This story by Liberty Darr was first published in The Other Paper on Nov. 21

As the state’s second-largest city, South Burlington has for decades had plans for a downtown area ripe with commerce, community and connectivity and data now shows those plans are coming to fruition.

The idea for a thriving city center dates back 50 years ​​when South Burlington was officially incorporated as a city in 1971. Those plans for a vibrant downtown began taking shape nearly 10 years later as the term “City Center” would appear in three master plans that followed.

But it wasn’t long ago that the heart of City Center, the roughly 100 acres wedged between Dorset and Hinesburg roads most notable for housing the state’s only Target and Trader Joe’s, looked much different than it does today.

While the city hit a milestone in 2021 when it cut the ribbon on brand new municipal and other community buildings at 180 Market St., Ilona Blanchard, community development director and an employee of the city for over a decade, remembers that even paving that street was a major accomplishment for the city.

“If you were here 15 years ago, half of Market Street was paved and the other half was a dirt road,” she said, letting out a laugh. “When I came here, we had to borrow a grader from an adjoining community to grade it.”

But after what state and local officials recognize as a critical housing shortage, data shows that South Burlington has become one of the largest suppliers of new homes in the state.

A recent analysis put together by the Vermont Housing Financing Agency for the Department of Housing and Community Development, known as the “Vermont Housing Needs Assessment 2025-2029,” outlined staggering statistics for the state of just under 650,000 people.

In recent years, the report outlines that the supply of available homes has simply not kept pace with the increased demand to live in Vermont.

To accommodate projected growth in households living year-round in Vermont, replace homes that are lost from the housing stock due to disrepair, normalize vacancy rates and house the homeless, Vermont is likely to need an additional 24,000-36,000 total homes across the state over the next five years.

Without increased supply, Vermont’s home sale and rental markets will continue to grow even tighter than they currently are, the report says, with prices likely to continue to skyrocket and further intensify an affordability crisis throughout the state.

According to the report, Vermont’s homeowner vacancy rate — the number of homes on the market compared to the total number of actual households — is estimated at 1.2 percent, below the 2.0 percent rate considered indicative of a healthy housing market, with Chittenden County at a notably low vacancy rate of .5 percent, reflecting the high demand for homes in the region.

While the Legislature made monumental strides in housing legislation over the last two years — Act 47 and working to modernize Vermont’s 50-year-old land use law, Act 250 — meant to spur development and limit obstacles to building housing, a campaign, Building Homes Together, launched by Chittenden County Regional Planning, Champlain Housing Trust and non-profit developer Evernorth aims to build nearly 1,000 units of housing per year in the county over the next five-year period.

But in October, the group announced that Chittenden County had drastically failed to meet that goal with 720 units built in 2023.

Housing plans

Nearly 40 percent of those homes — 290 — were in South Burlington’s city limits. That trend, director of planning and zoning Paul Conner said, has been happening over the last 10 years and is something the city has specifically planned for and welcomed.

The boom can mostly be traced to 2012 when the city took steps to implement a financing model that city manager Jessie Baker said is one of the most powerful economic tools available to municipalities: tax increment financing or TIF. To most, the idea is mysteriously complex, but to city officials like Blanchard, that was the catalyst for much of the growth seen today.

The TIF district, a subset of the 300-acre City Center, was officially adopted by the city council in 2012 and allows the municipality to take out debt to build public infrastructure projects and pay off the debt using future tax revenue from new development.

​​The idea is that as the infrastructure is built and improved, it attracts private sector investment in new and renovated buildings and incrementally increases the value of the grand list, or the total value of all city property.

Since its inception, more than 500 homes have been built in the district; 187 are under construction, and 46 have been permitted and are awaiting construction. Of those, 139 are perpetually affordable. These numbers do not include the roughly 200 new homes built within City Center, but outside of the TIF district.

“When I think about the TIF district, I think about it as the kernel or the seed,” Blanchard said. “What we’re seeing right now is we have now established a downtown market in South Burlington, which we did not have before and the TIF district as an economic tool has established this form of the downtown. It’s the core of it. But that also means that it is blazing the way for other properties in the area to build on the success that is here.”

Baker noted that a large portion of these numbers comes from the University of Vermont and the University of Vermont Medical Center’s investment in housing but countered the common perception that since the institution’s faculty, staff and students have first-right of refusal to the housing, it’s not really adding positively to the housing stock.

