The Burlington Model: How Planning-Led Reforms Transformed the City's Housing Market

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[00:00:40.710] - Jason Jordan

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the APA podcast. I'm Jason Jordan, APA's Principal for Public Affairs. As part of APA's ongoing work, focusing on how planning and zoning reform are tackling the nation's housing crisis, I'm so pleased today to welcome a dynamic duo from Burlington, Vermont, former mayor, Mero Weinberger, and former Planning Director, Meagan Tuttle. These two work together to provide the political leadership and the critical insights needed for Burlington to enact one of the nation's most important and far-reaching reforms aimed at increasing housing supply. We're going to explore what they did, how they did it, and the vital partnership between planners and elected leaders necessary to make it all happen. Cities and towns across the nation are a period of dramatic change and experimentation with modernizing their regulatory approaches to housing. And this conversation will give us insights into the success story of Burlington. Let's jump right in. So earlier this year, Burlington adopted your neighborhood code proposal. This has received national praise and attention. Why don't we start with what changes you made and what impact you think those will have on housing in the city? And maybe just as importantly, how did you get there?

 

[00:02:04.160] - Meagan Tuttle

Well, thank you, Jason, for having us. It's really exciting to be here talking with you about the work that we did in Burlington. I can lead us off with talking about what the neighborhood code is. And I think one of the things that's really important to note, especially as you set the frame for the context of what's happening nationally, is to speak to what the neighborhood code wasn't for Burlington. I know there's been a lot of conversation about cities ending eras of single family only zoning in residential neighborhoods. And one of the things that I think is a really strong foundation for Burlington's work is that except for a brief period in the mid '90s, Burlington is theoretically always at least allowed duplexes and other small housing like ADUs in all of its residential zoning districts. So for us, this wasn't about eliminating neighborhoods where only single family homes had been built, or where only single family homes had been allowed, I should say. But rather thinking about how we could build on that legacy and the history of the city zoning to help support more neighborhood housing solutions and help the neighborhoods and residential areas of the city contribute its part to the broader housing supply goals that we had and had been pursuing as a city for nearly a decade.

 

[00:03:29.710] - Meagan Tuttle

So the neighborhood code came after that decade of zoning changes, and I'm sure we'll talk more about what those were throughout this conversation, with three central goals. And I'll talk about some of the changes we made within the context of each of these goals. The first goal was about relegalizing housing types that had become illegal or had been functionally prohibited due to changing our zoning laws over time. We looked back over the history of major errors of our zoning code, starting with our first zoning ordinance in 1947. We looked at current patterns of nonconformities. We analyzed where the housing types that our code theoretically allowed could actually be built. We found that our low density zones were the only zones in the city where we required a minimum lot size. But we knew that half of the lots had been developed prior to our first zoning code and were already smaller than that minimum lot size that we had set out way back at the beginning of zoning in the city. Similarly, we found that there was a mismatch between these small lots and our density limits, our dwelling units per acre limits, such that even though duplexes were theoretically allowed everywhere in the city, about 40% of our existing lots couldn't actually accommodate one.

 

[00:04:53.070] - Meagan Tuttle

So these two issues in particular were incredibly prevalent in the older core neighborhoods of the city, where where a lot of the duplexes and small apartment buildings had actually been built, going back to our city's founding. We found that some of our most desired historic neighborhoods were completely nonconforming due to the ways that our zoning had evolved over time. So we wanted to relegalize these housing types that were central to the core of the city. And so we needed to address two major issues by either lowering or eliminating our minimum lot size requirement in our low density districts and or changing our density standards. And in the end, the neighborhood code did away with both of those standards. Our second major goal was to enable more neighborhood scale housing choices in all areas of the city. We knew that in eliminating minimum lot sizes and density standards, we needed to pair that with some other context sensitive tools for how new residential infill would it in these neighborhoods. When we first started working on the neighborhood code, we had a lot of discussions about whether this would be a form code light or whether it was something else, and ended up taking a light touch, a focus on more on the scale of buildings in residential areas rather than the number of homes within those buildings.

 

[00:06:23.590] - Meagan Tuttle

We knew that things like setbacks, lot cover, and density together had been proxies for scale. But these were calibrated in a way in Burlington that weren't necessarily successful at helping us get those mid-scale buildings in neighborhoods. So we replaced those minimum lot size and density limits with building footprint limits units. We allowed up to two buildings per lot, and we set a maximum number of units that were allowed in each building. We worked with a really skilled team of planners and architects that helped us test through this and guide what those building sizes should be given the characteristics of the city's neighborhoods. And we did talk pretty extensively about whether we should have other form standards, like roof standards that would help with massing. But our first pass work did include those. We also knew that the pattern of lots in the city included a lot of narrow but deep lots. So we knew we needed to tackle things like rear setbacks. We adopted new shallower rear setbacks that helped us balance preservation of yards with enabling building in those backyards. And we also knew that historic preservation was a really important element. So we wanted to make sure that in enabling multiple homes within a building, it wasn't necessarily guaranteed that that meant that there would be the replacement or conversion of existing homes.

