Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger has announced his support of Champlain College’s Eagles Landing project, based on the project’s furthering two key Administration goals: repairing the City’s finances and addressing Burlington’s housing shortage. A letter from the Mayor to the City’s Development Review Board follows and a PDF copy of the letter is attached.
Weinberger Letter
March 12, 2014
RE: Eagles Landing / Application No. 14-0671,14-0672,14-0721 CA/MA; 194 St. Paul Street
Dear Development Review Board members,
I am writing to offer comments onChamplain College'sEagles Landing project in conjunction with your upcomingMarch 18 public hearing. Since taking office, two of my top priorities have beento repair theCity's financesandto address what PlanBTV called Burlington’s“extreme shortage ofhousing”. While no project is perfect, Eagles Landing is a commendable project andrepresents significant progress towards both of these goals.
If the project is successfully built, the City will realize $1.1 million dollars from the sale of Browns Courtand receiveapproximately$400,000 a year in new property tax revenue. These are very significant figures in a City that is still climbing out of a multi-million dollar financial hole and where a 1-cent increase in the property tax rate yields approximately $350,000 in annual revenue.
In addition, Eagles Landing represents an attempt by the City to directly address Burlington’s housing shortage through the creation of a significant number of new homes in a downtown site. My Administration has expended considerable effort pursuing and supporting this development, and the City Council approved the sale of the Browns Court property to Champlain College with a unanimous vote. My Administrationhopesto seeadditional projectsover the next few years that willadd badly needed downtown housing andlessen student-related impacts in many existing neighborhoods byhousing students in professionally managed downtown environments. A denial of a permit to the Eagles Landing project would be a significant setback to this new, broadly-supported, strategic effort to address one of Burlington’s chronic problems.
I very much appreciate the work of the DRB, the DAB, and City planning staff to work constructively with the applicant in the review process on issues such as scale, massing, noise, and other design issues – many concerns shared by me as well. The Champlain College team, to their credit, listened to public input and made significant modifications in response to these concerns. The result isagreatly improved project that does much to activate a currently dead streetscape, creates an inviting public edge along St. Paul Street, and adds a net increase of public parking to the area.
Finally, I'd liketo share my appreciation of Champlain College as acommunity partner. TheCollege hasdemonstrated over the past 20 years an unwavering commitment tohelp enrich the built environment, work with the community to be a good neighbor, and educate future community leaders and entrepreneurs. I have every confidence that they will continue to be good neighborswiththis project.
Thank you for your consideration and for your valuable service to the City.
Sincerely,
Miro Weinberger
Mayor