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Directory of Burlington Vermont
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Government and Politics :
plans and projects
Plans and Projects
There are 356 Government and Politics links for you to choose from!
10% Challenge
is a voluntary program to raise public awareness about global climate change and to encourage households and businesses to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 10 percent.
... The Alliance for Climate Action is a group of local, regional and state-level professionals that developed the 10% Challenge. The 10% Challenge is a key part of the Alliance's commitment to reducing the greenhouse gas emissions in Burlington, Vermont.
Climate change, accelerated by human activity-generated "greenhouse gases", is one of the largest public policy issues facing society today. Scientific models predict that global warming could cause significant economic, social, and ecological impacts. While the future of our earth's climate can not be conclusively known, the potential scale and irreversibility of these impacts are prompting leaders at the local, national, and international levels to adopt action plans for climate protection.
popular
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Burlington EcoInfo Project's
goal is to provide public access to clearly communicated, time-relevant (timely or real-time), useful, and accurate environmental monitoring data in an ongoing and sustainable manner. This two-year pilot project, made possible by funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, will enable residents and policymakers alike to have expanded access to important environmental information, providing for improved decision-making.
popular
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Burlington Legacy Project
Burlington has won national awards for being a livable city, for offering a vibrant lifestyle, and being a place where people can choose to raise families. These are a few of the many attributes that make Burlington unique. The Legacy Project was created in 1999 to help maintain those qualities that we all cherish about our city, and create a comprehensive plan to guide change for the economic, environmental, and social health of Burlington for years to come.
The process was overseen by a diverse steering committee. Its members included leaders from the business, low-income, environment, academic, youth, and social service communities. They were charged with coordinating a public involvement campaign and preparing the action plan.
Thousands of people from all age groups and all parts of the city participated to build a common vision of Burlington's future.
popular
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At Gregory Supply Building Center in Burlington,
employees chopped the company's electric bills by a third by turning off their computers every night, using light motion detectors and scrutinizing every single power use. The business also has saved the earth 20,000 pounds of carbon dioxide gases each month.
Gregory Supply Building Center in Burlington is one of 35 businesses participating in the 8-month-old 10% Challenge by the Alliance for Climate Action. Formed in 2000 by the Burlington City Council, the alliance is a group of local, regional and state officials committed to reducing the greenhouse gas emissions in Chittenden County, said Laura Pagliarulo, program assistant. The program's ,000 budget is funded by a variety of public agencies such as the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission and Burlington Electric Department.
Burlington's emissions increase each year, said David Hill, senior project manager at Vermont Energy Investment Corp. and a technical consultant for the alliance.
Burlington Bread is a currency that has been circulating
around town for about four years.
This holiday season, promoters of this alternative to dollars hope Vermonters will use the notes to buy goods and services for their loved ones, or give the "slices" as a local gift certificate of sorts.
... Bread is available in notes, called slices, of 1, 5 and 10 units. One slice equals 1 dollar. About 11,000 slices of bread are in circulation, Markowitz said, up from 6,000 two years ago.
The currency is essentially a hybrid between money and the barter system. Like dollars, bread slices can be exchanged for goods and services -- such as books, dog sitting and baked goods -- but bread can be spent only locally. Like bartering, using bread allows people to make a swap -- such as a tray of cookies for an hour of dog sitting -- but using a currency vastly expands the number of people in the bartering system, Markowitz said.
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Locally, about 10 stores and 115 people accept slices of Burlington Bread as payment
Burlington Currency Project
believes that each local area can harness its own sufficient expertise, intelligence, willpower, commitment, and natural resources to overcome the troubles it faces and create the community it desires without waiting for salvation from afar. What is often lacking is a medium of exchange.
Instead, imagine the local pride and feeling of empowerment that would be created if communities recovering from natural disasters could start the recovery by simply facilitating the exchange of needed goods and services through a new locally-based monetary system thus harnessing contributions and abilities of their local citizens. Or imagine the boost to local farmers and merchants and the decrease in fossil fuel usage if there existed a currency in wide use that could only be spent locally.
