nda item is number eight our consent agenda is there a motion to move our consent agenda and take the actions indicated so moved thank you Councillor Jang seconded by Councillor Shannon is there any any discussion on the motion seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye any opposed please say no we have approved our consent agenda thank you this brings us to our deliberative agenda we do have a fairly lengthy agenda we have a fairly lengthy deliberative agenda this evening just a gentle reminder to Councillors about the five minute rule please self monitor and be mindful of your time and I will kindly interrupt anyone who is drawing near or going way over and I I I I wasn't that great at the last meeting about doing that but I felt I did it fairly so we'll start off on a good note and be mindful of the five minute rule just respectful of all Councillors the first item on our agenda is a public hearing it's 9.1 the city's 2024 2028 consolidated plan for housing and community development and prior to calling the public hearing to order we do have CEDO director Brian Pine and I'm going to take a guess that that is Rebecca Rebecca Lawrence Gomez who is the housing program manager so good to have you thanks so much for being here and if you wanted to say a few words about the about the report and then we'll open up the public hearing sure thank you for the record I'm Brian Pine the director of the community and economic development office thank you very much for allowing us to come my name is Rebecca Lawrence Gomez I am the housing programs manager for CEDO we are here tonight to gather public and council feedback on affordable housing and community development needs as part of the consolidated planning process creating a plan that will guide the allocation of federal resources for the next five years the consolidated plan is really the federal government's way of so they require it of us but it's a way to help cities think long-term and strategic to assess their affordable housing and community development needs and market conditions and to make data-driven place-based decisions about how to invest the scarce federal dollars that we do get it really serves as the framework for a community-wide dialogue to identify housing and community development priorities and align and focus funding from the federal government through the formula block grant programs community development block grant you'll sometimes hear the alphabet soup the cdbg program that is and the home investment partnership program which is home funds go out to affordable housing and I am going to ask Rebecca to speak about the broad stakeholder consultation process that we've engaged in already that has reached well over a hundred probably hundreds of individuals actually when we get down to the counting up all the groups and organizations so we're hoping to hear your feedback and public feedback tonight about our priorities as we move forward and I'll just note that online joining us remotely is Christine Curtis who's our senior community development specialist and she's a wealth of knowledge on this program as well so if if we get stumped we're going to look to Christine to help us out take it away thank you very much as director pines said we've been engaged in community outreach and connecting with folks who are both participating as all different sectors and areas within the city so we've met with over a hundred individuals so representing a broad spectrum from healthcare providers mental health providers folks who are experiencing homelessness folks who live in our affordable housing our affordable housing providers landlords property managers folks who support families department for children and families the department of aging and independent living representation etc so lots of folks we've talked with we've also had an online survey which we'll be sure to share and make available to folks and we've had over 800 responses via our online survey and we wanted to hold space in place here or just to hear from the public about what are folks identifying and seeing certainly you all as counselors as representatives of folks in our communities as well as individuals who live in Burlington what are people seeing as our greatest needs where should we be looking to prioritize our work and our funding and I would just ask if you could speak to the timeline for coming back to the council and when we have to adopt this plan thank you we are collecting feedback currently we'll be putting that feedback into our consolidated plan it has kind of three main sections one that's about a needs assessment which is this process what's going on in our community where are things working really well where do we find that we are still struggling and then there's a market analysis that is pre-populated that looks at our housing our demographics and then there's our plan our strategic plan about how we will proceed so we're collecting feedback collecting information through the month of February it's slightly into March we'll be returning to you all in April looking for you to review and approve our draft consolidated plan and we'll be submitting it to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in June actually end of May okay with that we will open the public hearing if there is anyone in con toys who wishes to testify during this hearing you can just stand up and come forward if there is anyone who wishes to speak online if you can just use the raise hand function I will be looking and I'm happy to recognize you former city attorney told me that I'm supposed to say going once going twice we will close the public forum we will close the public hearing and with that I believe you would add you had said something about wanting to get feedback from the council that's not normally the way we do the public hearing but was that an opportunity for us to speak to it now is that what you were looking for and we certainly could do that if there are people if there are counselors who have comments it's up to you it's your call it's your busy night so if you want to send them to us that would be fine as well but sometimes the dialogue generates ideas so I didn't know if you want to proceed that way all right well since we since we didn't we didn't have a robust public hearing we'll try the council Councillor Hightower great and apologies if I just don't remember director pine what you've done in previous years but with such so many folks doing the survey are you planning on giving a presentation what the survey revealed and how that's informing what your final decision is yes absolutely we last time we did this plan it was actually 2018 so it's been quite a while and we will absolutely be sharing the results what we didn't want to do is share the results before the survey's over could kind of you know influence how people respond but we're hoping to at least reach the survey response to the to the dog park survey that's our hope which is I think about a thousand we got to get there is that is that all Councillor Hightower yes thank you you're good okay thank you are there Councillor Carpenter will be followed by Councillor Chang I'm just curious are there any major changes that will drive how we used to use these versus you know coming from HUD or anything else we're seeing HUD has not given us any sort of guidance or direction lately that is very different other than to continue to see due to inflation to see our grant actually decrease over the years it's gone down precipitously since I mean really in real dollars since when I arrived at CEDO in the mid-1990s it was substantially more in actual dollars and for inflation it was considerably more than we get now so we're we're continuing to try to make an impact of what we have we may be coming back to you and suggesting that managing lots of small grants is labor-intensive and it may not be possible to continue doing that so that's one area where we're thinking already so we might need to get more cost-effective and efficient in that respect great thank you Councillor Carpenter we'll go to Councillor Chang thank you President and thank you Director and again for being here we are a city of nearly 42 45 000 people right it just depends on who you ask I was just wondering about when we talk about civic engagement or engaging the communities in this what success like what's the number of people you need to reach in order to say this was successful I'd be happy to respond I think we are less focused we're certainly excited and looking to engage with a number and as many people as possible but I think our main focus is on the diversity of the population and folks with whom we're connecting so we've looked to really engage like I said as wide an array of possible as providers of residents of especially focusing on folks whose basic needs are not being met currently or who folks who are most likely to be experiencing hardship and might be impacted and supported by services that the city is helping to fund so I think both right it is about the quantity but it's also around the quality and specifically the populations that we're looking to aspire to serve thank you and to that leads to my next question in terms of how did you utilize a language access plan that the city has developed in order to reach people who don't speak English yeah so we've both met in person and connected with the association of Africans living in Vermont and worked in partnership around what do they identify as needs in the communities that they serve the survey that we've completed we've had it translated into multiple languages and so I've also provided that as a tool in written form so if folks want to engage in the survey in the you know in their first language or a language that's more comfortable to them and then we also joined the trusted community voices meeting and just heard from them directly about what are they experiencing both as Burlingtonians right but also for their community and the folks that they serve and work with and if there are any other suggestions we're always really interested in hearing yes I think it's one thing to connect with AALV and their leadership and try for them to provide input then also to connect it directly with the people that live here also I know that the trusted voices they're not all Burlington residents and I think the focus here was for Burlingtonians and I think it would be great if you still can continue to reach out at least let's say communities that Congolese Nepalese and to just say five people that actually live here we want to hear from you directly and not having an organization in between and I think that would be great definitely thank you okay thank you thanks very much Councilor Chang seeing no others we will close out this agenda item with our thanks for all of the work that you've done and we'll look forward to hearing more item 9.2 has been removed from our agenda so we'll continue with 9.3 which is the city of Vermont 2021-2023 dog task force report and there are a multitude of people that are here to talk about this report talk about a group of people that have taken an assignment seriously just want to add for the record that not only are Parks and Rec Director Cindy White but also Parks and Rec staff Megan O'Daniel of those people that are joining us in person and please come forward so that we can see who you are there's also a number of members of your task force that are joining us online so if you can all introduce yourself that would be great and just want to also acknowledge the number of people on your task force that are joining us remotely as well so we've allotted about 15 minutes for this report and it's a long report but if you can just give us a number of the highlights the recommendations and then give us a little bit of time for some questions from the Council and welcome and thank you for being here Rita just want to thank so Cindy White Director of Parks and Recreation Waterfront thank the task force the city's been blessed with an amazing group of people who've really dedicated an incredible amount of time for this project and I'm going to pass it over to Maria who is our fearless chair thank you Cindy um I just want to say introduce who we have here tonight we have Jake Schuman we have Kyle Tansley Alona Blanchard and Lori Cutler and myself Maria Carnungen so we um we were tasked with a mixture of policy recommendations and implementation requests so it was an interesting process putting together the report we did this presentation for the Parks Arts and Culture Committee and they reviewed the recommendations and gave us guidance on them we're looking forward to hearing the next steps one of the recommendations that we have is to update the organisms which underlies most of the areas that we looked at that is important for a framework for updating policies and so specifically we looked at chapter five of the city code there is a markup of that chapter included in the report including documentation to support the recommended changes the recommendations fall primarily into four categories updates to language to modernize it improvements to animal shelter policy licenses and other recommendations to improve the welfare of dogs and cats and measures to strengthen enforcement we recommend improving the licensing process and dramatically increasing the number of animals licensed in the city and we recommend allocating a portion of the licensed revenues for programs and activities that support healthy and happy dogs and cats within the city this includes educating the community about how to license their animals and why it's important to requiring cats to be licensed expanding the consequences for not licensing dogs and cats by increasing penalties by requiring stray animals to be licensed before they are returned and by working with landlords and housing associations to include licensing requirements and lease or HOA agreements we think this will increase revenues for the city and we'll show you more about that in the next couple of slides we want to mention here that we do have recommendations for how the licensing revenues are allocated and that is to create a special fund that would support annual licensing efforts the development of a streamlined process to share licensing data improved incident reporting and data tracking and improved responsiveness from the police additional companion animal programs and education low-cost spay neuter services and additional prac facilities for animals these next two slides go into more detail into the licensing and revenues and benefits it could bring to the city I just want to point out the current rate of licensing is 11% and if we are to increase those you can go for next currently based on that 11% we are bringing in 24,000 a year if we made some modest effort to increase licensing we could increase the revenues somewhere between 70,000 to 270,000 dollars per year and then I've already talked about how those funds could be used trying to go quickly here because I know you guys are have a busy agenda okay cats so we recognize this is one of the more interesting areas that we have done some work in so I want to spend a little bit of time talking about this the task force recommends that the city of Burlington require cats to be lessened for their own welfare and that of other animals to aid in identification for animal control purposes and to better ensure public safety Burlington would not be the first to do so as both South Burlington and Shelburne require cats to be licensed the many benefits of licensing are enumerated in Appendix C of our report and show the benefits of improving the health of cats and reducing the number of cats who are lost with no way to identify the guardian increased revenues from licensing cats could also help support better responsiveness to cat related incidents as