Regional Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Hey, what's new on the Burlington waterfront? Hey, now it's happening at the waterfront. Oh, they can't play whatever the well, but that's what they do on the new waterfront, the Burlington waterfront.

Welcome to On the Waterfront. I'm your host, Mariah Riggs. And this month, we're going to talk about Plan B TV 2050. And with me today, I'm really excited to have Stella Jordan, Aaron Monroe, and Joe Schneider here to discuss the program with us and what it means to people in Burlington. Welcome to the program.

Thank you. Thanks for having us.

So let's go through a little bit, and each one of you can tell the audience what you do and how it relates to the Plan 2050.

Want to start, Sol? Sure, yeah. So my name is Stella Jordan. I'm a senior planner at the Office of City Planning. In the Office of City Planning, I work on long-range plans like Plan BTV 2050, as well as studies and other land use and housing development projects. I'm also managing the municipal plan element of Plan BTV 2050, which I'll explain more about in a moment. Okay, great.

Thank you. Erin?

Yeah. So I am the city's waterfront director and harbor master, and I am here to support my planning friends in their endeavor of Plan VTV 2050, certainly with a lens of the waterfront.

Yep.

Yeah, makes a lot of sense. economic development, tourism, and public access and community engagement.

Thank you. I'm the economic development specialist with the Community and Economic Development Office for the City of Burlington. And so my part is working on the economic development plan as part of this larger plan. beyond anything to do with economic development. I spend a lot of time supporting small businesses in Burlington, help manage some leases, help with put on some markets, community events, run our loan program. So kind of a lot of everything.

Which are all wonderful programs that the city participates in. So thank you, Jo. So I kind of wanted to start out with what is Plan B TV 2050? What exactly is it? Like if you're gonna quickly summarize it for our viewership.

Yeah, I can get us started and feel free to jump in. Plan B TV 2050 is really an unprecedented way of planning for the city. So all cities and towns in Vermont have a comprehensive plan. This is required by the state. They need to be updated every eight years and that's what enables us to apply for state funding and have a zoning code that regulates our development and lots of things like that. But here in Burlington, in this moment, we also felt like as we're developing this update to our comprehensive plan, we really wanted to be holistic about the topics that it covers and about the engagement that we're asking the community to participate in. We were asked by city council to do an economic development strategy, which the city has never had. Really? Yeah. First ever. Go Burlington. I know.

It's about time, 21st century.

And in addition, we had a couple of other plans that are quite outdated. So our transportation plan, we last did a city-wide one back in 2011. And parks, we last did a comprehensive plan back in 2015. So definitely time for an update on those. And so as a city, we sort of saw all of this coming and figured why not do it all together in one sort of unified, holistic plan. So that's Plan B TV 2050. It represents four major departments of the city coming together to do this work.

What departments?

So that's Office of City Planning, Parks, Rec, and Waterfront, Community and Economic Development Office, and then our Department of Public Works.

Okay. And, you know, actually, you know, it's interesting because it's 2050. So is this sort of like a visioning, aspirational plan? Because it seems like it's a much further plan than what is required by the state for grants and stuff.

Yeah, I mean, typically cities will do plans that have sort of a long-range time horizon so that we can think a little bit more broadly about what's possible. And then things like capital plans that we do more frequently or studies sort of help us refine the goals from these long-range plans. So it's not super abnormal, but I would say because it represents the sort of coming together of all these different topics, it really is an opportunity to think much bigger than we have before about what the future could hold. And yes, 2050 seems far away. It's aspirational.

It will be here later on the corner.

Less than 25 years.

It's true. And now this 2026, that doesn't seem so long ago, right?

Yeah. Maybe just for me, actually.

But okay, so that's interesting, and that's how they're all working together. Now, how is Parks part of the plan?

Yeah, so as mentioned, our last comprehensive plan was done in 2015, and you know, things have changed since then. And this is just a really great opportunity for us to not do this plan in isolation and to really have that scope of how do we integrate into the broader city? Because, you know, besides the waterfront, there's a lot of parks in and around Burlington. And, you know, how do they complement different neighborhoods? How do we support our downtown? How do we create equitably green spaces throughout our city, which sometimes can be a challenge, right? We run really north-south. So how do we get these green spaces to all of our different neighborhoods so that they're all walkable distances to that? And so part of that, it is exciting. And part of that is, yeah, let's not do this in isolation, right? We need our partners in CETO and DPW and planning to say, okay, well, what are you doing in this neighborhood? Well, okay, this is a time for us then to take a look at this park in that specific zone. So by doing this in this comprehensive plan, it allows us to not only take that broader look, so I appreciate the 2050 because... Gives us a little bit of time, right? But it does allow us to have these plans in conjunction with any new transportation plans so that we're partners in that to say like, okay, this is how we're going to better access this space then. Or we will invest in this area because we know that there's some economic development coming in. And hey, maybe you need some green space to help strengthen that. So we're really excited to be a part of this together and not just have our own plan kind of tucked away in our own zone. Yeah, it's not silent.

