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Home My WebLink About2026-05-26-TB-FINAL-minutes1 TOWN BOARD MEETING & PUBLIC HEARING Town of Ulysses May 26, 2026 The meeting was held in person at the Town Hall at 10 Elm St., Trumansburg NY as well as via Zoom videoconference. Notice of Town Board meetings are posted on the Town’s website and Clerk’s board. Video recordings of meetings are available on Youtube CALL TO ORDER: Ms. Olson called the meeting to order at 7:07pm. ATTENDANCE: TOWN OFFICIALS: In person- Supervisor- Katelin Olson Board members- Steve Manley, Liz Weatherby, Michael Boggs Town Clerk- Carissa Parlato OTHERS: In person- Matt Horn (MRB consultant), Rebecca Schneider, Roxanne Marino, Rich Goldman, Krys Cail, Sarah Adams, Vicky Romanoff, Helen McLallen Via Zoom- Shirley, IURA, Linda Liddle, Michael Miller APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Mr. Boggs moved to approve the agenda as presented. This was seconded by Ms. Weatherby and passed unanimously. PRIVILEGE OF THE FLOOR: Ms. Olson said that comments for the Comp Plan draft could be made during the public hearing. For Privilege of the Floor, each speaker will receive 3 minutes. She alternated allowing speakers in-person versus on-line. Rebecca Schneider shared comments on the Comp Plan draft (see Appendix). Anisa Mendizabal said that she appreciates Rebecca Schneider’s comments and supports housing with proper planning, as population is growing. With proper planning, all uses can be accommodated. Krys Cail spoke about the local economy and how working in town reduces the carbon footprint. She wondered whether the new state park can be a part of this. PUBLIC HEARING: 2025-2045 COMPREHENSIVE PLAN DRAFT Ms. Olson moved to un-table the hearing at 7:19pm. This was seconded by Mr. Manley and passed unanimously. 2 Roxanne Marino shared comments (see Appendix). Krys Cail spoke about the local economy and how to encourage some positive aspects already in place: • Houses along the lake are employment generators as they require a lot of upkeep • Neighborhood amenities help keep workers local • We have a bike trail • Tourism & agri/eco-tourism Sarah Adams noted that in the document’s appendices, commenters are not identified by name. She prefers that people are quoted verbatim. She read comments from Regina Pryzgocki (see Appendix). Shirley Brown spoke on how to protect resources and farming while at the same time encouraging housing, and suggested that the board look into permaculture to help achieve this. Helen McLallen recognized the committee and the board for their time on this draft. She noted that the document needs clearer language and proofreading as there are inconsistencies and errors between chapters. Rebecca Schneider re-read her earlier comments. Anisa Mendizabal said that a goal of 8 housing units/year seems very manageable. She likes medium density in that it focuses infrastructure. Rich Goldman recommended that the board hold off on adopting the plan until the Town Board vacancy is filled. He questioned the amount of land designated as “medium density” if the goal is only 8 units/year. He also suggested that the board change the timing of interviews for Town Board applicants from June 23 since it is the same day as the primary election. Sarah Adams said that data shows that Ulysses is losing population. She would like an analysis of what impacts more development will have. Roxanne Marino questioned “medium density” if little to no growth is projected and cautioned that if development is not done thoughtfully, it could become sprawl, which is expensive. Ms. Olson moved to table the hearing at 7:59pm. This was seconded by Mr. Boggs and passed unanimously. OLD BUSINESS: 2025-2045 DRAFT COMPREHENSIVE PLAN DISCUSSION Ms. Olson offered the following points in response to prior comments: • The Conservation Zone is not being reduced in the Future Land Use Map (FLUM) • If the trend is toward fewer people in households, then we will need more houses • Med density is already here in current residential zones and are focused around existing water lines on the FLUM • Future possibility of connecting water on Cold Springs/Podunk Roads 3 • Ulysses is a “right to farm” town • Water is only paid for by its users/those in the district rather than the whole tax base Matt Horn said that the process going forward is that the town board is now responsible for making necessary edits before adoption. He suggested that board members create a list of items for discussion. MS. OLSON’S LIST OF SUGGESTED AMENDMENTS: Mr. Boggs moved to table the resolutions. With no second, the motion failed. Ms. Olson moved to discuss. This was seconded by Weatherby. RESOLUTION #95 OF 2026: LIST OF AMENDMENTS