Burlington continued to grow over the past decade, according to the most recent 2020 federal census data, though not as much as some of its neighbors.
And some areas of the city grew more than others. Wards 6 and 8 added the most people, nearly 1,000. And while the city’s population increased by 2,326 residents, one small square of the Old North End shrank by 144 people, the only area in the city with a notable reduction.
However, experts and city officials warn that this new data should be scrutinized. The population count took place just as the Covid-19 pandemic emerged and paints a picture of the population as of April 1, 2020.
That was a time when colleges in student-heavy Burlington sent their resident students home, and since then, Vermont has seen a boon of new residents as it developed a reputation as a Covid-19 safe haven and as remote work became more ubiquitous.
The fluctuations that have so far been identified in the city’s population have some wondering whether new City Council districts need to be drawn — an arduous but likely necessary process, according to some councilors.
The 12-member council has formed a redistricting committee in case the city’s analytics team finds that any wards or districts have swollen past the 10% deviation between residents and their councilors, which would legally require redistricting.
Samantha Sheehan, a spokesperson for Mayor Miro Weinberger, said city staff members should have data on how much each ward and district has increased in population by the Sept. 13 council meeting, once they are able to verify the data’s accuracy.
Housing market impacts
From 2010 to 2020, Burlington’s population increased by 2,326 residents, according to the census count. It’s an increase of about 5.5% to a total of 44,743 residents.
While the Queen City is still the most populous municipality in Vermont, it did not grow at the same rate as some of its neighbors. Essex town and South Burlington both had greater population increases than Burlington. In Essex, the population grew 12.8%, adding 2,507 residents, to a total of 22,094. South Burlington’s population rose 13.3%, or 2,388 people, bringing the total to 20,292.
Winooski gained 753 new residents, according to the census data, for a total population of 7,997.
Some think this greater growth in Burlington’s neighboring communities reflect the Queen City’s exceptionally tight housing market.
Michael Monte, CEO of the nonprofit housing organization Champlain Housing Trust, said nearby cities and towns may have outpaced Burlington in building new housing. In the past decade, large developments have popped up in South Burlington, including new condos such as the Quarry Hill development, and in Essex, where housing communities such as the Village at Autumn Pond have been established.
Others were more blunt about Burlington’s housing issues.
“There’s no place to go. It’s ridiculous,” said Burlington City Councilor Joan Shannon, D-South District, who is also a Realtor. “We’re a built-out city.”
Monte estimates that Burlington has added a couple of hundred apartments each year, but the majority of them are still out of reach for the average renter — a category that includes about 60% of the population. New apartments typically are not luxury, he said, but they can cost around $1,500 to $1,600 per month. The median per-person income for Burlington is $28,480.
For the past decade, Burlington has also struggled with a low vacancy rate — which means very little housing is available to buy or rent. That tight market has only worsened this year, brought on by pandemic factors. Based on real estate research available to Champlain Housing Trust, Monte says the city has a vacancy rate of less than 1%.
That rate is far lower than the approximately 4% vacancy rate the census documented in its 2020 data for the city. The 4% figure is simply inaccurate, Brian Pine, Burlington’s community economic development director, told VTDigger.
That’s likely because census workers counted more buildings as vacant than there actually were in the city at the time. Pine said sometimes these workers will count apartments as vacant if leases are turning over. The census also includes vacation homes that are lived only in part of the year as vacant, which inflates the rate.
Fluctuations of the city’s populations
Pine is also skeptical of the report that a small pocket of the Old North End had a notable drop in population of about 144 people. That area is known as tract 42 — census population boundaries do not perfectly align with municipal boundaries and often intersect with multiple wards, districts and neighborhoods.
The boundary roughly stretches east to west from North Willard Street to Park Street, and north to south from North Street to Pearl Street.
That area, which straddles Ward 2 and 3, an area that Pine used to represent on the City Council, has not lost any housing in the past decade, he said, as that’s a factor that might explain a decline. He said the area is a densely populated student neighborhood, and because students were sent home because of the pandemic at the time of the counting, that might explain the decline.
He said the Old North End is mainly populated by renters and working-class residents, and the Census Research Bureau found that low-income citizens are less likely to participate in the population counting than more well-off people.
“A census counter was in my neighborhood, and I saw him standing outside of a building. I said, ‘Hey, can I help you?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, I've tried four times to count the people in this building. Do you know how many people live here?’” Pine said.
“That’s just an example of how much effort is required to get renters counted in the census count,” he said.