It's not silent. Let's break these down already. They contextually can work together to lift every department up, it sounds like. It's all connected.

All connected. Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you, CETA. It's very true. And so the economic development part, you know, it is interesting because that is sort of that commercial, the viability. How do you bring energy? How do you bring economic vitality into different regions by using planning, by using things like parks and access and linkages and movement between different neighborhoods in Burlington? So how does CETA play a part?

I mean, for obvious reasons, but... Yeah, I mean, I think... I think it's really related to, we've been talking a lot about housing. There is a housing crisis nationwide and in Vermont, and we need more housing and more affordable housing, and we've heard that a lot from the community. And that means more housing, more people coming in. We have to think about what jobs they could do. Students want more job opportunities, more opportunities for career growth. And so the economic development piece comes in thinking about, okay, not only where we will house and how we will house our community, but how will they make a living? Because ultimately we want everyone to thrive. And for the city to work towards affordability, We need to have a thriving economy because we make tax revenue off of any business activity in the city. So if businesses are doing well, then hopefully we won't have to rely so much on property taxes to provide city services. And so that's something we really want to bolster.

That's interesting because that is a balance. I don't think a lot of people think about that.

We don't think about it, no.

No, I think a lot of residential folks who don't own businesses tend to think about the tax structure from a very personal residential standpoint.

Yeah.

And they don't realize specifically, especially with Burlington, because it's a city, a lot of the revenue does come from things like city sales tax.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. First receipts from like restaurants.

Yeah, rooms and meals tax is a huge one in Burlington. That doesn't really exist in other part of the states in the same way as like a revenue base. And so all those things kind of have to work together to lift up the tax income from the whole city.

Yeah, and to tackle affordability.

And trying to keep that level. It's hard. I know on our show, it's come up quite frequently in the last year with different guests that we've had that, yeah, housing is really hard. And we do have a little bit of a brain drain of younger people getting out of schools. We have some incredible schools in the region. They get out of schools and then they can't really settle here because they aren't finding the opportunities so that they can really just start their lives here. And that's a huge thing that we really do need to work towards. So that's wonderful to hear. That's very exciting. So, all right. So the process for the plan, now that we've talked about all the different silos, how they're working together, why the plan basically is important, what exactly, what is the process for the plan and how are you guys working together as you guys are developing this plan?

Yeah, it's a long process. It will take us over a year, and it's about four main stages. So we started with doing an analysis of existing conditions in Burlington and pulling as much data from our departments, from community partners, the state as possible, just to paint a picture of how are things right now. And then we went out into the community and we started the community visioning process. And so we've been, we had a great event at Main Street Landing. Thank you. We had over 320 participants come out to our big kickoff open house. That's great. So a lot of community engagement. And since then, since April, we've been popping up at a lot of community events like Letty Beach Bites will be there tonight. And also holding just like individual stakeholder interviews and meetings and focus group meetings to gather more specific insights to specific challenges in the community. And we're wrapping up that visioning, which is pretty broad, just like what are the challenges and opportunities.

Is there any upcoming opportunities for people who are watching this right now to get involved in that process before it is completed?

come to Luddy Beach Bites. They won't.

That's going to be way past. Is there anything, you know, in the next few weeks when this is airing that people can participate in?

Anything you want to share?

Yeah, I mean, we're, you know, we're always open to invitations to come to community events. We'll be at, I don't know when this is airing, but we'll be at the Main Street Block Party on Friday afternoon. Which is going to be fun, 18th and 19th. Yes. celebrate the opening of Main Street and talk about how planning led us there and the types of things that could happen from this plan that could be similar. We'll be doing lots of like synthesizing of all the feedback that we have been gathering so we're sort of Taking a pause on these big events that we're hosting. But that being said, we're totally happy to continue talking to people. You can find ways to reach out on our webpage at burlingtonbt.gov slash planbtv2050. And we are always up for creative ways to have these conversations. Folks can send us an email if they want to share input.

Yeah, because this is the time to make those kinds of ideas and thoughts known because this is sort of the information gathering.