TO THE COMP PLAN DRAFT 1. Resolved, replace on pages 9 & 57, the bullet “Low- Density Residential…” with the following: “Low-Density Residential land use focuses on housing and complementary uses at a low-density residential scale, predominantly reflecting existing residential uses in areas of the town without existing public water and/or sewer facilities, and which are not anticipated to have these services during the term of this plan.” Moved: Olson Seconded: Manley Olson aye Boggs nay Manley aye Weatherby aye Vote: 3-1 2. Resolved, amend on page 11, the “Goals”: “Respond to community survey dissatisfaction with the range of housing options available in Ulysses by providing sufficient….”; and adding an additional sentence at the end of the housing paragraph before the Goals section “During the community survey, the town discovered dissatisfaction with the range of housing options.” Moved: Olson Seconded: Manley Olson aye Boggs nay Manley aye Weatherby aye Vote: 3-1 3. Resolved, amend on page 15 & 187, the Objective “Work with Town leadership” to state the following: “Work with Town leadership, key stakeholders, and residents to explore options for expanding municipal water services in areas of the Town that are appropriate for increased 4 residential or business development. Particular emphasis should be in areas where existing Town- owned or Village-owned infrastructure is available and where replacements, extensions, and corrections would improve infrastructure systems.” Moved: Olson Seconded: Weatherby Olson aye Boggs nay Manley aye Weatherby aye Vote: 3-1 4-7. Resolved, on page 19 and 248, remove “e.g., the Blue Zone, etc”. Resolved, on page 20, correct the typo in the first goal bullet point, replacing it with “Collaborate with” Resolved, on page 21, correct the typo in the first bullet, by adding a period between “character” and Redevelopment. Resolved, on page 22, amend the Town Board members to include Tom Knipe and include Town Supervisor after Katelin Olson, and Town Staff to amend or include: Lucky Lucas, Youth Development Lori Asperschlager, Administrative Assistant Blixy Taetzsch, Town Budget Officer and Bookkeeper Moved: Olson Seconded: Manley Olson aye Boggs nay Manley aye Weatherby aye Vote: 3-1 8. Resolved, on page 32, to add the following language after the sentence that begins “The steering committee also developed…”: “The survey link was widely distributed between December 2024 and March 2025 via mailings, posters, community events and the Town’s newsletter, website, and social media.” Moved: Olson Seconded: Weatherby Olson aye Boggs nay Manley aye Weatherby aye 5 Vote: 3-1 9. Resolved, on page 32, add the following sentence after the sentence that starts “The comprehensive plan committee collected…”: “The survey respondent age-breakdown closely reflected the demographic distribution of the Town’s population.” Moved: Olson Seconded: Weatherby Olson aye Boggs nay Manley aye Weatherby aye Vote: 3-1 10. Resolved, on page 34, add the following after the sentence that starts, “Over the next five years…”: When household sizes decrease, stay stable or slightly increase, more housing is necessary for the Town’s population. NO ACTION TAKEN 11-14. Resolved, throughout the document that Salo Habitat is changed to “Habitat Nature Preserve (Town-owned)”. Resolved, on page 66, replace “County Fairgrounds” with “Trumansburg Fairgrounds (privately- owned)” Resolved, remove the mini-land use maps on pages 67, 68, 71 and 72 because they’re too small to read. Resolved, on page 73, fix the spacing typo on the Objective. Moved: Olson Seconded: Manley Olson aye Boggs nay Manley aye Weatherby aye Vote: 3-1 15-16. Resolved, on page 74, to clarify the first sentence of the LR-P-2.1.1, with the follow…. Resolved, on page 74, to replace LR -P-2.1.2 with “Explore development rights and land conservation approaches with the Finger Lakes Land Trust and other regional partners.” NO ACTION TAKEN 6 17. Resolved, on page 77, to include the Tompkins County 2024 Housing Snapshot in the list of planning efforts, etc. Moved: Olson Seconded: Manley Olson aye Boggs nay Manley aye Weatherby aye Vote: 3-1 18. Resolved, to amend, on page 82, include the following after “…the Town’s population an estimated 4,884.”: “Over the next five years, the number of households is expected to remain stable or slightly increase. When household sizes decrease, more housing is necessary for the Town’s population to stay stable or slightly increase,”; and be it Further resolved, include the citation of the data cited on page 34 that relates to household sizes and projected growth. NO ACTION TAKEN 19-23. Resolved, on page 84, to fix the spacing issue between “transportation” and “safety” in the first