Editor’s note: This commentary is by Michael Long of Burlington. Long served on Burlington’s Development Review Board for more than a decade and has been active in efforts to moderate the re-development of the Burlington Town Center Mall.
[I]n Burlington, the mantra of Democrats and developers has been “building our way to affordability.” It’s a handy slogan for leveraging affordability to advance developers’ preferences for relaxed zoning, easier permits, higher profits and fewer – not more – “inclusionary,” or affordable units.
In reality, the interests of developers and of those in need of more affordable housing — whether to rent or to buy — are not well aligned. That’s why thoughtful zoning regulations encourage appropriate development, but constrain other kinds, balancing the costs and benefits to protect the public interest while holding developers and landlords accountable.
Good zoning regulations lead to socially responsible development and more affordable, higher-quality housing. Enacting and upholding such regulations is a primary responsibility of city government. When developers and real estate investors gain undue influence, the balance is skewed and the public interest is compromised.
This is what happened when the zoning regulations were changed for CityPlace so the project could be much taller without providing an increased percentage of inclusionary units or other public benefits. This is why so much lawn parking and extra-legal paving pollutes Lake Champlain needlessly.
Unleashing developers through less rigorous zoning serves the development community directly, but the community as a whole picks up the tab. Unrestrained development, often subsidized with tax dollars as well as zoning regulation giveaways, tends toward gentrification and diminished affordability. It’s no surprise that an oversupply of expensive, upscale apartments seldom leads to more affordable housing for mid- and lower- income residents.
If the stalled CityPlace project does, in fact, start up again in the spring, it will likely be a scaled-back version.
Again and again, CityPlace developers have failed to secure financing for this project. The same city councilors who slammed the group striving to keep Burlington Telecom local because of the interest rate on their secured financing did not hesitate to revamp zoning regulations and green-light City Place without any financing at all.
It will be fortuitous poetic justice if a scaled-back CityPlace that is actually built turns out to be just the sort of project the community would have embraced in unity from the start.
Meanwhile, the economic and social fallout emanating from that stagnant hole in the ground is a grim denial of Burlington’s endlessly touted vibrancy. The lost sales and property taxes, a downturn for downtown, a giant vacancy in the center of the business district and a general doubt regarding competence in City Hall: this damage will be lasting.
It’s not difficult to imagine why financing for CityPlace has been so elusive: it was over-scaled and ill-conceived from the start.
Nevertheless, the mayor, the planning department and the City Council could not do enough to court and service this development. They delivered at every turn for the developer only to be left with a hole.
In promoting CityPlace, many elected officials and development boosters were quick to disparage the aging and neglected mall and to deceptively offer the stark either/or choice between this “dying” mall and the towering, glitzy multi-use project the developer insisted on.
But compared to that hole in the ground, flooded and frozen now, the old mall looks good, and Burlington’s loss is another dying mall’s gain. At South Burlington’s University Mall, the acres of parking are jammed and a new Target has opened.
Overall, the mayor and council in Burlington have advanced backward policies and called them progress. Neither homeowners and renters nor democracy can afford this. Unrestrained but floundering development like CityPlace is a prime example. Privatizing Burlington Telecom as soon as it became a solvent and successful public asset is another. Ignoring voters on the City Hall Park and the F-35 ballot questions shows yet again that the first allegiance of the council majority has been to the regional development community, not to the local Burlington community or to their direct constituents.
These are authoritarian and anti-democratic trends seeping down to the local level. Yet it is here, in small places like this where town meeting in some measure lives on, that we should instead be leading the way.
