in 1973 in a continuous fashion and I Am a lawyer also I wanted to come tonight especially to talk about two things as I walk around the city I see that the city in my view is in really a total mess And I wanted to mention that because of that I think because we have such serious problems especially in terms of homeless people that I have tried to found a New Burlington College, but only in small ways. I was a faculty member at Burlington College for many many years and Now that it has collapsed in a finite financial crisis I would like to start a new little think tank called Burlington College's original name was Vicki the Vermont Institute of Community involvement I would like to restart that Vermont Institute of Community and international involvement because I've been very involved in projects in Cuba So I would like to restart that as a little think tank I don't have time in my life to start an accredited college But I do have time to start a think tank and I brought some announcements of the first kinds of discussions We were going to have the location of that is on 20 Allen Street the old North End Community Center and I'm going to pass out the first kinds of community discussions That will be holding every other Wednesday night We've discussed it We've had two discussions one on the sale of Burlington Telecom the second on the big hole in the middle of Burlington and this Wednesday night on the 16th we're going to have a community discussion about Political solutions to some of those problems, and we're inviting to speak about that the coalition of livable cities I wish you would all come. Thank you Thank you others that want to speak yes, I Hope you are all watching the wonderful pictures Of the September 13th party that we had at Chimanska Park on Yes, September 13th, so That that wonderful building Sharon was just been telling us all of the wonderful things that used to happen there Including having these meetings, and so I hope you'll all support us and trying to get the money some money maybe from NPA Just support us in trying to make that open again because the parks in Rex's oh Maybe in a few years it might be open again. It's a wonderful building, and we really need to be using it. Thank you Hi, everyone. My name is Hannah King, and I'm a ward 8 resident. I just wanted to let you all know I will be running for the steering committee at next meeting So I look forward to letting you all know what I hope to do and if you have any questions, please reach out Did you bring any campaign swag or no? Anybody else Good evening everyone. I'm mark Hughes I wanted to first give a shout out to Tony Reddington Just for the hard work that you've been doing over there in the in the Maple King Street area I really appreciate that and I'm sure you'll probably say a few words about it So I just want to thank you Tony. Thank you for your work over there The other thing is is I'm with I'm the executive director of justice for all and we're doing a number of things We have a really huge Initiative underway says this Q4 initiative around our We call change Vermont legislative agenda, but we're continuing to do those Those film viewings as well as those We call them game on it's just to get the community out It's a place where you can just bring out your board games So they are going to be on the second and fourth Sundays from from 3 to 6 p.m.. That's at the The first congregational church at 38 South Winooski Street. We do that every other Well the second and the fourth Sundays this upcoming Sunday will be viewing Fruitvale station a month from there will there'll be the 13th and a month from there The film 13th and then finally at the end I think we'll be doing The hey you give so that those are the film viewings for the next three months and then the opposite Sundays on the Fourth Sundays would be the games. I also wanted to invite everyone in the room to our Justice for all fifth birthday party, which is at the north end studio a that's going to be on the 19th Just make a note of that and just you can just go out for details on this and anything else that we're doing Hey, aren't how are you? And you just go to justice for all vt.org That's justice for all vt.org and you can see some of those things and I'll leave some breadcrumbs over to the racial justice Alliance's website for all of the other activities that are happening for the club up and through the clothes of the year. Thank you Yeah, Jason I just wanted to thank everyone who came out to the party at Schman'ska Park We think we had about 125 people. We know we had like 90 people in the one photo A bunch of people who lived in the neighborhood came out And a bunch of people who used to live in the neighborhood came out and told us some stories about it The barn was open. I just wanted to reiterate people got to look around inside and see how nice it is If you'd like to see that open, please contact Cindy White at the Department of Parks and Rec And let her know how much you want to use that. It's a great asset to our community And it was really nice just to see Why variety of people out having a good time and the weather Was great as you can see from the photos beforehand. We plan to make it an annual thing. So Just wanted to mention that. Thanks a lot Anybody else? So I just wanted to ask the crowd How they feel we had the police officer come last time and he told us about that they were cutting down on enforcement so Stop signs speeding They were I Don't know he showed us these graphs I don't know if people remember but he was basically saying that you know They're trying to have a maybe a better image of them and not be the bad guy or that was the way I took it So I have been trying to meet with him personally but I am upset because in my neighborhood there was a party with more than 100 students that were Heard it out because they had a noise by you know people called the police and One person on the lease was given a ticket whereas the ordinance reads everybody in You know on the lease is supposed to get a ticket. I think it's another way to you know, maybe be a little more gentle I'm upset about that. I really don't like speeding cars And I don't like people running red lights or stop signs in Burlington. So I don't know We need to get it. Maybe everyone else does but either way we need to get a message out to the police about it Weston 12 Weston Yep Anybody else first speak up Okay, we're gonna keep moving right along because we have a lot to cover tonight So Tony Redington is going to speak about the Champlain Parkway take it away Tony. Oh, thank you Cindy First I want to say a good word for the work that Sandy Barrett has been doing with Vicki I've attended both of the seminars so far and they both been enlightening. I can't One of them is online already on channel 17 the first one on Burlington telecom and the second one on the hole in the ground Is certainly there's going to be a transcript at some point also to the efforts of The tenants union which is our new kids on the block and needed for a long time and the great work. They're doing I Talk about the parkway, which basically goes from Main Street to the South Burlington border southward on Pine and then a new a new route I Spend a decade roughly 1998 to 2008 Visiting my two of my sons who were living at the Champlain housing across from the school So I'm very familiar firsthand. I actually made comments in the parkway before the last public hearing which was held in 2006 We have a document that's 2009 and that document is is all stale and invalid We'll talk more about that in a moment. I Have as I said in my family three What I would call or actually four Children and in-laws of them who are late Gen X or early Millennials and right now at this moment in San Francisco There was a great event going on One of my sons is in Bangkok Watching it live at one of two screens there And maybe I have a one or two others down here at the palace and that event is the Metallica band playing with the the San Francisco San Francisco Symphony and it's actually the second time they did one a performance about At ten years ago, and so this is what's really going on now. I gave that up rather than going to palace so I could be here on First I want to mention also There is a new a new folder from the Federal Highway Administration that I just got last week that you can pick up a copy of If you don't have one when you leave And this does provide some information particularly on how roundabouts handle safely both pedestrians and bicyclists We go down to the next slide. I will give the standard the standard pitch which is Winiski is not a Roundabout it is a traffic circle this happens to be a picture of the first roundabout built by New York State Department of Transportation in 1999 it was what the replacement of a traffic circle with a roundabout so the current Struct the current facility is that little round circle in the middle and the larger one is a typical size Traffic circle, which is exactly a very close to the dimensions of what we have in Winiski Burlington is getting its first roundabout in a couple of years at the so-called rotary 125 feet diameter three of those Burlington roundabouts would fit easily in the Winiski traffic circle and have a lot of room left over So we get that out of the way next photo is Right now and I want to emphasize that anyone here who would like to comment about the parkway can do so for the first time really since 2006 because The Pine Street Coalition, which I represent is in US Dixie Court. We are working to force a new Design process that this generation would undertake The last work was really done in the early 2000s, and I'm not sure how many people were around at that time But a lot has changed in transportation since 2006 For example, I was a year before the iPhone was first iPhone was invented and a year before the first network of Cycletrack protected bike lines was actually installed in Montreal Anyway, you can comment the information is I'll leave the sheets here until tomorrow night by email or mail About your concerns this picture is to me worth At least 500 words about the thousand was taken earlier this week It shows in the pine The King Maple Street neighborhood on Pine Street, which is a second highest low-income area in the city Of some some students getting on the bus in the morning the usual number. I believe it Graphically shows the fact that there's a high minority population in that location Only poorer area, okay 80 over 80 percent of the people in that particular location are low and moderate income go to the next slide This is the first roundabout that was built in Montpelier in 1995 first one the site of Vale Colorado and north of Maryland We'll go on to the next one so they can be pretty and they can be small This particular slide was was placed at the outreach meeting. It was held two weeks ago By the state and the federal and the city because they hadn't done their homework on On environmental justice they new rules since 2009 require that if you have a project that has a Disproportionate or basically a greater impact on low-income areas than the rest of the Project area that you have to minimize the impacts that it has on that low-income area and what we got here if you look on the right-hand side you'll see that the Traffic increases on Maple to King and King to Maine right through the core of the low-income Minority area And on the left-hand side you see the traffic is projected to decrease by 72 percent and 56 percent In what the lower areas of Pine Street which get in the greatest benefit I don't think it takes a genius to figure out who's getting the shaft in this particular case and that will this We'll be using this federal Federal graph that was presented by the consultants as we go on next This