Burlington is largely “built-out.” A combination of limiting geography, conservation efforts by local residents and a thriving job market has led to a persistent “housing affordability and availability crisis.” In response, Burlington adopted its inclusionary zoning program in 1990 as part of its broader housing strategy.
Burlington was the first locally initiated inclusionary zoning program to index its affordable housing set-aside to the price of the market-rate homes. Many believe this tiered approach, also utilized by Santa Fe, is the most effective for local governments. Another first for Burlington was the 99 year or permanent control period. Longer control periods are one of the national trends among newer locally initiated programs. The program allows any density bonus to be used for commercial purposes in mixed-use developments – a flexible incentive that is likely valuable to developers.
Program Overview
The program applies to all new market-rate developments of 5 or more homes and to any converted non-residential structures that result in at least 10 homes. The affordable housing set aside is 15 to 25% of the units, depending on the average price of the market-rate homes – with the higher percentage placed on the most expensive developments. The ordinance does not allow fee in-lieu payments or land donations, but will allow developers to provide the affordable housing off-site at 125% of the on-site obligation. The ordinance provides a range of incentives including fee waivers and a 15-25% density and lot coverage bonus. Affordable homes are targeted to households earning 75% or less area median income (AMI) and rented at 65% or less AMI. Developers can sale or rent the homes for more as long as the average of affordable homes sold or rented are at or below the target household income. Affordable homes are price controlled for 99 years.
Burlington partners with a nonprofit - the Champlain Housing Trust - in the administration of its program and is able to minimize in-house administrative staff time for the program (committing only 10% of one full time employee). However, more funds are needed to support the monitoring and enforcement of affordable homes.
Read Burlington's Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance, Article 9, Part 1.
Summary: Make the program mandatory, but offer real incentives/bonuses/waivers that mitigate the impact to developers. Having a nonprofit partner to steward the covenant and leverage other subsidies to get the target population into the home is key.