paragraph. Resolved, on page 87, to fix the resolution of the chart. Resolved, on page 89, the fix the resolution of the two charts. Resolved, on page 89, to amend the typo of “2000’s” to “2000s”. Resolved, on page 96, to amend the typo in the first line, where the comma has a gap from “2023.” Moved: Olson Seconded: Weatherby Olson aye Boggs nay Manley aye Weatherby aye Vote: 3-1 24-29. Resolved, on page 101, to amend H-P-1.2.1 to insert, after “Work,” “with county and regional partners”. Resolved, on page 103, to add a policy (the first one for Object H-O-1.5) to develop and adopt sustainability goals for new construction based on New York State standards. Resolved, on page 103, to amend H-P-1.5.1 to add “ and explore streamlining the review process for these specific designs.” Resolved, on page 103, to amend H-P-1.5.3 to add “and other similar types of higher density subdivisions.” 7 Resolved, on page 104, to standardize the font size of the policies. Resolved, include a chart in the appendix that lists the tax parcel # of privately owned properties under conservation easements. Moved: Olson Seconded: Weatherby Olson aye Boggs nay Manley aye Weatherby aye Vote: 3-1 30. Resolved that when changes are made to language of goal, objectives, policies sections, that change is carried over to the appendices. Moved: Weatherby Seconded: Olson Olson aye Boggs nay Manley aye Weatherby aye Vote: 3-1 31. Resolved, on page 125, to strike the sentence that starts with “These homes have a higher likelihood of containing…”. NO ACTION TAKEN 32. Resolved, on page 125, add “Southern Tier” after the region Moved: Olson Seconded: Manley Olson aye Boggs nay Manley aye Weatherby aye Vote: 3-1 33-34. Resolved, on page 134, ED-P-1.1.5, to strike “Financial” and just say “Provide support…” Resolved, on page 137, ED-P-2.2.2 to replace “fill” with “maintain”. Moved: Olson Seconded: Weatherby 8 Olson aye Boggs nay Manley aye Weatherby aye Vote: 3-1 35-42. Resolved, on page 139, to amend ED-P-4.1.2 to add “medium density areas on the Future Land Use map” to the list of necessary improvement. Resolved, on page 151, to improve the resolution of the map. Resolved, on page 154, to improve the resolution of the map. Resolved, on page 157, to improve the resolution of the map. Resolved, on page 159, to improve the resolution of the map. Resolved, on page 160, to improve the resolution of the map. Resolved, on page 162 and 163 and 164, to improve the resolution of the charts and map. Resolved, on page 180, to improve the resolution of the map. Moved: Olson Seconded: Manley Olson aye Boggs nay Manley aye Weatherby aye Vote: 3-1 43-51. Resolved, on page 182, to replace “Grassroots Festival Music Park” with “Trumansburg Fairgrounds”. Resolved, on page 182, to remove “Juniper Manor Retirement Community” from the “Healthcare” category, and be it Further resolved, to add “local dental and optical practices” to this category, and FURTHER resolved to add an “Affordable Senior Housing” category and add “Juniper Manor Retirement Community” and “Village Grove at Crescent Way” to that category. Resolved, on page 187, to strike section CU-1.1.3, as the town does not handle the permitting for wells and septic systems. Resolved, on page 191, amend CU-P-3.2.3, as follows: “Continue to support the Village’s in hiring fulltime firefighters…” Resolved, on page 199 and 203, to improve the resolution of the maps. Resolved, on page 207, to amend “committee” to “committees”. (i.e. plural) Resolved, on page 209, to amend EN-P-2.1.8 to read: “Explore the feasibility of expanding or replacing public water systems in an effort to…” Resolved, on page 210, to amend EN-P-3.1.4 to include “Smith Woods”. Resolved, on page 210, to add a policy to “Develop a master plan for Smith Woods to guide long- term care.” Moved: Olson Seconded: Manley 9 Olson aye Boggs nay Manley aye Weatherby aye Vote: 3-1 52-59. Resolved, page 226, add a policy to create a Climate Action Plan numbered CRP 2.1.1, and highlight in Executive Summary Resolved, to bring the Climate Change and Resiliency Chapter forward, either after the Introduction or after the Land Use chapter. Resolved, on page 238, to strike “Town of Ulysses” before “Youth Services” Resolved, on page 241, to amend “Boy Scouts of America” to “Scouting America.” Resolved, on page 245, CW-P-1.1.4 to strike “Ulysses Square.” Resolved, throughout the document, to change “3 Falls” to “Three Falls.” Resolved, on page 247, to include the Ithaca City School District to CW-P-4.1.5. Resolved, throughout the document, to authorize MRB Group to fix grammatical errors and typos that do not impact the content of the document. Moved: Olson Seconded: Manley Olson aye Boggs nay Manley aye Weatherby aye