Developers say Sabins Pasture site could support 220–500 senior housing units; ask council to raise small-multifamily trigger

Developers told the Montpelier City Council that land adjacent to Sabins Pasture could support hundreds of senior housing units and urged the city to change a zoning trigger that they said is slowing projects.

Alan Goldman and a partner, Doug, told council members they have designs for about 220 units targeted to seniors and said the site could be expanded to as many as 400–500 units under state programs they cited. “We could start housing today. We could start building at Sabins now,” Goldman said during the presentation.

The developers said they designed the project to Act 250 standards and that recent state legislation (referred to in the meeting as “Act 47” and “Act 181”) created faster paths for housing in some cases. The presenters said Montpelier’s local trigger that moves a project from permitted to conditional review — the point at which the development review board (DRB) must weigh in — is set low in parts of the city and is slowing development. “Our biggest obstacle is going to be number 4,” Goldman said, referring to a four-unit trigger discussed in the presentation.

Why it matters: Council members and planning staff said the question affects whether a developer must pursue a conditional-use review that draws additional public hearings and potentially adds months to a timeline. Planning Director Mike Miller told the council the current trigger for large multifamily in the riverfront district is 15 units: “We split this last year. We split multifamily into 2 groups. Small multifamily up to 14 and large multifamily 15 or more.” Miller said the DRB’s review is now largely limited to transportation impacts under state law, citing a 75-vehicle-per-day threshold as a traffic trigger.

Details and context: The developers said they had completed a traffic study based on 2019 data and delivered the consultant report in February 2022. Planning staff said the city has reviewed the study and seen no obvious transportation red flags; staff noted that conditional-use review typically can take 45–60 days if an application is complete, while subdivisions regularly extend timelines (staff estimated roughly six months for a subdivision). Meredith Crandall, the city’s planning and zoning administrator, said parts of the Sabins parcel are in a rural zoning overlay that still carries a different four-unit limit in some places, which contributed to confusion about the applicable trigger.

Several council members and residents pressed the presenters on affordability and target population. Goldman said the project would target seniors as one of HUD’s five priority housing types and argued that more senior units would free up larger single-family homes for younger families.

What’s next: Developers said they expect to bring more detailed plans back to the council in coming meetings. Planning staff said they are willing to work with the developers on zoning or adjustment requests and reminded the council that some changes to regulatory thresholds would require a public process.

Ending: Council members thanked the presenters and asked staff to continue working with them and to clarify the applicable triggers and procedures before any formal application was filed.