 

[00:07:55.090] - Meagan Tuttle

So that was a key part of allowing a second building on a lot was to give flexibility for how new homes could be added within existing neighborhood context. I think the other thing that's worth saying here is that we had already eliminated minimum parking requirements citywide. So we did not need to tackle parking, the big challenge of parking directly within the neighborhood code. But we did make some tweaks to allow parking right along a side setback so that there was more flexibility for how a site could come together if parking is provided. And then our third major goal for the neighborhood code was to enable greater residential density and neighborhood-supported mixed-use along our major transportation corridors. Historically, there were a handful of streets that connected neighborhoods to our downtown core that had large stretches of low density zoning along them. These are corridors that accommodate our highest frequency bus routes and our bike infrastructure. So we created a a new district that allows small multi-story mixed-use buildings and neighborhood commercial uses like cafés, convenience stores, things like that.

 

[00:09:08.790] - Miro Weinberger

Jason, I'll speak for a moment to the part of your question that's, how did we get there? How did we get this done. And let me echo Megan's point. I'm excited to be here with you in this discussion. Really excited about what the APA is doing to try to accelerate housing nationwide, and excited to share the Burlington experience It's the you've just gotten a sense for one of the reasons we were successful is we had an outstanding planning director who had incredible command of this topic and the details of it and clarity about how to pursue it. I would say there are three other big elements. One, and Megan alluded to this, we had been at this a long time. The work on the neighborhood code took place in my fourth three-year term, and housing had been a major our focus from the day I got elected. And we called for the neighborhood code to be created as part of our third housing action plan, having completed the other elements of the housing of the plans that were prior to that. Some of those prior plans really led directly into the neighborhood code, and we had been patient and careful about not bringing forward the really comprehensive neighborhood code until We had done several of these.

 

[00:10:30.810] - Miro Weinberger

Like Megan mentioned, there was the parking reform. We also had gone through a comprehensive ADU reform, which had been an extended process. And the second major element, I would say, is we had a very strong political coalition that we had built over that decade to support housing. It was a coalition that included everyone from transportation coalition advocates to elderly advocates like AARP. Aarp was an incredible partner to us throughout this. It included the business community, as you would expect, but it also included elements, the environmental community and nonprofit housers. There was a huge addition to this coalition right at the end as well. I'll come back to that in a moment. The third major element of this is we had a deadline, but we We set at the end of 2021, the goal of getting this passed by the spring of 2024. I had a pretty good sense at the time we created this deadline that this was likely to be the end of my time as mayor, as it has turned out. I served 12 years and have since moved on. It also turned out to be the end of Megan's time in the city.

 

[00:11:50.700] - Miro Weinberger

So we really had this sense that we need to get this done or we were going to miss the window to do it. And I think that can be very motivating to to have that focus. I still think we would not have gotten it done and would have missed that deadline, but for two things, one, and then related, one, the housing crisis in Burlington intensified dramatically during the period that we were working on this. We went from being one of the most expensive, most challenging places to get housing in the country to an absolute crisis over housing in the wake of the pandemic. We saw a huge, very large in-migration during the pandemic. In charge in migration during the pandemic in part because of how well Burlington and the state did during COVID with respect to fighting the virus. It was a very safe place to be. A lot of people moved. We're the highest in migration state per capita, two years running. That put a lot of additional pressure on the housing market. And we saw some very visible effects of that, such as suddenly a huge increase in the amount of unsheltered homelessness that the state was seeing throughout the period that we were finalizing the neighborhood neighborhood code.

 

[00:13:00.720] - Miro Weinberger

The second big thing, which I, again, I do think comes from that crisis, is over the last couple of years of this, a YIMI group came together, and Burlington was called V-Pop, Vermonters for People-Oriented Places. And they fundamentally changed the conversation about housing. They brought enormous energy to the debate. And as a result, instead of seeing our neighborhood code chiseled away and made weaker over time, which is what normally, in my experience, as you see with big housing initiatives or others, this legislation, actually this, this ordinance, this reform actually got stronger over time. And that really played a huge role in stiffening everybody's spine and making sure we did something that would have an impact.

 

[00:13:46.020] - Jason Jordan

Mr. Mayor, let me stick with you for a second and just pick up on one of the threads that you just talked about, which is this didn't happen overnight. And you had been at this for more than a decade as mayor. I'm curious, what led you to put housing at the center of your agenda and your tenure as mayor? I mean, many places are just now beginning to grapple with the impact of the housing crisis. You guys were making these reforms and doing the housing action plan and laying this foundation for a while. How did that happen?