Yeah.

Right. It's where you're putting out like the really wide net. Yeah. Trying to gather as much, you know, pertinent data as you possibly can. Right. And then synthesize that to try to create something that is equitable moving forward and that can work for the city.

Yeah, so we're tightening the net a little bit now because we need to start working on the compilation and analysis of everything we've heard. And so we're starting to look at a few, analyze a few possible scenarios for the future of Burlington and been gathering feedback on that. And eventually, starting this fall and winter, we'll be working on the actual plan itself, like an action plan. But in October, we will have another big open house, like community open house. And that will be an opportunity to see where things are at now and kind of react. So less of the open-ended questions of like, what do you want to see in the future? And what's the biggest challenge? But more like, hey, here's what we heard. Like, did we get this right? Like, this is the direction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Does this sound like what you were saying? Yeah, exactly.

This sounds like what you're saying is part, right? Just a check-in.

So another big public opportunity.

So that will be in October. So keep an eye out for that. So if you do want to go to a public forum, you want to engage in the process, there will be a major meeting in October that the city, I'm sure, will be posting in September. And you can check that out.

Yeah.

So it's really interesting. Now that you have all this data, am I allowed to ask what kind of things have you been hearing from the Burlington community? I'm so curious. I'm sure there's a wide range of thoughts and opinions.

There absolutely is a wide range. I would say one of the number one priorities that we have been hearing recently so far through our engagement is about housing affordability. As you said earlier, Mariah, it's tough to live here in Burlington right now for a lot of people. It's hard to find housing that you can afford. It's hard to find economic opportunities, and the cost of living is high right now. This is something that is very central to the plan and really cuts across all of the elements.

That's really exciting.

Burlington, part of the municipal plan, the comprehensive plan, is to comply with state requirements for new housing targets that the state recently created. And so this actually means that this plan will be charting a path to figure out where and how we build 7,000 new housing units in Burlington by 2050. Of course, the city doesn't have complete control over housing development, but through a planning process like this, we can start to say, okay, here are the types of neighborhoods that people are wanting, here are the types of amenities, here's what matters when we think about housing in terms of access, accessibility, mobility and connectivity, and, of course, economic opportunity. So, you know, alongside housing, I would say another really big theme that we've been hearing is just people wanting more connected and cohesive neighborhoods where they're able to walk or bike or get quickly to, you know, the sorts of things that they want to be able to access every day, shopping, cafes.

Yeah, we have sort of these auxiliary... Recreation is a huge one. Yeah, we have these auxiliary... First to mind is New North End. It's almost like this isthmus away from everything else in its own sub-genre neighborhood over in the corner. And to get there is a very specific way. You have to go through the city. It is. It's almost like this peninsula out there on the Winooski Delta. And so, you know, Burlington does have geographical challenges as far as creating, you know, interconnectedness. And so that's really exciting because I do, I have friends that, you know, if you live south of town and you're trying to get north of town, it can be difficult, especially during rush hour and stuff like that. So that's, that's exciting. Or if your job is in one side or the other, you never know. I mean, those kinds of things, creating like linkages and stuff is really exciting. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, and I mean that's why it's so important that we're doing this alongside these other departments too. It's all about how you live, but also just what you're able to get to and recreation around you. It's such a big part of Burlington's identity, which we have been hearing a lot of, and so how can we keep fostering that?

And also targeting and looking at different neighborhoods where residential can increase, where we can invest in redevelopment for more residential units. We have a lot of smaller units, all those kinds of things that unfortunately affect cities as they grow. Exactly. Which can be tough. I'm assuming the zoning code will be part of that consideration.

Yep, 100%. Yeah, we're looking at what we're able to do right now with existing zoning and then also what would we need to change in order to enable more housing.

The city's actually going to change zoning so we can have more residential. Did you hear? You heard that here. That's really exciting.

You know, I will say, like, we already allow a lot of residential through. We did a recent zoning amendment that really upzoned in our residential areas. So there's a lot more allowed right now. We're not seeing the type of uptake in housing development that we might have expected from that. And so we're trying to figure out other sorts of, you know, carrots and sticks that we as a city have to encourage development. Yeah, drivers. Yeah, exactly. And also, you know, beyond zoning, it's about what additional community infrastructure is needed to support more housing growth, you know, transportation.

Yeah, why are people not wanting to live there, right? I mean, that's always a question, right? When you build it, why are they not coming?

Yeah, it's oftentimes, you know, access to things comes back to, are you able to get to a park near you? Do you have a community gathering space, a sense of community in your neighborhood? Good. But we've also been hearing a lot about the waterfront specifically. Oh, I love that.