well as support affordable spay neuter options for low income residents the task force also recommends that the city prohibit at large cats that are off of the premises and not restrained by their guardian free roaming cats are more likely to experience disease and both accidental and intentional injuries as well as fatalities and thus have shorter life spans cats permitted to roam off premises can easily become nuisances on both public and private property and are classified as such in some neighboring municipal ordinances free roaming cats are also well documented in the scientific literature as immensely destructive to wildlife particularly birds another area was reporting enforcement and compliance and we looked at these in particular in terms of the ordinances this included reviewing reporting mechanisms social media front porch forum and police department data for incidents related to off leash dogs aggressive dogs attacks by dogs as well as responses by the Burlington police department data obtained from the Burlington police department likely reflects only a small portion of the actual incidents that involve animals in the community many of the social media posts explicitly avoided reporting to the police it can be assumed that many residents do not bother to report animal incidents and thus there is no record created currently the city's community service officers also known as CSOs respond to dog and rabies vector call for service they don't really deal with cat issues aside from facilitating removal of deceased cats CSOs also have many other responsibilities besides responding to animal incidents if there's a higher priority incident such as a car accident for example their attention may be focused on those the task force recognizes the work that CSOs perform every day but strongly recommends that a part to full-time animal control officer be hired by the city an ACO would respond to incidents but also proactively enforce ordinances such as leash laws and oversee the overall health and safety of animals within the city an ACO would have specific and ongoing training and certification in the handling and welfare of animals be able to perform inspections on and monitor facilities that shelter animals educate the public on how to care for animals and investigate trends and repeat problems conduct in-depth investigations and overall be a point person and resource for the Burlington community in conjunction with the enforcement of leash laws in the city the task force also recommends increasing designated off-leash spaces the goal is to ensure healthy and safe access to appropriate outdoor space for dogs across the city and to support enforcement of inappropriate spaces where dogs should not be off-leash the task force recommends piloting some shared use of park space for off-leash dogs because of the 520 acres of city parks only 3.5 are allocated for off-leash dog use this represents less than 1% because there is also a strong desire from Burlington dog guardians for easy access to off-leash areas and their current use is indiscriminate and unregulated leading to conflicts with neighbors because the parks are a limited resource and fencing in additional areas could exclude regular park growers from using those spaces so here's a map of the city of Burlington and in blue we have a publicly accessible land I should point out here that dogs across the city are required by law to be on leash so everything that's blue they're supposed to be on leash and so the suggested off-leash areas are in orange and it's hard to see because there's really very little land that we're talking about piloting off-leash areas in but they are those orange bits on the map last spring we did a survey to collect input from residents and we looked at current usage and based on all of this feedback we came up with this current proposal that is under consideration by the parks arts and culture committee these details are also in the final report you want to look at them more closely part of the original resolution the task force was asked to educate the public on all of these issues and to set up community events we developed an annual calendar of educational outreach and as you can see it crosses many departments we are hoping that that this will be something that can be implemented currently because this was an action item for their dog task force and so we're not sure who will pick up the pieces here but we created all of the material for it and are excited about this so this is our presentation and here's a list of everybody not everybody's here but this is a full list of everybody that was on that helped us out in Cushio Brigade so just a big thank you it was a monumental effort two years and many hours of time and collaboration thank you thank you so much Maria just also wanted to acknowledge that Megan O'Daniel is joining us online as well as Abby Duke and Joanne Callis I'm not sure how to pronounce the last name are all are all joining us online so you have a you have pretty good representation of the entire task force I'm pretty impressed I think we're all very impressed and impressed with the work that you've done if there are questions from the council Councillor McGee thank you President Paul I don't have any questions but I just wanted to say very quickly that the Parks Arts and Culture Committee has worked in collaboration with the dog task force to help get this report to where we're at tonight and we did vote on this and are fully supportive of the recommendations moving further in the process and being referred to committees to begin implementing many of the important recommendations that are made in the report and I just want to extend my personal gratitude to all of you for the work that you've put in over the last couple of years it is very comprehensive and I don't think there's much left for committees to have to do once that work is referred so thank you very much thank you Councillor McGee are there any other Councillors who have Councillor Doherty yes thank you President Paul and I want to also echo what President Paul and Councillor McGee said my thanks to the incredible work that went into this I just wanted to highlight two pieces of your comprehensive work that I thought were particularly from my perspective anyway well taken one was the observation and analysis and pointing to secondary literature regarding the impact of stray cats on the environment particularly on songbird life I think that's a really important issue for the City to consider and address and as part of its environmental mission I also thought and I recognize that you recognize this might have gone a little bit beyond your ambit but the work and analysis that you did on exotic pets and the potential for environmental degradation particularly in our waterways as a result of exotic pets again really an important issue for us to be thinking about and considering policy steps going forward on those issues given the environmental issues that we're currently facing so thank you so much for your hard work in your presentation I want to acknowledge that Laurie Cutler I'm sorry we Oh I want to acknowledge that Laurie Cutler was instrumental in everything that you just talked about we also got input from Kyle Hemsley who's on the conservation conservation board great great thank you so much Councillor Grant I have a question what is the definition of an at-large cat so that would not only be strays that would be cats that people would consider quote-unquote outdoor cats so people would have to find a way to keep their cats on their property thank you thank you so much Councillor Grant are there any other Councillor Councillor Barlow thank you President Paul and I also also want to echo my colleagues and thanking you for this extremely thorough report and all the hard work that went into it my questions around you have given us a number of recommendations are there any prioritization in these recommendations is there are there any that you would feel are more important to get into place before others thank you so I would say that two things strike me one is that excuse me one is that we don't actually have an effective policy in place right now we have draft policy that was implemented in I believe 1998 and we've just been coasting on that so I think having an actual off-leash policy codified in ordinances is important the other thing is our budget recommendations are impactful for the upcoming budget season so I would encourage you to take a look at that sooner rather than later that way we can affect those changes now instead of next cycle and for the record I had a five pound cat that would take down full grown geese needless to say I was mortified just want to point out that that there is a markup of chapter five that is super thorough and a lot of thought went into it so that would be a very easy way easy place to start great thank you Councillor Barlow are you all set I am thank you okay so we'll go to Councillor Hightower which is a question more to the Councillors but I note that the I can't say that I'm 100% supportive of everything that is in the report but I wonder if instead of having the motion be to wait the reading accept the report and place it on file if we should be referring to the ordinance committee it would seem as though we certainly could do that is that would that be amenable to the city attorney yes Councillor Hightower do you wish to make that motion I guess I will ask if it's a friendly amendment to the makers of the motion the motion hasn't been made yet oh okay well then wave the reading accept the report place it on file and refer to the ordinance committee okay is there a second to that I will second that great seconded by Councillor McGee if there's a Councillor I'm sorry did you wish to did you wish the floor back Councillor Hightower no okay thank you Councillor Carpenter thanks I'm certainly amenable to that and I want to again thank the committee for all their work but there's some other parts to it so there's the marked up ordinance which would should be easy for us to take one thing I noted was our underperformance and licensing which is probably not something the ordinance committee can deal with so I'm sort of noting that because I think a lot of things fall from that and I'd like to pass that on to somebody too so that we can figure some plan of action and I don't know if that's parks arts and culture or because I just think yeah then I'd like to amend the motion to pass on to our parks art and culture that they look at the how we get more revenue from licensing basically or something like that so items that are germane to the ordinance committee would go to the ordinance committee and items germane to not the ordinance committee would go to parks art and culture is that what you're asking for is that amendment friendly to you Councillor Hightower that is friendly okay how about you Councillor McKee yes with I guess a question for the city attorney would it make more sense for us to look at the different recommendations in the report and see if there are other places where they belong that are more fitting than parks arts and culture in the ordinance committee because there are so many that I think the two committees wouldn't cover all of the recommendations so I believe I mean yes it would be appropriate to look at that I have not looked at that I can look at that for you but we could do that yes okay maybe it makes sense for us to postpone action on this until our next council meeting very quickly just so that we can make sure that all of the recommendations are getting to the proper body for further deliberation is there any way to do that just so expeditiously at this meeting with a with an appropriate motion I'm sorry you wanted to speak I think it'll take longer than than yeah okay all right uh before we go be uh Councillor Councillor McGee are you all set I am okay so before we go we we have a motion but before we do before we do we have a motion um Councillor Councillor Jang did you want to speak to that motion yes okay and I was just wondering if the motion we accept the the report and we send it back to parks arts and culture committee and for parks and art and culture committee to break it down what specific committee these recommendations need to go to be transformed into law all right so that would be an amendment to the amended motion chair of the parks art and culture committee how do you feel about that Councillor McGee it feels unnecessary to me for us to take the report back I think this is something that if we just postpone action for the from the full council until our next meeting that the city attorney should be able to provide an adequate motion for us to make sure that those items get where they need to go okay um if we do that then Councillor Hightower do you wish to take back your motion um sorry we're postponed do you wish to withdraw your motion yeah sorry and joe's suggestion has to postpone oh sorry I see what we're saying sure or I guess it's just just accept the communication and place it on file okay so we've had a but we've withdrawn the motion that is okay with the seconder and the motion now on the floor is to waive the read waive the waive the reading accept the report and place it on file yes yes okay is that is there a second to that motion it's not complete can I really want to just be able to postpone action on this item and come back with a better motion so is that maybe that's the best way to do this yes you could just put postpone the action okay I'll make a motion to postpone action on this item until our meeting on February 26th with the understanding that we will get full motion language to refer the recommendations to the appropriate committees and commissions great thank you so is there a second to that motion seconded by Councillor Travers is there any discussion on that motion to postpone to a date certain seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye aye any opposed please say no that motion passes with our unbelievably amazing thank you to all of you for it's been what about a year and a half or so that you've been working on this more than that about two years but I want to say that what you guys are doing now and the actions that you're taking by making sure that there's a clear path forward is the best things that you could give to the work of this committee that it isn't just a report that goes on file but you have action plan to continue the work forward yes well we respect your work thank you so much and thanks for thanks to all of you for being here and to those who joined us joined us online the next item on our agenda is item 9.4 which is the second amendment to the second amended and restated development agreement for city place partners LLC and for an introduction I will go to Mayor Weinberger before we get to a motion Mayor Weinberger thank you President Paul I do have some remarks to to start the this action tonight I then the leaders of the city team that have been working on this are here to amplify it's some of the highlights of the amended development agreement that is before you for action tonight and we do also have two of the three local partners from city place partners here with us tonight and as well as Patrick O'Brien to Dave Farrington Alison O'Call and Patrick O'Brien who's been leading up their efforts in a lot of ways and they're available to the council as well if there are questions as we get into this so with that road map I'll get started here about a decade ago we set out as a community to do something hard to take control of our future we decided to correct old mistakes and fix long broken and fix a long broken no worries we decided to correct old mistakes and fix a long broken part of our downtown that was lost during urban renewal to turn a community planning vision into reality and