By John Briggs
Free Press Staff Writer

September 4, 2007
After a long, hot summer devoted to the intricacies of the city's new zoning ordinance, the City Council is taking a breather.

City Council President Kurt Wright, R-Ward 4, said the council will be ''zoning free'' at its meeting tonight. ''I think it's safe to say we won't be voting on amendments,'' he said.

For most of the summer, Sept. 4 has loomed as a crucial day in the development of the new ordinance. In the weeks after a complete draft of the ordinance appeared June 20, councilors introduced 55 amendments, leading to widespread protests that the council was moving toward the adoption of the ordinance in late September without giving residents a chance to understand it -- let alone the many amendments.

In the last few weeks, business leaders have added their voices to the ''slow-down'' chorus.

Dan Smith, vice president and general counsel for the Greater Burlington Investment Corp., a nonprofit group with a mission of drawing jobs to the area, said his group has concerns with problems in the body of the new ordinance that weren't dealt with in the amendments, and he said he hoped the council would slow down and give all sides a chance to scrutinize the new regulations.

Nancy Wood, director of the Burlington Business Association, made a similar plea, as did Maurice Mahoney, speaking for a new citizens' group, Citizens for a Livable Burlington.

''When you hear it from all sides, you start to step back and say, 'What's the best direction to go?''' Wright said.

Melinda Moulton, the chief executive officer of Main Street Landing, a development company with projects centered on the city's waterfront, added her voice to the zoning debate in a 10-page letter to Mayor Bob Kiss, new planning director David White, the Planning Commission and the City Council. She argued against a number of positions taken by business leaders such as Ernie Pomerleau.

Pomerleau argued before the Aug. 20 council meeting that the ordinance was hostile to developers. The new zoning regulations, he said, should be market driven and recognize that current investment realities favor residential over commercial building downtown. The new ordinance has a provision opposed by Pomerleau and other developers requiring that new development downtown be at least 50 percent commercial.

Moulton, a proponent of sustainability and environmentally friendly building, said such views are short-sighted. The zoning ordinance, she wrote to city leaders, ''should guide patterns of development that endure and reach far beyond current market trends and individual greed and self-gratification.'' Building to the market, she said, would mean that all projects ''would be 100 percent residential. You always make 'bigger' and 'quicker' gains in high-end residential.''

Projects that are only residential, she said, lead to gated communities. ''Without commercial, a building has no public access,'' she said.

Moulton also opposed a zoning provision -- ''on-the-record-review'' -- that would limit the sorts of appeals that could be made to decisions of the city's Development Review Board. Residents affected by a project can appeal DRB decisions to the state's Environmental Court. ''We believe,'' she wrote of on-the-record-review, ''without a doubt, that this process disenfranchises public input.''

She also opposed bonuses that would give developers permission to build as high as 105 feet tall downtown in return for building green, or for including public art in a project, public access or other public amenities.

''We believe developers should build buildings responsibly,'' she wrote. ''Any bonus should be in the form of tax incentives. Developers should not be allowed to build 'bigger and higher' buildings just for doing 'the right thing.'''

Moulton agreed with Pomerleau, however, that the heated debate over the ordinance is a sign of a healthy city. ''It's valuable discourse,'' she said, adding that when the debate is over and the City Council has made its decision, she and others now on opposite sides of various issues will abide by the decision ''and live by it and go back to being good friends.''

Wright said his decision to delay the vote on amendments will allow more time for councilors to find compromises on contentious issues. A potential compromise on Amendment 38, which limited building on properties with wetlands or steep slopes, broke down after the council meeting Aug 20, he said, and the antagonists remain at odds.

''If we continue to plunge ahead,'' Wright said, ''what if we have an ordinance that doesn't pass? What sense would it make for us to forge ahead and press to a vote where we defeat it, after all the time we've spent on it? I think we really need to step back, take a breather, and try to figure this out.''

He said that in recent days it began to seem that the council could vote 7-7 on the ordinance, defeating it. His hope, he said, was that with a slowdown, compromises could be found that would lead to unanimous or nearly unanimous votes on amendments and general support for the ordinance.

Contact John Briggs at 660-1863 or jbriggs@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com.