Tag Archives: South End

So much for artists’ affordable housing

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When Burlington’s mayor announced that he would not support housing in the South End’s Enterprise Zone, he won cheers from artists who feared gentrification. While the mayor’s isn’t necessarily the last word in “Plan BTV South End,” the product of extensive public input (or so the city proudly insists), it does stack the odds against any kind of housing in the zone.

Too bad. One of the more intriguing prospects raised in the draft plan was to create work/live spaces – aka, affordable housing – for artists. Could that be done deftly in some of those South End warehouses without gussying up the surrounding neighborhood and driving up rents for everyone else? Maybe, maybe not, but it seems a shame not to consider this. A blanket ban on housing seems to foreclose the possibility.

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Well, it’s a possibility that’s being embraced elsewhere, all around the country – in little towns and big cities, both. “Colorado’s affordable artist housing efforts catching on quickly,” read a headline in Saturday’s Denver Post. Artspace, out of Minneapolis, has been developing work/live artists’ lofts for more than 20 years – but apparently none yet in New England.

If Burlington’s artists aren’t interested, perhaps their counterparts in other warehouse-rich Vermont towns might be. Bellows Falls, Springfield, Rutland, Brattleboro, among many others? Here’s the view in Colorado, according to the Post article:

“The hope is that some rural projects will have the added advantage of preserving historic structures in need of attention. That makes Trinidad, with its excess of significant, and underused, buildings, a good candidate for the pilot program…”

Check out what’s been done in Fergus Falls, Minn. (pop. 13,300)…

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or  Hastings, Minn. (22,400).

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If you’re looking for an example of a dreary warehouse transformed, look at Council Bluffs, Iowa …

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or even Memphis – which is fashioning an arts district around its project.

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Now, it may be that some of projects, the affordable housing notwithstanding, have contributed to surrounding gentrification. But if so, did it have to be that way? Municipal planners take note.

 

 

Whither, or whether, the South End

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We’d be remiss if we didn’t take note of the Plan BTV South End draft, a colorful 100-page compendium that invites comments through Oct. 1. The draft of course addresses the need for new housing, a controversial subject in the good old South End.

The report’s cover is a nice touch – nothing phony or public-relationsy about it. it’s a workaday portrait with its sandy footpath and telephone poles, warehousey landscape.

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That’s all apt, because the South End is nothing if not “funky.” That’s the recurrent adjective assigned to the neighborhood in this document. Just for kicks, we looked up “funky” in the online Urban Dictionary:

  1. Different but cool/nice.
  2. A bad smell.

Plan BTV’s” funky” is presumably of the first definition – akin to the quality Vermonters like to ascribe to their state generally. But no doubt there are irate Burlingtonians who impute the second definition to this draft report and its qualified appeal for housing in the enterprise zone.

Burlington certainly needs plenty more affordable housing, so why shouldn’t a good share of it be located in the mixed-income South End, given that’s a major employment center (6,300 jobs, according to the report)? The big fears seem to be that more housing will drive up land prices beyond the wherewithal of artists and artisans, and that the housing itself will gentrify the neighborhood.

The report calls for new housing outside the enterprise zone, where housing is already permitted, with affordability stipulations.

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New housing inside the zone could take the form of artists being allowed to live in their studios (“work-live units”), with affordability stipulations; or affordable housing units designated specifically for certified artists (an interesting idea, but we’re wondering if there’s precedent for targeting affordable housing to a particular segment of the lower-income population). Either way, artists would have to jump through some not-very-funky hoops to qualify.