to make it possible for hundreds of new people to live and work in this great but small city to do this we pursued a public-private partnership to redevelop the old and failing downtown mall and to get back two streets the city had gave up decades ago a lot of the work to achieve this vision has involved actions and debates here at the city council together we've approved zoning changes infrastructure commitments the settlement of a lawsuit against the past developer tiff investment in a number of development agreements and amendments in the fall of 2022 the council approved what we refer to as arta 2.0 which allowed the new local development team to move forward and break ground and begin construction on the lowest level of the project that we refer to as a podium the concrete base of the project the local city place partners were very clear at that time that they were still working to put together a financing plan and they were still considering a range of potential development plans but remarkably and it very rarely happens this way Scott Ireland Dave Farrington and Al Senecau wanted to put their own resources at risk to move forward even while they figured those major questions out builders don't usually take risks of this magnitude but these guys have after four years of having a dormant construction site at the time back in the fall of 2022 we were very happy to see the project move forward and we structured and approved an agreement that would allow that to happen while protecting all of the city's municipal interests with the approval of the arta 2.0 then and with the first round of amendments that you approved last June both the developers and the administration had said that this is a complex project and that likely more changes would be needed what is different tonight as we engage this project again that at any previous time over the last decade when we have talked about this development agreement is that after years of hard work adversity and perseverance we can finally say with confidence that this daring and worthy effort to reshape our downtown will succeed since the fall of 2022 city place partners has put tens of millions of dollars of value into the ground a couple blocks from here the south tower is now the largest building ever constructed in this state and it will be complete and open to residents and visitors about a year from now most of the massive foundation for the second building is also built and the north tower is scheduled for opening in 2026 there's been other progress as well not just the construction progress city places added a new minority equity partner who came to our announcement last week bringing more financial strength and operational capacity to the local team together this new partnership has finalized their plans for the site and last week secured amended permits to build it by approving the ARTA amendment before you tonight you will allow the project to take another critical step forward a lot of the discussion public discussion since we released the new ARTA last Thursday has focused on the addition of a second hotel to the current plan and the reduction of about 70 permanent homes from the projection from the fall of 2022 it's true that this amendment before you will allow up to 350 new hotel rooms to be built as part of this project which will bring much needed new business to our downtown and revenues to our city however I want to make sure that the impact of these amendments and the new building plan is it's much greater than just the addition of a second hotel and I want to make sure that a few things are clear one the project described in the new ARTA will have at least 350 apartments 70 of them permanently affordable and built with no major subsidies making this project the second largest housing project in not Burlington's history but the state's history second only to the project that you took action on last time we met at Cambrian Rise this final version of the building plan has nearly 30% more homes in it than when the City Council first approved development agreement in 2018 so don't let anybody fool you this is not a bait in a switch this is more housing than was initially contemplated by a substantial amount than when was first brought to this council and this agreement represents a major step towards addressing our housing crisis conversely a vote against this agreement is a vote to put those 350 new homes at risk two the fact that City Place partners is back here tonight asking for this change is proof of the enormous progress accomplished on this project since entering into the ARTA 2.0 and restarting construction in the fall of 2022 despite the enormous headwinds they've faced of high inflation and high interest rates that have hit the country and the city since 2020 the local partners deserve our gratitude and our partnership at this critical decision point this is not the time to nitpick and second guess I urge the council to demonstrate our commitment to this project by approving this agreement tonight as CPP said at the press conference last week everyone is counting on them and failure is not an option CPP is counting on us too this administration and this council to be a good partner and finally this action tonight will continue a trend that will be very important for our community's future massive private and public investment in our downtown two weeks ago you approved that Cambrian rise development agreement the only policy project bigger than this one last week we broke ground on a 30 million dollar TIF project to renew vital public infrastructure on main street that will enable even more growth and investment in years to come and later tonight I am hopeful that you will accept the 22 million dollar raise grant for the downtown the largest non-airport grant in the city's history to build even more public infrastructure in the years to come the downtown certainly facing serious and new challenges we talk about this every time we meet and we did so again earlier tonight however it's important to also recognize that we have never had so much private and public money being invested in new housing as we have right now we have never had so much public investment being made in great public spaces and our critical subsurface infrastructure and even as we know we have many businesses struggling right now we also see in this amended agreement that many businesses like CPP are betting big on the future of our downtown so with that I'd like to hand the microphone over to our city team Brian you want to take it next I actually I don't have I don't have a whole lot to add to what the mayor just provided you and I will just say that we are here tonight hoping that we can provide you with the information you need to make your decision but we're also here obviously to take questions and as the mayor mentioned the partners from city place partners are here and if you have questions for them they're also available any folks we've got a I think simple wish power point is that something Tim if you could get just a tiny bit closer to the microphone just so we can hear you is that better yes it is so thanks again I'm Tim Sampson I've had the pleasure of representing the city for the past several years through this process and as the mayor mentioned it's a momentous time for the project because it's it's getting to a place where this major new investment is going to happen you see the first tower up already the new partners are here the new financing is around the corner I've mentioned to you I think every time I've been in front of you that you shouldn't be surprised if you see me again because that's the nature of these complex projects this time this may be it I'm hopeful that we're setting this project on course with these final changes here or these next changes I better be careful to be in a place to be much more self-sustaining so we're here to talk about first of all a picture of the project to rendering of course but you can now begin to see some real life in the in a photo because it reflects what's up on the site now at least the framework for it so it's getting exciting out there for discussion tonight I'm going to be brief on the development history quick project updates and then get into a bit of more detail on the provisions in this second amendment to ARTA 2.0 and then we'll have some time to address your questions so by way of context as the mayor mentioned the original development agreement goes back to October of 2017 and then it was a big pause and everybody remembers that big pause and we had the amended and restated development agreement the first one ARTA 1.0 in May of 2021 and you recall at that point in time the original ownership was was still intact and we were finding a solution away from litigation another about a year after that the current local partners took over the project and the real momentum began ARTA 2.0 then was in November of 2022 and then we've had a series of updates to that to keep things moving a letter agreement facilitating the project in January of 23 the first amendment was in June of 23 you remember that that's where we enabled the issuance of interim TIF financing to get that in place for the project as it proceeds and then we're back with the second amendment now so project updates mostly you heard about this from the mayor the coming into the project of the GERI group a hotel group to partner into the into the project to provide a source for substantial third party financing CHT as you may recall had been an anticipated partner in a deal for some time the city place partners and CHT worked tirelessly to make the details of that work in the end they did not but in the end there's a a silver lining to all of that in that in that the opportunity is exists for CHT to move the public resources component of the affordable housing into the Cambrian rise project city place partners here will continue to develop on its own the inclusionary units here so it's really the same amount few fewer units maybe 10 fewer IZ units at city place then we're going to happen under the CHT concept but citywide it's a it's a net increase of about 70 some units because you get the CHT's resources deployed at Cambrian rise again project update you can see it every time you walk down the street the south building is topped out and it's framing and the and the foundation for the north building now very well underway so the big five things that are happening in the Second Amendment some program changes some adjustments to the timing as it's currently set forth in the agreement adjustments to the inclusionary housing provisions adjustments to allow for progress payments toward the public improvements that the partners are doing and and some updates on the TIF financing and I'll say you know going through that list of of the five major milestones I did it a minute ago in those agreements this one is not it's kind of like there's not a whole lot to see here honestly these are we got to dust off the the agreement and make it work but the changes here are not as dramatic as they have been across across the length of my involvement in the project here a building program changes topic number one originally as the mayor mentioned there are 272 residential units proposed for city place that increased over time with the change to you know closer to an all residential project and it and it currently now the art of 2.0 anticipated over 400 units the plan now as you've heard multiple times is is to adjust that downward somewhat but still to provide no fewer than 350 new new units currently the approvals are the the approved development plan is for a maximum of about 140 hotel rooms and that would increase to about 350 or no more than 350 it all stays within generally the same massing and scale of the project and as we talked before and as I you know the hotel room is a smaller than a residential unit on average so you can accomplish this change in a way that the project is still two-thirds a residential project with a supporting hotel to provide you know that stronger financial base to get it going timing another change that we're addressing right now in the current deal the north and south buildings would have delivered in November of 2025 and the CHT phase of the project a year later in November of 2026 as proposed with these changes the south tower which is now under construction would be delivered in about a year as the mayor had mentioned but the outside date in the agreements would remain the same of November of 2025 and the north building would would push out from November of 25 to June of 26 again in comparison to the current approvals or the current development plan where CHT's phase of the project was going to get extended to November of 26 this is actually kind of advancing in time what would be the final completion of the project turning to the inclusionary housing again the partners will develop all of the IZ units within the project the one adjustment to what would otherwise be anticipated in their current approvals is to allow the component of the IZ units that would be generated by the south tower to be constructed in the north tower the north tower represents about 65 or 70 percent of the overall mass of the building it's by far the bigger of the two towers that dynamic creates challenges to provide to providing the units in both of the towers and it would be a benefit to the project to facilitate providing all of the units in the north tower what does that mean it means somewhere between eight to 12 yeah eight to 12 units it depends on exactly of course how many residential units are provided in the south tower but somewhere between eight to 12 IZ units would instead of being in the south tower be in the north tower now as I described a minute ago the north tower is proposed to deliver a bit later in the south tower so as a practical matter those eight to 12 units could be delayed for seven to 12 months between the delivery of those of those two towers and importantly though as I mentioned before the IZ units with the current proposal with the CHT element would not have been delivered until November of 2026 so either way under the current plan all of the IZ units would be delivered earlier then in the I should say under the proposed plan all of the IZ units would be delivered earlier than they would be under the the current development plan we have protections in the document to ensure that there cannot be some sort of bait and switch where the IZ units are delayed in the south tower and never materialized in the north tower if the north tower is not materialized on time their provisions in the agreement for those requisite number of units to free up in the south tower and serve the the IZ role there next category of changes is gets even more technical about progress payments for the public improvements as you recall the TIF debt has been issued it was issued last June for the project it is sitting in an account not being used for the project right now because the project hasn't reached the milestones that that the city required of the project before those funds could be deployed in the current agreements those funds would not be deployed until both of the towers have been under construction contract and have construction financing in place for them the proposal now is to shift that so that the progress payments can start a bit sooner when the south tower is has been fully financed again we've got protections in there to ensure that the payment of those city dollars to reimburse public improvements would not get ahead of the project's ability to repay the coffers someday with tax dollars generated by the south tower and also they would become second in line to the city's own ability to get reimbursed from the the TIF allocation and then finally the the provisions for TIF financing in the in the document or