Click here to read more.
Burlington Housing Project Must Undergo Act 250 Review
Some residents of Burlington's new north end have won a victory that puts a halt -- at least temporarily -- to a housing project they don't want next door.
The neighbors on Venus Avenue went to court to fight the city's approval of eight units of housing to be built just across the fence at the end of their dead-end street in one of the few natural areas left in the city. Ironically, the city's own map designates this as an area to be protected from development under an open space protection plan approved by voters last year. But Habitat for Humanity and the Burlington Housing Authority already had won the city's approval to build on a 1.8-acre portion of the property. ... Although the Venus avenue project is too small by itself to require Act 250 review, combined with another Habitat for Humanity home nearby, the combination of the two requires Act 250. The neighbors also contend the site is near a wetland that's been designated for protection.
Burlington Multi-Modal Transportation Center
was supposed to provide a single location for passenger rail, bicycle, intercity bus, ferry, pedestrian and automobile travel. Located adjacent to Union Station, the Burlington Bikepath, Lake Champlain Transportation ferry docks, and along every major CCTA route and at the terminus of the Champlain Parkway, the Center will provide amenities for CCTA patrons and link Burlington’s Waterfront with the Downtown and Hill institutions.
The new facility was also supposed to improve pedestrian access to the Waterfront, provide parking for passenger rail patrons, Waterfront visitors, visitors to the Lake Champlain Science Center and serve as an auto capture point for the Waterfront.
Burlington Plans to Expand Park
For many, Battery Park is the ideal place to play on a warm, lazy day and now there will soon be more to see and do. During the City Council meeting on May 1st, 2000, Developer Malinda Moulton presented her plans to re-develop a little used section of the park that extends to College Street. Click here to read this story.
Click here to read more.
Burlington voters will have a clear choice March 4 about what to do
with the Moran plant.
Owen Mulligan, director of the Green Democratic Alliance of Burlington, said Tuesday that his group's successful petition drive will be a boost to "the democratic process" in the city. Alliance volunteers went door to door for months in all seven city wards and gathered 1,340 signatures -- 5 percent of registered voters.
Their question, asking whether voters want the decommissioned Lake Champlain waterfront power plant torn down, will be on the city meeting ballot.
Without a mayoral election, the question of what to do with the Moran plant is likely to be the chief issue on the ballot.
Click here to read more.
Burlington's Old North End was the pre-Civil War connector
between Burlington's waterfront commercial district and the textile mills on the Winooski River. The residential neighborhoods of the Old North End, within walking distance of both lakefront and riverside industries, became home to most of the City's working class residents. Thriving neighborhood businesses served those residents.
With the closing of the textile mills in the 1950's, the Old North End began an extended period of decline. Homeownership and commercial activity diminished, and by the end of the 1980's, the blighted condition of the area - abandoned buildings, arson, DEA, FDIC and bank foreclosures, environmental contamination and deteriorated infrastructure - reflected the neighborhood's status as the most impoverished area in the state.
The 1990's saw the beginning of a variety of revitalization efforts in the Old North End.
Click here to read more.
Climate Action Plan
is Burlington Electric Department's plan to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Click here to read more.
Communities consider bridge proposal
The state Transportation Agency wants to start construction within the next year on a bike and pedestrian bridge between Colchester and Burlington.
The two communities, which must approve the project, are reviewing conceptual designs for ... a 450-foot-long bridge over the Winooski River. ... The project's estimated .4 million price tag prompted Colchester residents to question the timing of the proposal, in light of the state's troubled economic situation.
The agency must have the bridge proposal included in the Chittenden County Metropolitan Planning Organization's list of transportation projects in order to be eligible for federal funding. Colchester and Burlington would likely share the local costs of the project, town officials said. ... A prefabricated bridge would be set on the existing abutments from an old rail bridge, which was taken down in the 1980s.