is a mini roundabout Has no central island the cars can go over at the larger down in Manchester Center the first mini in Vermont Excellent This is a roundabout which actually we believe could fit at Home Avenue and also at Flynn and Parkway in the project that would have a separate lane for bicyclists You can see they have a bicycle lane, and you also have the traditional crossings for pedestrians It is the modern evolutionary Design that we're using today. I will only say a couple of more things because the time is short And I want to have a little one or two questions one. There's not a single inch of new Sidewalk in this project. There's not a single inch of new separate bikeway in this project and this project Basically disconnects the south end from Hanna-Fords is already in place if any of you have been trying to get down through that that's been closed off for Handed towards construction. That's a permanent closure that would occur for all modes The project is hard to imagine the project that's worse than this one It's there and we hope to basically Stop it and start with a blank slate where everybody including everybody here would have a chance to participate in It's redesigned Do you have more slides? No, that's enough. Okay, so I know you said you wanted to take a couple questions I'm gonna ask one question and suggest we move on because if we start this conversation We'll be here till midnight just on this one topic So my question for you is if people want more information or want to get more involved How do they contact you? Is and how do they get more information about the parkway safe streets of Burlington comm our website or the Facebook Pine Street Coalition will get you there and if you That has well, that's a con that's a contact to send to the to comment to the Federal and the state city folks my I think you can I Would suggest like my email is I'm a member of the steering committee of NPA 2 3 mice my email and my phone numbers on the NPA list Great. Thank you, Tony What's up? Yeah, yeah, you're gonna speak from there Jeff That is perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so you want could you just introduce yourself and take off? Sure. Good evening. My name is Jeff Glasberg. I Was retained by the city of Burlington last September to assist with work associated with the city place Burlington project Just want to start with a little background about myself. I know you have a lot of questions So I will try to get to them first. I appreciate the opportunity to be here this evening as a Now retired 21-year school board member. I appreciate folks who dedicate their time to their Community, so thank you for that My background is as a development project manager and owner's representative I'm used to and had anticipated that my work on this project would include dealing with the typical sorts of problems associated with construction projects. I thought we'd be dealing with noise and dust Budget challenges changes in the work Let's say it's unfolded a little differently than than that What my Joining this endeavor last September has provided however is some Perspective at that point progress had stopped It was pretty clear that there was a problem And most of my focus since that time has been on trying to understand that problem Facilitate the city's interests in resolving it and get to a point where the public The city have some clarity about the future that will unfold on the site What I can tell you what we know pretty clear. We're sitting here on October 9th The project that was permitted Is not going to be constructed That is Clear at this point What comes next? When Jonathan sent me a reminder yesterday about this meeting tonight. He used the word saga And I responded saying saga indeed I have felt at times as though I'm a Character in a Russian novel where I just keep turning corners and there are more doors and You open that door and then you go into the next one. This saga is not written There are many steps still to unfold Can we expect that there will be a proposal from the current property owner? And that is an entity called BTC mall associates Can we expect that there will be another proposal from the current owner for development on that site? Yes, I expect so I can't assure you of that But that would appear to be the direction things have been going in the logical question for all of you is so why haven't we seen anything yet and I can express to you that part of the challenge and part of the delay is as a result of both a changing cast of characters and a more easily understandable lack of Agreement among the constituent owners of BTC mall associates about how to proceed Those issues are still being worked out and they are clearly outside of the city's control The city's role In a typical development project may be that of a regulator, you know with planning and zoning for instance It may be that of a utility provider be it electric water sewer things of that nature in This case the city has another role and has had other interests There are a lot of acronyms and a lot of history here, and I'm not sure Where everybody stands relative to how we got here, but if I use the term tiff Am I just throwing jargon at you should I explain it? Yeah, you got to explain it. Yeah, okay So in this case what makes the city's role somewhat different than in a typical development project is that the city Entered into an agreement with the developer It's called the development agreement and in that agreement essentially the structure that was put in place was one in which the city would acquire at the completion of construction City streets and sidewalks If I boil this transaction down to its ultimate essence that is what the Transaction was and those streets and sidewalks were to be paid with Tiff funds tiff TIF is tax increment financing and in its simplest form That is a structure in which a property prior to development might generate say $25 a year in tax revenue Subsequent to new development on that site it might generate $75 a year in tax revenue So you have an increment between what it's currently generating and what it would generate of fifty dollars okay Essentially this transaction was that the city would use that growth in increment to pay for the improvements to Recreating the street grid Reconnecting pine and st. Paul streets so acquiring the the land under those streets and making those improvements and then to do improvements on Bank and cherry streets as well and you're probably Have heard the term the city's great streets program and a series of standards associated with that So that was the intent. Oh somebody anticipated So that that in essence this this grid is and this was part I believe of the information at the time of vote by the public on how those dollars would be expended and so the the priority blocks if you will were blocks five and six the recreation of the the street grid and then blocks one two three and four along Cherry Street and block seven and eight along Bank Street Were the balance of the proposed scope So where we are today is that this developer has not continued construction The funds that have been expended to this point in the demolition of the mall Primarily have been the developers funds The city's expenditures have been limited to engineering and design costs associated with improvements for Bank and cherry streets There have obviously been other costs to the city in terms of staff time In terms of opportunity cost What else the city might have been doing during this time, but in terms of dollars expended those dollars associated with the Demolition of the existing mall have been the developers dollars as We look to what the next steps may be We can anticipate that a new proposal would result in a new review process That unless the proposal is similar to what's already permitted The entire regulatory process of the city will likely restart to consider a new proposal that is both Time-consuming but to some extent I would hope that some of you hear that as perhaps an opportunity and a potential Because I'm certainly aware although it predated my involvement I'm certainly aware of the concerns that were expressed by many project opponents Regarding scale of the project As well as other elements If there's a new project, it's likely given what we know to be smaller in scale and More responsive to this marketplace and I think that's the the reason it has not Proceeded and so with that as an overview I'm happy to try to address questions for the balance of the time that I'm here for So we have for about 10 minutes of questions, and I'm just going to go along this way if that's all right Could somebody pass on the microphone maybe not Hi, you said the ownership of the development corporation has changed What was it and who is it now? so the the ownership Has not necessarily changed there was an entity created called BTC mall associates, which owns the property That's still the entity That entity has constituent partners The first partner with whom most of you are familiar was Don Cinex of an entity called Devon wood In order to proceed with the project. He had to raise more equity Capital to make the project go He brought in as a partner Rouse properties of fairly well-known large national Developer they were involved in things like Quincy marketplace South Street seaport Baltimore so on and so forth Rouse Was subsequently purchased by the entity Brookfield properties So Brookfield bought all of the assets and all of the liabilities of Rouse properties So the Brookfield entity is now the the partner with Devon wood in BTC mall associates Have I answered your question? My question is about Brookfield asset management. They have a history particularly in the Amazon of pushing for oil Pipelines to get through the Amazon on top of that when the local Brazilian leader who was a fascist was elected Their CEO talked about how excited they were to do business in that country and hopefully buy off Public assets and privatize those assets and so I'm I'm kind of wondering why we would want to do business With a company with that sort of track record particularly when we claim to be a net zero city Why we would want to work with someone who is actively Trying to destroy the Amazon. Thank you Think that might have been a rhetorical question, but do you do you want to comment? I'm not sure I can respond to that. That's The owner of the property at this point Is it your contention then that all the money that has gone into this project has come from the developer? So I want to clarify that the city has expended funds I think I indicated this the for example the city council approved a contract with an engineering firm that was Engaged subject to the city's procurement process to design improvements for cherry and bank streets So that has been an expenditure directly by the city. Do you know how much? The contract itself was for approximately $1.1 million the the work was put on hold When things began to slow down and I believe and I did check on some of this So I'm going to use round numbers. I believe we're somewhere around 700 thousand dollars into that one point one million dollar Contract at this point in the last question. I have during this whole Development of the whole How much property taxes does somebody paying tax property taxes on that property? So property taxes are still paid. I Can't quote you chapter and verse What that is but it the property was not removed from the tax rolls The property tax bill on the Burlington and the city place properties has been reduced by just over two hundred thousand dollars two hundred six thousand Change less is being collected on an annual basis from those properties as a result of the well, obviously the The empty law the building law is worth less than the property was when it when it had a Building on it. Yeah, exactly and I just want to get a sense of how many other people have questions and Karen How much time do we have? Great. Thank you So I understand why a redesign might have been needed because I know the commercial Office market fell the bottom fell out of it in the last two years And there's a lot of vacant space out there. We're never get rented Sharon I have talked about one thing though. You know, I was gonna put you on this one Which is you know, we live in a city where people make a decision to live here for a year So all leases are a year. We have transients and I bet if you added up all the numbers of the apartments and the amount of Figure I would know this the amount of apartments in Burlington the amount of people that occupy those are we approaching? 