brief being brought forward I think is the way to describe that they're technically their amendments but they're very much the same in concept as they are today the current agreements you may recall that facilitated the issuance of the TIF that last June anticipated that permanent financing would be issued sometime later this spring about a year later because of the construction schedule at this point in time it's likely that the the bond issuance in June of last year will be rolled over for another interim period of a year before permanent financing is in place all of the protections that we had in place last year would remain in place with the with that situation now including the partners being responsible for paying any borrowing costs of the city associated with that continuing to roll over the debt so that is a mouthful it's a summary of the of the changes and we'll be happy to answer any questions yeah great thank you very much before we go any further we'll go to a motion I'll look to Councillor Carpenter thank you I would move to approve and authorize Mayor Murrow-Wineburger to execute a second amendment to the second amended and restated development agreement of city place partners LLC in substantial conformance with the attached draft in subject to final review and approval of the city's attorneys thank you so much Councillor Carpenter is there a second to that motion seconded by seconded by Councillor Shannon Councillor Carpenter did you want the floor back just to briefly I don't want to repeat what the mayor and and the city team has but I'm I'm just really excited to see this move forward and I think it's really pretty much a win-win I'm more than anybody else always want more housing but I think the fact that we're getting 350 units over the original 272 is a win and we really need to remember that and the fact that we're we're getting an additional 63 out on Cambrian rise so the total package I think is great for the Burlington and the hotels are we we talk a lot about how do we bring business into the downtown business that pays really good taxes and doesn't use a lot of services and so I think hotels are actually needed kind of business for us and so the fact that it's bringing both of this to us I think is a huge step forward and it's a step forward that it's rising out of the ground great thank you so much Councillor Carpenter before we go to counselors and open the floor we do have the three partners of Cityplace if Dave Farrington Al Senecaul and Patrick O'Brien who is almost the same as having Scott Ireland here if the three of you if you had something that you wanted to say you're you're welcome to come forward at this time thanks thanks so much for being here I'd like to think that the whole city team with Morro and especially Brian David White and Tim we have weekly meetings we've been totally transparent with everybody every step of the way every week we're just how you're doing what's going on and we talk about all the changes and so we're as we move through the iterations of you know they went through it originally was this and this and this and Tim's always said and we'll be back hopefully we won't be back because we we have got a final plan in place we're confident about it we've got some great new partners and I heard the word bait and switch two or three times tonight and we don't really look at it that way we're we're calling it pivoting we had to because of reality economics the in the we brought this up at the meeting last Thursday construction costs labor costs interest rate costs the shaky lending environment that's out there we had to reshuffle the cards and and we're in we're in this thing we're not going away you know I speak speak with my heart I'm there every single day I'm building this place I got my partners all with us we're everybody's there we talk every day and this is special to us and we're doing the best we can and this is what we had to do to keep this thing moving ahead we did not want to put this thing on hold while we had to go figure something else out and so this is where we're at and we're wide open any questions we're here for for answers we're not trying to hide we're not dodging anything so and we appreciate all your support I've heard from a lot of you people that everybody's behind it and it's it's really appreciated great thank you so much it's hard to follow behind Dave sometimes but sure I really want to thank Mayor Weinberger he's been an extraordinary advocate for us and it's much appreciated we do we and we are working hard every day to get this thing completed you know President Paul you've been a great help for us as well and the whole board but I also want to thank the city because you know although there's a few people out there maybe not talking great about the project and how we tried to cut corners here or whatnot the majority of the city is in full support of this and we just couldn't be thankful enough for that so again thanks for all your help okay yes well that that would make sense because Scott usually is a it's also a yes exactly exactly and again thanks so much for being here we know how invested you are in this as we are in this community Councillor Bergman thanks thanks the city team and thanks to you all for being here I totally appreciate the the sentiments about being transparent and the need to reshuffle the cards so for the public and for me I really do need you to explain how and why a vote against making these changes puts the project at risk I guess it gets back to the economics of what's driving it and you get the support of the the bankers who they're they're gonna be contributing 75% to the funds of this project and without that we stop at 25% we're we and we're there so to continue forward you have to show the the banking people that the more you borrow and you have to borrow more because of the higher construction costs and the labor rates and the interest rates you need a way to pay that back it wasn't happening on paper with just doing apartments we needed to bring in some component that raised the net operating income to pay back the bigger bill that we're stepping into and so we had numerous partners potential partners that had come and catered to us and there was always a little catch like we were gonna have to give up more than 50% of the project which was one of our number one rules we're not gonna give up control that's how this thing kind of spiral out of control a number of times so that was like hard and fast we're not giving up we're not gonna give up control the second thing was you know we didn't want to stop have to stop it had started and stopped and started and stopped too many times and we wanted to keep this thing going and when we finally settled on a partner after talking to numerous partners and you know we felt good about these people like-minded same energy and passion they brought some good financial strength to the partnership we felt that it was the the right team to keep moving ahead with and so when we went to the bank with them and the banks were feeling the same way and so we we've been able to keep the train chugging down the tracks with this new plan and partnership otherwise we would have hit a wall and had to stop so this is this is driven not by your new partner but by the banks when all is said and done it's a yeah I'm not a fan of the loss of 75 units of housing which I think is about going to be about and maybe Brian would correct me about 14 IZ units because you got a 20% or 25% and I actually don't see the original cynics agreement as being the benchmark we don't have to go into to that those decisions so you know I mean that's a concern that I have got but you know there are benefits for there in my mind for there being the hotel not the least of which is the gross receipts tax not the least of which is having people come down so this is not you know an easy thing to you know to to make a decision about because that's that's not an insignificant amount of housing I have gotten some questions related to the inclusionary zoning component of this since you guys are going to be taking over the that that that piece of it and so you know it is the inclusionary zoning that you're going to be under control of going to be available to the general public how is that going to work will people be able to sign up and become eligible and come on a first they you know first come first served basis just use the microphone Calta we SDI have done something similar in the past at Mayberry apartments in Burlington and I believe we're one of the only private developers to take on such a role rather than put the inclusionary units in one portion or one tower of the project and we're going to do this project the same way that project was done at some point in the future a waiting list may be developed but it's far too soon to even start talking about that so it's going to be very simple like any other market driven project at some point our marketing efforts will be put together and the go button will be hit and hopefully the phones will ring for both the inclusionary and the market rate units I suspect that they will give us the housing crunch that we've got so the intention is not that the IC units are going to be for hotel workers for example that is not the intention but that would be a win-win because I think one of the things that is lacking in Burlington are places where service workers can live and I think that if you were to talk to the restaurant tours in town they would say that's probably one of the one of the biggest things that is prohibiting them from getting back on track since COVID hit so that's not our target market but if we can fill up our IC units with people that work downtown that'd be a beautiful thing yeah no I hear that and perhaps in the future we'll ask CEDO to look at guardrails in case there may be games being played not necessarily with you but just in general with the inclusionary zoning ordinance that's it for me thank you great thank you Councillor Bergman we'll go to Councillor Hightower and then Councillor McGeage you have your hand okay and then to Councillor Grant go ahead Councillor Hightower great thank you all for coming to present and for the long introductions for from everyone as well as the questions the willingness to answer questions I don't have I am supportive of this I mean obviously don't love the amendment but I'm supportive of the agreement as a whole even with this amendment I know that many of my constituents do feel very blindsided because even though you've been very transparent with the administration this wasn't released to the public until end of last week and so I think that folks are feeling like they don't have any control over their downtown or even have a voice in their downtown and so I don't think this will be successful but I think that this is I think that this is a big enough issue that we should have given folks a chance to digest the information come to conclusions like the administration had time to do like you all have had time to do like city councilors have had time to do and therefore I'm gonna move to postpone this vote to our second February meeting all right so there is a motion on the floor to postpone this to our second meeting meeting the meeting February 26th is that correct yes okay is there a a second to that motion there is no second to that motion so we'll continue did you continue did you want did you continue to want the floor councilor hightower yeah I'll just say that I think it's disappointing how quickly we put things in front of the public and then vote on them in ways that councilors can't possibly reach out to constituents or get feedback and I sincerely hope that the next administration does a better job with that than this one has thank you thank you hightower we're gonna go to councilor McGee and then councilor grant thank you president paul and thank you to the city team and to the partners for being here tonight and presenting I do share the concerns and I don't necessarily not directed at the partners but at the city team for the way that this has come to the council and was presented to the public I am supportive of the change I recognize that this is a hard environment to get anything done in from a construction standpoint and the fact that you all are continuing to to get those buildings up is a relief to to many of us who didn't want to look at a dirt pit for another several years so I have a lot of gratitude for that and how much effort you've put into getting us to this place and also there are two additional phases of city place that are going to eventually go into design and development phases that I think we can't say for sure right now but we'll hopefully also include more housing units and so looking at this project from a 30,000 foot view and the needs that we have in the city I see a benefit of having more hotel rooms potentially reducing the incentive to convert long-term rental units into short-term rentals I think that is another area where this could be beneficial and the additional revenue certainly won't hurt so I am supportive of this tonight with the caveat that continuing to leave the public out of these conversations with such a short period of time for us to adequately engage folks is an ongoing problem and hope that we're able to would encourage us to remedy that going forward thank you thank you so much so we'll go to Councillor Grant and perhaps then we can go to a vote Councillor Grant thank you so VT Digger did an update on this project last week and I was quoted and what I said was I was disappointed to lose any number of new housing units but the economics of building right now are difficult and expensive we're lucky this project continues to move along the pit is a stark reminder of the blight in the city so the sooner we get rid of it the better so I support this I recognize this now having said that not saying anything's your fault but just giving you something to chew on with regards to what Councillors Hightower and McGee just said and it has been something that the council has been talking about based on feedback from the public so we have to be very careful about not getting all up in our feelings and there's a lot of us guilty of that sometimes myself included about public feedback so when people say things like bait and switch or they quote unquote Nick pick or second guess is because they don't have information so you describe being very transparent because of the number of meetings that you're having but you're not having those meetings with the public right so what more can you do to release more updates to the public with out jeopardizing any financial plans that you have in the works because I'm recognizing that you're kind of going along got to readjust or pivot as I believe the word was used and like I said I just I just want that pit gone so I am loathed to do anything that would interfere with that but I think we need to have more awareness of how the public is feeling this is a very important project to the public the amount of information that you have the amount of information that we have is not the same amount of information that they have so I'd love to talk to you about what we can do about more public engagement in terms of getting out updates because then these type of complaints that we're getting would be reduced I mean we really we make things public so quickly and people feel like they not that the public can be involved in every conversation or certainly not every negotiation because of things that have to be kept confidential but just not feeling like there's there's any input or questions that are fully answered so if we could just chew on that I would really greatly appreciate it and thank you for being here this evening thank you thank you Councillor Grant we'll go to Councillor Shan and then Councillor