Vote: 3-1 SCHEDULING A PUBLIC HEARING FOR CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL AREA (CEA) DESIGNATION OF SMITH WOODS RESOLUTION #96 OF 2026: SCHEDULING A PUBLIC HEARING REGARDING THE PROPOSED DESIGNATION OF SMITH WOODS AS A CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL AREA WHEREAS, the Town Board of the Town of Ulysses is considering the designation of Smith Woods as a Critical Environmental Area pursuant to the State Environmental Quality Review Act and its implementing regulations; and WHEREAS, the Town Board has determined that Smith Woods may possess one or more characteristics warranting designation as a Critical Environmental Area, including exceptional or unique natural setting, ecological sensitivity, and recreational and educational value, as outlined in a memorandum from the Town Planner dated May 7, 2026; and WHEREAS, the Town Board desires to hold a public hearing with respect to the proposed designation of Smith Woods as a Critical Environmental Area. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that a public hearing shall be held by the Town Board of the Town of Ulysses with respect to the proposed designation of Smith Woods as a Critical 10 Environmental Area on July 14, 2026 at 7:00 p.m. at Town Hall, 10 Elm Street, Trumansburg, New York; and it is further RESOLVED, that the Town Clerk is hereby authorized and directed to cause public notice of said hearing to be given as provided by law; and it is further RESOLVED, that this resolution shall take effect immediately. Moved: Manley Seconded: Weatherby Olson aye Boggs aye Manley aye Weatherby aye Vote: 4-0 Date Adopted: 5/26/26 NEW BUSINESS: AUTHORIZATION TO FLY THE PRIDE FLAG RESOLUTION #97 of 2026: AUTHORIZATION TO FLY THE PRIDE FLAG RESOLVED that the Ulysses Town Board approves the Town Supervisor or her designee to put up the PRIDE flag, per the Town’s Flag Policy, for June 1-30, 2026. Moved: Olson Seconded: Weatherby Olson aye Boggs aye Manley aye Weatherby aye Vote: 4-0 Date Adopted: 5/26/26 APPROVAL FOR CANNABIS VENDOR AT GRASSROOTS RESOLUTION #98 of 2026: Resolved that the Town Supervisor is authorized to approve the application for The Highly Connected to vend at Grassroots. Cannabis Showcase Event Moved: Olson Seconded: Boggs Olson aye Boggs aye Manley aye Weatherby aye Vote: 4-0 Date Adopted: 5/26/26 11 UPCOMING EVENTS June 4 – Board (Town, Planning, Zoning) member annual training, 5pm @ Town Hall June 9 – Regular Town Board Meeting, 7pm @ Town Hall June 23- Regular Town Board Meeting, 7pm @ Town Hall July 3- Town buildings closed for July 4 holiday APPROVAL OF MINUTES: RESOLUTION #99 of 2026: APPROVAL OF MINUTES RESOLVED, that the Ulysses Town Board approves the meeting minutes from the May 12, 2026 meeting as presented. Moved: Olson Seconded: Manley Olson aye Boggs aye Manley aye Weatherby aye Vote: 4-0 Date Adopted: 5/26/26 BOARD NOTIFICATIONS: none PRIVILEGE OF THE FLOOR (3-min limit per person) Roxanne Marino thanked the board for extending the comment time for everyone. Suggested that in the future, resolutions are available for the public to provide feedback on. ADJOURN: Mr. Manley made a motion to adjourn at 10:06pm. This was seconded by we and passed unanimously. Respectfully submitted by Carissa Parlato, Town Clerk, 6/3/26 12 APPENDIX: Included: Comments from: • Schneider • Pryzgocki • Marino 13 COMMENTS ON ULYSSES COMPREHENSIVE PLAN REBECCA SCHNEIDER, PHD 26 MAY 2026 I have reviewed the draft Ulysses Comprehensive Plan and appreciate the considerable work that was done to create a 268 page document, as well as the effort both to engage the public and to report their feedback. I have several concerns about the draft Comp Plan in its current form: 1) Section 7 - discusses the importance of the natural resources and environment, including its value to our citizens as reported during the public interviews. However, the description lists the primary values as “being cherished by the community, the scenic beauty, its value for drinking water, and wildlife habitat”. This assessment as written strongly undersells or acknowledges the critical role and underpinning that the natural resources are playing to our economic viability both for agriculture and ecotourism. The water, soil and vegetative communities need explicit strategies laid out to ensure their protection and there is insufficient guidance and recommendations to do this. As one example, the paragraph on Topography just mentions that steep slopes occur along THE lake front. In reality, slopes are much steeper than 3% and extensive throughout the entire eastern border of the town as well as along the creeks. These slopes are only protected from massive erosion, gullies, and associated sediment