20% of the population close enough Yeah, so Burlington's percentage has about 10,200 rental units and I believe rentals are about renters are about 50 8% of the population. Okay, so those people are on one-year leases They don't have a skin in the game So I wanted to know why and we talked about this briefly one time as to why they are not putting more purchasable Units and why isn't it not more of these that people can buy? As condominiums and have skin in the game and say hey, why is this stuff on my sidewalk? And why can't I walk here safely and why on that because the voice the rental voice is not the same as an owner voice We know that you know, there's a huge population that doesn't even vote in this town But I'm wondering why it was not deemed necessary to say we need to have places where people can buy and live here and Look at more of their future than only 365 days out So I I can't speak to the developers reasoning for their plan certainly from a Regulatory perspective the use as residential is something that the city controls the tenure of that whether it's rental or for sale is not a Regulatory issue per se and what you're really addressing is perhaps a Demand in the marketplace that somebody should be looking to fill My question is about the relationship between the the TIF monies and a scaled-down Project when the project was being being approved and and debated one of the arguments that was Offered by the developer was it all it had to be 14 stories in order to support That kind of TIF increment as you as you as you noted if you have a smaller project your income is going to get smaller Well, we have a fixed figure I think of something like 22 million dollars in TIF funds that the projected project was Intended or anticipated to generate so if we end up with a hundred million dollar project instead That's not going to match up very well with with the TIF. What happens in a case like that I Think broadly your Recap of that is correct. That is a risk in a downsized project is that there would be less increment the Language that voters approved actually Prioritized how money would be spent if there wasn't enough to go around and so the blocks were listed in priority order So the answer to your question is there would be less Available fewer blocks completed and and and then just a nuance on that There are different ways to perhaps Allocate funds so the city might from a planning perspective say What we want to take care of is? Everything that's beneath the streets for all the streets and we'll get to above-grade improvements Over time or through you know through other means so it might not be to fully completed blocks and to Blocks where nothing's done there could be opportunities to try to Split that and in other ways Sharon Thank you. I just wanted to speak to One issue which had to do with how much money the city has spent I Actually a few weeks ago asked Beth Anderson to get me that information because I thought it was germane I was hoping to have that for tonight That was not forthcoming and I was told that it's a matter of the department of public works and CEDO And I do want to remind you Jeff that your contract is part of that cost also Which we were expecting to have for just a year and then we did renew it because as you stated It's become a saga as opposed to just a project So I am hoping to get that information for you because I think it is germane people do ask me How much money have we spent? What if this doesn't move forward? How are we going to recoup those dollars and I would like to know what I'm talking about for dollars? So I did want to make that statement the other thing I wanted to say is that the housing mix I think if indeed if indeed this project gets redesigned and I do believe it will I think it is an opportunity for the community once again to look at it I think the community supported the mix But there would be another go-around of saying could the mix of housing be owner occupied and rental We wanted to create workforce housing We wanted it to have an affordable component a strong affordable component But that did not preclude people having owner occupied units which could also be affordable I just wanted to speak to that also As far as TIF my understanding is that if you have authority to borrow that amount There's no you're not if you don't borrow that full amount you don't have to pay it back So I don't really I don't see that as a big risk. I think that it's proportionate Yes, we thought we were going to have a big project and we had dollars that went into that My concern is if the money that comes back or the improvements don't generate as much of that increment financing But we still have to shell out the same amount of money that for the construction of the streets Then there's that gap that I think you're trying to address. Thank you. Thank you Sharon. Are there questions or comments? Yes Hi Jeff, thanks for doing this So my question is you mentioned that you think there's opportunities for a scaled-back project and that in your estimation The owners are going to be looking at that What do you see as opportunities for folks in the room to have input to that to that process and what kind of opportunities? Do you see there? so at a baseline There will be an opportunity to participate in the regulatory process as as a matter of fact I think what you're really asking though is there was a long ramp up for the prior proposal and there were public sessions And you're asking I think what would there be something similar to that? Well, one would hope from a public relations perspective That there would be a similar effort to engage and Doing so in advance of in preparation for a regulatory process is certainly a really smart thing to do so I It's it's something the city can certainly encourage We can lead the horse to water. Let's hope they drink can ask a quick follow-up, which is do you anticipate the city? potentially renegotiating the development agreement and that being another point of potential opportunity for for change Yes, because the agreement to some extent Sandy Beards the attorney tell me if I'm wrong it to some extent is going to be moved I mean the agreement opens with a description of a project That's not being built then it has a series of dates that haven't been met So I think we're either looking at significant amendment to an existing agreement or a new sheet of paper and Here at the end with time running out and That whole agreement was prefaced on access to tax increment financing if certain deadlines aren't met the carrot that Brought them in to that agreement may not be there Well, thank you Jeff for For doing a presentation and if people want more information, how do they contact you or are you? available for public Interactions or what's what's that look like I try to be responsive. Yes. Yes, thank you Oh so An important point counselor Rufus is reminding me is that one thing that has occurred during this period is that the streets that are indicated as five and six so the continuation of pine and St. Paul streets are now included on the official city map And so what that does in terms of a new development proposal Is it essentially stakes out that ground for that purpose? And that was not the case prior to the The application for the plan that's now not being implemented. That was a long Okay, yeah, so if we don't tiff had to be the there's deadlines with this if Since nothing, you know, we couldn't get Brookville to come to us We've been inviting them because and they have nothing to say they're very honest So how will we build those streets if we're offering it for the next developer or whatever if We don't have the tiff money There could be other sources of funding but if the public is going to take private property for public purpose There's a cost associated with that So the slick idea in in the way this was set up was that the cost of that ground was part of the overall Transaction if this were on a one-off basis and the city wanted to enforce its rights under the map the city takes other property for For public purposes and this would be similar. I expect great. Thank you So we're going to move on And this is a conversation. Maybe you can continue offline or perhaps we can invite you back. We'll see but thank you Jeff and next up our folks from the tenants union and It's an important topic Big topic and the why I understand from these folks is that what they want to do is do a presentation tonight They have lots of material here So you can contact them, but this is more of a information for you thing than a real conversation for this evening. Is that right? Yeah, yeah, okay. Take it away. If you do introduce yourselves, please So I am Charles Winkleman And the Burlington tenants union there are right now I'd say about 15 to 20 core members And we have been ramping up over the last few months We have been working on tenant issues for some time now Some of you in the room might know that I've worked on boycott boves exploring some of the slum lording that the boves have done We've been working on forming counseling clinics and resources for tenants dealing with landlords Regarding health and safety and legal violations We've been developing support for low- and no-income residents both housed and unhoused and we've also been Organizing several educational pickets of known slum lords to bring attention to repeat offenders who operate with impunity And oftentimes with the support of the city government and elected officials 60% of Burlington residents are tenants. We average spending 44 percent of our income on housing This is unacceptable Fine-tuning this won't change Building more market rate units won't change that. It's not a flaw in the system This is what the system the housing system one that is for profit is meant to do Next screen, please Sorry for the screen grab This is an interesting difference in rent inflation between the highest and lowest Kindile from 2009 to 2011 Similar differences show up looking at 1993 to 2013 Something like this might be why even though we have a city where upwards of 60 percent of residents are tenants Ten out of 13 city counselors are homeowners and or landlords It might be why as a city The city has done very little comparatively to support folks who are low-income and rent insecure those who are facing Unfair and unsafe housing conditions Charles. Could you explain quintile? The quintile it is the tenth a tenth percent twenty percent one Twenty percent there you go. So the highest the fifth is the fifth highest eighty percent to a hundred percent The lowest would be zero to twenty percent there you go past that math And for some reason even though we have all these big issues what the city and it seems the council is focusing on right now Is putting cottages and backyards as you know, one of the most important issues next slide Now although this slide is from Boston a lot of what's happening in Burlington is very similar Luxury housing often called