 

[00:14:21.050] - Miro Weinberger

Jason, I'd say the answer to that goes back in large part to the experience I had before I was mayor. Really, even going back to childhood, I grew up in a home with a dad as an architect. We talked about buildings and development all the time. I somehow came away from that knowing that I didn't want to be an architect. It was a little bit of a surprise to discover in my mid-20s that I was headed down a path of planning and development. I ended up working for a housing nonprofit and then later starting my own company that worked with affordable housing nonprofits and for them as partners or consultants to build housing in Vermont and New Hampshire. And so I had a 15-year career in housing before I was elected. And I was elected in 2012 and had a lot to learn on the job. But one of the things I knew from day one is that one of the big impacts, one of the things that was very much needed and one of the things that I could do in that role was to make it easier to build housing in Burlington. I had tried to build one housing project project in Burlington during my development career, and it was a harrowing experience.

 

[00:15:35.830] - Miro Weinberger

It took us five years to get the permit to adaptively reuse a dramatically underutilized warehouse that had been a nuisance property in the neighborhood for many years. And we wanted to turn it into missing middle housing in some ways. Our vision for it was a a 25 unit development, three stories with retail, a cafe on the ground floor. And I think it was the right concept for that. We eventually did get it built, and it's been a very successful and I think appreciated development in that neighborhood. There was enormous resistance to it from a few people. They were able to, through Vermont's and Burlington's land use regulations, they were able to throw sand in the really slow the development of this down despite the fact that it was wanted by the community and elected officials. And by slowing it down for five years, they took us out of a housing boom into a very difficult period to build housing. We got the permits on July first, 2008, which was just as the entire great recession with descending on the country. And it was about the worst day in 100 years to get a housing permit.

 

[00:16:56.330] - Miro Weinberger

It took us another five years to get it built. So it was It was really clear to me that if we had a system where it was going to take 10 years, a decade to build housing, that we had a real problem. I looked around and it was clear to me it wasn't just us who had difficulty building housing. All sorts of projects had been essentially vetoed by one or two neighbors. And I knew that was something we needed to change and set about trying to change it really as soon as I came into office.

 

[00:17:30.620] - Jason Jordan

So you both mentioned some of the foundational elements that led to the neighborhood code. You talked about ADUs, you talked about the legacy of reforms in the city, you talked about parking, and you referred to some of the work that went into the housing action plan. I'm curious, your perspectives on that incremental approach, how intentional that was, what the benefits and drawbacks might have been, and then ultimately, the relationship of your planning process to those reforms and where you ended up. Sounds like a carefully orchestrated pathway to some of these reforms. How did those early steps come into play?

 

[00:18:17.450] - Miro Weinberger

I'll kick that one-off. Maybe just to finish my last point, too, not only did I come into office with that conviction that we needed to housing supply and real focus of the administration, that sense really only grew stronger over time as the pressures that I mentioned really intensified and grew. So that really kept us going, that set both those early successes in the sense that the public was understanding this more and more as a project that needed to be tackled. In terms of how we started about it, I can't say we had the full decade mapped out by any means when we first started. In fact, in some ways early on, we had to be more careful about how we pursued the reforms. We needed to build some momentum. It certainly, I felt some political vulnerability. Basically, my early re-election campaigns, the opposition essentially went right at this agenda, and they called me a developer mayor, and they tried to make that weakness. Over time, it became more and more of a strength. I would say, so we had to be strategic. We had to be careful about what we took on. And some of the earliest reforms, we started with what are the most almost Wackiest or the most bizarre elements of the Burlington Ordinance that we could address.

 

[00:20:07.580] - Miro Weinberger

We had something when I first took office that was a very unique regulation that basically said there would be no housing that could get built in the downtown unless 50 % of the project was commercial. That's where we started is taking on that. We moved from that, I would say, to coming out of that experience I described to you, I knew we needed a system that was more predictable and that did not create this opportunity for very small numbers of people to hold up projects that were wanted by the community. So we went at two things that flowed from that and that I had experienced directly were the subjectivity of our zoning ordinance. We had this test, a character, the neighborhood test that was something that was ripe for litigation. Lawyers can argue all day long or for years, actually, over what the character of a given neighborhood is. We were able to remove that from our ordinance. And the other major piece of subjectivity that often delayed projects was that parking requirement. And we did have a parking waiver system for up to half of the parking requirement to be waived previously. But that, too, was a very subjective process as much as we tried to make it empirical that led to the delay and the appeal of many projects.

