Airport Road Housing Moves Forward Through Collaborative Agreement
Manchester has reached a significant milestone in advancing workforce and market-rate housing through a memorandum of understanding with Integrated Manchester Housing Initiative LLC for the development of town-owned land on Airport Road. The agreement reflects a collaborative approach that brings together elements from multiple earlier proposals while remaining aligned with the original goals of the town’s housing RFP. Initial phases of development are expected to focus on a small number of workforce housing units, using existing municipal water and wastewater infrastructure, while broader planning and feasibility work continues. The framework also balances housing development with environmental protection by conserving flood-prone land on Richville Road for recreation and agricultural use. This approach underscores a commitment to thoughtful, long-term housing solutions that serve working families while protecting community assets.
“This agreement, this memorandum of understanding pulls together most of those parts for us and really sets us up for a collaborative approach for this property.”
Reposted from Manchester Journal
MANCHESTER — Two housing development proposals which had seemed stalled in recent weeks have found a resolution in an agreement forged between the town and a developer.
At a special meeting of the town’s select board held on Friday, Nov. 21, a memorandum of understanding was announced between Integrated Manchester Housing Initiative LLC and the town government on developing town owned property off of Airport Road “to construct multiple residential units of various styles, types and sizes, including both single family homes and multi-unit structures.”
Integrated Manchester Housing Initiative was one of three developers who responded to a town issued Request For Proposals, or RFP, released earlier this year, about how to convert the roughly 60 acre parcel of property off Airport Road between Richville Road and the Route 7 highway into housing to meet the demand for more workforce and market rate homes. However, the town’s Housing Task Force, which had been reviewing the proposals submitted, found issues with all of the original ideas put forward by the would-be developers, and had declined to endorse any of the responses to the RFP for the select board to approve.
The task force had felt they couldn't make a recommendation that was outside the original parameters of the RFP, said Jonathan West, the chair of the town’s housing task force. There were positives in each proposal, but individually, they didn’t get the town to the desired goal, he added.
“This agreement, this memorandum of understanding pulls together most of those parts for us and really sets us up for a collaborative approach for this property,” he said.
The resolution of the issue of how best to move forward with housing at Airport Road was hailed by the town’s leadership on Friday.
“This is a huge step by the town of Manchester to address what is a continuing need based on the hard work of a lot of individuals, and the details for this will be ironed out over the next couple of months in order to execute an actual agreement,” said Select Board Chairman Ivan Beattie when announcing the memorandum of understanding (MOU) following an executive session during the board’s meeting on Friday. “This is a memorandum of understanding that's acceptable to both sides to move this forward,” thanking Town Manager Scott Murphy, Town Assessor Gordon Black and the members of the town’s housing task force for their work on it.
“We landed in a place where I think everyone's going to benefit,” Beattie added.
The MOU on Airport Road was one of two that were announced on Friday. The other involved a project proposed for an 8-acre site on Richville Road, a short distance from the Airport Road parcel, by Blackacre LLC, another development group. That proposal had called for a 43-unit housing project, nine units of which would have been workforce housing. However, that idea had run into intense opposition from residents in an adjacent neighborhood on the other side of Richville Road, as well as from other residents of the town, who felt its location in a floodplain, as well as in an area that had experienced flooding in recent years, made it a poor location for a housing development.
Under the MOU announced Friday, Blackacre has withdrawn its proposal for the housing project off of Richville Road, and that property will be donated to the town, which will conserve the property “for recreation and agricultural use in perpetuity,” according to the second MOU, one struck between the town and Blackacre LLC.
Paul W. Carroccio of Blackacre is also one of the principals in Integrated Manchester Housing Initiative, who said the town saw an opportunity to advance construction on workforce housing by working with him and his partners on the Airport Road site, and bundling a donation of the eight acres on Richville Road into that.
“The biggest difference is that the commitment (of the town) to really going forward with workforce housing immediately, even with the small count of units that we think we can get up right away, while we work on a master plan for the site,” Carroccio said in a phone interview Friday afternoon. “It was stewing around a bit, but I think the real thing is that the town was getting frustrated on the need for workforce housing and having viable developers proposing to do it and no real viable plan.”
Carroccio said that the number of workforce housing units likely to be constructed at the outset of building homes on the Airport Road site might be between four and eight, as mentioned in the MOU on Airport Road. These would be constructed in one or two buildings, utilizing existing wastewater and water services at the Airport Road Industrial Park, according to the MOU.