market rate housing, but truly not actually affordable to most workers Is being built while low-income housing is disappearing One thing to consider is that a report just came out that in the state of Vermont over 10,000 naturally Occuring affordable units for low-income folks have disappeared since 1990 In that same time span 25,000 luxury units have been built Next slide please and that's a big part of what happened There's been a severe reduction in low-cost apartments since 2000 As a local example over the past couple of years Bisonette in the old north end has removed over 300 units of low-income housing Through legal of legally evicting section 8 tenants and other low-income tenants Those folks have moved elsewhere. I just read an article today from Vermont Digger about how we have less people riding buses Using public transportation now and there's no question in my mind that has directly Correlated to the gentrification and displacement that is happening in the old north end This morning also in particular we were just told that Bisonette is charging $200 for a credit check to prospective tenants if that's legal it shouldn't be and If that's not legal there should be some enforcement, which is not happening at all One of the things that we're looking to do is tenant counseling There are many resources and services out there to help a tenant who are having housing issues But many of those resources are only open Monday through Friday 8 to 5 Many of them are scattered throughout a lot of different agencies for example 211 Just lost funding from the state and they are cutting back their support for emergency housing on the weekends For those who are unhoused or facing a potential situation We are hoping to develop a central resource base and in the process Train folks to do tenant counseling to help people through the various issues that they are confronted with One term that's been used is solidarity case management where we're working with folks kind of like social workers But we're not doing it under the umbrella of a nonprofit. We're not looking for anything in return Another thing that we've been doing recently is helping someone whose 70 year old mother lost her housing and was going to be evicted We have helped folks document health hazards help guide folks through the code enforcement process, which is incredibly confusing We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be but we are neighbors and we can help each other with both knowledge and support One of the things that we are very much Interested in pushing forward on the city level is rent control just cause eviction and vacancy control We believe that housing is a human right that everyone does deserve housing that a lot of renters actually do invest in their community in a ton of ways And that they deserve the same exact rights that everyone else has We also want to ensure that code enforcement is doing their job and as the resources to do their job We want landlords to be licensed so that if a landlord is not doing their job They can lose that license and no longer be allowed to rent It is a business after all and we also want the city and their Weinberger who have promised Starting in 2012 or 13 that they would come up with a landlord database to finally bring that forward It has been over seven years and we have yet to see this database come about An issue that I know occurs a lot in Ward 1 and 8 is quality of life issue regarding students living downtown I'll move ahead in just one second one of the things that I just want to say is that students Often face incredibly high rents from universities particularly UVM and Champlain College They pay upwards of $800 a month to share a dorm room Students are taken advantage of as renters just like everyone else Can we go us go to the last slide which is a summit slide so just very briefly Although there's as you can see there's a lot of work for a small group to take on It's one of the reasons why we need as many of the 25,000 renters in Burlington as possible to help us So November 3rd 12 to 5 in the Fletcher Free Library We will be having a tenant summit put on by us tenants in four tenants The tenant summit is a day for us to share our stories as tenants to help each other and learn from each other to see the ways in What seems to be an individual problem or a failing is not a failure of any of us But actually the reality of doing business in a city where landlords are Allowed to do what they want and housing is seen as a way to invest and make a profit where housing in real estate interests are Taken above and made more important than renters and folks who live there We hope to clarify our needs and goals as a union and develop campaigns to move forward together We will build a movement to help our neighbors in need to get our needs met and to bring about housing as a human right Not just in Burlington, but in shit it in County and eventually the state of Vermont So that's November 3rd 12 to 5 p.m. There will be lunch and childcare. Thank you And it's a Burlington tenants union comm is our website and if anyone has a question, I guess we can answer one quickly No, never mind you have a question you can talk to us or email Will you be here at the end of the meeting or yeah, great. Okay. Thanks. Did you're done? Okay, great Thank you, and I'm sorry to cut it off bit But once we get started will just be it'll be very hard to stop and it's a rich topic I understand that so I'd like to get do it justice by having enough time And we don't hear this evening. So I'd ask that we move on to the Thank you gentlemen If you want to catch them out in the hall, I think you might be able to do that now In the city council's updates. Do we have any preferences to who starts? Everybody's deferring to everybody else. Thank you Sharon Sorry, excuse me So it's been a busy time it continues to be a very busy time We've touched on a number of the key topics that you all care about One of the things that happened on at Monday night's meeting was that I Sponsored a resolution that talked about the the funds that we received when we sold BT and A process that would be clearly identified for the public to understand What we're going to how we're going to deal with those funds? Are we going to reinvest some of them? How are we going to what are the relative risks if we do that? And so that's out for you all to look at and It is it the door is open this this resolution didn't decide what would happen to the funds It just identified a process and what information the council and the community the council needed On behalf of the community to make a good decision with those dollars and those dollars are between six and seven million dollars That's what's that was the money that the city got from the sale of BT So I just wanted you all to know that the second thing was already identified a little bit by the previous speaker about the the housing policy That the the mayor held some housing summits one early on and then another one in September The September meeting actually had a different flavor because unfortunately the people that just were here are not here now but Tenants came to that meeting they identified themselves as tenants or renters and they and they voiced concerns about this the policy not really identifying or Focusing on some of their needs and so The policy the resolution that we adopted deals with looking at improving energy efficiency in rental housing encouraging creation of accessory dwelling units creating a regulatory framework for short-term rentals revising the requirements for creation and use of parking spaces and increasing or considering increasing the dedicated revenue for the housing trust fund which helps Fund affordable housing units However, as a result of the second meeting The mayor recognized and so voices do matter when you come to meetings. It does matter and it does make a difference so in the action in the resolution The community and economic development office is going to complete complete a review of tenant protections and Deliver the review and recommendations for additional protection to the city council by the end of October We have a meeting October 28th so that will be another part of the discussion that that workload will go to the CDNR committee and The rest of the issues that I identified will be either going to the city council ordinance committee or to a combined Ornate city council ordinance planning Commission meeting and so if you're interested in the topics that I identified those five that I identified Those joint meetings begin actually next Tuesday The first one is on the 15th and it's in the Fletcher free library and it starts at 6 I don't know what the agenda will be because we have not received it yet The second meeting is October 22nd and that's going to be in the Miller Center Once again, I'm not sure what the agenda will be and I'm not sure if the third date has been identified But I did want to Mention that sorry, could you repeat those states and what what the meeting is about just briefly the meeting is about changing ordinances Regarding the five topics So one of them is the time of sale ordinance to improve energy efficiency and rental housing The other is an ordinance dealing with Accessory dwelling units the other is creating doesn't have any right now or regulatory framework really for short-term rental units The fourth one is looking at this. These are ordinances regarding creation and use of parking spaces and the last really is The housing trust fund is actually a conversation that will happen in the charter change committee The dates for these are the first meeting is October 15th Which is next Tuesday and that is it starts at 6 and it will be in the Fletcher free library I believe the community room. That's usually where we meet. I can't guarantee the room The second meeting is October 22nd and that will be in the Miller Center And there will be another meeting But that has not been nailed down yet and the location to be determined. Thank you So the last thing I wanted to go ahead. We're getting close on time. I know the last thing I wanted to say is I Love representing this ward I worked really hard when I was a when I worked I read and was a city counselor. I retired. I Have more energy. I Feel that I'm still relevant and so I'm letting you know that I am planning to seek re-election And I just wanted you all to know that first. Thank you. Great. Thank you Jack, are you ready to go or do we do? Yeah, great. So Sharon spoke to I think that was There were two really big items on on Monday at this past city council meeting and this housing one was obviously one and That's been in the works for a few months and then I'll let Councilor Roof speak to the other which which he brought forth which was also a big big and important and exciting Policy change so but with the housing ones. I've been working really hard on two of them in particular One is the Requirements around energy efficiency and rental units. This was something that I campaigned pretty pretty heavily on when I ran for the council in the winter and spring and I think it's it's a really critical policy that addresses both High costs of living that a lot of folks are struggling with and experiencing at while also addressing climate change and reducing our emissions and The the underlying idea behind it is that Right now we have a lot of especially in wards one and eight. We have a lot of rental units that are very inefficient, there's a lot of Basically air leakage and so people are spending a lot of money to to heat the outdoors So being mindful of time, this is something that I've been working on deeply And I think there's a lot of details around this policy that need to be worked out in terms of how you actually enforce it What this what