pollution in the lake by the presence of contiguous tree cover – it is the canopy that slows down rainfall and the roots which bind the entire soil in place. Given the increase in torrential downpours already occurring, it is critical that these areas be maintained vegetated and all development discouraged. One reason for the original creation of the Conservation Zone was to help protect these steep slopes from erosion, and the proposed narrowing of this Zone will have severe negative impacts. A second example is the important and growing economic value of ecotourism from increasing numbers of visitors coming for the access and aesthetics to the Lake and creeks, the farmland, the scenic drives. It is critical that these resources be protected to support this. 2) LAND USE AND RURAL ISSUES Section lists various evidence for the importance of agriculture to Ulysses -- laying out ﬁrst the Ag and Farmland protect plan 2013 which - recognized the threat of conversion due to development pressure, then the Tompkins County identifying Ulysses as an agricultural resource focus area for protection and ﬁnally the Ulysses resident surveys which identiﬁed concerns about development pressures, water districts that would impact agriculture. The Comp Plan also states on p. 199 that Ulysses is almost completely covered by – “prime agricultural soils” even if drained. The uniqueness of having such prime agricultural soils is not fully appreciated for its incredible economic value to the Town, both now and in the near future. As other parts of the state and country are succumbing to extreme high temperatures and 14 drought, Ulysses will become a refuge for the farming industry and a critical food production area. It is critical that these farmlands be maintained and protected. Therefore the proposed housing plan for medium density housing to replace large portions of our prime aglands, e.g Cold Springs Rd, Perry City Road, near Taughannock Crk, are a direct threat to these prime agricultural soils. A more careful study of how much housing and where best to locate it is strongly needed to protect these ag lands as well as the ﬂoodplain regions along our creeks. 3) The new NYSDEC wetland regulations protect existing mapped wetlands, and provide a mechanism to map other wetlands and then expand the buffer width from 100 to 300 ft around all wetlands. These regs will impact any future development plans and a comprehensive mapping study, including comparison with the Tompkins County wetlands map should be undertaken to ensure protection of these critical resources which are essential to water quality, ﬂood prevention, and groundwater recharge. and ﬂood prevention. 15 Roxanne Marino Statement for inclusion in Public Hearing on Draft Ulysses 2045 Comprehensive Plan May 26, 2026 I appreciate the continuation of the public hearing and opportunity to speak and share thoughts on the draft Comprehensive Plan 2045 with the Board. I was a member of the Comprehensive Plan Update Steering Committee, and I appreciate the amount of work that was done on this draft, and that the committee took into consideration the comments made by the public in making edits to the draft document and FLUM presented to us by the consultants. I continue to have concerns with the draft Plan before the Board, based on my research, past experiences with Comprehensive Planning and Zoning in the Town, and 3 years of meeting discussions and listening to many public comments. I don’t have time to go into supporting details in 3 min, and so will be making “bullet points” at the hearing orally that I sincerely hope the Board will consider in moving forward. I am submitting this as a more fully described set of the same comments. 1) The large increase in area of land character that is designated to accommodate housing at a meeting density scale remains a concern, particularly the number of larger lots either in current agricultural use or suitable for it and in a NYS agricultural district (TC Ag district 2). Agriculture was considered very important in the 2009 plan, and remains so in the surveys and public comments collected during this draft update process to be a key feature of value to residents. We have water here, and with climate change there are going to be many stresses on ag in the future in other parts of the country and our area should protect and value these resources. There is no detailed analysis in the plan of the acreage of land within the district that is currently owned or rented by farmers for farming purposes, and in the areas that are now slated for MDR. The purpose of an Ag district is to encourage the use of farmland for agricultural production, and the Ag & Markets program is intended to slow or stop