Under the terms of the agreement set forth in the MOU regarding Airport Road, Integrated Manchester Housing will pay the town $1 million to help pay for the extension of water and sewer lines along Richville Road onto the housing site, in addition to the conveyance of the eight acres previously eyed for the Blackacre housing project. Five percent of the sale price of each home sold by the developer on Airport Road will also be paid to the town. Construction is estimated to start in the spring of 2027, following planning and feasibility studies, environmental reviews and zoning approvals over the course of 2026.
The MOU is not the final step, with a closing legal agreement still required. Whether the transaction between the town takes the form of a actual sale, or a lease transfer, is one yet to be determined, said Heidi Chamberlain, a select board member.
“There could be grant monies available to a municipal owner that aren't available to a private developer,” she said after the select board meeting on Friday. “So we need to really kind of work out where’s the best bang for the buck. We recognize that this has to pencil out for the developer and that it has to make sense for him. But he also is on the same page with us, that we need there to be a variety of units available to different socio-economic people. That's important to us and that's important to him.”
“The developer is open to either purchase a transfer of the property or having a 99-year lease with the town retaining ownership,” added Ivan Beattie, the board chair. “This is a memorandum of understanding from which an actual agreement will be hammered out. But this outlines the basic structure and we hope to hammer it out in the next 90 days.”
An advisory board consisting of the developer and at least two town employees will be formed, to oversee restrictive covenants on the property. Prior to reaching a closing agreement with the town, the developer will provide the advisory board with an outline of its overall development proposal. The board will be allowed access to the construction sites and provide progress reports to the town on a quarterly basis, according to the MOU.
Meanwhile, under the second MOU announced Friday, the one involving the Blackacre project on Richville Road, the town will take over possession of that parcel “as is.” The town plans to protect this property from development, and conserve it for potential recreation and agricultural use, according to this MOU.
“The Blackacre piece was fairly significant,” said Heidi Chamberlain. “That was kind of, I think, the big catalyst for entering into this because we feel it's important to have that flooding area and aquifer protection zone be protected.”
The outcome of the two MOU’s, which have the effect of taking the housing project for the 8-acre Richville Road site off the table, was greeted positively by residents who had opposed the project from its inception.
The conveyance of the Richville road property to the town “was a great start,” said Dom Penge, one of the residents of the Green Mountain Estates, a neighborhood that faces the Richville Road site previously contemplated for the housing development by Blackacre.
“Hopefully this project going forward will work out for everybody, including, you know, Paul's company because I understand he’s … got to be able to make some money for his investors,” Penge said. “They’ve got to work out a system so that makes it worthwhile for both the investment and for housing for the town.”
Michael Nawrath, another Manchester resident, called it a “win-win-win” for the town, the developer and the Richville Road neighbors.
“It deals with more than one problem at the same time,” he said. “It's kind of an example of when you get in these zoning fights or Act 250 fights or whatever, no one is able in that context to look at the overall picture. This was a case where it could only happen by tying those two projects together. The best part about it is that it's not just a housing problem, it’s dealing with a flooding problem at the same time.”
Other pieces of the MOU include the sale of about seven acres of the Airport Road site to The Creative Process Runway LLC, which had acquired the runway of the former airfield in February, 2024, when the final agreement between Integrated Manchester housing Initiative and the town is finalized. The eventual transaction may also impact the operations of the Land Rover Experience Driving Center at the Equinox Resort, which uses part of the parcel for its customers to drive Land Rover vehicles.
“This use may continue, with the Town receiving all use fees, until such time as the Developer finds that such use is unreasonably interfering with the due diligence studies and work being conducted by Developer,” the MOU states, referring to the Land Rover Center.
Reaching the twin MOU’s was an important step forward, but it does not signal the end of the work for the town’s housing task force, said Jonathan West, the chair of the housing task force.
“We’re not stopping,” he said, referring to the work of the task force. “We contributed to something that's potentially going to change the face of housing in Manchester for at least a generation. And obviously I would have loved to seen this two years ago, but all the pieces had to fall into place.”
https://www.manchesterjournal.com/local-news/deal-struck-on-airport-road-housing-project/article_fa0017c7-591e-4812-a82d-6a67e745c3c1.html
As always, I can be reached directly at (802) 768-7900 or at west.j@manchester-vt.gov