Zhang thank you and thank you all both for being here for being transparent and for really driving hard to keep this project moving forward as I've been watching this go up and I've been watching interest rates go up I've been greatly concerned about the project and its future yeah all along the way I have said that this is probably not the last turtle and this is probably also not the last turtle we gave permission for this project to go from 14 stories and only 272 units to then I think 278 housing units and then we gave you permission I think for 420 units and 10 stories so now you're asking us for permission to go to 350 units and I think that the public often thinks that this is our project the City of Burlington's project and that it's our money in it but it's your money in this and thank you for that these kinds of things are not a matter of public opinion it's a matter of what's going to work and keep the project going forward but I do appreciate Councillor Grant's comments that the public wants to stay informed and that you all have a desire to be transparent and keep the public informed so just an idea to put on the table and I'm sure there are many but but you know having a newsletter or something that people could sign up for so that you can you know seeing the praises of all the progress that you're making as well as keep people informed when when things are taking a turn and if you need to pivot I think probably everybody at the table would rather see more housing than less but what is possible is critically important and that you all stay solvent and moving this forward is critically important and thank you for all that you are doing to to assure that that continues to happen thanks thank you so much councillor shannon we'll go to councillor jane thank you president and thank you for being here and for everything that you've been doing so far right from my perspective I am coming from a level of concerns because you would all recognize as community members people who were born and raised here you went to school here you have great projects happening all over the state of emond so you're basically local and I think a project of this magnitude with the change of this magnitude I really wanted you come here and said we have talked to these NPAs we have engaged with these commissions we have engaged with X Y and Z but from my perspective the lack of community engagement is a little bit concerning to me specifically I have always supported this project but it seems that you are opening a new door of continuing to move the business forward but now forgetting the people who are actually supporting all they need is just information and not from anybody but from you directly these are your NPAs these are your community forums why don't you show up or hire staff that can show up on your behalf to talk to the people so that we all be good partners this is an invitation so that we can do better next time and for all those that are concerned I am extremely concerned too because the most fundamental aspect problem in this city is housing and we are changing this development agreement for less housing for our community members but to support more the tourists if it is not solving the issue and I think that need to be our fundamental drive to get this through so that we all can be happy and I understand the concern about lending money the interest rate everything is going up but at the same time we just were supposed to be aware we have a podium I feel that you're going also a little bit too fast if this was just supposed to be from the pit to the podium but it is going up and very quickly right from my perspective let's take the time because once it's built it's built what are the opportunities to at the same time to be able to solve the most fundamental problem of this city which is housing now my question is this with this agreement how many IZ have we lost how many inclusionary zoning have we lost into it 10 units and okay so 10 or 11 units and I think from my perspective we need to bake that loss for this agreement to also you be able to pay it to another housing development for low income people that's that's my request those 11 IZ units that we have lost I think at the same time you need to figure out a way to pay it back to the city or to pay it back to the housing developers that are here and was just wondering if it's part of it go ahead I just want to say that the city didn't lose IZ units I understand we're still maintaining the same percentage that we're required to so we're not losing any we're just moving them down the street and actually the city is gaining several IZ units because of that move with CHT now moving down to North Ab and building the number of units they are we're still maintaining 70 units which is the 20 percent of the 350 so no one's losing any units with this with this proposal and that's perfectly being perfectly transparent exactly so I mean I think you'd now coming back to my point that yes the Champlain Housing Trust in collaboration with Cambrian Rise they will be building it elsewhere you know kind of right but now the perception of the community members is not that you heard it the word I don't know you heard it so many times here today say it again Payton switch Payton switch which I again coming back to my original point of engaging the community as we move forward and again as you also move forward please recognize that people need housing and for you to be better partner and try to help the city to get there and I know you can right thank you for your time and best of luck as you move forward and I'll be supporting this but please with those requests for you to consider as you move forward thank you thank you Councillor Jang seeing no others in the queue we will go to a vote and why don't we try this just simply on a voice vote the the motion is to approve and authorize the mayor to execute this agreement this amendment to the current agreement with city place partners all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye aye aye any opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously thank you so so much the next item on our agenda is 9.5 which is a resolution supporting students and educators through statewide education tax relief and for a motion we'll go to the lead sponsor Councillor Travers thank you President Paul I moved to waive the reading and adopt the resolution ask for the floor back upon a second great thank you Councillor Councillor Travers seconded by Councillor Jang Councillor Travers the floor is yours before turning to remarks I have a parliamentary inquiry which is that and giving the resolution yet another once over I noticed a small clerical edit that is necessary at the end of it and so it's a question for the city attorney's office that if a word is plural instead of singular is that something that can be changed before this if it passes gets sent off or does that require a formal amendment I believe we can change that yes okay all right so thank you very much for that President Paul like many in our community I've had some sticker shock in response to the proposed education tax increase of 13.97 percent as the father of three young kids including two at Champlain Elementary I'm invested in the success of our schools and I'm worried about the extent to which the proposed tax increase will influence the outcome of our school budget vote what I'm most troubled by is the fact that well more than half of the proposed tax increase is being mandated by the state for reasons outside the control of our local school district because Burlington and Chittenden County home prices have skyrocketed in the past year the state is mandating that Burlington homeowners pay even more than what is required by our recent citywide reappraisal insult to injury because the state acted years ago to end its school construction aid program Burlington taxpayers are primarily responsible for the cost to construct a new high school and technical center to replace a building that was mandated to close by the Vermont Department of Health I know many communities in the greater Burlington area and across Vermont are similarly dealing with unprecedented state mandated tax increases under the common level of appraisal system or CLA which is tied to a real estate market that was to say the least upwardly volatile during the pandemic I know many members of our legislative delegation share concern about the extent to which tax increases are impacting affordability here in Burlington and in other Vermont communities I know our legislative delegation share our concern about the potential consequences for our students and educators if school budgets fail here in Burlington and around the state let me take a moment to sincerely thank our legislative delegation for their ongoing work to address these concerns and the resolution before the council this evening is intended to support reasonable efforts that will mitigate the impact of state mandated tax increases and looking forward establish a more equitable state education financing system importantly this resolution also sends a plea to Montpelier that when considering how to fix our current education financing system and the consequences of state mandated tax increases that they please not walk back the progress secured by Act 127 which last year brought per pupil funding into compliance with the equity standards demanded under Vermont law and needed by Burlington school students thank you President Paul I ask the council for their support for this resolution right thank you so much Councillor Travers is there any other councillor who wishes to speak to this resolution Councillor Barlow thank you President Paul every year the Burlington school district goes through a thoughtful budget planning process when I was on the board that planning process started in early October it included concluded in January this year that careful planning incorporated both savings and increased expenses as well as other operational investments 61% of that budget increase is due to the debt service we're incurring because the Burlington school district is building a new high school and regional tech center but too often any careful planning becomes secondary to the pressures imposed by surprises that come from the state late in that planning process this year that surprise was the common level of appraisal as Councillor Travers indicated and without any BSD Burlington school district increased spending at all the education property tax rate was increasing by 8% when large shifts like the CLA adjustment happen it creates a lot of challenges for the district and puts the budget at risk with the voters BSD is not alone in this recurring school budget challenge and I'm hoping that the legislature will take a serious look at our concerns and those of other districts and look seriously at structural changes as a way in the way that we fund school budgets and school construction thank you thank you so much councillor mckie um councillor Marlowe is there anyone else who wishes to offer any comments on this resolution seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the motion to waive the reading and adopt the resolution please say aye aye aye any oppose please say no that motion passes thank you councillor Travers for your work on that and to the other co-sponsors that brings us to item 9.6 which is the raise reconnecting downtown grant acceptance associated with the BTC public improvement project this is a this is an important milestone in our city's history it's not every day that we get a 22 million dollar grant with no local match and I'm sure you'd love to talk about it so please go ahead and then we will go to a motion well I really don't I'm an engineer but uh so Laura we luck with public works I have Julia or Saki here with me also from public works and our director Chapin Spencer we worked with several city departments CT office the new grants program our own office and a few others to be able to secure this opportunity it is an add-on to a grant that came before the city council late last year which was a congressionally directed spending this project will be a transformative opportunity for our downtown being able to reconstruct all the blocks of cherry street and all of the blocks of bank street so it's a little bit larger than some of the way that we've described this work previously but as council president Paul indicated it is a zero local match which is an advantage to being able to fund a scale a project of this scale thank you did he did either of you wish to add anything else? no? okay so oh i'm sorry did you want to say something mayor Weinberger? I apologize so i'm looking i'm looking over here and i should be looking over here well president paul thanks i've spoken fair amount tonight already so i'll i'll try not to to go on much longer but i um certainly I do think this grant is um allows us you know which is we've been kind of looking at the city place we've been talking about the city place project tonight and reflecting on the history back when we went to the voters about the city place project the tiff investment and the the zoning change we said at the time that we hope to be able to fund up to eight blocks of public infrastructure being rebuilt to great street standards in the blocks immediately around the project with all the delays the project the making the project smaller the what's happened with interest rates and construction pricing had the original plan we wouldn't have been able to get anywhere close to fulfilling that vision which you know was not a promise we always said it was up to eight blocks and we were clear what the priorities would be but with this grant with the the congressionally directed spending from senator lehi we are now back in position to try to realize that full vision maybe even a little bit more than that full vision and bring all of the this big area up to these great street standards and really have a very positive impact on the future of the downtown so I'm really grateful for everyone who put work into this I Laura just said this but I think it's worth repeating we one of the things we did together in the last couple years to create new positions within the city to go after opportunities like this and this is one of the first big payoffs of that investment and I think really shows what's the importance of in this new environment of having that capacity Thanks President Paul. Thank you very much we will go to Councillor Barlow for a motion on this item and this motion is a mouthful I move to authorize the director of public works to execute the amendment number one to cooperative agreement CA 0811 from the Vermont Agency of Transportation to accept an additional grant amount of 22,384,000 for construction of the reconnecting downtown project for an authorized raise grant acceptance in the amount of 22,384,000 resulting in a total authorized grant acceptance amount of 37,384,000 including a previously authorized CDS local match in the amount of $3,000,000 with project cost to be paid upfront by the city of Burlington and then reimbursed by the Vermont Agency of Transportation with no local match subject to the approval of the city attorney's office and two to authorize the director of public works to execute the U.S. Department of Transportation grant agreement under fiscal year 2023 raise program to define the scope of work project schedule and city's reporting responsibilities subject to the approval of the city attorney's office and three to approve necessary amendments to the BTC public improvements project budget great streets bank and cherry streets project budget by adjusting the accounts as described here in in the attached draft budget amendment form and further authorize the chief administrative chief administrative or designee to affect all