the standards are what the timeline is for compliance? So there's a lot of details that need to be worked out so I hope people will get involved and get engaged on that and the other one that I've been involved with is around the Elimination of the mandatory Parking minimums. This is something that people don't it's a policy that people don't necessarily think too much about But it does have pretty big implications and the biggest thing that I've been pushing for around that is that as we eliminate these Mandatory parking minimums that we also require Developers to invest in alternative forms of transportation To really facilitate that move away from car-centered infrastructure towards Alternatives again hitting both on the cost of housing and also on climate change So I was told to be quick So those are the two things that I wanted to hit on and that I'm working on that I hope that you all will engage with and get involved with Thank you And I've been told to go really quick. So I'm gonna lightening around this just a few quick updates. Is this on can you hear me? Yeah, good The special committee on policing which is something that I helped put together a few months ago if y'all recall One of its members had to resign. So there's an opening on that if you go to the the city clerk's website I believe we have that reposted so we'll have to do a Reappointment for one member of that committee there's also just Chicky brought something up about the housing database and that's an important thing I talked about this on on Monday as part of an update that I gave The city now that they've done the the five-star review on all the properties in Burlington They aren't ready to release that and they're not just really we don't just want to release it in the form of Big Excel sheet because that's sort of useless We want to put it into an application that can actually be used so you can search properties and get an idea of What kind of landlord you may be getting into a contract with? So that's important. Excuse me, but could you just briefly explain what a five-star review? Yeah, sorry So a few years back we had we had instituted this five-star review Which essentially means if you're a really good landlord you get five stars Which means that you have five years before you have to come back for a certificate of occupancy That's for the best of the best Four stars is four years three two one so the worst landlords are getting they have to come back every year That's a few things it allows code enforcement to focus more consistently on the landlords that are problematic And then we turn that and make it public-facing it can be a piece of information One of many that that renters or prospective renters can use to make decisions And you want to put that into an app where people can go here on the desktop to have it be searchable and a little bit more usable City councillors here we three plus a few others met with the new UVM president. Was that yesterday? My goodness that was yesterday. It's been a long 24 hours We talked about as you can imagine housing quality of life in our neighborhoods And I think it was it was short but positive and we have another one coming up next week So while he's coming in we're also going out and trying to do some work Two things relating to voting Another application that is sort of what's called the community innovation proposal that we're working on is try to make a Application again for desktop and mobile much like with the housing to allow people Whether your renters or otherwise To know where to where it's hard to know where to vote sometimes in Burlington depending on what the year is And then some other information as well So voter education is something that the council is working on and then what counselor Hanson mentioned for a while I've been I've been working on voting for many years and one thing that I've decided to bring forward or really bring forward again I shouldn't take credit for this so I won't is this contemplation of whether we in Burlington should Afford legal Burlington residents who do not meet citizenship status the opportunity to vote on local matters Not state not federal but local matters This would require a charter change and so on Monday We referred that to the charter change committee by a vote to tend to two Committee will take a look at it bring some language back It'll have to get voted on by the council voted on by the public if it passes both both sides of the state Legislature and then we'll require a signature of the governor So that will take some long process, but that's been a topic of conversation for the last few days And we have a a legal resident but non-citizen who might have a question about that Can you speak about the if you met with the president of UVM? Can you speak about whether the agreement with the memorandum of understanding is as a public document? And if it is where is it and if it's not why isn't it? Yeah, you would you had mentioned that and all three of us failed to to remember So thank you for reminding us and Sharon correct me if I get wrong I think between the two of us will know it is public. It's this it's not it's not a renewal It was an extension of what we had for the last agreement and that was primarily because with Tom Sullivan leaving and Shoresh Caramel coming in there wasn't a cohesive Group for for the administration not that's not where the council's job of the administration to negotiate on and so that was the My my understanding from the administration the reason for an extension of that But it was not a renewal so the intention is to get in negotiations once once Shoresh gets gets his bearings That action I think that's right Was not a real quick question about the housing database Yeah, I realized for consumers that an app is more useful But for those of us who do housing research and Excel spreadsheet is really helpful. Yeah, it's not one of the other It's it's for you. We'll give you this Excel file, but for everyone else in town. We'll have the app. Thank you Well, thank you. That was lightning round for all three of you. I appreciate it and We'll we'll have more time at other meetings. We just packed the agenda on this one. So Apologies from the steering committee. So next up is John Vickrey who's the city assessor John take it away Uh Thank you for having me here tonight I'm going to try to be brief to the point so that there can be questions and answer time we are It's been about 14 years since we did the last citywide revaluation in 2005 finished in 2006 and So we were given a letter by the state of Vermont tax department to mandate another revaluation So we're in the process of complying with that mandate and so we're we are doing a lot in our office to to Begin that process. We've have several contractors and we're switching over to a new Valuation system updating and modernizing the the software in our office This reevaluation is a two-year reevaluation and the new values will be as of April 1st 2021 and the new tax bills with the new valuations will be July of 2021 So there the company that we've hired is Tyler technologies and They will have people that will be in the office as well as out in the field. They'll be asking folks for for inspections the appraisers for Tyler are all Certified and trained. They will have badges and identification and so if They will let you know that they're coming as well. They're going to try to make appointments to people's properties Recently a week ago. We mailed out letters to everyone With their property data first off. It was to announce the reevaluation We sent them all to the all the residential properties and on the second back side of the page there we imported property data of taxpayers property and Please look it over and if there are corrections to be made We would like to have you note that and we will make those corrections We're we're collecting them right now. A lot of people are dropping them off other people are Turning them into PDFs and emailing them back to us And others are taking photos and then sending them to us. So we're getting them in a lot of very various ways But we want the data to be correct because we want your assessment to be fair and You could also take a look at our website. We have a lot of good information about the reevaluation on the website So I am open for questions if anyone has any questions. I'd be happy to answer This is a question that I got Recently and and to be honest, I didn't know the full answer So I'm gonna ask it for my own benefit and benefit for others The by my understanding the assessment a reassessment is required. I think by statute to be revenue neutral Correct the charter has a provision that it'd be revenue neutral for the municipal Tax rate. There's two components of the tax rate There's an education tax rate, which is about two-thirds of the overall tax rate and then there's the municipal tax rate There's a that provision is is provided in the city charter And so if the second part of this question Which I got was if the if it's assumed that many of the properties if not most of the properties in Burlington are Underassessed and the their assessments will go up Does that mean which would argue if the municipal rate stays the same then revenue would go up So that does that mean that on measure the rate would have to come down to maintain the fact that it would be revenue neutral That's correct on measure the tax rate would have to go down to offset the increase in property values overall Our values have increased We're in a nice market right now And but the the change in values have not been uniform Pending on based on property type or location So there's a lot of different market forces that that that will affect property value And then last piece of the question and this is one that I had a harder time entering In what ways will this look like some? There's it will be winners and losers in a sense And in what ways does it look like to be a winner versus a loser? And what's the the scale of of those wins and losses for different properties or parts of town? Is there any kind of anticipation that people can anticipate? I Assuming when you say losers you mean someone that has to pay more taxes than they did in the past Well, they don't you might say that those folks have been benefiting for the past couple years So we want to correct and we want to be fair. So Our assessments we want them to represent market So that's it's really a process of fairness and not whether someone's a winner or a loser Obviously, there'll be folks that will be paying more in taxes. They'll actually be folks that will Properties that will based on their value will be paying less in taxes as well overall The change should be about similar Again depending on where you're located or what property type you have Will depend on the change. It's not a it's not an indexing of value But rather grabbing the property information and doing a lots of market studies in adjusting land values There's a lot of a lot of testing that goes on every every few months You run tests you run tests and you by the time you deliver the product You hope that you're close and then at that point the public is again involved as Like we our letters are the first part of the public involvement, but we're hoping that we are Very open with this process We want to be able to put the data online and have it available to everybody as we have been and then there'll be the opportunity for property owners to visit the Tyler team and To chat about their property and ask questions and make corrections if necessary And our office will be involved in making sure that happens All right, and we have about five minutes on this topic. Hi John. Thanks for coming and explaining the arcana of reappraisal I have a question for you having