 

[00:21:28.550] - Miro Weinberger

So pretty early on, took on those two things and got both of those done before we moved to the neighborhood code.

 

[00:21:37.440] - Meagan Tuttle

And one thing I'll add here, and this, I think, relates to the political elements that the mayor is talking about, was around the time that he first came into office, there had been debates within our community about what the height limits should be in downtown. What should the future of infill development downtown look like? That ended up kicking off a process. We got a HUD Sustainable Communities or EPA, HUD Sustainable Communities era grant to do a massive downtown planning process that really helped us do a more comprehensive revisioning of underutilized sites in the downtown core and laid the foundation for some of the specific zoning reforms that the mayor was talking about, the commercial component of new development. And one of the ways that we tackled the subjectivity was by adopting a downtown form code, a very detailed and prescriptive form code that has really helped accelerate decisions and the review process of developments in the downtown itself. That really started this era of zoning reform. I would say that those two elements that the mayor mentioned were work that was underway as I came in in 2015, right around the time that the first housing action plan was being created to build on that momentum and to start to identify bigger and more ambitious housing goals.

 

[00:23:03.570] - Meagan Tuttle

But also, I'd say it wasn't a straight line either. One of the other efforts that was underway when I first came to the city was a discussion about a former or an evolving industrial commercial part of the city and whether or not housing should be a component of that part of the city's evolution. There was a pretty strong debate about whether that was appropriate The answer at the time was no. But fast forward, as the mayor said, I think the housing crisis intensified so much in people's understanding of the impacts on our economy and people's livelihoods of the housing crisis that about 10 years later, we were able to successfully adopt a zoning change that introduced the ability for a neighborhood with up to a thousand new homes to be created within that part of the city. So definitely was It's not always a straight line.

 

[00:24:02.300] - Miro Weinberger

I guess to sum all that up, to try to boil them down to actionable concepts that others could use, I would say make a plan, having, and I don't mean plan in just the planner I don't have a sense of it, but a political plan, a list of actions that you want to get done over a certain period of time. There's power in doing that. Get some early wins that can be so important internally and in externally to actually achieving some things. And I think it grows the strength and the belief in the group that you can get more done. And I think choosing carefully those wins in a way that will have an impact based on what the particular circumstances are in your community. And I would say it probably doesn't make sense to start with the neighborhood code or something equivalent to it. I think that is, in many ways, the most volatile politics around these beloved neighborhoods. And it's not where we started for a good reason. I think that was validated, that decision.

 

[00:25:09.130] - Meagan Tuttle

And there are a lot of related... Sorry, one quick point. There are a lot of related planning challenges that naturally emerge when you start talking about changing zoning for residential areas beyond the beloved politics. I mean, real things like, what do we do about the balance of housing and short term rentals? What do we do with parking? We We had had those conversations years prior as separate and stand-alone conversations. So we had those policies as the foundation for the work that we were doing rather than the neighborhood code becoming this really unwieldy conversation, it was much more specifically focused on what are the housing choices that we want to have in our neighborhoods, and we could lean on that prior work as well.

 

[00:25:55.290] - Jason Jordan

Yeah, let's think of both of you talk. It's pretty clear that there was a great partnership between planning and political leadership in the city, this combination of the technical insights and expertise combined with the ability to build a coalition and bring people on bringing people together. Could you talk a little bit about that relationship? I mean, is that a fair characterization? And how did that happen? I suspect there will be many people who listen to this who will listen with a degree of envy that they want the same partnership in their community. How did How did it happen in Burlington with the two of you and your teams?

 

[00:26:33.960] - Miro Weinberger

Jason, it was a tremendous partnership, one that I'm very grateful for. And the history behind it is interesting. It is not a partnership that had been encouraged by the structure of city government that I inherited when I came into office. There had been a major, and this is an interesting element of local government, right? Every local government is different. Every city has its own unique charter and has divvied up responsibilities and authority in in a different ways. The charter that Burlington had, had gone through great evolution and upheaval over time and had gone from being relatively recently, only about 25 years ago, or yes, 30 years ago now, we had been a commission form of government, where the mayor only appointed a few department heads, and these volunteer appointed commissions appointed everybody else. One of my predecessors got rid of that. Thank goodness. I appreciate I thank him for that every day. I don't know how you function in a system like that. It's hard enough to keep people working together when the mayor actually does have the authority to lead the city in a strong mayor format. And so that change had been made, except they made basically one exception to that was the Planning Commission had been kept in charge of hiring the Planning Director.