necessary transfer of funds in furtherance of such amendments thank you so thank you so much Councillor Barlow I mean for 22 million dollars it shouldn't be just four words right is there a second to that motion seconded by seconded by Councillor Carpenter is there any any Councillor who wishes to speak to this motion seeing none will go to a vote all those in favor of the motion is outlined by Councillor Barlow please say aye aye aye aye any opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously with our with our thanks for all of your work and all of your effort on securing this grant we will then we will now move on to item 9.7 which is a request to one convey the so-called North Hanger Building at the Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport to Beta Technologies by Bill of Sale and two to execute a ground lease agreement with Beta to replace the existing building lease between the parties before we get to get to some comments from our airport our airport team will go to a motion I'll go to Councillor Travers and before the motion President Paul I will be recusing myself from this vote due to a professional conflict of interest okay so we're noting a recusal due to a conflict of interest from Councillor Doherty please go ahead Councillor Travers and just another parliamentary inquiry I know there's two parts to this motion to confirm that it would be appropriate to make both of those parts in a single motion at this at this time I believe that is correct is that okay with the city attorney yes it is okay great thank you so I would move to authorize the conveyance of the North Hanger Building located at 1150 Airport Drive in South Burlington to Beta Technologies Inc and to authorize the mayor of the city of Burlington to execute a bill of sale to affect the conveyance subject to final review and approval by the city attorney's office and to authorize the leasing of certain identified space at the Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport to Beta Technologies Inc and to authorize the mayor of the city of Burlington to execute the ground lease agreement subject to final review and approval by the city attorney's office and upon a second we'll turn to our guests thank you so much Councillor Councillor Travers is there a second to that motion um seconded by Councillor Berkman you do not need the floor back okay so we will go to Director a Director of Aviation Nick Longo and then we can go to some questions if there are any questions from the council and uh I believe do you have some and and we do have uh Jeff Glasberg joining us online right thank you President Paul thank you councillors uh just a quick brief history of this particular lease and what is being proposed tonight beta technologies did come to the city the airport back in 2018-2019 which this very lease that you're contemplating tonight is that original lease back in 2019 the building that they have occupied just to paint a quick picture was scheduled to be demolished this was a building that the majority of the space was not able to be occupied there were no tenants in it and the city and the airport had no means to renovate it or or utilize that space any further without significant investment we were using the space the hangar as storage for snow removal equipment and other various storage needs beta technologies came to the city and the airport to to occupy this space and this is when the city the airport commission the board of finance and the city council authorized a lease agreement in 2019 for this entire space with the understanding that there would be improvements to the building and of course renovations we've been successfully leasing this space all terms of these current lease are satisfied there have been over five hundred thousand dollars in investments into the property itself which was part of the original lease and the beta technologies has been remitting payment as per these original lease what I and the team here deputy director Dave Karman director finance Marie Friedman I also have executive assistant Hannah Deuce Blan and our consultant Jeff Glasberg here tonight is requesting of course those two motions to sell the property to beta technologies because of more than just their half a million dollars of investment but their fifteen million dollars of investment into this property as well as continuing to lease the ground back to beta technologies a very important request of the city of the airport is to remain revenue neutral to make sure that the city is made whole with this particular change and new ground lease with beta technologies beta technologies continues to be a partner of course with the city and with the airport not just with this facility you've authorized not just this original lease but two additional leases as a reminder both the major manufacturing site which is now built at the airport as well as a smaller general aviation hangar and this hanger that you're looking at before you tonight they also help us with many other things including the space that is here before you tonight which is renovations to parking lots renovations to apron space in front of this hangar all of which the city and the airport would have had it to invest but we don't have to because of the partnership with beta technologies there's residual partnerships as well and Jeff is going to get into the details of what we're requesting tonight we're partnering with electric energy we're partnering with electric chargers for vehicles we're partnering in many different areas of the operations of the Patrick Leahy Burlington international airport I'm going to hand it right over to Jeff to talk about the very particular details of this lease for a brief statement on what we're asking for tonight thanks thanks for having me back this evening with respect to this transaction what we're seeking to do is to put this lease form for this property in the same structure as two other leases that the city has previously approved the lease the ground lease for the construction of the reduction facility on the south 40 and the ground lease for the construction of the new general aviation hangar and training center and the west valley both provide a mechanism for beta to recover the cash it expended to construct those facilities giving beta a tool to put that capital back into its growing business so in the case of those two subsequent leases west valley and the south 40 beta has the opportunity to either sell and lease back its building or to put in place a leasehold mortgage to recover its capital in the case of the south 40 building we're aware that beta recently did close a leasehold mortgage transaction with the export import bank and it allowed them to recover that expensive venture capital and put it back into its business using capital from a source that's well suited to finance real estate in the case of this particular transaction that we're proposing to you beta did make the investment in the building and as a Nick notes that was approximately 15 million dollars the terms of this lease would have those improvements that that building revert to city ownership at the end of the lease term the lease does require the creation and capitalization of a replacement reserve fund to ensure that the building is properly maintained so that when it reverts to city ownership it's in good condition the goal here was for the city using the limited tools it has to be accommodative and supportive of beta and economic development at BTV part of the work that beta does is not just building airplanes they're also recruiting they're a growing company and they're marketing BTV and the area as a great place to live and work that has value to us going forward as well what we've tried to do is accommodate beta in a way that is financially neutral to BTV and we think we've we've achieved that with the proposal that's in front of you there is a summary of the lease terms that was included in the board memo I also had the opportunity to review the transaction in greater detail with Councillor Barlow earlier today and we'd be happy to go through the Council's questions at this point right thank you so much if it's okay well if if you're if you're you've completed your comments I haven't I'm ready for any questions or great so if there are questions from the Council now would be that time Councillor Barlow thank you President Paul on first off thank you for coming again I know we had you aboard a finance last week I'll just start by saying I consider myself a supporter of of the work that beta technologies is doing and in the relationship that beta has with the airport and the city and and I want to support that continued partnership at the same time though I take seriously our responsibility to represent the public interest and perform due diligence on significant real estate agreements involving city assets like this one we are only made aware of this requested change a week a little over a week ago I talked with Director Longo before the Board of Finance with some questions that I had and he answered those but the questions began other questions I had and so I we I feel like this is a case where I really wish we had been brought into the process sooner like we often are with a lot of the city real estate deals where we're allowed to provide input give feedback and sort of shape things and so going forward I'm asking the airport to please make sure they bring these agreements to us a little earlier so we can provide that feedback and input and also I would like it to go through the airport commission before it comes to the City Council so it's my respectful request of you in the future to to try to adhere to that because I think it gets better vetting that said I appreciate that Director Longo and Mr Glassburg have been very responsive to my questions and I've shared those with the rest of the Council and so to now just I'll ask three the first is can you speak to the revenue neutrality of the agreement and address claims that beta might be getting more than than the City is getting in this deal absolutely I just want to mention I know at the Board of Finance there was a discussion of the airport commission the airport commission has seen this prior to come into here with a unanimous vote to support it as well as far as the revenue neutrality of the deal currently there are essentially two components to the existing lease we have building rent because at this point in time we do own the building therefore we're renting the building on a square footage rate consistent with other building rent at the airport there's also a limited section of ground rent this is being shifted entirely of course to ground rent because with this approved authorized transaction there are no longer be an asset owned by the airport therefore there would be no building rent associated with this the ground rent would not be in itself a revenue neutral deal therefore again it was extremely important during the negotiations that the ground rent be consistent with a revenue neutral deal inclusive of both the building and the ground rent to include other items such as parking revenue standard vehicle parking revenue which in this particular deal is 125 parking spaces at our standard rental rate that we charge every other tenant that is a flexible deal as well so we have we have some options and are not held to that 125 locations we also are charging landing fees associated with all of their aircraft very consistent and identical to all aircraft that are landing at the airport from the smallest aircraft to commercial aircraft all of those within that deal create a revenue neutral deal for the airport so both the old agreement and this new agreement the airport is walking away with an annual revenue consistent with what our deal is today some of the projections are even further because again we don't know exactly how many landings or operations beta technology is going to to do over that over the future time period especially when they roll out their brand new electric aircraft I believe I answered the just of the question there thanks I'll move on I had questions about the landing fees you had expressed to us that the landing fees were a new feature of this lease I looked at the old lease in the current lease the language is almost identical in terms of landing fee so how are landing fees a new benefit of the new lease yeah I wouldn't say they're a brand new benefit because both agreements do have landing fees associated with them but again very similar to the parking geographic locations as well as the fee they're flexible meaning the consistent rate of a landing formula is spread across this particular deal traditional not even traditionally right now our landing fee is over 6,000 pounds we charge per thousand pound of landing at the airport if the aircraft is over 6,000 pounds with this new deal and with new rates associated with the airport that is adjusted to 2,000 pounds and again that's consistent across the airport so this that change would be an increase in revenue again making adding to the revenue neutrality of this deal and just to be clear the this fee didn't exist for below 6,000 pounds didn't exist for anywhere on the airport prior that's correct so that's new across the entire airport that is correct and lastly can you just and maybe this is a question for Mr. Glasberg I'm not I'm not sure but can you explain how the change in lease terms and building sale affect the city's control in the event of a business failure loan default if or or change in ownership yeah yeah Jeff Jeff would you be able to answer that so we because that's a complicated question we actually gave you a chart of all the terms that that and I appreciate that your question and we contrasted between the existing lease and new lease without you know reading through all of that the city's interests are protected in the event of of failure of the well let's do it this way in the event that beta puts in place a leasehold mortgage and if it fails to pay its mortgage the mortgagee has the right to step in and perform for the tenant in order to keep the ground lease in place so the city's interests are not diminished by having mortgagee in place it provides another level of potential payer in the event of failure by by data in the event of sale leaseback the relationship of the city would at that point be with the subsequent owner um who would have to have financial capacity and who would be responsible for continuing to pay the city beta's failure as a tenant would then be their problem the city would look to the new owner of the property for its performance under the lease am I addressing the yeah yeah generally I just yes thank you and I was just looking for sort of an the then the cliff note narrative on that and you essentially have provided that so thank you for that and with that I will rest my questions thank you thank you so much Councillor Barlow we have come to the magic hour of 10 10 minutes past the magic hour of 10 30 with that and we do have in addition to this item we do have three deliberative items remaining for a motion and in order to proceed I'll go to Councillor McGee for a motion thank you President Paul I would move to suspend our rules in order for us to complete our deliberative agenda a motion to a motion is made to suspend our rules to complete the remaining items on our deliberative agenda seconded by Councillor Bergman is there any this requires a two-thirds vote is there anyone who wishes to speak to this motion seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the motion to suspend our rules to complete our deliberative agenda please say aye any opposed please say no okay so we will go and we will continue with our deliberate to the end of our deliberative agenda thank you again Councillor Barlow is there any other Councillor who wishes