“I think that’s a real misconception,” she said. “A lot of these folks are folks that will be otherwise living in our community, in other apartment buildings or condos or pricing out other folks who want to live here. It’s important to always note that adding capacity across the living spectrum is adding capacity. It’s not fighting between our neighbors on what capacity that is, whether it is affordable housing, student housing, designated housing, it is still adding new homes.”

Competing goals

But with that growth, both Baker and Conner noted that there is simultaneously an increased focus on things like environmental protection, climate resiliency and connectivity. All these are also areas of focus that the city’s planning department and commission focused on when crafting the new land use regulations that were just passed by the city council earlier this month. But the team also noted that the battle between the need for housing and protecting portions of Vermont’s landscape is not always easy to balance.

Like many neighboring communities, some residents in South Burlington have voiced opposition to development and lawsuits over environmental and aesthetic concerns have frequently ended up in court.

“Zoning is an incredibly strong tool to be strategic as a community,” Baker said. “I think South Burlington is really trying to thread that needle right now and actively participate in all the climate conservation efforts and the housing efforts, and I think that’s a hard conversation in our community, and that’s a hard conversation at the state level.”

While South Burlington is partly leading the way for housing goals in the county, the work to meet demand is not possible without collaboration with surrounding communities, Conner and Baker said, which reflects the way people inherently move through the county on a daily basis.

“They don’t live their daily lives within the bounds of one single municipality,” Conner said. “They use Chittenden County and beyond every day for their everyday needs. The community uses our core communities interchangeably every day, and so it’s therefore our responsibility collectively to make sure that the transportation, housing, the services, all that is provided to the way people live.”

The growth over the last 10 years is only set to continue as the city has plans for even more infrastructure projects — all approved by voters — to create a more walkable, thriving downtown and includes projects like the planned walking and biking bridge over I-89.

“It’s always really thrilling to go outside and to see people walking on Market Street and sitting at the bench in front of the library and city hall, seeing the seniors in the senior center,” Blanchard said. “Our downtown is about people, and it’s just so great to see people using it in the way that it was intended.”

Vermont soccer winning games in late November? Its players producing dazzling strikes? The unexpected has become the norm for the Catamounts at the NCAA Tournament.

From Yaniv Bazini’s half-volley for the opening tally to David Ismail’s majestic, heel-over-head volley to break a second-half tie, Vermont ousted seventh-seeded Hofstra for a 2-1 victory in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday.

The Catamounts (13-2-5) advance to the third round for the third straight season and will play at San Diego (15-2-2) on Sunday, Dec. 1. Game time is set for 8 p.m. eastern.

Vermont, though, had to weather Hofstra’s waves of pressure, chances and one disallowed goal over the last 10-plus minutes to survive Sunday’s match.

More: Vermont soccer crushes Iona to race into second round of the NCAA Tournament

Hofstra’s Roc Carles appeared to level the contest at 2 on a right-footed blast inside the box with 4 minutes, 7 seconds left in regulation. But after a brief delay, officials ruled that Jacob Woznicki was in an offside position and screened UVM goalie Niklas Herceg on Carles’ shot, negating the equalizer.

Prior to that sequence, Hofstra also rocked the left post and Vermont defenders and Herceg held firm on several dangerous crosses and corners.

Bazini gave Vermont a 1-0 lead in the seventh minute. From his own half, Mike Bleeker lifted a left-footed ball about 50 yards to Bazini, who positioned himself well against a Hofstra defender and redirected the pass toward the 18. On a half-volley, Bazini drove a low, right-footed shot past the diving Filippo Dadone (one save) and inside the right post for the seventh NCAA Tournament goal of his career.

Vermont took a 1-0 lead into the break. The Pride (14-5-2) evened the contest in the 50th minute. On a quick-moving counter, Teddy Baker raced down the left sideline, cut back to the middle and pushed a ground pass into the box. The pass took an awkward deflection of a Vermont defender, bouncing to Woznicki, who hammered a shot from close range into the back of the net.

Vermont’s response came swiftly, and with a finish that should rank as one of Vermont’s best goals in program history.

From the right side, Zach Barrett chipped into the box for a hard-charging Ismail, who reached back to flip the ball over his head with his right heel. Before the ball could bounce off the turf, Ismail swept his right foot through the ball from a tight angle to beat an outstretched Dadone.

Herceg finished with four saves for the Catamounts, who handed Hofstra its first home loss in 22 games.