I love hearing that. I love hearing that.

I love to hear that.

And they're like, yes, that's great.

Yes, I drew it on us.

Especially this time of year.

Yeah, it's our time to shine. It is our time to shine.

Yeah, so that, I mean, yeah, but parks too, because we do have a lot of far-flung plunks. How many parks are, do you know offhand? How many parks from Burlington?

There's so many though. I saw a map recently and I'm amazed every time.

Somebody once described it to me as a green necklace, like a north to south green necklace that just kind of like dots the entire city sort of like, you know, south to north.

The great thing is like we're already integrated. We're already integrated into so many neighborhoods, so many different areas, north, south, east, west. And part of the housing is, yeah, people want to play. You want to be able to age in place. You want to go and be able to walk to your pickleball court.

I think I've heard that too.

You know that we've got feedback on pickleball. But, you know, playing and aging in place is really important from, you know, zero over to 100.

And we have an aging population. I mean, that is a viable thing. By 2050, I'm sure, I don't know if the demographics support it, but I would assume, you know, the median age, that's also why reinvestment and keeping younger people here after college, those kinds of things are so crucial. But with an aging population, you know, you do want to make services and access easier. For sure. That's important.

An active, connected individual, you know, they're going to be able to age in place. And that's really what we want, right? And not just aging in place, it's, you know, our young families. Like, can they connect with each other? Parks ultimately are a platform to gather people. Right. And and it's whether it's a quiet walk in the morning or, you know, hosting an event at night, kickball, you know, Tai Chi in the parks. It's all of these things create community and parks are really good for that.

And that's part of what makes, I think, Vermont and especially Burlington specific really unique is that we have such incredible parks that offer a lot of opportunities for community meetups or activities or exercise or ways to meet different people maybe in your community, which right now there's been a lot of studies that that's lacking. As this decade has grown, less and less people are reengaging with their community. So our parks are really that gateway. towards what I think is like one of the crown jewels of, I know we're the queen city, but one of the crown jewels of Burlington is the fact that we have engaged parks that actually have, it's not just a stagnant space. Like people are using them for different things all the time.

They're active, they're thriving. I think we're also hearing, hey, we want to see activation in all seasons. Right? So I think we're really great at summer activation. We're busy. We're having fun down there. But, you know, is there opportunities to do something in our non-foliage kind of off-season, stick season? Thank you, Noah Kahn. And then as we kind of get into the heart of winter, you know, at the end of the day, hey, we're a cold, climate, state, and how can we embrace that through activity?

I've always thought we should be more like Quebec City, but that's just me. They have quite the fun winter park season, so someday we'll get there. Aaron, I have thoughts. We'll talk. We'll talk.

Honestly, that's what we, I mean, as Erin said, we heard that a lot in the open house and from just general engagement with the public, the winter activation, and specifically referencing our neighbors to the north and how they do it. How can we also have that fun and that level of activation in the wintertime and specifically on the waterfront? I mean, it is the crown jewel. Not many other places around us have...

has that view. But in the winter, there is a regression there. And so I think as the plan progresses, thinking of ways of activating, bringing value to half the year in those spaces, and making them active and vital, and helping people with seasonal affective disorder. I mean, there's multiple studies showing, and that's why Nordic countries do so well, is because they actually get out in winter. I mean, I don't know if any of you know, but I know this. If you get out in winter, when you come back inside, you just feel better.

Yes.

When you engage with the cold, you dress for it properly. My dad always beat me over the head with the classic Norwegian saying. I don't know if you've ever heard this. There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad dressing.

Yes, I've heard that.

But, you know, those kinds of things I think would really lift up, you know, a lot of people in this community because I know that winter can be hard when you're stuck in a teeny space and you just don't feel like you're getting outside.

And we need more options. Not everyone's going to be a downhill skier. And I think a lot of people visit Vermont. They may be going to Stowe. And what other opportunities can we offer them?

But there's a lot of economic constraints on that, too. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you go to Stowe for one day and you're talking $200 per person. Yeah. Right. And so there's a lot of economic hurdles there.

around that. So not just for like our residents, but also to bring in more tourists during the winter.

Yeah. Well, also, that's the other thing, too. I do a lot of work with tourism in the state and also specifically in Burlington. And I do know that, you know, we are such a hub in the summer.

Yeah.

