SOUTH BURLINGTON — Beta Technologies is willing to slash the number of parking spaces in the first stage of its planned expansion at Burlington International Airport in order to comply with South Burlington’s zoning regulations, officials from the electric aviation company told the city’s development review board Monday night.
Beta’s proposal, which would cut parking from 317 spaces to about 40, could clear the runway for the development review board to issue permits for the project.
“That makes the whole parking discussion a non-issue, correct?” board member Frank Kochman asked after Beta officials described the plan.
“That would be our view as well,” Beta team member Art Klugo replied.
Monday’s meeting followed an unusual decision from the development review board last month to reopen Beta’s application for a proposed 40-acre campus off Route 2, after members had granted the campus’ master plan conditional approval.
The board declined to offer Beta an exemption relating to a portion of the city’s zoning code that bars new buildings from having parking lots at the front of a property. As a result, the burgeoning Vermont employer had threatened to pull out of the project.
At the meeting, board members did not decide whether to approve a revised plan for the project — including the reduced parking — that Beta sent to city officials earlier this month. But a decision on the issue could be published within a week, Marla Keene, South Burlington’s development review planner, said in an interview afterward.
The board voted to close the hearing on Beta’s application after several local residents spoke in favor of the project.
Removing parking spaces was one of four options Beta presented to city officials in early April. The others included approving the company’s original parking configuration; waiving requirements about the lot’s location relative to the building; or adjusting the construction schedule for a new building located between the previously proposed parking lot and Route 2, also called Williston Road.
Construction of that building would bring the original parking proposal into compliance with city regulations, as it would shield the lot from the street.
But at Monday’s meeting, Klugo said Beta was pushing for the reduced parking option because the company felt it was the quickest way to garner the board’s approval and obtain the necessary permits to move ahead with construction.
“Time is of the essence,” Klugo said. “It is the most important thing for this project.”
By removing most of its proposed parking, Beta would leave only the spaces that it has determined would comply with city zoning regulations.
Klugo said the company also has an agreement with the airport to use additional existing parking there, and would use an electric shuttle bus to bring employees to its new facilities from the airport parking.
According to documents shared during Monday’s meeting, Nic Longo, acting director of aviation for Burlington International Airport, wrote to Beta’s chief operating officer Blain Newton earlier this month stating the airport could make about 200 surface parking lot spaces available for the company’s use, with the option to use space on the fifth level of the airport parking garage if needed.
South Burlington’s development review board received more than a dozen emails this month after it declined to offer an exemption for the parking issue, nearly all of which urged members to let Beta move forward with its project as originally planned, the documents showed.
Among them was a message from John Wilking and Michael Keller, co-chairs of the South Burlington Business Association, who said the project would have a “vital” economic impact on South Burlington and the state.
“We urge the (board) to work with Beta management and do whatever is reasonably necessary to grant Beta the permits it needs,” the co-chairs wrote.
Even if the board approves permits for Beta’s new campus, the parking debate could be rendered moot if provisions under consideration in Montpelier are passed into law. Last week, the state Senate advanced legislation that would prevent municipalities from enforcing parking rules next to an airport owned and operated by a municipality (as the city of Burlington does in the case of Burlington International).
Senators tacked the proposed change onto their version of the state’s annual transportation budget on Friday. It still needs to be approved by the House, which passed a different version of the bill, before it heads to Gov. Phil Scott for approval.
The amendment, which was introduced by South Burlington City Councilor and Senator Thomas Chittenden, D-Chittenden, responded to calls from Scott and other elected officials to accommodate Beta’s request.
Scott urged state legislators to help Beta proceed with its plan last month, echoing the company’s claim that it could move to Plattsburgh, New York, unless the parking requirement was waived.
“I just can’t let that happen. We can’t let that happen,” Scott said at a March 29 press conference.
If it left Vermont, Beta would likely lose about $2.8 million in state grants the Vermont Economic Progress Council conditionally awarded the company if it created a certain number of jobs in the state.
Yet those funds aren’t a major sum for the rapidly growing corporation. Last week, Beta announced its latest round of fundraising hauled in $375 million in investments — $7 million more than it raised during an initial round last year.
After the meeting Monday, South Burlington City Councilor Matt Cota said that he was “pretty confident” the development review board would support the new parking plan.
He called the project “a positive thing for the city, a positive thing for Beta and a positive thing for Vermont.”