been involved in a couple of reappraisals in the past I recall back in the 80s and again in the 90s that there was a sort of a sector shift from commercial commercial property values to residential and That when as a class of properties residential properties Wanted to pay more largely because as a whole they tend to appreciate More rapidly than commercial properties we're coming off of you know the big Mortgage financial crisis and mortgage crisis back in 08 and I'm wondering if That sort of traditional thing that happens during reappraisal and shifting from commercial values to prop Residential values whether you think that's going to happen this time around and whether or not the 08 Housing you know devaluation or you know, we actually had lower rate Increases for a couple years whether that might affect affect that in some way That's you have good memory that was the when there was some creation of the the hundred and twenty percent factor that we call Which was shifting the burden back on to commercial properties because the reappraisal as a result of it Residential properties had a much larger increase the last reappraisal that we did in 2005 as effective 2006 that shift was not as As large as the prior revaluation and Obviously, there's going to be more studying to do But we have some sense of the market because we we monitored a lot actually I Don't think we're going to see that kind of dramatic shifting. I'm pretty sure certain of that and so therefore I'm hoping that everything goes very smoothly as it can be Hi, John a quick question on the timeline when would I expect a Appraiser to come by and when would the generally the appraisal period end and then When would people have a chance to? Petition for a different value with if they see that as needed Okay Good questions. So the the Tyler team has We've already been giving them a lot of data and they're doing a lot of analysis behind the scenes and as well as we're converting our Valuation system right now. It's it's pretty much finished actually so they're going to be a more regular presence in in City Hall in the next week or so and They are it's unlike the last reappraisal. They're not going to have 10 to 15 data collectors Combing the neighborhoods. It's more targeted. There's going to be fewer Fewer personnel, but they're going to be much highly trained appraisers and they what they're going to do is request inspections of Properties that have had some changes or where there is some questions about the data And where there has or have been some changes that need to be updated So it's a little bit more targeted in that way and a lot of the analysis nowadays is conducted by the computer and by lots of resources like MLS and Imaging and sketch reviews and so there's the techniques are changing. So there it's a little bit less of a large group of folks Visiting every home to answer the question It'll be over the next year or so the major part of the data collection Then the informal hearings will be in January of 2021 So, thank you If people have additional questions afterwards when they get the letters or when they read the letters They can just they contact your office. Is that so right? Absolutely, we've had a lot of calls and we've been very busy But whenever when anybody stops down to the office, we will give them the time As well as try to reach out with him and talk to every everyone Thank you. Thank you so as you No doubt recall DPW has become in several times over the last number of months This body has been particularly interested in the areas of sidewalk that need Repair because they're a trip and fall hazards. They make it difficult for they're not accessible that kind of things So Chapin and DPW have been very responsive Promised us a chunk of money to address those Areas and we just asked him to give us an update. So take it away Chapin Great. Thank you so much. Chip and Spencer director of public works It's not often that the city assessor gets to generate as many comments and questions as public works So, thanks John for starting us off here Yes, back in July you all had a number of questions regarding sidewalk We wanted to take that opportunity to talk to you today And provide us more answers to your questions. We have Laura Wheelock senior engineer and Olivia Doris engineer for public works Let's see one of the presentations tonight was on the Champlain Parkway from the Pine Street coalition We would like to get out some baseline information on that project. So we're circulating That PowerPoint that we have delivered at various NPAs for your review So with that we had a strong year of pedestrian improvements and really appreciate everybody's patience during a ambitious construction year We have succeeded in exceeding our three mile benchmark of sidewalk reconstruction this year And as you know, we've talked about the hundred and thirty miles that we have in the 40 year lifespan of sidewalk So we really need to be doing at least three miles a year to get a sustainable level So let's hit the next slide. This is all consistent with the sustainable infrastructure plan And thanks to your support in 2016 for funding a bond that is helping propel much of this work So I'm going to turn it over to this point to Laura and to Olivia and we'll take questions to the end. Thanks Hi, thank you Laura Wheelock DPW senior public works engineer. I help oversee and manage the street and sidewalk program Up on the screen is just some of our achievements of work pedestrian orientated this season Installation it's actually over a dozen crosswalks by the time that we complete accessibility enhancements curb ramps other safety repairs A lot of it triggered with the enhanced paving program and the complete streets efforts for sidewalk work Specific inside Ward 1 and Ward 8 Going into the season in April. We had Grove Street North Street Pomeroy and South Union having significant sections of their sidewalk being replaced There was also early in the season a completion of intersection and pedestrian improvements at the Barrett Colchester intersection midway through the year the City Council graciously approved an additional five hundred sixty eight thousand dollars towards sidewalks specifically With that approval, we've done what we could to pivot mid-work plan Understanding our contractor already had a full play and our right-of-way crews had a pretty full plate already So we were able to squeeze in work on Rose Street charity Blond in Colchester, Randy and Institute So far this season Go ahead So just to kind of go over a little bit how We had put together in the sidewalk program works I do want to mention that a copy of the presentation. I'm sorry about the ringing that we're giving right now is available at the front desk As well as some copies of our sidewalk work plan This is something that DPW went and presented to the City Council or the DPW Commission in May of 2016 It takes our sidewalk inventory our technical data puts a Barrier score so that is the actual ADA based deficiencies that are experienced within the sidewalk Pairs it with an activity score. This is our tendency to use the sidewalk how many pedestrians In frequency that we expect people to be using it and gives us our priority score from that technical data This priority score is what we then use to review and target based on our available funding where we are going to allocate that work It gives it more of a broad based across the city We're only a few people and we have 130 miles of sidewalks and that's a lot of a lot of miles to cover So the types of projects where this money goes into using the priority score our safety improvements These are significant displacements of sidewalk cracked panels with large gaps that are missing Rocking panels those types of really really concerning areas The remainder of the funding then gets focused towards generally the long runs We want to get our infrastructure back up to being able to be maintained in a sustainable way And so to do that we are looking to do block-by-block type approaches to replacing the sidewalks We do recognize that some of our runs as they were analyzed in the system Especially when you get towards the new north end are quite long Even out here in Ward 1 end up being a pretty sizable stretch Those stretches don't always need to be replaced sometimes There's good sidewalks in the middle and that's where we would make use of the localized repairs Maybe we only need to replace a hundred feet of 400 feet to make that sidewalk be in good condition The alternative repairs speaks to our sidewalk cutting program where we look to take sidewalks that we've replaced in the last 10 years or so and Shave them down. Usually this is needed for tree roots that have pushed up sidewalk panels This is a way to have them Maintain their life until they get to about their 40 year replacement So what informs our work plan inside of this document? You'll see the the very technical aspects of it what we are looking to achieve But that's not the only thing that we do consider We have the infrastructure plan that was improved to 2016 that we also go by our white our walk bike plan and Our C-click fix and I think that's one of the things that Chapin had spoke to you guys about There are things inside of the technical inventory that just are not captured and it really relates to more of the safety Criteria we can see the vertical displacements, but what we can't necessarily see are the gaps in the sidewalk or the rocking panels That is where we do rely on residents city officials sometimes Business owners to be able to go in Click a picture send us a note give us a phone call Give us an address and say hey the sidewalk has a concern We then send our technicians out we we measure it we We measure it we quantify it and then we can add it into our work plan. We are focused. This is totally my fault sorry We are focused on trying to Remove our safety repairs as it relates to our network We recognize these are the ones that Are the most apt to literally trip people up? And that's what we want to address first in our work plan and then we move on to the long runs Also keeping in mind some of our government governing Documents and available funding so our next Our next steps We're gonna finish our work plan for this year We're running starting to get a lot colder our right away group doesn't work past the end of October on sidewalk work They need to get our snow plows ready, and they need to get ready for leaves Our contractor usually can work a little bit later in the season But they they also do need to be mindful of the weather We want to make sure that we're getting in good quality work for the money that we're spending What is happening inside to DPW right now is that we are working on our next season sidewalk work plan? We have gone out. We've taken especially the information that we've gotten since the last NPA meeting here We've done our inspections. We've done our quantifications of those that have been sent into DPW We also are comparing that against the inventory That's referenced in the sidewalk work plan and coming up looking at our available funding and finding out what our Three miles is going to consist of next season. It's not finalized. It's certainly not ready for public consumption But it's usually something that we bring to the DPW Commission in about January or February The other thing that we are working on is getting an update of our assessment The assessment was collected in fall of 2014. We've obviously done a lot of work since then and We want to try to Refine some of the challenges that we do have with our existing inventory to be able to make it I'm so sorry be a little bit better of a workable plan for everyone So to talk a little bit about the capital improvements that are We use Other