Construction of downtown Winooski's ambitious redevelopment
proposal is expected to start at least a year later than originally planned.
... The Winooski redevelopment would include about 700 housing units, a parking garage, stores, offices and a new 110,000-square-foot headquarters for the Vermont Student Assistance Corp.
Construction on a river walk could begin by January, but the building VSAC hoped to occupy next year will open in 2004 at the earliest.
Winooski redevelopers are relying on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to guarantee bonds it needs to sell to finance the project.
The Winooski Community Development Corp. is negotiating with agencies and filling out forms to make financing possible, said Bill Niquette, the organization's executive director.
Niquette said he is working with a variety of offices within HUD to make the arrangement work, and that takes coordination.
Fair Housing Project
is a program of the Statewide Housing Services division of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO), a non-profit community action agency. The FHP works to eradicate housing discrimination in Vermont through education, outreach, and enforcement of fair housing laws. The FHP assists victims of discrimination, investigates complaints, and works with attorneys to pursue litigation when necessary.
fall leaf collection program
in Burlington has been extended another week. Crews will collect bagged leaves in the city Sunday.
Burlington residents should have leaves at curbsides by 9 a.m. Sunday. The leaves should be in biodegradable paper leaf bags, or in clean trash cans with no lids. The bags are available at most local grocery and hardware stores.
Sunday's leaf collection is offered for only residential housing. City business owners and residents of apartment complexes and condominiums can drop off leaves or yard trimmings at the Intervale Compost Facility, Intervale Road between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The collection was extended because leaves remained on trees longer than usual this year.
FAQ: Burlington's old Moran Plant
Q: What is the Moran Center at Waterfront Park Proposal?
The proposal includes public observation decks, café and restaurant, bathrooms, glycol method outdoor ice rink [not weather dependent] in winter, children’s spray area in summer, redesigned and newly rebuilt skateboard park, site-designed park area (new lighting, lawn maintenance, appropriate furniture), renovated bike path, integrated transportation plan, with overall public management by the Parks and Recreation Department.
It also could include a world-class indoor ice and rock climbing family adventure facility, restaurant and café, children’s museum and expanded community sailing center. Year-round, public access to the building and all activities within the building are targeted at public enjoyment and enrichment.
Q: What is the estimated cost of tearing the building down and building a park?
Click here to read more.
Housing plan meets opposition
Commission ruled last week that the nonprofit organization would have to apply for an Act 250 permit under the state's development control law. The application process is lengthy and entails a close look at how the building could affect surrounding nature. ... Green Mountain Habitat and the Burlington Housing Authority plan to build eight homes for low-income families on two acres of the forest.
Main Street Landing Company is ready to break ground
on an .5 million project on Burlington's waterfront.
The latest version of the project includes offices, a restaurant, a movie theater and performing arts space at the corner of Lake and College streets. The brick and stone building features a multi-peaked roof line that opens out onto Battery Park to the east. A 56-space underground parking garage is planned beneath the building.
Original plans for the project included a 35-room inn, but the anchor tenant fell through in late 2001. After a replacement could not be found the project was redesigned for offices.
The first tenant fell through because of the shaky economy in the wake of Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, said Melinda Moulton, head of Main Street Landing Co. The size of the inn, too large for a small operator and too small for a large operator, made finding a replacement difficult, she said.
Moulton wasn't willing to reconfigure the building to accommodate a larger inn.
Click here to read more.
Main Street Landing Company Lake and College Street Redevelopment Project
Once the region's lively, bustling center of transportation and manufacturing activity, Burlington's Waterfront played a major role in the early history of the City. During the last century, however, as commerce and transportation turned away from Lake Champlain to locations more convenient to roads and highways, more than 100 acres of urban waterfront land were left blighted, neglected, underutilized, and/or inappropriately utilized. Remnants of past industrial uses, such as junkyards, auto body shops, coal plants and oil storage terminals were abundant.