 

[00:27:55.920] - Miro Weinberger

And there had been this concept, well-intended concept, that somehow how you should remove the long term vision of the city from the political arena and from the mayor. To me, that didn't make sense to me. I thought one of the biggest ways that a... One of the most important things the city does is land use, regulation, planning and implementation. It was clear to me, again, that We had created a regulatory system that made it way too hard to build housing, and that needed to change. And it was a major priority of mine to have a planning director that was part of my team and that was accountable to me and that we could be partners in getting work done. Now, I was fortunate that the planning director that I inherited when I came into office, a man named David White, was very aligned in this housing vision. And so even though the structure of city government didn't support it, we were allies and we were making progress on the early years of what we've described here. But We did bring a vote to the voters, a charter change to the voters that changed that structure and allowed me, when David retired, to appoint a planning director in Megan that I knew would be a partner in continuing this work.

 

[00:29:33.320] - Miro Weinberger

And it really could have turned out differently if we hadn't made that change. Who knows what the Planning Mission would have done had we not made that important structural change. I would say another really key element of the relationship that Megan and I developed and our ultimate success working together is we went through some real challenges. We went through some really really difficult fights over, of all things. The hardest one in many ways was the building of a new park. Our city hall sits right on a small park, but a critical park in the heart of our downtown that was in desperate need of renovation and renewal and a new vision. And we went through what essentially was, in some ways, a decade long process. The intense part of it was much shorter than that, where because people love this park so much, there was considerable debate and controversy over how we were proceeding with it. And we really had to make a decision that we were committed to getting this done and that we would create additional process to bring the city Council along and ultimately, voters along to get it done. And And we succeeded after a long battle there.

 

[00:31:05.020] - Miro Weinberger

And we now have a very beautiful six million dollar new park right next to City Hall that only uses a million dollars of property taxes and it's very creatively financed. Beyond that, it has been well received as an enormous upgrade to the prior park by the public system. Having gotten that success, I think gave Megan and I first had us working very closely together, and I think it made us battle-tested team that knew we could get more done.

 

[00:31:35.550] - Meagan Tuttle

I think as a planner, too, the work that we do is always pretty challenging. I think it was important and really gave a lot of energy to the work that we were doing to have someone who shared that long term vision for the health of the city and had a lot of conviction in what was possible in that long term health for the city, whether it was City Hall Park or one of these housing challenges. We ended up working closely together during COVID when we both were thrown out of our depths of what we understood about how we were to serve the city and really had the good of the city at the center of all the work that we were doing together. I think that that partnership really strengthened through that as well. And having the confidence that the mayor had in that vision for why housing was so important gave a lot of confidence to the planning work that we were doing as well.

 

[00:32:33.590] - Miro Weinberger

Absolutely. That alludes to another structural change we made, which I think is an interesting one, and maybe other cities might want to think about, is I always wanted us to be a very data and evidence-based administration. And we created during my decade a stat, a statistics, basically a data collection and analytics small department of really two analysts. And previously, that team had been in another department. But coming out of the pandemic and after the departure of the person who had previously been chief innovation officer, we put that stat function in the planning department and it broadened the definition of planning to include that collection of data and analyzing it. And that had Megan and I working together in a new way. And I guess one just last point on this that I think really guided me through all of this, and I think is an important principle. I actually have a planning degree. I got an urban planning planning degree from the Kennedy School. And one of the main lessons from that degree was that planning in America is often a fairly futile effort that so many of the plans that have been crafted over time essentially end up just collecting dust on shelves.

 

[00:34:21.760] - Miro Weinberger

And from the start, I knew we didn't want to do that type of planning. We wanted planning that was tied to action. And again, that really That observation, that lesson that I had learned, really drove my sense that we've got it wrong here not tying planning to the politics. The planning department absolutely should report to and be part of the mayor's team, and that's a big part of why we've pursued that change.

 

[00:34:47.910] - Jason Jordan

Yeah, I love that integration of data and planning and action just is really powerful. Megan, please go ahead.

 

[00:34:56.160] - Meagan Tuttle

Oh, no, I was just going to tease the mayor. I almost mentioned his planning degree, but I thought I'd let him decide if he wanted to reveal that part.

 

[00:35:04.390] - Jason Jordan

Yeah, he was a ringer mayor with his planning, right? Yeah. So you guys made enormous change, enormous progress, really reset the landscape for housing in the city. When we've talked to other communities who've gone through similar journeys, one of the things that we hear is that it's a foundational change, but you still have to do work in order to get the projects that you have planned for. There's that modernization and the re-legalizing, as you put it, Megan. But then you actually want to see the developers come in and build the projects. What's the vision for that? What do you think? Are there other tools that are needed beyond the code reforms to actually get the housing production that you want and that you've envisioned?

