SOUTH BURLINGTON — Some of Vermont’s top-ranking officials wielded golden-tipped shovels Friday morning to break ground on new development they said represents a solution straddling two of the state’s most pinching crises: housing and climate.
The forthcoming housing development will feature 155 new all-electric dwellings — a mix of single-family, multi-family and permanently affordable homes — some of which are slated to be ready for move-in later this year.
Featuring rooftop solar panels, in-home Tesla Powerwall batteries for storage, onsite utility-scale battery storage, induction stoves, electric vehicle chargers and interconnected smart electrical panels, the neighborhood will form its own microgrid, which can provide electricity independently as needed.
“We can disconnect it from the grid if we need to. We can have it contributing to the grid with the solar and the storage, all seamlessly for the homeowners living here, and all lowering costs for the rest of our customers,” Mari McClure, CEO and president of Green Mountain Power, told a crowd Friday morning.
Green Mountain Power is partnering on the project, and in a release on Friday, called the combination of battery storage in the neighborhood a “virtual power plant.”
Third-party energy consultants will verify that each home meets the U.S. Department of Energy’s Zero Energy Ready Home and Energy Star certifications, according to the press release from Green Mountain Power.
Friday morning’s panel of eight speakers included Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and Gov. Phil Scott, who spoke to a crowd that overflowed out of a tent and onto the sprawling grounds of the O’Brien family home. The real estate and home building group O’Brien Brothers spearheaded the project and will carry it out.
Scott spoke of the desperate need to address the housing crisis in Vermont.
“We still need more housing,” he said. “And we need it to be more affordable at every single income level.”
The market-rate townhouses in the new development will start at around $500,000 for an 1,800-square-foot, three-bedroom home, according to Evan Langfeldt, O’Brien Brothers’ president and CEO.
While the homes are only available to purchase, he said homeowners can choose to rent the homes to tenants. Later phases of the project will include multi-family senior housing and low-income housing.
Debates about climate change, the environment and housing have persisted in South Burlington in recent years. The city has been a hotbed for debates about housing developments, with some vocal pushback from groups that have wanted to conserve land rather than build on it.
Asked whether abutting landowners pushed back on the project, Langfeldt said the group held about two dozen public hearings over the three-year permitting process.
“It’s a long process, but this is a large project, so it deserves a lot of public input,” he said. The project is located on a 140-acre parcel, and Langfeldt said the group didn’t need significant zoning variances to permit it.
Meanwhile, Friday’s speakers focused on the collaboration that took place to bring the project across the finish line.
“It’s a success story that comes from cooperation, not conflict,” Welch said.
Helen Riehle, chair of the South Burlington City Council, said the project will help the city meet its climate goals.
The project, she said, “leads the way for others to follow suit and dispel the notions of the naysayers that it won’t work, it can’t work in Vermont’s climate without a fossil fuel heating backup, or it will overwhelm the grid.”
“South Burlington embraces this project as confirmation that dual goals of addressing housing needs and climate change can be symbiotic,” she said.