In the summer months, you know, those hotel rooms are, those blocks are booked. You know, people can't find space. But in the winter, a lot of that tourism economic activity, and then that goes back into CEDO. It's going to Stowe. It's going to Killington. It's going to the Valley, you know. You know, it's a bleed. And then those people maybe aren't coming into Burlington. So how do we reclaim that?

Exactly. They're flying in. They're coming into the airport. Oh, yeah.

But then they hop that transit as far out of the metro area as they possibly can. So how do we get people who are like, oh, my gosh, we're in Stowe, but we have to go do a day or two in Burlington? Those are kinds of things that bring economic vitality and help our businesses during those periods of time where they're not seeing that type of tourist activity.

So I think that's going to be a really interesting focus and it's going to be a great opportunity for collaboration between our two departments.

We're already talking. How do we create a culture of a winter community? And then also, how do we address the fickleness of our weather through climate change?

The snow's not guaranteed. The snow's not guaranteed here in the valley.

And so that's something for us to really tackle and say, okay, what type of activities can we do when it does snow here that are more pop-up related that we can pivot quickly? And then what are the things that we can do regardless of the snow cover? You know, some of the ideas that we've been batting around are like, can we have some fun with spas down on the waterfront? What type saunas and what kind of activities can we do?

Nordic countries do do that and with beautiful views, right? I mean, do you create some sort of system where it pops up? Like in November, it pops up. It's something that's temporary. It's on the waterfront. People can, I mean, I know Hula, they have the spas, but on the waterfront park, we could have something like that where you can do like the cold plunge. You know, the penguin, there's a huge penguin plunge crew in Burlington. No joke. The chili dippers are real. Shout out to Catherine Monstream. But like, you know, how to incorporate those kinds of things just to bring that kind of vitality. I do want to quickly circle back about CETO and sort of your plans, your plans for, you know, how we reengage and how we activate to keep sort of like the brain drain and younger people. from not having to leave where they've been in college and where they want to stay because they can't find an economic opportunity. What are the plans? How are you guys looking at that moving forward?

I think that's the toughest nut to crack. I think there are a lot of exciting small businesses being started in Burlington, at VSET, and at Hula. I think the first step would be to work on creating better connection between the universities and those businesses, because I think there are opportunities. I think Champlain College already does a great job in connecting graduates to jobs in the area. They have a lot of graduates that stay, which is great, and some of them start businesses.

And I think we could do a better job with the other institutions. So I think that is like a first step.

And then we haven't answered the question yet, but we are asking ourselves what businesses are the best fit for Burlington. Given our geography, we don't have space to grow. As you said, we are constrained. We can't build a huge complex for a big manufacturing business at this point. We could have vertical businesses, some more like office-based, and what types of businesses could we attract? So we don't have the answer yet, but we are trying to tackle that.

that challenge. Because I do think that it's come up quite frequently around here. And so I do think that there's an opportunity there. And the fact that people actually want to be here. Young people do want to be here. And we don't want to fail them. And in their dreams of living the dream in Vermont.

And maybe it's like supporting them in being an entrepreneurial city.

I know, maybe there's more grants or like, you know, that kind of thing. And, you know, also a big part of this 2050 as, you know, we close up here is, you know, we're about to see a huge generational shift. I think which we're all very aware of that, you know, there's sort of this changing tide. We're going through like a generation... kind of transition right now in our timeline. And so this really is a great opportunity to be aspirational and really look to the future and what the city means to us in 24 years.

Well said. That's at the core of it. Yes, we know where Vermont's and Burlington's demographic trends are headed. We are an aging community. You know, we want to honor the people that live here and make sure that they're supported to age in place, but also start thinking about how we can reverse that trend, right? Because we do want to bring back young people. We want to encourage them to stay. We want this to be a place where young families can live, that's affordable, that has opportunities. part of it is about steering that ship a little bit.

And we've always been such a cool place. We totally hit above our weight class. I mean, Burlington is such a dynamic, culturally interesting, like, kind of, I mean, like, all the little incubus of, like, you know, businesses or, like, groups on groups at parks or like you know how people see their city and how it can connect to each other we've always thought outside the box and we've always been so like experimental and bold you know we're such a bold little city and so like you know you know thinking about how we carry that forth for the next generation is is so integral to looking to where we go what's the next bold What is the next iteration of Burlington? And so it's really exciting, and thank you guys so much for coming on the program. Thanks for having us. I can't wait to see where this all ends up. I might have to have you back here when we actually know where 2050 is going, because now I really want to know. Let's do it. And I think you guys do, too. Hey, guys, thank you so much for watching the show this month, and I'll see you back here in August.