Emily Beam, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Vermont, told VTDigger by email that she thinks Burlington will have more precise data on its population trends — which will also factor population numbers after April 1, 2020 — when the 2021 American Community Survey is published.
That survey gets more specific than the decennial census and includes more data on jobs and education levels.
While census population counting began in mid-March of 2020 and extended through October, Vermont State Data Center Coordinator Michael Moser told VTDigger by email that it’s likely Burlington’s population has continued to increase since the April 1, 2020, point-in-time population snapshot. Moser said he’s also waiting for the American Community Survey for more precise data.
Overall, the southern area of the city grew the most in the past decade.
Census tract 10, which covers half of the city’s downtown and half of Ward 5, had the greatest percentage increase in population — 16.3% — with an influx of about 407 people. Census tract 39, which covers Ward 8 and Ward 6, brought in a total of 962 people — the biggest increase in any tract in the city.
Pine said the increases in Wards 5, 6 and 8 — which total to about 1,500 people — are more believable, as those areas have become attractive places to live in the city.
“Over the last decade, those neighborhoods have seen a huge influx of younger families and younger couples,” Pine said.
Shannon, whose South District city council boundary straddles Wards 5 and 6, hypothesized that growth in the southern part of the city could be driven by people living more densely, because these areas of Burlington have not had major housing developments in the past decade. Families may be living in smaller spaces, and residents may be taking on roommates, she speculated.
She agrees with Pine’s assertion that the South End’s desirability may have driven up populations. She specifically pointed to the development of Pine Street, which over the past decade added the entertainment venue ArtsRiot and new shops where people can grab lunch and coffee.
In 2011, Dealer.com also greatly expanded its Pine Street campus with a 70,000-square-foot addition, making room for new employees.
“I think that it's really the vibrancy of Pine Street that has made the South End a very popular place, and that's been a change in the last 10 years,” Shannon said. “It's been a very distinct change in the last 10 years.”
Some areas of the city where there substantial housing development also added some new residents.
Census tract 2, which predominantly covers Ward 4 in the New North End, is home to the new apartment complex Cambrian Rise, which is still bringing hundreds of units online. That tract had an increase of 474 residents, while the other half of the New North End, Ward 7, had less growth. That part of the city added roughly 240 residents between tract 3 and tract 1, which also covers parts of Ward 2.
Another significant development was Bayberry Commons on Grove Street, located on the city’s east side in Ward 1. The community, built in 2018, added more than 200 units. Tract 6, which covers the area, posted an increase of about 203 residents in the past decade.
Will City Council governing lines change?
While city officials won’t have data about whether Burlington’s population grew enough to require redistricting city council districts until mid-September, some already say the current system is too confusing and should be reformed.
From 2012 to 2014, the city worked to equalize city councilors’ representation of its residents. A ward could not legally deviate more than 10% between the population total that represents residents equally and the current population. But some boundaries had steep deviations, such as Ward 1, which had a 25.3% deviation largely due to the city’s increasing student population.
Many plans were offered, but the redistricting committee at the time came up with a proposal that voters eventually approved in 2014. It defined today’s current makeup of the council — eight wards that are also overlapped by four districts, and the number of councilors shrank from 14 members to 12.
The plan also led to formation of what some have criticized as a “gerrymandered” district, Ward 8. The boundary hooks around Ward 1 and Ward 6 and is largely made up of students.
Shannon remembers the past redistricting process as “painful.”
“It was a lot of turf battles,” she said. “There were so many different levels of debate and so many different goals.”
She said she wasn’t then, and still isn’t, supportive of the current council map because it confuses residents to have districts overlapping with wards. Some residents struggle to identify which councilors represent them, depending on where they live.
She has also heard the argument, although doesn’t agree with it, that councilors who survey the larger districts have double the responsibility and double the reelection burden, and should be paid more.
“I don't think we should have a hybrid ward and district system. I think you can pick wards, you can pick districts,” Shannon said. “I think that a smaller council would be beneficial.”
City Council President Max Tracy, P-Ward 2, agrees that the current hybrid district and ward system is confusing. He thinks it would be beneficial to review the current system.
The council resolution passed in June, forming the redistricting committee, states that the body would collect community feedback on the current ward and district configurations regardless of whether more than 10% population deviations are found in the city.
If considerable deviations are found, the feedback will inform a new map, likely to be brought to voters by March 2022. Burlington’s neighborhood planning associations are currently organizing who will serve on the committee.
“I do think it's important to take the time to work through these issues,” Tracy said, “and make sure that … our system has the fairest representation possible.”
