FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 10, 2013
Contact: Mike Kanarick
802.735.7962
Mayor Miro Weinberger Announces Members of Public Investment Team
Will Evaluate Project Concepts for Waterfront Public Investment Action Plan
Burlington, VT – Mayor Miro Weinberger today announced the members of the Public Investment Team, who will evaluate and prioritize the public improvement project concepts that have been submitted in response to the Waterfront Public Investment Action Plan (PIAP) request for concepts. The team members have deep backgrounds and experience in finance, development, and urban planning.
Pursuant to a City Council Resolution adopted on January 28, 2013, the Mayor received input from and consulted with the City Council as part of the process of selecting the following individuals to serve on the Public Investment Team:
- Pablo S. Bose, assistant professor, UVM Department of Geography;
- Julie Campoli, urban designer and author;
- Winston W. “Chip” Hart, commercial real estate investor, consultant, and developer;
- Nancy Owens, affordable housing advocate and president of Housing Vermont; and
- William H. Truex, Jr., FAIA, architect and co-founder of the Church Street Marketplace, who will serve as the Chair of the Public Investment Team.
“We are fortunate to have such a skilled and committed group of citizens willing to serve Burlington and lead a public process that will help the City realize the vision of the waterfront and downtown that the community has called for in PlanBTV,” said Weinberger.
As a result of two state-approved tax increment financing (TIF) districts, the City has the opportunity to make tens of millions of dollars of waterfront and downtown public infrastructure investments in the coming years without impacting property tax rates. To leverage these funds and catalyze additional public infrastructure investment in Burlington, on January 7, 2013, Weinberger announced the creation of the Waterfront and Downtown PIAP, designed to create new jobs, increase housing opportunities for all, make Burlington more affordable, increase public access and enjoyment of the waterfront, and grow the property tax base and other municipal revenues without impacting municipal property tax rates.
On February 4, 2013, the Waterfront PIAP launched. Having been designed to encourage and make it easy for all Burlington citizens to participate, the PIAP has generated the registration of more than 70 concepts, which may be viewed on the Community and Economic Development Office (CEDO) website. The concept registration period closed on April 5, 2013. The Public Investment Team now will begin its work, evaluating the conceptual submissions with the goal of selecting a slate of these TIF investments that will be on the Town Meeting Day ballot in March 2014. Decades of planning have built public consensus for next steps on the waterfront. Only project concepts that support elements of those publicly-vetted plans will advance.
For more information about the Waterfront PIAP, please visit the PIAP Web page on the CEDO website. A similar process for downtown investments will follow the waterfront effort.
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