BURLINGTON — City officials and the Vermont Land Trust say they’ve reached an agreement to purchase 12 acres of prime waterfront land along Lake Champlain from developer Eric Farrell for $2 million.
The land will be maintained as a public park, a proposal that was first unveiled at a community meeting over the summer. The future park wraps around the outside of a planned housing development that Seven Days described as building a “neighborhood from scratch.”
The park and housing development, which is expected to include more than 700 units, are slated for 27 acres that Farrell purchased from Burlington College for $7.65 million. The college was on the brink of financial collapse, and plans to sell a former orphanage on the property to Farrell for $2 million as well.
Farrell will also sell roughly 2 acres to the Champlain Housing Trust for the “deeply discounted price” of $1.6 million, so it can build 160 units of affordable housing, according to a development agreement between the parties. That will satisfy the inclusionary zoning requirement for Farrell’s larger development, according to CHT and city officials.
Burlington’s inclusionary zoning ordinance requires that housing projects greater than a certain size maintain a percentage of the units as affordable housing. For waterfront property the requirement is 25 percent. The inclusionary zoning requirement for this project will need to be phased in over time in order for it to be met, officials say.
The development agreement requires that other other zoning changes be sought as well. It calls for a reduction in the parking minimum from two spaces per unit to one-and-a-half, in order to preserve “green space” and “reduce stormwater runoff.” Most of the parking is planned to be underground.
Current zoning also allows for more height and density along the water, and in order for the housing to be built as planned, the zoning will need to changed to allow greater height and density along North Avenue.
The agreement would also cap the total number of housing units allowed on the 15-acre parcel retained by Farrell and the six remaining acres that belong to Burlington College to 770, down from the current 840.
To pay for the park, Burlington and the Vermont Land Trust say the city will kick in at least $500,000 from the dedicated land conservation acquisition fund, with the intent of spending no more than $1 million on the land, said Jesse Bridges, director of Parks and Recreation.
The Vermont Land Trust will initially take out a $1.5 million conservation loan to support the purchase. Bridges said the city and land trust will look to private philanthropy, the Vermont Housing Conservation Board as well as other state and national conservation funding sources to pay back that loan.
In a statement, Mayor Miro Weinberger said he is pleased that the development agreement achieves “ many of the City’s long-defined goals for this important property,” and also “responds to goals expressed by citizens in balancing substantial new public waterfront park space with the creation of much needed homes.”
The agreement is expected to go before the City Council at it’s December 21 meeting.