people's other other funding sources to be able to to facilitate these are Enhancements within the existing right-of-way They are not necessarily a maintenance and replacement type project. Those funding sources include the CCRPC V-trans grants and federal highway earmark type grants We apply for these a lot we have a transportation planning group that actually has been very successful in Receiving these these monies and it's great It it costs us 20% of the project to be able to implement these Olivia is going to speak to two of them that happen to be in Ward 1 Okay, so the first one is Project many of you are probably very familiar with It's been in the works for a few years and this is a project that Has some federal and state funding assisting us. So that's great The This project will replace the sidewalk along Colchester Avenue From South Prospect Street to East Avenue So it will replace it with a 10 foot wide multi-use path Which will better accommodate bicycles and pedestrians on that stretch so We hope to have we're in the final The contract plant stages currently with the trans and the design engineer and we Hope to put that out to bid in December or early January so that it can move to construction this coming spring so and So kind of a newer Our most recent effort is getting the Mansfield F side path in traffic calming project up and running Many of you have probably seen the surveyors out there collecting data and So we've selected a design engineer to start this process Again the project kind of consists of two components one being the side path This will replace the sidewalk along East Avenue and extend that sidewalk along East Avenue again with Sorry Mansfield Avenue And replace it with a side path that again will better accommodate pedestrians and cyclists You know per the Blant plan BTV walk bike master plan This design progress will be presented at future public meetings. So keep your eye out For those and then the other component being the traffic calming piece which will involve a significant public outreach effort with that neighborhood the consultant is currently working on on design alternatives for that and those alternatives will be presented at a neighborhood meeting this coming Coming up in November. So again keep your eyes out for that and for the timeline We hope to get through design this winter and if all goes well finalized designs in the spring and get to construction in the summer or the fall Thank you Anything before we go to questions Just I mean if you guys want to we can leave this up for the questions time This is just some of the other work that we are doing inside Ward 1 And so if you see things happening in these areas feel free to reach out to DPW and we can get you in touch And get you some information Great. Thank you. So questions comments Yeah What's the prognosis for East Avenue traffic calming? The prognosis is the same as that I said in July. It's on the list It's like third or fourth after our current set of projects We are going to meet this winter as we've heard from traffic calm requesters to be able to be more responsive To these that we are looking at how we can resource the projects differently to keep them moving forward So we'll keep you posted. So in the meantime, will there be What do you do? You've I? Problem has been identified Traffic engineering is not going to deal with it probably at least until 2022 if I read your tea leaves, right? meanwhile Deputy chief murad is here, and he's not doing any traffic enforcement. So how do we make it a safe street? No, thank you, Richard. Like we talked about last in July We are looking at whether there's quick build options that can be done in the interim I know that there were requests for our FB's. We're looking at various strategies We have applied for grants for the Colchester and East Ave intersection. Unfortunately, those were not successful So we are doing the behind-the-scenes work to get this project moving forward Yeah, I got a quick question about the sidewalk on Colchester Avenue That goes to East Avenue. That's being upgraded. Is that going to include a jog that goes south on East Avenue to? The stop sign there's a lot of people that walk in the street now There's no sidewalk on the west side of East Avenue and Currently that area isn't within the grant grants are very specific to their limitations But it is one of those areas that I could look at as it relates to maintenance Yep, I know exactly what you're talking about the fact that there's no sidewalk and the connections across the street so Yep, and there's no place for people to go and it's doubly damned because the path up the hill has been Blocked yep. Yep. Yeah, unfortunately that happened under the paving of East Ave before UVM's wall plan was finalized So can you speak to how you are going to do neighborhood outreach on Mansfield Avenue? So again our first kind of outreach effort Will be that initial Neighborhood outreach when we finalize some Concepts some alternatives for that traffic calming we want to go to you guys with some Concepts on hand so we can have something to work from from there. We will hold a number I mean It's kind of going to be in in in your in your hands. I mean however However, many, you know public meetings we need to Just to decide to select an alternative Where we'll work with the design consultant to narrow down those alternatives and It will be left up to the neighborhood to vote on those alternatives at the end of the process and and select one Of those alternatives to move forward with for final design So that would be happening, you know more towards more more throughout the winter. So over the course of The next few months you'll be will be working closely with the neighborhood to So we would follow the DPW approved communication plan that the council approved About a year and a half ago. It traffic calming falls into a certain category. I can't speak specifically to which category that is It could include mailings. It could be social media. It could be door door flyers But we can get back to you guys on that one what that is. Hi Hi over here. I was wondering if you could speak more about the University Heights intersection that's listed on one of the last slides that you showed We're all from the UVM student government association And we know that that specific intersection is one of the most if not the most heavily trafficked Intersections in the entire state It is also very unsafe, especially due to the high traffic of students that are constantly walking across it So I was hoping that you could explain a little bit more about What the future plans are for that specifically to make it safer for pedestrians? Yep DBW just barely Commenced this fall a study to review the intersection design. This is something that UVM requested In our partnership with them. We have collected traffic data counts beginning in mid-September and our meeting with our consultants next week to review what that data looks like The initial work is to see if we can change some of the signal timing to provide allocation Either to pedestrians or more to University Heights But one of the the quick pieces that I found really interesting is that in the peak hour There's about as many students as our cars going through that intersection And that's just in within one hour and we're talking like 1600 students So we're going to first start by looking at the signal timing The next step would be looking at the intersection as a scoping for geometry Once we get through that then we will likely need to look and pursue funding for any of those implementations We're gonna have a couple more questions Hi, I'm Sandy when I live on and work on Mansfield Ave full-time Why do we traffic calming on Mansfield Ave? Can you please explain to me what the traffic calming? Crisis is on Mansfield. I guess I'm missing it so in 2015 the neighborhood submitted a traffic calming Request to the Department of Public Works This is in the effort that follows that request so a number of your neighbors have signed a petition and Submitted that request a few years ago We did and we put a stop sign up which did it and it was a hundred and fifty or two hundred dollars stop sign And it works beautifully So I guess I'm missing what the big problem is now Great, and if the neighbors no longer want additional action one of the things we can do is look at a no-build alternative on the traffic calming piece and Focus our efforts on that shared use path and that could move us on to other traffic calming neighborhoods We received a request. We're gonna follow through to engage you to understand whether Conditions and perspectives have changed if they've changed we can move on to other projects Well, we're gonna have a public meeting and we'll be Notifying folks of this request and if people respond in writing and get the meeting that they don't want traffic calming Then that this is a resident driven process residents don't want traffic calming. We are not going to proceed with it unless it's a request Based on another plan or guiding document Lake plan B2 walk by We did make the petition for the stop sign and I this proceeds Your time I think No, I mean, but no it was actually a condition of the DPW Commission that we put in a traffic calming petition After we got approval for the stop sign and then there was supposed to be feedback to the neighborhood about Whether the stop sign was actually adequate. So I'm assuming that will be part of of this process going forward We're running out of time Or could we have their phone numbers? Department of Public Works Sure What they're I know their number but but each engineer I mean, okay We can be reached through the DPW customer service number the 863 909 for there are six engineers in our group and two Transportation planners we kind of divide up the work and our customer service can get you to the right and rather than take time now We'll we'll get it in the meeting summary. Okay? so But and Lisa if you could come up that would be great and as she comes up. I just want to say that I'm going to speak for myself as rather than as a facilitator here I'm really disappointed in what we heard tonight because Earlier this year this beginning of the summer we'd heard from DPW that they were they had a chunk of money to address trip and hazard issues this summer and We didn't hear about that now It's it's October obviously it nothing's going to happen in terms of the the very dangerous stretches of sidewalk that we have all over the city and particularly in the Hill section I think and I think we're going to have to ask you to come back to to really get a commitment that next year Those things get addressed because it's dangerous people are getting hurt They're at least three people in this room that have had four that have had Serious falls just in the last few months and we need you guys to do something about it. You're our servants. Please hear us And and get them fixed please so next up is Lisa I'd ask you to Jonathan can you help with that and then she can So this is Lisa Kingsbury from UVM and She was what it's going to speak to baseline information about housing student housing because obviously that affects The city-wide housing she's also going to speak to salt shed permitting if she can get her presentation up But Jonathan maybe could you step in and and you could start speaking? Yeah, I'll start talking So hi, I'm Lisa Kingsbury. I'm with UVM and I said earlier it's campus planning services It's actually planning design and construction. We just moved merged with another department But I'm here to talk about two projects one is the addition of some salt sheds behind Centennial field which will make more sense when I have the plan and then the NPA asked me to come and give some statistics on fall