the conversion of remaining farmland and provide landowner incentive and protection beneﬁts. One of the primary criteria that Ag & Markets puts forward for discouraging loss of viable farmland due to conversion to residential use (which also increases conﬂict with farming) is to strongly discourage establishment of municipal water districts and further expansion of permitted ones (i.e. laterals) into Ag districts (Section 305(4) of Article 25- AA). There is currently one established water district in the Town (WD3) which was reviewed by Ag and Markets and the memo from them speciﬁcally prohibits laterals. “Preserve farmland now and for future generations” is a Goal of this plan. The large area of MDR with no detailed analysis in support of the need for such a potential increase in development density for speciﬁc areas that would take land out of a designation of priority agriculture and rural residential is in direct conﬂict with this goal. 16 There is also inadequate documentation of the need for the scale of MDR being designated; this should be done before such a large change in FLU is designated. Please consider that the draft Plan can be passed with a much reduced MDR area, targeted where there is existing water and transportation services (as the Supervisor said on 5-12 (mtg minutes) is the desired criteria) and then the FLUM can be updated after careful study of how much housing of the desired types could be built after considering factors such as population growth estimates, infrastructure and services expansion costs, and likely areas for developers to target. Since TC is doing its updated housing study county wide right now, Ulysses has a great opportunity to collaborate and get help with gathering much of that needed data in a cost- effective manner. Additionally, rather than rushing to adopt this draft plan without fully considering these factors and the public input gathered from these hearings in order to apply for a grant in July to do a housing study, the Town could evaluate using some of the unallocated FB in the B fund towards starting that work this year (along with working with TC) and apply next year for a grant if needed. We heard at a recent TB meeting that the UFB in the B fund is in a substantial excess of the policy targeted amount. The UFB should be used for one-time, impactful projects and this would seem to be one, given the high interest and dominate focus of housing issues in the CP draft. I urge the Board to consider this. MDR should at this stage of a Plan update be limited to areas where there is existing municipal water and not designated as a future land use in areas that are “anticipated to be served by” public water. Sewering or the ability to accommodate shared septic systems is a major issue to be considered with development at the MDR scale; this is expensive both to build and to maintain, can be complicated, and has not been adequately considered in the plan as a constraining factor. These infrastructure issues should be fully analyzed before designating much of the currently proposed areas for MDR development, as should an analysis of likelihood of availability into the future of public transportation to support lower income and senior housing, 2 of the priority housing needs identiﬁed by the community. The FLUM also has quite a bit of Neighborhbood Mixed-Use designation to accommodate a denser residential community; these areas are along the currently served main transportation corridor and municipal water line, and portions of the NMU are in areas currently designated in the existing TC Housing Strategy as target areas for growth in Ulysses based on the criteria of transportation, developing walkable neighborhoods, energy conservation and sustainability (lower individual vehicle miles traveled equals less greenhouse gas emissions and lower costs to residents). How much more MDR is needed beyond these areas? Incorporating sustainability is another key goal of our CP update (and what we received a Climate Smart Communities grant to develop). 17 A signiﬁcant environmental concern is with some of the areas designated for MDR both in the western half of the Town and very near Taughannock Creek in Taughannock Falls State Park are in areas currently designated as 100 yr ﬂood zones (see Natural Features map, p. 539), with revised that have ﬂoods likely to occur in the future with climate change every decade or perhaps even less. This is an important area of future concern for climate impacts and need for resiliency and it does not make sense to target building denser housing in those areas. The Board should please carefully consider this and revising the FLUM to make these areas Agriculture and Natural Resource lands (many are already in TC Ag district) and / or in some places Resource Conservation. 