Alternative Vision for the Barge Canal
We want to capture your imagination and revitalize development in the South End! Please join us June 19, at the Ward 5 NPA on when Friends of the Barge Canal will present our vision for South End development.
You might say, without hyperbole, that the Barge Canal is at the heart of Burlington’s South End. Separated from Lake Champlain by the railroad and bike path, and contained on the east edge by Pine St, the Canal runs north/south, connecting many of the iconic South End nodes - Burlington Farmers Market, Coal Collective, Burlington City Arts, Maltex, Hula, the Innovation Center and the Burlington Electric Department. Jackson Terrace apartments, Dealer dot com and the Unsworth artist studios form the eastern border.
We invite you into the FBC’s vision for the South End that centers this land as the dynamic connector between Burlington’s past and future, running through a lively present. Our vision recognizes the vital role that the South End has played in Burlington’s history and that the Barge Canal has played in that history. It recognizes, protects and celebrates the Barge Canal while connecting the key aspects that make the South End what it is. Please come to the Ward 5 NPA meeting on Thursday June 19th (in person or on Zoom), when we will present a snapshot of what is possible if we change the way we think about development in Burlington.
There are other options for the Barge Canal that highlight it as the beating heart of the South End. Think about the High Line in Manhattan and Canopy Walks revitalizing impacted key areas of human development. Can you see this at the Barge Canal? Think about honoring the area’s history while creating connections to our future. Innovative and exciting, we are seeing multi-layered, mutually beneficial project ideas as well as sources of new investment.
We have been talking to South End residents, businesspeople, creators – “stakeholders” all – and know that there is a strong consensus around several key values. These values can be a solid foundation - Agreements - for ongoing development in the South End and elsewhere. They include:
1. Agreement that much more widely affordable housing needs to be available in densely populated areas with access to work, services and community resources;
2. Agreement that public transportation is key to neighborhood walkability and bikeability - so that even more acres are not paved over for parking cars and a dead street life;
3. Agreement that natural areas like the Barge Canal are integral to the health and well being of people and all other living beings;
4. Agreement that protecting and connecting the South End’s iconic and culturally critical nodes is key to its long term integrity and sustainability.
Other ideas for the Barge Canal: a community educational center (like this?) that could provide a site for holding Burlington’s natural, indigenous, industrial and cultural history drawing from our deep roots; a research site for scientists (from UVM or local groups like MycoEvolve) to study alternate methods of remediation; a green urban oasis, safely accessible to all while supporting the evolving ecosystem in healing itself. Not just the stuff of dreams, these are viable alternatives!
IF ONLY – consider it a moment – local developers, engineers, architects and city planners routinely worked together to apply their formidable skills in a broad vision rather than on individual parcel-by-parcel development?
IF ONLY residents of the South End neighborhoods could be full participants in creating the changes to our home…
Friends of the Barge Canal – 700 strong – are stakeholders in the changes in our neighborhood. Four years of paying attention and caring for the Barge Canal has led us to think critically and creatively about development on these 28 acres. Building broadly affordable housing in the South End is most cost effective on already paved-over land (see the SECORD project). And there are acres of underused parking lots surrounding the Barge Canal: behind the Maltex building, on either side of Dealer.com, at the Innovation Center, in back of BED and on Sears Lane. Funding sources and creating a working consensus of how to actually create livable, workable housing are key. Places like the High Line and Canopy Walks have become destinations, generating income and interest beyond Burlington. The Barge Canal has tremendous actual and potential value.
Please join us at the Ward 5 NPA on June 19 when Friends of the Barge Canal will present possibilities that we hope will capture your imaginations and revitalize development in the South End! And stay with us as we continue this evolving community work!