Over the last three seasons, Vermont has seven NCAA Tournament victories; it had four in its program history prior to that. The Catamounts reached the quarterfinals in 2022, one win shy of advancing to the College Cup semifinals. Last fall, they lost to West Virginia in the Round of 16.

Contact Alex Abrami at aabrami@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter: @aabrami5.

SHAFTSBURY — The waning gibbous moon over Southern Vermont might seem especially large and vivid this week, and clearly visible in the daytime sky. This is due to the last celestial hurrah of 2024 — the last in a series of consecutive supermoons.

Hugh Crowl, who teaches astronomy at Bennington College, explained.

“The moon has been slightly larger and brighter this time of the month because it is slightly closer to us. This is a relatively small effect. At its closest, the moon’s angular size is something like 13 to 14% larger than it is at its furthest/smallest — so, about 7% larger than the moon’s ‘average’ angular size,” said Crowl. “This, in turn, makes the whole moon a bit brighter — something like 27 to 30% brighter at its brightest/closest than it is at its faintest/furthest. Note that the Moon’s distance changes throughout its orbit and, when it’s at its closest when it is also full — as was close to true this month — the effect of the larger moon is particularly notable.”

In general, our visibility of the moon changes throughout the month, with the moon appearing illuminated in phases.

According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), there are eight phases of the lunar calendar, and each one illustrates a phase of illumination.

The eight phases are the new moon, the waxing crescent, the first quarter, the waxing gibbous, the full moon, the waning gibbous, the third quarter and the waning crescent — and, the cycle of new moon to new moon repeats every 29.5 days (this is different from the 27.3 days it takes for the moon to complete one orbit around the earth).

Additionally, the perceived size of the moon changes.

First of all, the moon’s orbit is not circular; it is elliptical. If the moon in its “earth orbit” is physically closer to the earth, it will appear larger. At its closest point, the moon is in “perigee” and is roughly 223,693 miles from earth If the moon in its “earth orbit” is further from the earth, it will appear smaller. At its furthest point, the moon is in “apogee” and is roughly 251,966 miles from earth.

Secondly, the size of the rising or setting moon (the moon near the horizon) often appears larger than a risen moon (the moon when it is high in the sky). This is due to an optical illusion, and the difference is known as the “moon illusion.” Our brains perceive the moon as larger, but measurements from photographs show that it is the same size near the horizon as it is when it is high in the sky.

“There is something of an optical illusion when the moon is close to the horizon,” confirmed Crowl. “For reasons that are not totally understood, our brain interprets the moon closer to the horizon as bigger than when we see it high in the sky. To be clear, the angular size of the moon doesn’t change, but it sure does look big when we see it rising over the Green Mountains.”

As for the brilliantly visible moon during the daylight hours, Crowl added, “The moon is always up for approximately half of any 24-hour period. There are times when the moon is up from sunset to sunrise (when the moon is full), times when the moon is up between noon and midnight (when the moon is first quarter), and many other times in between. We often don’t notice the moon when the sun is up because of how bright the sun is, but if you’re particularly observant, you may see it at lots of different times of the day throughout the year.”

The phenomena of the supermoon can be explained by NASA.

“When the moon is at its closest point to earth during a full moon phase, that’s a ‘supermoon.’ Supermoons only happen three to four times a year, and always appear consecutively. Throughout most of Earth’s orbit around the sun, perigee and the full moon do not overlap.”

Coming on the heels of the sturgeon supermoon in August, the harvest supermoon in September, the hunter’s supermoon in October, and the beaver supermoon on Nov. 15, the waning gibbous moon that we can now observe over Southern Vermont is roughly 14,000 miles closer to our planet than normal, which in turn makes it appear to be about 14% larger and 30% brighter than usual.

The waning gibbous phase lasts for only about seven days before passing to the third quarter phase. The percentage of illumination will continue to diminish with each day. On Wednesday, Nov. 20, illumination was estimated to be at 73%. Thursday’s waning gibbous illumination will be at 63%, and Friday’s waning gibbous illumination will be at 54%. On Saturday, we will welcome the third quarter moon.

In astronomy, this waning gibbous moon phase represents the passing of the streak of the four consecutive supermoons of 2024.

In astrology, this waning gibbous moon phase is said to represent a time of reflection, gratitude, sharing and letting go — a perfect reminder for us as we move into the week of Thanksgiving, the holiday season and the end of 2024.

We will not see a supermoon again until October of 2025.