Having reached a legal agreement with an abutter regarding infrastructure, Sugarbush was able to complete its review and local permitting process for the Sugar Cube project, one of two employee workforce housing projects.
At a Warren Development Review Board (DRB) hearing on April 17, Sugarbush representatives told the DRB that an agreement had been reached with Roberta Principe, the abutter, regarding water, wastewater, and screening.
The Sugar Cube project is to be constructed at the corner of Golf Course and Sugarbush Access Road on three small pre-existing, non-conforming lots. Principe owns a fourth lot in the late 1960s subdivision. Currently all four lots share a well and wastewater. The agreement calls for Sugarbush to drill a well for its three lots and deed the existing well to Principe.
It also calls for Sugarbush to install a new wastewater tank, which all four lots will use. That tank will discharge to the tank shared with the adjoining Sugar Lodge. Finally, the agreement calls for Sugarbush to install a fence for privacy on Principe’s lot and bury the power onsite, or bring it in from the Sugar Lodge.
The Sugar Cube project consists of redeveloping a total of 12 previously permitted bedrooms in a single-story, four-bedroom house and a three-story duplex with each portion featuring four bedrooms. With local approval, the resort will now complete its state permitting with an eye to beginning construction next year.
Sugarbush’s other workforce housing project is proposed for further up the Sugarbush Access Road on the north side of the road where Rosita’s Restaurant had been located. That parcel is located between the back of the Sugarbush Health and Recreation Center and the Sugartree Inn.
The resort is proposing to tear down the existing Rosita’s building to construct a four-story building with 18 studio apartments and 192 single rooms for resort employees. Those numbers are up from 16 studio apartments and 186 single rooms when the proposal first debuted.
This project underwent preliminary plan review before the DRB this week. It involves 13.59 acres made up of SHARC, Rosita’s and Sugartree land. The resort is seeking to create a mixed residential building with multi-family dwellings and boarding house uses and a change of use designation for the Sugartree Inn from a single-family home and inn to a single-family home and boarding house.
The bulk of this housing will be for seasonal workers, including J1, H3 and H2B international student employees and will be used from November through April.
Sugarbush director of planning Margo Wade walked the DRB through the resort’s reasoning on how the number of studio apartment and single rooms was calculated and explained that each floor of the Rosita’s building will feature two wings of 24 single rooms and four shared, 10-fixture bathrooms. Each bathroom would contain two full bathrooms with shower, two shared sinks, one private toilet and one private shower. The residential wings share living, dining and kitchen facilities and there are laundry facilities on site.
The Sugartree property would accommodate 25 residents in the three-bedroom home and 10-room boarding house. It’s existing water and wastewater systems will remain in place under current planning although Wade said that might change.
As part of its preliminary plan review, Sugarbush has asked for a waiver of the parking requirements, arguing that most of the Rosita’s residents would not have cars.
Wade walked the DRB through the reasoning, pointing out that under the existing zoning the project would need 241 parking spaces for Rosita’s and Sugartree. Existing parking includes 12 vehicles (three accessible), plus 15 vehicles at the Sugartree and 56 spaces at the SHARC. Wade provided a chart that shows how many of its 160 international employees and 50 domestic employees have cars.
Out of 108 J1 workers, eight H3 workers, 38 H2B workers and 40 domestic workers, she said only 38.8 of those 194 employees would need parking (based on this year’s numbers).
Wade said that 38.8 vehicles for 194 employees means that about 20% of employees (using resort housing) will have cars. Using that figure for the 250 employees the resort anticipates needing in the future, 50 parking spaces would be needed. The preliminary plan shows 65 parking spaces.
DRB members asked for a mechanism for the town to know the composition of international and domestic employees going forward, and whether the capacity of the existing parking spots was being met. The board also asked what would happen if Sugarbush works with other area businesses to provide summer housing for non-resort employees. Sugarbush CEO John Hammond said that there is sufficient parking at the SHARC and that three unused tennis courts could be configured for parking along with Lot F and the former Sam Rupert’s property. The resort’s CAO Kevin Babic also pointed out that in the summer, the ski area parking lots are empty.
Board member Chris Behn asked how this Sugarbush workforce housing project would help the housing issues faced by the entire Valley and Hammond said that the 200 rooms Sugarbush is currently renting for its employees would return to the local housing stock.
“How do we know that those rooms won’t become Airbnbs,” Behn asked.
“I want to hear about this as part of what the overall plan is,” he added, asking for pro-active measures to improve the housing situation in The Valley.
“If this isn’t proactive, I don’t know what is. The amount of money we’ve spent without even an approval is ridiculous. We all live here. To hear someone say we’re not being proactive and don’t care -- we have to be on the same page here. We are trying to do something,” Babic said.
After further discussion about walking loops and walking distances as well as water and wastewater systems, including firefighting (the building is sprinkled), the board voted to continue the hearing until August for a site visit and final site plan review. Board members felt it would take more than one hearing to complete final site plan review and Wade suggested that conditional use review and a site visit could be one meeting and the planned unit development review could be a second.