The City of Burlington has worked hard to convert a decaying industrial area into one of the community's most important visual, economic, residential and recreational resources. Main Street Landing Company's Lake and College Street Redevelopment Project advances those efforts.
Click here to read more.
Mayor Bob Kiss wants to remodel the Moran plant,
which generated electricity for Burlington until it was decommissioned in the mid-1980s -- but he's taking a different approach than his predecessor.
Kiss is working hard to tell residents what the plan is, what it will cost ( million), and why they should agree to it -- far in advance of a likely referendum at the next Town Meeting Day.
Unlike former Mayor Peter Clavelle's single-user concept, Kiss suggests putting a commercial climbing company inside the old building, along with the Green Mountain Children's Museum, an expanded Community Sailing Center, a cafe and a top-floor restaurant.
The climbing company, the Scotland-based Ice Factor, will participate in a joint venture with the Burlington company Petra Cliffs. Together, in addition to what Phil McCully of Ice Factor's board of directors proclaims will be the world's largest indoor ice-climbing wall, they plan to install a rock-climbing wall and an outdoor skating rink.
Mobile Home Project
is A statewide project of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO), we offer assistance to park residents who 1) are facing park sale, closing, lot rent increase, or habitability issues; 2) want assistance with forming or revitalizing a resident association; or 3) need individual assistance about problems in their park, want more information about the laws effecting parks, or need help with planning a strategy to deal with a complicated problem in their park.
We provide public education about mobile home parks and mobile home park living. We encourage public discussion of issues facing park residents, advocate the development of programs and services for park residents, and provide workshops and training on various mobile home park issues.
Moran Center at Waterfront Park
is the proposed reconstruction / redevelopment of the old Moran Plant on the Burlington WaterFront.
Click here to read more.
Nelson Block Redevelopment Project is on the Church Street Marketplace
The ability to enhance and maintain the vitality of Burlington's downtown is a core economic development strategy for the City. One tool in that strategy - one which fights urban sprawl, preserves the City's historic heritage and helps to overcome the City's lack of vacant developable land - is rehabilitating vacant upper stories of existing buildings for both housing and commercial use. Much of this space is not functional because it is not currently accessible nor in compliance with current building codes.
The Nelson Block is located on the Church Street Marketplace, Burlington's downtown outdoor pedestrian mall. The three-story building was originally built in 1864. The first floor is rented to retail tenants. The upper floors, however, have long been vacant - the third floor since 1932 and the second floor for approximately 20 years. Each of the upper floors has 4400 sq. ft. of floor space.
Click here to read more.
New dock is planned for waterfront.
Open Space Protection Plan
At their meeting Monday evening (30 October 2000), the Burlington City Council unanimously adopted a comprehensive plan to protect natural areas and open space in Burlington.
Protection of natural areas and open space in Burlington has long been identified as one of the public's highest priorities. Recent studies throughout the country have debunked the myth that conservation and development are inherently at odds. The fact is open space conservation is good for everyone - residents, visitors, and businesses - and their bottom line.
See also, "Real Estate, Renting, and Housing, duplexes"
to read about planned housing projects in the area.
Click here to read more.
The "Ten Percent Challenge"
is an attempt to cut carbon dioxide emissions by ten percent in ten years. But the effort is not just about mother earth, it's also about new business opportunities.
The idea originated at city hall five years ago with the formation of a climate protection task force, which grew into the Alliance for Climate Action, including some seventy businesses interested in energy savings -- or in some cases directly involved in the energy business.
The Burlington / Bilwi Sister City Program
was founded in 1984 to promote understanding between the people of Vermont and the people of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. The forms that relationship has taken have been varied, and have followed the differing strengths and interests of individual participants, both Vermonters and Nicaraguans.