to offer any comments or questions on the agenda item before us nine point nine point seven seeing Councillor Travers I just I want to echo the thanks that Councillor Barlow mentioned for the presentation and the work here an alignment with some of the comments that Councillor Barlow made with respect to sort of additional information on these times on these kinds of agreements you know we did hear about the development agreement earlier and sort of very early on in that process you know we've heard from the developers there to expect them to continue to come back with respect to sort of further changes and amendments down the road and I guess my question for you all is in the airport's relationship with beta you know what what do you see as next is there is there a next step here that you anticipate you're going to be coming back to the council for or are you in a position to talk about that at this point in time so that's what I'm curious about I see beta being one of the first to develop and manufacture in full-scale electric aircraft and that's really exciting and that comes with a lot of changes to the airport as well including operational changes that this coming spring you've already approved many of those those items including new ramp space and the the other half of their manufacturing facility again these are things that have already been approved by the council right now I don't see any other changes besides those three with this item before you tonight those three leases being beta's beta's footprint at the at the airport okay great I'm looking forward to supporting this I was grateful to in my council role take beta up on an opportunity to come and tour their facility and if other counselors haven't done the same I would encourage them to do so because it it truly is an amazing state-of-the-art facility when you're there you almost feel like you're you're not in Burlington because of the the really cutting edge work that they're doing there with really you know such a growing workforce as well it's exciting to see what they've done for the airport and how many employees and innovation they've brought to our area so thank you for the work that you're doing thank you to beta and I'm looking forward to supporting this motion thank you thank you councillor travers councillor jane very quickly and thank you for the presentation and happy to support this and also want to recognize beta people that are here you've been sitting all day thank you for being here you know and I think councillor Barlow did mention something really important that director we simply requesting for you to think about it as you move forward I think you've been doing an amazing job right and I thought that the alignment between the council and now the Burlington air particularly international airport has gotten better but hearing here today that this did not go to took is was a little bit concerning from my perspective yes it went to commission but I think equally to try as much as you can to make that alignment it will be great and also for the took members to also consider you know reaching out more even though they're not on the agenda but whatever happening in transportation equity energy utility committee the director or a designated staff should know so that we build this alignment because it's all the same the commission should be considered equally as a transportation the city council committee this is just a simple request and thank for your work and happy to support this thank you thank you councillor jane councillor councillor grant hi couple quick questions uh kind of following up on what councillor jane just said um does your commission do you do a report for your commission and would this have been included in your report to your commission I do so we have monthly airport commission meetings with various topics of course uh a month ago I did present this during executive session to the commission uh and they voted on it last week with uh with border financial as well so yes we've had various conversations okay so then as of last week it would be considered public that's correct okay so then maybe um two two weeks ago because it was published two weeks ago okay okay so maybe uh just kind of throwing this out like when I joined the public safety committee I uh requested that chief Lachance for the report that he gives to his fire commission and so it's just one report that he creates he just forwards it to our committee as well maybe your report to your commission can be forwarded to tuc and then that way the city council gets looped in a little bit sooner um and then we can start to discuss ideas about when it's appropriate to make things available to the public to know because because we're all getting a lot of feedback around uh transparency issues but thank you for your report and your presentation thanks very much councilor grant um and thank you for being here from veda appreciate it um is there any other councilor that wishes to speak to this item I do think it is worth noting in the memo that you had for those for the benefit of the public who may not have read the report or method memo that beta now employs four hundred and sixty five people in administrative and prototype manufacturing facilities or actually at the burlington at the burlington facility out of a total of six hundred employees at the company many in high paying positions and also to note that beta is currently seeking to fill another hundred and twenty five full-time positions and eighty five internship opportunities at the burlington international airport in all beta projects total expenditures on capital investments and salaries in excess of two hundred million dollars through 2024 quite an accomplishment um with that we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously thank you so much for your time and thank you for being here with us um that will move us to item nine point eight which is the south end coordination schedule update and for this item I believe we have dpw director shape and spencer we also have city engineer norm baldwin as well as senior public works engineer quarry mims and perhaps others i'd laura you're here as well um laura wheelock also public uh senior senior engineer um we've we've allowed 20 minutes or so for this presentation including some questions um and is the hours getting later and later um but this is important so um this is really an informational item there's no action required from the council uh but we will we will continue with the with the update which is an important one thank you president paul uh thank you we will be expeditious here uh in the fall of 2021 we put together the south end construction coordination plan with two main goals to deliver generational infrastructure renewal and minimizing the impacts of that investment on our community by coordinating our projects together in three years we've been very successful to accomplish a number of projects that norm will go over now we have added downtown to the construction coordination plan as we have many generational projects there as well in some over 200 million dollars of investment in our infrastructure is critical that we do this in a way that it treats our stakeholders as well as possible during these uh invasive investments so uh tonight uh we want to give you an update on the projects and how they have either been accomplished or shifted over time and specifically next meeting we will be here with some requests for contract and budget amendments for the Champlain Parkway to make sure you understand the context of all the projects in that ask we have this update city engineer norm baldwin thank you japan so this first slide is an indication of of the projects that we've been working on ones that are complete ones that are currently in construction and those that are in the process of development that will eventually arrive at process of construction so i'm not going to read through the list but those lists um presented to the council in advance so you should be able to already read it so i'm not going to spend time reading through those but what's important to the public is of course what are we talking about in terms of projects what do they look like what are we referring to bank street cherry street here's uh um and btc here's the drawings associated with that project the champlain parkway and uh its corridor and we have the rail yard enterprise project and its uh design and concept and then we have of course main street gray streets which is currently underway and you're seeing the active construction as we speak and then you have the schedule that is the schedule that was previously noted years ago um obviously when we advance projects we encounter things things start finish so on so forth but they're all the best prediction we can at the time but what's worth noting is this is the updated schedule with all the the products that are in play the top row is the products that were complete these are the the blue area is the products that are currently underway you'll see a red line which is the current date and time in which we are at which is the first quarter of 24 um the products that we have added since the last round is of course main street gray streets uh the cherry street gray streets bank street gray streets and btc one important element to this schedule is the fact that rail yard enterprise is continuing forward and we actually were successful in getting the environmental assessment complete which means we also had a determination of uh finding of no non significant no significant impact which then allows us to proceed with preliminary design and uh once we reach a stage of reasonable preliminary design of 60 percent we'll then begin the process of railway construction you will see in in comparison i know the council has expressed interest in this is champion parkway was broken to two phases the first phase is nearly complete and we'll be likely complete this august the second phase we're looking to to advance is potentially beginning this august right behind that work and so we are working right now to package that design and keep that moving as was required by our partners in that process some of what i think this presentation does is it provides you kind of the the compare and contrast and some of the challenges that won't go along with projects as i've noted the rail yard enterprise did get its environmental assessment which means we have a third alternative selected and we can begin design surveys already started underway and current schedule suggests the august april 2027 start of construction it's um as our best guess as i noted earlier the parkway is anticipated to be complete this summer early summer august first and main street great streets as you know is already started important elements to the update is champlain parkways final phase is worth noting is uh the northern segment and then southern segment the northern segment is pine street from kilburn to main the southern segment is 189 to the seven interchange it's basically south of home avenue it connects into the interstate system as i noted previously we're looking to potentially business in march of this year federal highway and v-trans have expressed urgency to repackage or bid final phase no later than july 1st given the financial scale of the project and its impact on their transportation project priorities this project is a very expensive project ccrpc and all the other products have kind of worked around over the years is the fits and starts of whether it's going to go or not go and so there's a lot of concern how this financial swing will impact so many other transportation priorities so that's why you hear from federal highway and v-trans about us moving ahead moving forward as chaplain noted there was a this is an attempt to brief the the council on where we are with products to be prepared for the will be in next month's ask at the board of finance seeking to authorize contract authorizations for the parkway to advance packaging of design for phase two and also completion of the first phase with some additional costs that were anticipated and then one final note on main street great streets on this slide is we're preparing to submit grant applications for the second phase of major great streets which is intended to connect from pine street west to further points west for main street there is some discussion about how far west potentially either battery street or all the way to college street and then you've heard earlier tonight the uh the fact that we were successful in receiving a raise grant and uh congressional direct dispending with anticipated starts of spring of 2026 and bank street start 2027 and as we as was noted by staff Burlington town center public improvements is currently underway and then it's just uh I'll leave this to questions and there's the listing of staff members that are participating in those various projects hopefully that was quick enough maybe too fast but great thank you so much so again this item is informational and it doesn't require any any action from the council but that doesn't mean that we don't have questions uh Councillor Bergman um so you guys know my interest in the railroad enterprise uh project and its relationship with the Champlain Parkway so talk to me about the finishing of the parkway like three years before an estimated construction or beginning of the railroad enterprise um and uh talk to me about the pitfalls the potential pitfalls that would have you come here and say whoops can't do the railroad enterprise project and yet you have already Mr. Bergman voted to authorize the completion of the Champlain Parkway despite you having said that you would not do that talk me out of my quandary I'll start uh thank you Councillor Bergman uh the plan that you saw tonight uh does reflect that the railroad enterprise has reached a milestone the fact that it received its environmental assessment from federal highway means that this is a viable project in terms of moving to preliminary design the state and the feds have committed up to 20 million dollars on this project that is a major commitment and one that we are continuing to advance the Champlain Parkway which is a separate project uh is moving in a way that when it goes out to bid in march and starts in august it will not be completed until 2026 or potentially 2027 but the uh plan is to have the rep under construction in 2027 so there is a bit of a gap there with the parkway final uh construction contract being completed uh a year or so before approximately a year before the railroad enterprise project is under construction that is a shift in the sequencing that what we showed three years ago and that's why we felt it was very important to get in front of you to explain the that change well thank you so talk me out of my concern about voting to like complete the parkway which i don't believe should be ending up in the king street neighborhood and and i said i wouldn't support that and i understand the financial hit but it's just fundamentally wrong so talk me off of the ledge when it comes to my fears that there all of a sudden is going to be in that year period when we're not going to be able to do the railroad enterprise project talk me away from that please so i first say that the really good enterprises continue to be the one of the highest priorities right there along with the parkway itself and maybe even more so given the unique challenge of trying to develop a project in such a constrained site obviously you know that it's got historic elements building elements it's got it's got archaeological sites it's got contamination it's got a rail yard which we don't actually control and cannot condemn and we've worked very hard to get through a federal process to get this ea in a matter of fact we meet on a weekly basis to