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Costs balloon for new recycling center
APRIL 11, 2024
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Project scaled back to rein in spending BY JASON STARR Observer staff The cost of Chittenden County’s new recycling center will be nearly $5 million more than what was estimated when voters approved a $22 million bond for the project in 2022. Chittenden Solid Waste District (CSWD) administrators are scaling back the scope of the project in an attempt to mitigate the cost overrun. CSWD Executive Director Sarah Reeves pointed to the increased cost of steel, concrete, asphalt and excavating compared to when the project was first budgeted in 2021 as the reason for the overrun. “We just happened to catch it at the peak of pricing,” Reeves said in a January meeting of the CSWD Board of Directors, referring to
An engineering rendering of the 68,000-square-foot recycling center planned to be constructed on Redmond Road in Williston. COURTESY OF WILLISTON PLANNING AND ZONING OFFICE
construction cost inflation, which she noted has since leveled off. The new recycling center is built to handle 150 times the amount of material that the current facility on Avenue C in Williston processes, CSWD Director of Compliance and Hazardous Waste Josh Estey said in a February hearing with the Williston Development Review Board. The new center is sited on a 36-acre parcel on Redmond Road, near CSWD’s Williston drop-off center and composting headquarters. It is being
built for a decades-long horizon of residential and commercial growth with flexibility to handle evolving product packaging, using an automated process that replaces the human sorters the current recycling center relies on. “This project is needed, not just for Chittenden County but for the state,” Reeves said. CSWD leadership has reduced the building size, changed the construction of the roof, narrowed the width of the access road and paused a planned community room to chip
away at the cost overrun. They are also continuing to search for government grants and loans to close the gap. But Reeves said the organization, which is funded primarily by the eighteen municipalities it serves, can cover the cost overrun with its own reserve funds. She also said doing so may lead to an increase in trash collection fees, which have remained flat for the past 12 years, to replenish reserves. “Anything that makes it more expensive to live in Chittenden County and run a business in Chit-
tenden County I know I’m personally not for,” said Williston’s representative on the CSWD board, Kelton Bogasky. “I don’t take that lightly, raising any fees that we charge.” The Development Review Board gave the project preliminary approval in February. A final hearing with the DRB is scheduled for April 23. In the February hearing, engineer Greg Dixson of Colchester-based Krebs & Lansing Consulting Engineers said the 68,000-square-foot facility would attract about 80 truck trips a day on Redmond Road between the operating hours of 6 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Architect AES Northeast of Plattsburgh, N.Y., has designed the building. The CSWD has issued a request for proposals from companies to bid on constructing the project. Bids are due by April 26. The district hopes to have a construction company chosen by the end of May.
Housing committee readies funds for distribution BY JASON STARR Observer staff
Williston’s Housing Trust Fund will soon have actionable money. The town’s Housing Committee is anticipating an influx of nearly $50,000 this year that will bring the fund’s balance to over $100,000. It’s enough to get committee members thinking about the most impactful ways to distribute the money to alleviate the local affordable housing crunch. The Housing Trust Fund was
established in 2017, but it wasn’t until last year’s enactment of inclusionary zoning regulations that a funding source was established. The new regulations mandate that housing developers who don’t build a certain percentage of affordable homes in new housing developments instead pay into the fund. The developer of a 10-acre subdivision off Mountain View Road recently chose to pay into the fund instead of including affordable units in their planned 15home neighborhood. The $49,000 payment will add to the fund’s ex-
“Small amounts of money sometimes can really help people retain their housing until they get on their financial footing.” Debbie Ingram Williston Housing Committee
isting balance of $60,000, which was the selectboard’s original seed funding. The committee is charged with using the money to facilitate the creation or retention of homes affordable for people with incomes below 50 percent of the area’s median income, or at between 5080 percent of the median income. While $100,000 doesn’t go very far toward construction, it can be distributed in targeted grants that make an impact for individuals and families in certain situations, committee members believe.
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One-time grants to make rent or cover utility costs, for example, could help people retain housing and prevent a family or individual from falling into homelessness, committee member Debbie Ingram said during the committee’s April 3 meeting. “We would save so much money as a society if we would help some people stay in their housing, because it costs so much more once they are out on the street or couch-surfing or living in cars,” Ingram said. “Small amounts of see HOUSING page 4
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