Testimony to the Development Review Board, May 20, 2025

Friends of the Barge Canal respond to housing proposal

Statement from Andrew Simon, founding member of Friends of the Barge Canal:

“I have been to the DRB to comment on past proposals for the Pine Street Barge Canal. The ill-conceived drive-in food court, the beautifully designed spa and bathhouse, and now these impressive plans for new housing. Each time, I have said essentially the same thing: don’t build on the Barge Canal. I know that it is not the purview of this Board to comment on aspects of a project outside certain defined criteria. However, the public’s concerns – my concerns – are broader than that and will need to be addressed.

We all agree that there is a housing shortage in Burlington. We can probably agree that, in response to that crisis, areas of the South End previously excluded from residential development will need to be reconsidered. But the Barge Canal is different, is unique and valuable and should continue to be excluded. There are other sites in the immediately surrounding area that are already paved over and could be, with a little imagination and a wider vision, be sites for new housing. In 1992, when proposals for this land were put forward, the residents of Burlington rose up and rejected them. Then the Barge Canal Coordinating Council worked for four years to come up with a better plan: leave the land alone. Since then, the trees have grown, the animals have flourished and the soil toxins have remained undisturbed. We should carry that plan forward and think about what is best for the land and for Burlington.

Yes, 453 Pine Street, the site of this latest proposal, is private land. Within regulatory boundaries – the DRB, the Planning Commission, VTDEC, EPA and others – there is, in principle, freedom to do whatever “pencils out.” But it is time to consider the broader interests of our community. Those include but are not limited to clean water, safe public access to green space, carbon sequestration as the climate crisis deepens, wild animal corridors and stormwater overflow management. None of these are within the purview of the DRB yet all of them should be considered when we approve developments.”

Statement from Ruby Perry, founding member of Friends of the Barge Canal:

I’m pretty sure Alain and Scott and Doug have designed a project that attempts to slot itself into the multiple overlapping requirements of 453 Pine Street, but when all is said and done, it is a project that will not come to fruition, will provide no relief to the housing crisis in Burlington, will likely spend $4-6 million in state funds, yet nothing will be built. The Pine Street Barge Canal has already been exploited. It is time that we humans recognize our close relationship with the land, and our responsibility to care for it. Burlington’s prosperity can be traced back first to the lumber industry that thrived and caused the canal to be built and the coal gasification plant that turned coal into lights for the growing and prosperous community of Burlington. Whatever money can be made from developing that site will come at great cost to the land, to the city and to the developers. Now it is time for us to consider what we can do to protect our land.

Superfund site or brownfield, no more money is to be made from the Barge Canal. Over thirty years, multiple developers have proposed projects ranging from the outdated southern connector into the center of town, a gas station, grocery store, office buildings, bowling alley and lastly a nordic spa. Since the rerouting of the road, all have had well-drawn up plans, all have been approved by the DRB and all have failed.

This project is for housing even though site-specific restrictions on housing and child care centers have been in effect since 1998. Yet they believe their plans can show that it is safe, and will be safe in perpetuity, including that they can, in real time limit access to children to the surrounding natural area which is a Superfund Site. The developers are presenting a project they believe will meet the federal, state and municipal requirements, limitations imposed because of the “56 contaminants of concern” in the soil. They believe they can demonstrate remedies that will involve removing multiple tons of soil, trucking it to the Coventry landfill, and paving over the rest. They will promise regulators and the public that they can prevent the leaching of contaminants into groundwater and Lake Champlain. Can they also ensure that soil deposited in Coventry will not leach into the Black River which flows directly into Lake Memphremagog? Can this board?

The Barge Canal, despite being Burlington’s industrial sacrifice zone, is still serving the basic human needs of the city’s population. It is containing the contamination, essentially healing itself without creating superfund sites in Vermont’s NE Kingdom. With no help from humans, the Barge Canal is an evolving diverse ecosystem that already manages much of the South End’s increasing combined sewer overflows. If left alone, it will continue to bring tremendous benefit to the city far into a certain future of climate change. It is not a dead zone, it is not a vacant lot, anymore than it is waiting for further exploitation. It is alive and as such a vital resource to the south end and to the entire city.

Build housing, build it in the south end, make it dense, and make it walkable, bike able. Get together with land owners, developers and neighbors and stakeholders interested in the south end; Doug Nedde, Rick Davis, Mr dealer dot com from Georgia, Russ Scully, Champlain College and the Mayor. Make a plan to build in the back parking lot of the Maltex building where you can put minimal parking underground. Convert Dealer to housing and convert the parking lots to the north and south of the building to housing. Make it relate to the Five Sisters neighborhood to the east and Jackson Terrace to the south and the struggling Secord development further south. Make it worker housing so it isn’t surrounded by acres of parking lot. Make it interesting and beautiful. Make it a desirable addendum to the Five Sisters neighborhood.