Past Sister City projects have involved material aid, the creation of a tree nursery, cultural exchanges, education, and, because of the unique nature of Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast, a focus on projects relating to economic self-sufficiency, indigenous rights, and environmental reconstruction.
The main stgrength of the program, however, has been and continues to be facilitation of people-to-people connections.
Click here to read more.
Waterfront Improvements
Burlington's parks and rec department is getting ready for some big projects this summer -- and spending big money to do it. ... the parks and rec department is planning on spending nearly a million dollars this summer on three major projects. The largest of these -- will be here behind the coast guard station... A 200-foot-long fishing pier --12 years in the making -- it will provide fishing access for those who do not have boats.
The pier -- which will cost 600-thousand dollars to build -- will be free and open to the public -- a long awaited addition to the city's waterfront. Construction has already begun on the skatepark nearby -- a 200-thousand dollar project set to open in early July. The third major project -- infrastructure improvements to an aging perkin's pier.
Click here to read more.
Winooski City history is riddled with failed projects.
At first glance, Winooski might seem like a real estate developer's dream: plenty of open space downtown, proximity to major highways and employers, and the municipal government's eagerness to work with builders.
Yet an ambitious million project to rebuild downtown Winooski with housing, a big office building, parking garage and other features is stalled for want of investors.
The latest plan was unveiled in 1999 with promises that construction would start in 2001. The Winooski Community Development Corp. is still struggling to line up financing and backers to create the new downtown, though those involved says the idea is still alive and viable.
... A few blocks in the heart of Winooski were razed around 1970. Residents and city planners hoped the old buildings would be replaced by a gleaming new downtown. That hasn't happened.
Winooski Downtown Redevelopment Project
includes a hotel, restaurants, retail stores, a 12-screen cinema, fitness center, 250,000 square feet of office space, 400 housing units, a parking garage, and a walkway along the shores of the Winooski River.
This is a good project. Housing is desperately needed in Chittenden County, and 10% of the units are being set aside as affordable housing. The development is taking place in an existing downtown. Much of the office space will be occupied by Vermont Student Assistance Corp (VSAC), the nonprofit instrumentality of the state that makes student grants and loans and administers Vermont’s higher education savings accounts. VSAC has outgrown its space in Winooski’s Champlain Mill.
The project appears to be a “done deal.” The permitting process has progressed in record time and is nearly complete.
Click here to read more.
Winooski officials were overjoyed
when governor Jim Douglas, R-Vermont, brought up the Onion City's downtown revitalization project in his budget address on Tuesday.
The Douglas administration first announced its support for the million project at an outdoor press conference last August. But the plan calling for million worth of loan guarantees needed extensive paperwork to pin down the details and gain final approval. Now it has that approval.
Cross said the project will begin with the utility infrastructure and a new street layout, along with a groundbreaking for a new headquarters building for the Vermont Student Assistance Corp. The project includes up to eight-hundred units of housing, a parking garage and 30,000 square feet of commercial space.
The project has been praised as a perfect example of "smart growth," in which development is kept compact and within existing city and town centers.
Click here to read more.
Winooski's big downtown redevelopment project has run
into a delay that could threaten plans to break ground by next spring. Finding the money to begin the first phase is taking more time than expected. But other problems have surfaced as well. The sheer size of the project presents complications. The redevelopment comes in with a price tag of well over a hundred million dollars in public and private investment. Even so, Winooski officials are still optimistic that financial and legal problems will be sorted out.
Troy Pudvah is betting his future on downtown Winooski. He and his partners bought two buildings on Main street, opened a new upscale bar (The Monkey House) and are renovating the upstairs into apartments. Like many other business owners and residents, he is eager for Winooski's downtown revitalization project to get off the ground -- he suspects, against the odds.
... Winooski Community Development director Bill Niquette admits that the redevelopment has fallen behind schedule.
Click here to read more.
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