Drug haul
Split decision
Police raid nets methamphetamines
Girls basketball wins one, loses one
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South Burlington’s Community Newspaper Since 1977
the JANUARY 27, 2022
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VOLUME 46, NO. 4
Neighborhood footprints
Fitting tribute
Chamberlin continues to shrink, new zoning changes create uncertainty AVALON STYLES-ASHLEY STAFF WRITER
COURTESY PHOTO
South Burlington High School honored the late South Burlington resident Lenny Roberge on the sign outside the school, although his daughter Lucille Nadeau noted her father died Christmas Day, 2021. See Roberge’s obituary on page 9.
Amendment to land regs eases threat of UVM suit AVALON STYLES-ASHLEY STAFF WRITER
At least one disgruntled neighbor in South Burlington that has threatened lawsuits over the city’s new development regulations is resting easier. A brief amendment, approved by city councilors last week after an executive session with legal counsel, calls out the University of Vermont as one of a few exceptions per state statute to
encroaching aspects of the city’s proposed regulations. Nothing has really changed, however. The amendment doesn’t add anything new; it restates a state statute that exempts entities like state- or community-owned and operated facilities, public and private schools, churches, hospitals, regional solid waste management facilities and hazardous waste management facilities from certain
municipal bylaws. “This addition provides the belt and suspenders and second pair of suspenders assurance requested by UVM that these amendments, and all development review of UVM or other public entity projects brought under these amendments, are subject to these statutory limitations,” assistant city manager Andrew Bolduc explained. But the See AMENDMENT on page 2
Sometimes Sheila Quenneville wanders along the street where her sister’s and brother’s houses used to be before the roofs, walls and foundations were torn down. She remembers walking over from home, only a block away, when her kids were young so they could frolic with the motley of cousins and neighbors, playing basketball and running between houses. Dumont Street in South Burlington’s Chamberlin neighborhood looks emptier now: most of the houses are gone, having been swallowed by the Burlington International Airport’s home-acquisition program in the mid-2000s, and no footprints remain. “Sometimes I just walk along that street and I feel like I have these flashes, almost like I can see that world still,” Quenneville said. Soon, yellow excavators and traffic cones became fixtures of Dumont Street and others closest to the airport as homeowners signed up for the program, sold their houses and packed their lives into boxes. “That’s one of the activities I would do with my kids,” Quenneville recalled. “Like, ‘Let’s go for a walk. We’ll watch them tear down with the excavators.’ Then it got to the point where we could just look out the window and watch it.” Her sister’s family ended up buying a house a few streets away and her brother moved to Essex, but the community changed, fractured, as over 120 houses disap-
peared and neighbors moved away. The Chamberlin neighborhood, a vibrant family-oriented community, as Quenneville described it, and one of the few affordable places in South Burlington, might be facing more change as the airport seeks to rezone 10 acres east of Airport Parkway from residential to aviation-use. A volunteer task force, composed of three Chamberlin residents, two planning commissioners and one city councilor, began reviewing the request in December to make a recommendation for the South Burlington Planning Commission by April. Whether the change helps or hurts the community, or falls somewhere in the middle, is yet to be seen. The future plans for those 10 acres, should the land be rezoned, aren’t set in stone either, although the airport does not intend “to expand into any neighborhood” but to use the empty land “to promote business and support facilities for the airport,” according to acting aviation director Nic Longo in a Dec. 14 letter to city officials. A new maintenance building is planned. Other development could help reduce noise in the area, he added — a major benefit to Chamberlin residents, who bear the brunt of noise from F-35s. Plus, more commercial buildings would boost South Burlington’s grand list, providing jobs and a bigger tax base. Still, others have argued against See AIRPORT on page 10