 

[00:35:57.180] - Meagan Tuttle

Yeah, definitely. I'll start here by saying that we were starting to have these conversations back when we were doing ADU reform as well. We were really fortunate to have a good long-standing partnership with AARP and others who were able to bring a lot of technical resources to the conversation about our policy work, both in our ADU work and in the neighborhood code. And that connected us with a lot of folks who understood the interconnectedness of housing finance finance, construction finance, the trades. One of the things I remember was a bit of a detour, but a really important one when we were at the finish line of getting our ADU reform adopted was this deep dive into the fire code. And when and how sprinklers are required, and what can we do about the cost and complications of sprinkloring a 400-square-foot home. That's a nut that we weren't able to crack, and I think still needs a lot of work. I know it's an important component of some of the conversations that you've been having in the housing supply accelerator work, just the relationship about how do we make homes safe and enduring for people and for people's property, but how do we make sure that these codes don't become project killers, too, to the much needed housing that we're trying to create.

 

[00:37:20.230] - Meagan Tuttle

So I think that's something that certainly I have a vision that not only for Burlington, but for the state and for the country, that we can find some creative and important solutions in that regard. I think the other thing is the mayor has mentioned his experience coming into housing development at the scale that he was working in, but But for the neighborhood code and other work that we've done to be successful, we need folks who understand how to build four unit buildings and actually have the tools and resources to do that. One of the things that I'm really excited about was a great synergy with the work that we were doing in Burlington was work that was happening at the state level in Vermont. Both the Home Act and the B Home Act in '23 and '24 were important state-level policy changes. And also set the groundwork for the state's Department of Housing and Community Development to start doing some small developer trainings statewide and creating guides for homeowners or would be small developers to understand, how do you construct a duplex or a triplex in the Vermont landscape. So really building that capacity, I think, is an important part of how this will be successful.

 

[00:38:37.660] - Miro Weinberger

So I think your question is a really important one, Jason, because the zoning changes in and of themselves are important, but they are only one part of a really strong housing supply agenda that a city can pursue. First of Well, I'd say one important thing for people to know going in is you can make a real impact if you stick with this. So that political belief is critical to put some numbers on it in the decade In the decade before this administration, there had only been about 500 homes total built in the city during that time. In a little more than a decade, we either built or had in construction about 2000 homes. So we basically marked it as about a fourfold increase in the housing production rate. The zoning reforms were a significant part of that, and you could see the impact that that was having, especially in the later years. In the last couple of years, Meg and I were working together for the first time. We were actually seeing something that had never happened before, which is that projects were getting permitted and getting started in construction without without the mayor's office having to stick handle and get engaged in every element of that permitting and construction process.

 

[00:40:09.650] - Miro Weinberger

I remember it was one of the best days being mayor walking down the street and looking up and seeing a nearly completed 15-unit project that I had never heard of. I didn't even realize it existed. And to me, that was a sign that we had really moved this system so that projects could get... It really was assigned in the system with working the way it should, that we were clear about what project we wanted and we didn't want, and that you didn't need enormous political organizing effort to get any one project built. I do think we've had a lot of focus on the zoning change in this conversation, and that is right, because ultimately, creating that regulatory system is extremely important to creating new homes. That said, mayors, city councilors should always remember that cities have other authorities as well, and that all of these authorities should be brought to bear if you want to create more homes. And a big one is basically a city as a landowner and a developer of sorts itself. Of that, 2,000 homes that we got started or built during my time. I believe I never quite divided it this way, Megan, maybe we should, but I think more than half of those homes go directly to a couple of big projects where the city was a partner to private land owners in getting the projects forward.

 

[00:41:48.450] - Miro Weinberger

And we have these very substantial development agreements that guided those developments, ensured that a variety of public values, such as affordable housing and public spaces, And sustainable construction, we're part of those projects. That role of city as landowner and partner is a really powerful tool. I would add to that, city as Housing Funder is another really critical role that Burlington has long had a role in. And we use that tool as well, and we expanded that tool. We have, for more than 20 have had a housing trust fund. We quadrupled the size of the housing trust fund by both increasing the property tax levy, if you will, that goes into that on an annual basis. But also, interestingly, I thought we put a very large tax on short term rentals, and that has become probably the largest now funding source on an annual basis of revenue into the housing trust fund. And so there, too, we went from, I think we used to have about 200,000, a little more than $200,000 a year of revenues going to the Housing Trust Fund to for the last couple of years, we had well over a million dollars going in on an annual basis.