enrollment So let me just start explaining the salt shed plan before We get the maps up so Physical plant has a Maintenance area. It's been there for many many years. It's behind Centennial field located Let's see if I'm getting my directions correct east of the Velco substation south of Centennial field and then north of where our stormwater pond is and we have Lots of materials that are stored there one of which is salt to keep our campus safe in the winter So we currently have one salt shed in that area This project is about improving safety on campus because it does not hold enough salt to get us anywhere near Close to through the winter So we have to refill it several times and I guess the last couple of winters physical plant has run into some issues With being in danger of not being able to get enough salt towards the end of the winter because the suppliers were running out and The municipalities get priority So they would like to install two new salt sheds and some other Associated improvements and this project is on the DRB agenda for next week I'm sorry. Okay. Okay. Okay, so it's Okay, so As I said adding the second salt shed is just gonna give us reassurance that we'll be able to stockpile enough salt that will Help us maintain a steady supply through the winter to make sure that our roads and our sidewalks are safe for everybody Who lives and works or visits our campus? There's a couple of other little associated projects with this There's a dilapidated actually two dilapidated sheds that we'd like to replace in the same location with one new shed There's some brine tank. There's a brine tank. We'd like to add another brine tank Yes So in the interest of time if we could move on to the housing the baseline housing information that we requested that would be great Because I don't unless that people want to hear more about the brine sheds A little bit explaining the project so people know what it is Yep, so I wanted to get to the trucks yep I wanted to get to the trucks because I know that was a question as well so The question is how big are the trucks and how often they're gonna come and so the trucks are 25 ton Generally 25 ton tandem dump trucks those go there now to fill the salt sheds and they go several times a winter That would be the same with maybe an occasional large larger truck And then other than the initial filling of the two new sheds This wouldn't this won't increase truck traffic at all There still will be times where deliveries will be coming in over the winter because physical plant wants to make sure That they can maintain enough salt to get through so probably towards the end of the winter that It won't happen as often, but there shouldn't be any increase in what's happening now there Maybe a slight increase towards the end of winter when they feel like we're gonna make it through without any issues There were some questions about delivery hours and those hours happen during generally during physical plant Working hours, which are 7 7 o'clock 7 a.m. To 3 30 p.m I do want to just give the caveat that if there's an emergency situation There could be a time where we have to have a delivery outside of those hours, but generally It is within those hours and that's what we request of our deliverers Does anybody have any other questions about the solid sheds? No, if you're staying Nancy, I can show you I can show you the map Okay, you're welcome. Yeah. Yeah, I know Okay, so We had asked for some baseline information about housing. It's now 9 o'clock or a minute to Are you if our people interested enough to stay for another 10 or 15 minutes? I'm just seeing some nods if you need to leave if you need to leave we understand that So don't feel like you're being rude Understand that people have plans, but this is really important information to begin the conversation about housing UVM and how that relates to housing in Burlington, so Unfortunately, we're having trouble with the sorry it worked on my computer before I right before I left it was I checked it. It was running fine. I'm sorry. I guess that this disk just doesn't like this computer You have the numbers that you could just I have the numbers I can rattle them off So the NPA asked me to come and answer a few questions and give a snapshot of our fall enrollment and housing So I did want to give a quick update because I know people are getting anxious to hear about the results of the housing master plan So I wanted to let you all know that we did have our consultant on campus a couple of weeks ago He's given us a lot of information that we are now in the process of digesting internally Want to make sure we can get to our new president and we are still committed to bringing that information back to the NPA when it's ready So this fall we had a slight uptick in our undergraduate population that was planned projected in last year's projections I've every year I come and show and so Up by just about a hundred students undergraduate students this year The current five-year projection now is that we will remain stable in enrollment and certainly with a Lower number of students that are graduating high school In the Northeast and nationally we certainly hope that we're able to maintain that stability and with the Issues that some other colleges are having we're really hoping Yes, I'm sorry 10,000 10,535 students Welcome That's undergrad so for graduate students. We have 1,600 graduate students and 475 medical students Housing capacity is essentially the same for this year's we have 6411 beds on campus that includes both beds within the Reds life system and with our affiliated housing like redstone lofts redstone apartments We have a lease for a few beds. It's about 23 beds. I think it is it's been a place This year and we include those numbers in there as well Let's see if you could see the chart You could you would see that we are even though the enrollment has gone up a little bit the housing capacity has also gone up So we always go back to that housing agreement that we signed in 2009 That was referenced earlier and was renewed this year for one more year and we are still that agreement had Part of that agreement is that we would add beds on a one-to-one basis with any increase in enrollment So we are about 325 beds More than we would need just to fulfill the terms of that agreement at this point in time So we've kept up with the increase in enrollment since 2009 And There was a question about housing costs which I brought some of but I don't know how much we want to get into that I have a spreadsheet on housing costs. Those are all on the university's residential life website and There are well, but there are 11 different room types So I could I brought a sample of them that I was going to show you tonight And I'm happy to I'm happy to give you that link If you could share share what you send that to to Jonathan and Jonathan will get it on our the NPA website Yeah, that would be great. So we want to have to go the range Okay, so if we're looking at a cost per year the for an entire year The most expensive house Most expensive housing is a private single and that is one person in one room with a private bathroom And that housing cost is ten thousand six hundred and twenty four dollars a year and The least expensive is a quad and that's for people in a room with a common bathroom in the hallway That's five thousand seven hundred per year. And that's a pre-academic year pre-academic year our our most Common room type is a traditional double So what probably most of us had when we went to college two people in a room and bathroom Common bathroom in the hallway. That's eight thousand five hundred and two dollars per year I'm sorry That's it's this nine months. So two semesters. Yes What Because my understanding it can you just explain what costs are going into Establishing that that price range other than just the space in the bathroom because it's reds life all those other services Utilities are the yeah, I mean, it's you know, we talked about and I had actually broken these down By monthly costs as well so people could kind of compare with what they know the market rate to be if you look at a monthly cost It's pretty close to what the market rate is for housing downtown It's not in a total apples to apples to apples comparison because you know What you get when you're on campus is a little different than if you're in a house So you get all of your utilities are paid for your internet is paid for You have security there are staff that we have staff that are in the residence halls So there are costs associated with that that go into living on campus I think one possible is including everything in a list so you can we can make a better comparison. Thank you. Yeah How many of the beds are filled that you have? How many are filled? so We actually So when we report numbers We try to be consistent So, you know anytime you look at data It's going to change in terms of what day you look at it and what you're looking at So when I give you the number of six thousand four hundred and eleven beds That is actually it's the design capacity of our residence halls and it's what we report on to be consistent Every year that fluctuates a little bit because res life will make adjustments depending on how many students are coming so that number this year of actual students house in the fall I brought it It's higher. It's actually it's actually a little bit more So it's about five thousand eight hundred What what what's five thousand eight hundred? What's the number is the number that we're housing right right now in the fall the number of housing units? No, well, no, I know this is a little confusing and this is why we don't usually Change what we're reporting on so if you were going to say how what's the occupancy rate is usually what people are asking It's over a hundred percent because we we have added in some beds Sometimes we may convert a lounge or you may have a large single that you turn into a double So in the numbers that I report again just to be consistent Because these confusions do get confusing that single that may have two people in it this year in my reporting I'm only counting it as a single but you're saying that every every residential room is occupied. Is that what you're saying? Right now. Yeah, every single one. Yeah Okay Other questions Comments, I know it's late Thank you. I I'm confused about because I feel like the You know the school keeps growing and growing and you tear down buildings and you build new things and stuff But it seems like there is a lot more impact in our neighborhoods as far as homes being Purchased and turned into student rentals, but you're saying that actually you are housing more people then But really it's kind of like half because you're there's about 12,000 if you count everybody and 6,000 are in beds Right. Yeah, that's sort of it. Approximately. Yes, and they're not and the caveat Obviously, you know, also that I always have to say is they're not all in Burlington Sure, particularly the graduate and medical students. They tend to spread out a little bit further, right? Okay, so I wonder why we're still losing homes So other questions Other questions so Lisa if you would Email that the materials that we couldn't bring up and we'll get that on the NPA website. Thank you very much. Thank you And we'll be in touch in terms of when the housing study is ready to yes, and I apologize again for the presentation not working Great, and we look forward to talking with your president next month. Yeah, good Anything else before we wrap up? If you've completed the survey Drop it off right here in the corner because you'll make Jonathan very very very happy and If you want to take it with you and email it to one of the steering committee members that be great. Thanks for coming