2) Another issue to consider revising with the FLUM land character designations and existing conditions – Rural residential is primarily on lots less than 7 acres and not in active ag use. There are quite a few parcels greater than 7 acres outlined that are both in TC Ag district 2 and are >7 acres, no analysis of current agricultural use (the map based on the TC data base has been pointed out as inaccurate for several parcels). It would make sense to consider incorporating these with the Agriculture and Natural Resource Lands designation into one Agriculture and Rural Residential land use designation (as our current zoning does). 3) Regarding the SEQR process, I urge the Town Board to do a fully considered environmental impact analysis as lead agency, after taking the time to adequately consider and analyze all of the public comments and for Board members to carefully review the full 547 page document (there is relevant information in the Appendices). The Town Board considered doing a Generic Environmental Impact Statement early on the in the CP process with the consultant. It would have added roughly $60,000 onto the cost and was proposed before we had any sense of the scope of change in the updated Plan to our current Comp Plan. The Board investigated it and decided to wait until further along in the process to learn more and consider the implications and value of a GEIS and so whether it was needed. Given the large changes in Future Land Use designations and associated potential growth inducing impacts of the current draft plan perhaps this should be reconsidered. A GEIS can be more general than site or project speciﬁc EISs and discusses the logic and rationale for the broad choices being made. It can be productively used for an entire plan having wide application, including new or signiﬁcant changes to existing land use plans (Cornell Legal Info Institute https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/new-york/6-NYCRR-617.10) 4) The draft Plan (Executive Summary, Phase 6) includes that the Town will send the draft Plan to NYS Ag and Markets law with a request for a review, which is not required as part of the CP adoption process but is discretionary and the Steering Committee felt would provide valuable input given that much of Ulysses is in a NYS Ag district and Ag and Markets laws governing local land use regulations will be applicable. 18 Has the Town sent the request to Ag and Markets? If so, is the response document available to the public? If not, will it be posted? 5) The Board voted to pass the current draft Plan onto Tompkins County Planning and Sustainability for the required 239 review; has that been received yet? Will it be made available to the public? 6) I request that the Board consider making available another opportunity for public comment as they work through the SEQR process to a ﬁnal EIS and have the Tompkins County and Ag and Markets requested reviews to consider before ﬁnalizing the draft Plan for a vote on adoption. 19 Dear Town of Ulysses Board, I have several concerns regarding the comprehensive plan as it stands for 2045. First and foremost, development versus preservation: a dramatic shift from the 2009 plan is the HUGE amount of higher and medium density residential development, ignoring the danger to critical environmental areas like the Lakeshore and conservation zones and the Vital Natural Resources of water and habitat. What does all of this development do to the tax rate? and at what cost to the beauty that makes our area a haven? In reviewing public feedback to the questionnaire sent out to all (?) residents of Ulysses, it is clear that while the housing need is a concern, the public preference for preserving agricultural and “smalltown feel” was quite a bit stronger. The comprehensive 2045 plan proposes medium density residential in some areas that do not have at present public water and sewage. These two items would be financially devastating to those of us who would pay for them, i.e., the taxpayer. Maybe concentrating on areas with these amenities and others like public transportation already would be prudent. Infrastructure concerns, clearly valid due to a bridge being closed by the county in one of these proposed areas on Podunk Road, include increased traffic on South Street extension which appears to be disintegrating into the natural gorge formed by Taughannock Creek. Finally, I feel more should be done to accommodate and promote small-scale food production for our community, with all of this growth, and building on farmland does just the opposite. Respectfully yours, Margaret (Regina) Przygocki Cold Springs Road, Trumansburg