 

[00:43:11.330] - Miro Weinberger

So I think more of that needs to be done. There are other creative tools that we never quite were able to get to in terms of what's next and where this discussion goes from here. I think there was more that we could have done with property tax reform and how that could become a tool to help meet our inclusion goals. We have a big inclusionary zoning ordinance in Burlington, but at times that becomes a tool that becomes a double-edged sword, and it also can be a problem, a project killer, and make it difficult for projects to get built. I think some property tax reform could be a major part of what could happen next that would help in Burlington, and I think elsewhere. And then finally, I'll just say, I think especially with these neighborhood reforms, what is needed for them to actually be impactful goes beyond what the city is doing directly in that it is pretty clear that these reforms are only impactful if there are new industries that are created. Like Megan said, you need to have developers that it is part of their business plan to build four unit buildings. I think the city has a role there, as we've seen in California, California, where real, especially at the statewide level, reforms that standardize such an industry to make it predictable.

 

[00:44:39.940] - Miro Weinberger

I think that's gone a long way towards the creation of new ADUs in California, and now you're starting to see that with standardization of backyard development as well. I think it's really interesting to think as a city policy person, what can you be doing at the city or the state level that encourages the creation of such an industry? Because without it, we are not going to get the housing production that we need from individual property owners deciding to become developers and do this themselves. It's just going to take forever to get the change that's needed that way.

 

[00:45:09.940] - Jason Jordan

Yeah, it really is a system. It takes a systemic approach to solve the problem. You both mentioned the state. So let me ask about that. There were clearly reforms and debates happening at the state level while you were doing your work at the local level. Talk to me a little bit about what that was like and also what you see as the right the balance there, the role of the state and the role of localities in solving this problem.

 

[00:45:35.870] - Meagan Tuttle

So, yeah, this is another area where the mayor and I worked pretty closely, particularly in the last few years, about how the work that we're doing in Burlington relates to state-level policy. I think we've seen that the work that we were doing in Burlington was really complemented by what was happening at the state level. I think one of the important elements elements was that while the work that we were doing in Burlington was not necessarily prompted by any of the state-level changes, I mentioned the home and be home bills in the last couple of years, it definitely helped take some elements of pushback out of the conversation at the local level. When we understood that all communities statewide were going to be having the same conversations about duplexes being legal all across Vermont, four-unit buildings more permissible all across Vermont. It definitely brought us to be able to focus on the issues of how do we want to do this here in Burlington, not are we going to do this? Should we do this? It was about how are we going to do this? So I think that was an important complement to the work that we were doing just in the context of that housing policy.

 

[00:46:56.080] - Meagan Tuttle

There were other conversations happening about land use policies statewide, similar to the work that we had done in Burlington around making the development review process more predictable. This has been something that the mayor and I both have cared a lot about over the last decade. We had a similar structure in the state where you could, in some places, have a nearly duplicative process between the local and state-level permitting for new housing. And realizing that that was just a Maybe, let me start over. Realizing that that added complication, time, cost, and other complications that were not necessary or in some cases were really detrimental in a housing crisis like what Vermont is experiencing right now. That is a difficult conversation to move at the statewide level. But after almost 50 years, there were changes, modest changes that were made to how that law functions in Vermont now. So all these things were working being hand in hand to make sure that it wasn't just one community that was making these tough choices about its future, but really the whole state thinking about how it contributes to that.

 

[00:48:11.950] - Miro Weinberger

So what I would add, I guess, is this. I'm glad you asked the question. I think it's really interesting the way in which it has become clear in just the last few years that states have a big role in housing policy. And And I guess I would just start by saying, I think sometimes what I hear is the politics are too hard to get a pro-housing work done at the local level. So state level reforms is where we need to go. I hope when people hear about the Burlington story, that that belies that belief. I mean, the development politics were as tough in Burlington 12 years ago as they were anywhere in the country. There was as much ambivalence and concern about pro-housing reforms here. And yet with sustained effort, we were able to really move the needle. You can do pro-housing reforms with local effort. It doesn't require the state to mandate it for you to move in the right direction. That said, the state has a huge role in housing policy. And I say that in part, obviously, the state has a land use role, and states that are acting on that are making a difference.

 

[00:49:37.310] - Miro Weinberger

The state sets the whole judicial regulatory framework as well. And there's a real limit to what we could do to address that at the city level alone. You need the state to be acting to address that. And it's been encouraging seeing them taking some steps in that direction. But the other thing, what What has become clearer and clearer to me over time is that there are so many areas of state action that have an impact on housing supply. Our health regulations, the way in which we regulate the contaminants in soils has become a major problem in Vermont because we don't have a science-based regulatory system. That has become a a project killer and a real barrier to the creation of housing in many cases. Our education finance system is a statewide finance system and has really drained resources from the municipal level, from the ability to invest in infrastructure that's necessary for new housing. So the point isn't to get into the details of the particulars in Vermont, but I think the broader point is just so much of state policy has an impact on housing supply. If you believe like I do, that most of our social issues in Burlington, in Vermont, and I think in the country, so many of those issues So many of those problems, more housing is part of the answer.

