What Scully calls a "21st-century version of a factory town" would provide much-needed housing for employees at Hula, a tech incubator and coworking space on the lakefront. He approached the city about the zoning change two years ago in hopes of developing a 600-unit apartment building, anchored by shops, restaurants and a childcare center, on his large parking lot. Scully already has a vision for his slice of the district. Here we are talking about it again." Russ Scully tweet this The regs call for a walkable neighborhood of energy-efficient buildings that could be up to eight stories tall in the central part of the district structures would be limited to four or six stories the closer they are to the lake or to Pine Street.Īt CityPlace. And 49 units at "the Nest," on Pine near Bank Street, are built and leased, according to the developer.Ĭity planners estimate that around 1,000 additional apartments could be built in the proposed innovation district. Another building, the five-story "CityWest" under construction on South Champlain Street, boasts of lake-view living. Nearly all of them are spread across two major developments: the downtown CityPlace project and Cambrian Rise in the New North End. Weinberger's citywide housing plan calls for building 1,250 units by the end of 2026 some 750 are already under construction. A pandemic buying spree - and in Burlington, a long-overdue citywide reappraisal - has driven up both home prices and rents. Seven years later, that number dropped to 0.6 percent. In 2015, Chittenden County's rental vacancy rate was 3 percent, according to data provided by the city. The housing crunch has only worsened since the last rezoning attempt. Running nearby will be the Champlain Parkway, a long-planned route to connect the South End with downtown that is now under construction. They include the Hula campus on Lakeside Avenue, a nearby six-acre parking lot that's owned by Hula developer Russ Scully and a city-owned parcel on Sears Lane. All the parcels are on the west side of Pine Street and south of the artists' enclave. The new proposal covers just 81 acres of the South End's 285-acre light manufacturing district. He abandoned his first try, in 2015, after intense backlash from artists who worried that their studios would be converted into apartments. The innovation district is Weinberger's second attempt to add housing to the South End. "The only way we're going to turn this around is if we build a lot more homes, and there's no way to make those homes invisible." you're gonna have to see the housing," the mayor said. "If we are serious about addressing this housing crisis. Mayor Miro Weinberger, who championed the zoning change as part of a 10-point housing plan, sees only one way to settle it. "The only way we're going to turn this around is if we build a lot more homes, and there's no way to make those homes invisible." Mayor Miro Weinberger tweet this The opposition isn't organized, and the neighbors' concerns may not derail the proposal, but they have precipitated debate - about height, density and location - that's all too familiar when it comes to building in Vermont. But even during a housing crisis, the innovation district has its critics who fear that future buildings will be too tall. With a rental vacancy rate of less than 1 percent, Burlington desperately needs housing, and rezoning could help address the deficit. If the proposal is approved, 14 pieces of land that are now zoned for light manufacturing and industrial use would become part of a new " South End Innovation District," allowing developers to transform empty parking lots into apartment buildings, green spaces and pedestrian pathways. The area in question, a largely undeveloped section of the South End off Pine Street, includes some of the few open tracts left in the city. Later this month, the Burlington City Council is expected to consider a zoning change that would open the door for hundreds of homes to be built where they're currently prohibited. Some of the proposed zoning district in November 2021.
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