This article by Corey McDonald was first published in The Other Paper on Nov. 22.
One hundred new homes might be coming to South Burlington’s Allenwood area off Shelburne Road, a development that will also permanently conserve 74 acres.
The development, at 1195 Shelburne Road, is still in its conceptual phases, according to the developer Eric Farrell. Plans were first submitted to the city’s Development Review Board in October and were reviewed at a meeting this month.
The plans call for construction of 124 homes in buildings ranging from single-family to 12-unit multi-family buildings on 29 acres. The property sits on the Shelburne Bay waterfront and abuts railroad tracks to the east that run north and south.
It creates permanently conserved land north of the project, extending to the Queen City Park neighborhood.
Nestled to the west of the property is a grouping of 10 waterfront homes off Holmes Road, a private road that extends westward from Shelburne Road and then southbound along the waterfront.
The area of the city, extending along Shelburne Road up to Shelburne’s border, has historically been zoned for commercial or auto, but has had smaller neighborhoods on the Shelburne Bay waterfront. The area has in recent years been queued up for housing development.
While it is still in its early stages, the focus of the project remains how to integrate what neighbors say is a historic neighborhood into the proposed development.
“You have to look at any development as how does it fit within the neighborhood,” Mark Behr, a development review board member, said.
The project has already been redesigned since it was first proposed in October. But in written comments, South Burlington Planning and Zoning Director Paul Connor said the redesign “represents a significant step backward in meeting … the community’s goals of creating a strong sense of neighborhood.”
He said the previous plan was “thoughtfully laid out to present equitable and universal access to civic spaces; a hierarchy of streets, lanes, sidewalks, and shared use paths to foster a pedestrian-oriented neighborhood; a clear orientation of homes towards a high-quality public environment; and in general terms, a ‘front-yard’ neighborhood — one where residents are invited to spend time on front porches and interacting with neighbors,” Connor said. “The proposed redesign layout moves away from all of these.”
The homes in the plan are organized around a center village green, with homes facing the center of the property. Farrell said he has been in communication with neighbors and has been working with them as the project has developed.
“Given the permit process in Vermont, we always strive to have consensus, if possible,” Farrell said during a recent meeting.
Neighbors, while not entirely opposed to the project, say more work needs to be done.
Tom Easton, one of the homeowners on Holmes Road, said that neighbors would “like to get a little bit more of a firm understanding of how the city intends on integrating a new neighborhood with an old existing neighborhood.”
“I’m not against this, I’m not against new neighbors,” Kathy Easton, another resident in the area, said. “But I also think that our neighborhood has a unique quality that deserves to be preserved as part of the historic nature of South Burlington.”
Tom Easton cited Connor’s comments that suggested the development’s original layout was better suited to integrate new and old, and he wasn’t pleased that the redesign “isolates this neighborhood from existing neighborhoods.”
“We have a close-knit neighborhood, and I would like to see it stay that way. That’s not to say that we want to exclude the new neighborhood; we believe in people having the right to develop their land within the existing guidelines and regulations,” he said. “But we need to know how you are going to perceive our neighborhood.”
Farrell said during the meeting that nothing has been finalized, and that sketch plan deliberations will continue to give themselves “further opportunity to meet with our neighbors.”
“Right now, we have two very divergent paths,” Behr said. “I think there’s merits to both projects, but I think that there definitely needs to be some further study done so that you come back to us with something that we can then review, and there might be a little more consensus.”
Deliberations are scheduled to continue Dec. 5.
