Burlington pod community wins approval with condition: Find a management team

Lilly St. Angelo
Burlington Free Press

Burlington's Development Review Board approved the city's plan Tuesday to build a temporary pod community on Elmwood Avenue under some conditions.

The board will require the city to submit a operations management plan before receiving their zoning permit over noise and neighborhood disturbance concerns. The city still does not have a team to manage the site due to staffing shortages at several of the major social service agencies in the area.

The city argued that they are already committing to staffing the site 24/7 in order for the site to stay in compliance with rules. The city also said the Development Review Board did not have the authority to require an operations plan, but board chair Brad Rabinowitz disagreed.

"The whole ability to control noise seems to rest on having proper management," Rabinowitz said during the meeting. "If management doesn't exist, it's hard to understand how the site is really going to be in compliance with the noise ordinance."

An established community of Pallet structures for unhoused people is shown, location unknown. The City of Burlington is pushing plans forward for a pod community like this to open in the Elmwood Avenue parking lot by July 1.

The board also prohibited amplified music played outside at the site and required two staff members to be there every night.

Mayor Miro Weinberger sent a letter to the board ahead of the meeting Tuesday, urging members to approve the permit to make emergency housing available.

Samantha Dunn, assistant director of community works in the city's Community Economic Development Office commented during the meeting that 230 households in Chittenden County will become ineligible for state-funded emergency motel housing starting July 1 as the state scales back aid. There are 41 people currently camping in Burlington without access to shelter, and low-barrier shelter Champlain Inn is turning away an average of six people every night, she said.

Contact Urban Change Reporter Lilly St. Angelo at lstangelo@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @lilly_st_ang