 

[00:51:18.870] - Miro Weinberger

Once you make that observation, you realize there's all sorts of work to do at the statewide level and the federal level, for that matter, to really move us in to address the enormous shortfall of housing that we currently have in this country, millions of units by some estimates. It's going to require work at all levels of government to really turn this around.

 

[00:51:39.800] - Jason Jordan

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, I couldn't agree more. I really think housing abundance is the social policy hack for many, many things that we're working on. Let me wrap up this great conversation. We focused a lot over the last few minutes around what you've accomplished in the last decade in Burlington and the foundation that you've built. I'd just like to close by asking you both to look ahead. What's next? What's ahead for Burlington, specifically? But also any thoughts you have about where this movement may be headed for other communities who are working on similar problems? Where are we headed, guys?

 

[00:52:16.360] - Meagan Tuttle

Well, I'll say we're headed for more important conversations. I definitely feel like we've talked about the many things that we've been successful in helping advance in Burlington, and there are many more issues for us for Burlington, for all communities to tackle as well. From a planning perspective and a zoning perspective, I'll say there are a couple sticky intersections of the housing supply conversation with other issues like affordability, historic preservation, the climate emergency that are certainly on the immediate horizon for Burlington. These are issues that we've long long been trying to grapple with, but now that we have made some significant progress on housing supply oriented policies will require us to dig in and work through some of those challenges and make sure we're striking the right balance on those issues as well. What do you think, Mayor?

 

[00:53:21.810] - Miro Weinberger

Well, on the one hand, I think you're exactly right. If you look at Burlington, specifically, I think some of the upcoming debates debates really do get the issues that are even stickier and challenge more of our values than some of the reforms that we took on. I guess at the same time, my overwhelming sense is one of optimism and potential about where we're headed as a city, a state, and as a country. It is just remarkable to me how this debate has moved in just a short number of years. I used to really feel like there was something maybe... I doubted it. I questioned it myself that I was so focused on housing and that I had come My whole experience as a developer was that housing was just incredibly difficult to build. Sometimes I wondered, was it just because I wasn't a very good developer? Maybe part of it was that. But it has been remarkable to see how this debate has become part of the mainstream and the movement that there has been with it. Just maybe to share a Burlington story to finish here that to me was a sign of just how much things had changed.

 

[00:54:45.450] - Miro Weinberger

Early on in my administration, we started to just discuss conceptually the possibility of legalizing housing in this big swath of the city where where literally housing had been prohibited for the better part of 30 years. In the name of economic development and job creation, there had been a big chunk of the city that had been called an enterprise zone and where housing was strictly prohibited. And there were some very modest successes from that in the early years of this policy. But over time, it had become clearer and clearer that this policy was failing. About a big chunk of this zone had become a surface parking lot because there was nothing that was economically viable that could be used with this land. And this, you got to understand, is Right next to several of the most desirable neighborhoods in the entire city, we had just this rock going on, these big parking lots getting bigger and bigger in some cases. When we first started talking about this, a grassroots movement rose up and stopped those discussions. And And it was a combination of artists and business folks, even that came together and just said, This is not something we even want to talk about.

 

[00:56:24.500] - Miro Weinberger

Well, that happened, I think, what was that? Just in 2017, just about less a decade ago. In 2023, we came back much more skillfully in a much more targeted and focused and measurable way, saying we wanted to take a chunk of this zone that really had most of those parking lots in it and where this policy clearly was failing. And it, again, was right next to these very desirable neighborhoods and legalize housing at scale in that area. We had a big debate for about a year about this zoning reform. The the pop group that I mentioned came out with the rest of the coalition in force. And when we finally got to the final vote, there were only seven folks that came out in the final public hearing, and six of them voiced support for this change. And the only critical comment was from someone who was just fed up and couldn't believe it had taken us so long to get this to this point. And then there was a unanimous vote to make the change. It was just an enormous shift in public attitudes on this policy. And it makes me very hopeful that that public shift is taking place across the country and that the decade or two ahead are going to be a time of where we really do create that housing abundance that you talked about, Jason.

 

[00:57:45.590] - Miro Weinberger

And we, in doing so, make enormous progress on a whole range of issues and become a better country and a better community.

 

[00:57:53.080] - Jason Jordan

Well, listening to the two of you talk and looking at the reforms and the leadership you've accomplished in Burlington, I think we all have cause for optimism. So thank you both for your time today and for your work in Burlington. And we appreciate your insights as well as your leadership.

 

[00:58:09.570] - Miro Weinberger

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for doing this.

 

[00:58:13.650] - Jason Jordan

Thanks for listening to another episode of the APA podcast. To hear previous episodes, visit us at planning.org/podcast. You can also subscribe to the APA podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Spotify, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.