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By Montpelier Mayor Jack McCullough and Acting City Manager Kelly Murphy
Good News! A Pivotal Moment
Montpelier’s future begins now. After countless community conversations, years of due diligence, and adaptation to changed circumstances in the wake of a devastating flood, the City of Montpelier is seeking partners to develop housing on a portion of the Country Club Road property.
When voters authorized the City to purchase the property in the spring of 2022, they did so with three goals in mind: recreation, housing, and shared community uses—all on a flood-resilient property.
Visit the property today and you’ll see two of these goals—recreation and shared community use—already being realized. Residents are walking their dogs, kids are playing soccer, and disc golfers, cross-country skiers, walkers, and soon, pump-track riders are all using the property to its fullest. While approximately 20 acres have been identified for housing development, the vast majority will remain open for active and passive recreation, including 90 acres of wooded land. Add to this developments like the establishment of Central Vermont’s largest childcare facility, Turtle Island, and you can begin to see a new neighborhood taking shape.
Process & Progress
Building new housing in Vermont is extremely difficult. Our newly adopted City Plan sets the aspirational goal of 1,500 new housing units over the next 20 years. For perspective, we built only 278 housing units from 2000 to 2020 according to the U.S. Census. To meet these ambitious goals, we will need both additional infill development downtown and large projects like Isabel Circle, Sabin’s Pasture, and Country Club Road.
Because the City owns the Country Club Road property, we are well-positioned to ensure that what happens there meets our community’s needs for the future—homes for teachers, firefighters, nurses, seniors, young families, and people currently priced out of Montpelier’s housing market.
The City of Montpelier is not a housing developer. Rather than attempting to build hundreds of housing units ourselves, we have issued a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) to the development community. This is essentially an invitation for those who build housing every day to share what they believe could be created on this site in alignment with our community’s vision—a vision shaped through extensive public engagement that included nearly a dozen public convenings, multiple online surveys, and deep consideration by City staff and the City Council.
This is not an invitation for a “free rein.” The city will decide what is built on Country Club Road—but development will only occur through collaboration with the development community. That collaboration may include providing incentives such as grant funding, the Community and Housing Infrastructure Program (CHIP), or tax increment financing (TIF) to help cover the cost of necessary infrastructure and ensure projects are financially viable.
Due Diligence & Addressing Concerns
We have not planned a future development down to the doorknobs. This work will unfold in phases as developers respond to our invitation, and we evaluate their ability to meet our goals. The City has already completed significant due diligence, including comprehensive review, fieldwork, and analysis conducted by VHB in 2022, an Archaeological Resources Assessment prepared by Crown Consulting Archaeology, and a preliminary traffic assessment. The City has also enrolled in the Brownfields Reuse and Environmental Liability Limitation Program (BRELLA), which provides access to money to investigate and clean up any potential contamination from its former use as a golf course. All of these reports are available on the Country Club Road Site page of the City’s website at tinyurl.com/mrxkwcch
Additional environmental assessments, further traffic studies, and financial analyses will be required before a single shovel breaks ground. To ensure we are using our resources most effectively, it’s best to hold off on detailed project planning until a formal proposal has been submitted and approved. Questions like these and many more are addressed in the October 2025 FAQ, which you can read here: tinyurl.com/87wy9j4u
The Future of Montpelier: Climate Resilience, Schools, Sustainable Growth
The recent devastating floods have underscored that climate resilience is not just an aspirational goal but a fundamental necessity for Montpelier’s survival and growth. The proactive placement of housing in this area not only ensures a safe, flood-resilient housing supply to replace units lost in vulnerable areas—it also aligns with goals outlined in Montpelier’s City Plan’s to provide sustainable, forward-looking development that is prepared to adapt to a changing climate.
Looking Forward
The Country Club Road project represents an incredible opportunity to reshape the city in a way that is most needed at this time. This opportunity could not have been possible without the courage and faith the community demonstrated when they voted to bond for its purchase. As we look forward to collaborating with potential housing developers, your vision for abundant housing and recreation opportunities continues to guide our process and decision-making.
You can submit comments and questions anytime to your City Councilor, to the Planning & Community Development office at Planning@montpelier-vt.org, or to Acting City Manager Kelly Murphy at kmurphy@montpelier-vt.org.
After the qualifications have been submitted to the City (by November 21, 2025), the submittals will be posted on the City’s website here: tinyurl.com/mrxkwcch
We invite you to review the submissions and share any questions or feedback you have with us. The Council will then decide on a short list of candidates who will be invited to submit a proposal via a Request for Proposals (RFP) at the City Council meeting on December 17, 2025.
We hope you’ll continue to stay engaged as we work to turn this vision into reality.
This is a paid commentary and does not reflect the opinions, reporting, or ideas of The Bridge Newspaper.
