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The City's economic development strategies are based on three principles:
achieving economic vitality, preserving the environment and promoting social
equity within a sustainable city.
The City acknowledges that businesses need the following to grow and prosper:
- Predictability (regulatory system, costs, taxes, energy)
- Access to Capital
- Increase Demand
- Infrastructure (transportation, telecommunications)
- Reduce Costs
- Quality of Life (housing, environment)
- Skilled Workforce
The City's efforts almost always involve collaborations and partnerships. The
Downtown Partnership, the Southend Arts and Business Association, the
Burlington Business Association, the Lake Champlain Chamber and the Greater
Burlington Industrial Corporation (GBIC) participate often in a variety of efforts to continue Burlington's ecoity. The Community & Economipment Office often works closely
with the Church Street Marketplace, the Burlington Electric Department and the
Department of Public Works on supporting development projects.
Burlington has very limited industrial land available for development. Many
successful small companies move to suburban communities as they grow and seek
larger, more modern facilities that are unavailable in the City. As a result,
the City nurtures small companies (which often hire residents within walking
distance or that take the bus), and then loses the jobs and tax base when those
companies are successful.
To offset these losses, the City must continue to foster new small businesses
and to find ways to support the expansion and retention of existing ones.
Redeveloping old buildings into shared, low-cost incubator space; targeting of
vacant buildings for the expansion of existing small businesses; and financing
and technical assistance programs to meet a range of business needs are some of
the tools for this strategy.
Additionally, the reuse of existing industrial land and facilities provides a
greater level of opportunity than previously existed. New technologies are
providing greater numbers of jobs and higher wage levels. More urban site
planning (including a willingness to provide parking decks) and structural
business changes make more dense industrial development - more jobs per square
foot ? possible.
The South End Arts and Business District, centered on the Pine Street
corridor, is an example of how redeveloped industrial spaces gives young
businesses affordable room to start up and grow, provides opportunities to learn
from other tenants in the same "startup" stage of business life,
allows for the sharing of customers, suppliers, supplies and equipment with
other tenants, and provides a concentrated core of essential services to sustain
small businesses. The City will continue to support the development of this
district.
The City can also fight urban sprawl by developing buildings within the City
(infill) and by rehabilitating vacant upper stories of existing buildings for
both housing and commercial use. Much of this space is not functional because it
is not currently accessible nor in compliance with current building codes. There
are, however, tax incentives available to help meet accessibility requirements
and bring buildings into compliance with building codes.
The economies of the City of Burlington and the surrounding cities and towns
are highly interdependent. Burlington plays a key role as the hub of business
services for regional businesses, as a major contributor to the quality of life
in the region that helps to attract and keep companies in the area, and
increasingly as a center of new enterprise development in the region. The
surrounding towns have the space that Burlington lacks for the
attraction and expansion of manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, big box retail and firms
that provide critical employment opportunities for Burlington residents.
While the cultural, recreational, and entertainment amenities offered by the
City are a critical contributor to business formation and expansion, and thus
the growth of regional employment and tax revenues, the City does not fully
capture the benefits it generates. Its lack of industrial land means that the
tax revenues from facility expansions are often captured by surrounding
communities. At the same time, Burlington bears the budgetary burdens associated
with its high concentrations of low-income residents. This imbalance is
magnified by the high proportion of tax-exempt property within the City owned by
governmental, educational, religious, health care and other tax-exempt
organizations.
The close economic interdependency of the City of Burlington and surrounding
communities in the Burlington region - and the increasing focus on containing
and preventing sprawl ? requires the incorporation of a regional perspective
into local economic development efforts. The City will continue to work with
regional planners to designate Burlington as the primary growth center in the
region, working to contain sprawl by absorbing a higher percentage of regional
growth in Burlington than in surrounding communities. Current tax structure,
permitting processes and other regulations need to be examined and revised to
foster controlled, sustainable growth, equitable funding of services and local
funding of public enhancements.
The regional balance of job growth and housing development is in many ways
mismatched. Much of the suburban job growth in the last decade has been in
low-wage retail employment while affordable housing remains largely concentrated
in the urban core cities of Burlington and Winooski. (The notable exception has
been the development of several hundred units of affordable housing in South
Burlington.) Public transportation is inadequate to bridge that disparity -
there is no fixed route service to many job locations (particularly areas in
Williston and Colchester which are experiencing rapid employment growth), and
service is not available for second and third shift work. Workers without cars
are shut out of many employment opportunities, but cannot afford to live within
walking distance of those opportunities. Most of this job growth is in areas
where there is almost no housing within walking distance.
Regional cooperation on economic development has not historically been
strong. However, greater opportunities and incentives for regional cooperation
now exist because of Act 60 and its changes to the local property tax structure.
The state, which now receives a majority of the local property taxes raised by
municipalities, has more reason to be concerned with local activities affecting
the local tax base and to develop programs that support local economic development.
Municipalities, retaining less of their local property revenues, have less
reason to compete with each other to attract businesses and more incentive to
work cooperatively to share the benefits and burdens of economic development.
With the advent of NAFTA and the progressive elimination of trade barriers
between Canada and the U.S., the quality-of-life factors that make Burlington
such an attractive location for American entrepreneurs are also likely to be
appealing to Canadian entrepreneurs seeking a U.S. business location. The City
can continue to explore ways to promote the City to those entrepreneurs.
Page last updated May 13, 2003
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