really kind of pound forward and make this thing happen and i think federal highway knows and understands that what the council's interests are in terms of getting this project done well in advance of the parkway but also is of the mind that if we really want their support for the regular enterprise project they need to have the Champlain Parkway complete and operational and so we're we're at kind of as a city when we're asking for federal dollars and state dollars we're at a disadvantage where we don't really fully decide schedules only we try to keep our work as far forward as we can to accommodate what council is asking for and so we are partners with an agency that may not fully appreciate or understand where we are with because they have another interest in that is the broader city broader state and community Chittin County community who are fighting for transportation dollars so we're trying to do our best it's obviously not a simple process we wish it would have gone much further much faster we have worked very hard very diligently to kind of arrive at where we are today and i i feel proud of that work even though it's not arriving at where council just so i wanted to be i'll finish by thanking you nor might know how hard you work and Laura and Cori and Chapin so this is not a hit on you when i when i when i say that and i totally appreciate that you haven't talked me off the ledge thank you so much councillor bergman um are there any other councillor councillor McGee thank you president paul i share councillor bergman's concerns and um you know when we approved moving forward with phase one i think it was pretty clear that we were doing so in anticipation that the really ardent price project would come first so i will probably be reaching out to figure out who we need to appeal to to get the federal highway administration to um be a little more flexible um i think given the fact that it's taken 40 plus years for the Champlain Parkway to get to this point it would hope that uh we could apply an equity lens to finishing the the last uh bit of the work here and understanding that you know for the king napal neighborhood it's really a non-starter for um phase two to happen before the really ardent price project so that that's where i'm at right now and just so i fully understand the action you'll be coming to the council with at our next meeting or the next board of finance meeting will be to approve additional funding for phase one or funding for phase two it would be uh for both it's an updated project budget along with three supporting contracts one being the designer gha one being dnk who's supporting our our work with the Champlain Parkway and then w spu is a resident engineering services and public engagement that supports the project itself for parkway and just to be clear it would not include the construction contract for phase two those are the supporting consultants for phase two that norm just referenced some of the scope for those contractors would carry through into phase two uh in full disclosure i think it's important to notice and various counselors can have all different perspectives but the city did embark with our federal and state partners a very robust NEPA process which is the national environmental policy act which looked at the impacts on the king and napal neighborhood and found that there was no disproportionate impact in that neighborhood uh the documentation is all on the Champlain Parkway website there is a projected increase in nine percent of traffic an increase to traffic of approximately nine percent in the neighborhood but that is balanced with exclusive pedestrian phases bump outs traffic calming and other measures to uh manage that traffic so happy to talk to counselors offline this is a complicated situation we're happy to make ourselves available i appreciate that and also want to echo counselor Bergman's thanks for the work that you all are doing i recognize that this is not an easy environment to operate in and uh i know that you all are working hard so i definitely don't want my remarks to be taken as anything other than gratitude for that thank you thank you councillor McGee seeing no others will oh my apologies councillor traverson then councillor grant just um thank you very much for the presentation just a couple clarifying questions so i understand that your next ask of the board of finance would not be for any construction contract for phase two of the Champlain Parkway but do you have any anticipated timeline as to when you would be seeking council support of construction contract and on phase two so as we speak we're trying to we're working to repackage the uh final phase of the parkway we found some uh some uh details that need to be worked out to be able to advance to the next phase of bidding the final phase which we anticipate bidding potentially in march and uh there's typically a big process that takes at least three weeks of open bid process or review and then uh we'll probably be looking to um come to the council probably in april may for potential contract for construction depending on how it lands with the bids and finance one thing that i will note that federal highway and the state have been very clear about spending the right amount of time to refine the design to make sure we know and understand costs the uh that we found some complications with the design and the respect that the road to affordability really discounted many problems and many issues and this first phase that cost substantially more than what we originally anticipated as a result federal highway and state have been asking us to spend the right amount of time to repackage this in a way that's going to account for costs in a very more refined way so we'll see how our schedule goes but um i will also note to you that the first phase was originally anticipated to be complete at the end of this coming construction season and we're really only maybe three or four months short of that schedule by ending in august um thank you for that i i trust that in a perfect world um you would still very much like to have the rail yard enterprise project complete as soon as possible to the completion of phase two of the Champlain Parkway looking at the schedule as you've laid it out here and i don't anticipate you may have the answers at this moment but on the rail yard enterprise project do you see any areas where looking forward there may be opportunities to crunch the timeline a little bit i mean looking at let it right now i mean are we currently looking at right of way acquisition for the rail yard enterprise project is there for whatever reason some steps that we need to finish up before we can start that process is there a way for us to do final engineering for example before we've completed the right of way acquisition i'm just curious as to whether or not it actually needs to be in the sequence as we're seeing here in the in the block schedule or are there any opportunities from your perspective to crunch the timeline a bit so this is a very simplified schedule right obviously there's critical path elements that we're monitoring and tracking and trying to keep ahead of the schedule and keep things moving as quickly as possible as an example we did not have an EA and we were looking to advance baseline survey for purposes of design assuming that the right of way that we have or picked by council was the one that was actually going to move forward so we've been advancing that scope of work early to do the very thing you're talking about is how quickly can we make things move and these is what this is one of the things that we try to identify and work with but there's so many things that the federal process requires that is requires it be sequential but there are where we can exercise some flexibility with them they are working with us to do that right i know it's very late but with you all here i want to take the opportunity to express gratitude for the great work that you and our construction partners have done on phase one of the project i think it's very impressive how far along you've gotten it i know many south end neighbors are um pleasantly surprised by what they found through all that and are very eager to get that open i know you all have heard from folks that are wanting to use that shared use path uh right now for the purposes of getting out and walking and biking um so thank you very much for that work i i too um you know share the concerns about completing the parkway without the rail yard enterprise project i would love for those two projects to be as close as possible i do also want to say though that i'm i'm mindful of the fact that there are also significant traffic uh and pedestrian vehicle safety concerns that exist on the south end of this project as well there are many neighborhoods um in south meadow neighborhood and in the addition neighborhood for example that for many many years have been dealing with uh in northern traffic impact along home avenue and along pine street um that for years has been promised to be relieved by uh our ultimately opening the entire parkway project here so so there are competing demands i think on on either end of this project here that that we're going to have to be uh mindful of as we uh work to bring this to completion so thank you thanks very much uh we'll go to councilor grant hi it's late i don't want to get into a big back and forth but uh there are equity issues around uh the sampling parkway um and the king street maple area and they're traditionally equity issues across our country with regards to projects like this i remember when i'd be younger my mother explained to me you know what they mean by the other side of the tracks and that when you're in communities and you look at how neighborhoods are divided by railway tracks um and then also uh later on major highway projects and things like that so i don't think we should undervalue or discount discount that because if that area had more political power those people made more money in that area there might have been more debate about it thank you thanks very much councilor grant um so i see no others in the queue um and as i said this is an informational item so thank you again for your time and i'll all of your effort on this on all these many projects um we have two more deliberative items the next is item nine point nine which is a resolution regarding implementation of a carbon pollution impact fee and for this item i will go to councilor bergman for a motion thank you president paul i ask i'd move to waive the reading and uh adopt the resolution and ask for the floor back after a second great thank you so much councilor bergman seconded by councilor king uh council bergman the floor is yours thank you um i'm cognizant of the time so i will try to be brief and let me start by saying that despite the various comments that we have gotten about this resolution putting something on the ballot and i wish it was something that we were going to do it just does not do that it simply sets up a process to put something on the ballot i hear my friends at this table his desire to look at more than a fee something like incentives and the need for more input and for more granularity and this resolution is exactly what that calls for the resolution calls exactly for that i hear a desire to act i also hear the desire to not deny not to deny climate change by using the tactic of delay delay delay and this resolution takes up this challenge it takes up the offers made in december by some of my friends at this table to look at august as an alternative to a town meeting day ballot item it allows us to engage in a process that both opponents like vgs and uvm and uvm mc are calling for and what many people including folks who were here tonight and who wrote to us are asking us for in terms of dealing with the carbon fee ordinance and with climate action generally so let me conclude by asking you to please support this resolution and don't act to deny by acting to delay thank you thank you so much councillor bergman is there any other councillor that wishes to speak to this resolution uh councillor grant i was out lit dropping this weekend it was in the fifties on saturday it was a nice day for lit dropping but it was deeply concerning thank you thank you councillor grant councillor bar barlow thank you president paul um you know i'm not i'm not a climate denier i'm i'm not but i i do think we need to be realistic about how we decarbonize buildings smaller than the ones we've already assessed a carbon pollution impact fee for and i know i've said this again i feel like a broken record sometimes but at the tuc meeting on january 9th we saw a list of 112 parcels between 25 000 and 50 000 square feet and based on the composition of those buildings we saw a lot of buildings that weren't on the tax rolls buildings that um housed small businesses like coffee shops or retailers and restaurants in our downtown old north end pine street north avenue and it's just not clear to me that the carbon pollution impact fee is the right tool to decarbonize those buildings if we make it onerous to own property in burlington commercial industrial property in burlington um or hard to operate businesses there i'm not sure we decarbonize if those businesses and property owners just go to one of our neighboring communities because it's less expensive to operate known there so i'm not saying that it's off the table but i'm just saying i'm not going to presuppose we're going to have a ballot item later this year to expand expand the the fee we assess on carbon for those buildings and i i do hope there are other ways we can address it through incentives through weatherization through whatever other tools are available um but i just have real concern about expanding assuming that we're going into a process with an outcome but i i look forward to a process i look forward to continuing to work with my my colleagues at this table on decarbonizing other buildings um i'll just leave it there i'm not supporting this tonight but i'm committed to continuing to work on this thank you thank you councillor barlow uh councillor uh councillor travers thanks president paul um you know i understand the dangers presented by the climate crisis and as a father of three little kids and deeply concerned about the future we're creating for next generations this this is why i was proud to work on strengthening and passing our new carbon pollution impact fee ordinance last november you know during the committee process on that ordinance we we heard and responded to testimony from dozens of stakeholders and strengthened that carbon fee in many important respects the carbon fee for fossil fuel fuel years users is based on the social cost of carbon in vermont as calculated by the vermont climate council and its latest climate action plan they calculated that figure to be 128 dollars per ton of greenhouse gas emissions our carbon fee actually went higher than that figure in setting our carbon fee at 150 dollars per ton when this was before the ordinance committee we took action to significantly strengthen our carbon fee ordinance by mandating that new construction prioritize electric geothermal or solar heat in primary thermal energy systems it's only if electrification is infeasible uh that a building may choose between using an eligible non-fossil fuel system or a fossil fuel system and paying our carbon fee i do certainly hear and respect that a number of individuals still feel that our ordinance even with its improvements and the strengthening that we did for it did not go far enough I really don't agree though that we failed to listen to those stakeholders I certainly don't agree with some folks who've been claiming that that we are anti climate for not supporting the resolution before it I don't agree with and take exception