Ward 5 NPA — Burlington, VT
Date: 2025-10-16
Time: 18:30

Ward 5 Neighborhood Planning Assembly Agenda
 Thursday October 16, 2025
 6:30 PM – 8:15 PM​

 Join in person: 645 Pine Street (DPW Building)
 ​ Join virtually: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89574495720
​

Facilitator: Jak Tiano + Prim VanWolvelear Note Taker: Jason Van Driesche


6:30 PM​ Community Dinner​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ | 30 Minutes
7:00 PM​ Welcome + Public Forum​ ​ ​ ​ ​ | 15 Minutes
 ●​ Introductions
 ●​ Open floor for community concerns​


7:15 PM​ Housing — Community Solutions Discussion​ ​ | 60 Minutes
 ●​ Facilitated by the Ward 5 NPA steering committee

 ●​ At September's NPA, we once again talked about the housing crisis, and
 heard where people want more information and conversation. This
 month, we'll focus on big-picture housing solutions that we can build for
 ourselves, especially given the unpredictability of federal funding. Our
 prompt is:​
 ​
 "How can Burlington take our housing destiny into our own hands?"​
 ​
 We'll explore inspiring new models, like Seattle's plan to build
 permanently affordable, mixed-income homes with its own dedicated
 local tax, and resident-owned real estate cooperatives. We have invited
 people in our community who work on housing issues to offer some local
 expertise. As a group, we can consider what would need to happen for
 Burlington to implement similar bold solutions.​


8:15 PM​ Adjourn

Neighborhood Planning Assembly Draft Minutes
 NPA: ​ Ward
 (choose one) 5

 Date of Assembly : 10/16/2025 Start Time: (Commence): 7:00
 Location: DPW Finish Time: (Adjourn): 8:25
 Note taker: Jason Van Driesche

Steering Committee Members in Attendance:​
Jak Tiano, Cathy Foley, Primrose von Wolevear, Jason Van Driesche, FaRied Munarsyah
 Actions Taken / Decisions Made
Discussion Topics
 ●​ Immediately following Agenda Item
●​ These can be copied from agenda
 ●​ Generally includes: electing a new steering committee member,
 items
 voting as a body to send a formal communication to the City,
●​ Content of discussion not required
 decisions to spend money.

Agenda Items and Actions:
Please Remember to Enter Adjournment Time! ​

Jak Tiano gave an overview of background issues related to housing needs in Burlington, then
summarized a video about a creative housing-related initiative in Seattle.

Prompt questions for discussion:
 ●​ What needs to be true for Burlington to reduce its dependency on (uncertain) federal
 dollars?
 ●​ How can we frame competing housing needs and challenges as a “Yes, and” scenario?
 How might we reframe our current situation as an opportunity?
 ●​ What common assumptions might be holding us back from pursuing bolder ideas?

Discussion ensued:
 ●​ How are Airbnbs regulated in Burlington? Are they having an impact?
 ○​ The City estimates that there are 400 Airbnbs total in Burlington, based on data
 scraping from Airbnb listings.
 ○​ Burlington passed a regulation a few years ago to prohibit Airbnbs other than in
 private homes – meaning, a whole unit can’t be dedicated to Airbnb.
 ○​ However, success depends on enforcement, so people should report Airbnbs that
 violate this rule.
 ○​ There is also an additional tax on Airbnb rentals that goes into the Housing Trust
 Fund.
 ●​ Has there been any analysis of how many residences are vacant much of the year?
 ○​ City doesn’t have a direct way of assessing this. Looked at properties that are not
 homesteads AND are not on the rental registry. About 1200 units met this
 definition.
●​ Why did government stop building housing? Can we do that again?
 ○​ Public housing was funded by direct federal appropriations. This went away in
 the 80s, in part because there were a lot of public housing failures. This was
 replaced by the affordable housing tax credit. This is far and away the biggest
 source of funding for affordable housing. But this depends on the tax credits
 continuing to be seen as advantageous by investors.
 ○​ Federal government has not yet cut tax incentives for affordable housing.
 ○​ One thing that is interesting about the Seattle model is that they provide property
 tax relief for affordable units.
●​ What can we do about abandoned buildings in Burlington?
 ○​ Only a dozen or so abandoned buildings in the city (i.e., falling apart).
 ○​ Temporarily vacant units are around 3.5% countywide, which is a bit higher than
 it’s been – but a healthy rate is about 6-7%.
●​ Can we change our property tax structure to tax second homes more aggressively?
 ○​ Need to do some work to better classify second homes. The state used to only
 classify properties as “homestead” and “non-homestead” (which includes
 commercial. We now have a classification of “non-homestead residential” that
 will roll out in the next tax year.
 ○​ Neighborhood Code has really increased the density that we can build. Now we
 need to actually start building.
●​ Has there been an inventory of opportunities for increasing density city-wide, on a
 parcel-by-parcel basis?
 ○​ Some analysis has been done, but it’s difficult because there is so much variation
 from one property to the next.
 ○​