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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMN-NAC-2010-06-14City of Ithaca Natural Areas Commission Draft of Minutes for Meeting of Monday, June 14, 2010. Meeting time 5:30- 7:OOpm; City Hall, 108 East Green St Second Floor Conference Room Present: Alison Fromme, Chair; Joe McMahon, Vice Chair; Gerry Cox; Ron Herring, notetaker; Anna Stalter; Sarah Steuteville Absent: Jon Meigs; Todd Miner; Robert Wesley Also Attending: Dan Hoffman, City Attorney; Roxy Johnson, Watershed Coordinator; Ilana Trombly, , Ranger; Wade Wykstra, BPW; Andy Zepp, FLLT Minutes: Minutes for April's meeting -- previously postponed for lack of a quorum -- were approved as amended. May's minutes were approved as well. Brief Reports and Announcements: Anna: As part of a series Explore Your Watershed: The Natural History of the Six Mile Creek Natural Area, presenting walks and talks for Spring & Summer 2010, Roxy Johnson will lead a watershed walk and discussion June 12. Roxy's walk will involve carpooling to Commonland from the Wilflower Preserve parking lot. Dan Karig will lead a study walk June 19. [Unless otherwise noted walks begin in Wildflower Preserve Parking Lot.] For details, go to sixmilecreek.org. Anna has coordinated New Roots kids to perform community service in the Six Mile Creek NA, with considerable success. Ilana Trombly reported on behalf of the NA rangers that things are "off to a good start." She brought attention to problems with the bike rack, poison ivy and thefts from the parking lot at 6 Mile. NAC welcomed Ilana back. Joe gave an especially gripping report on his adventure cutting a rope meant for swinging over the water; some light discussion of technique followed. Finger Lakes Land Trust and watershed land acquisition: Andy Zepp for the Finger Lakes Land Trust gave a presentation on their request for NAC support in seeking $25k from the City of Ithaca for purchase of land in the Six Mile Creek watershed. Documents had previously been provided the NAC. The primary reason for the plan to purchase land adjacent to the Park Preserve on Irish Settlement Road was the interest of developers in the tract. The land is quite attractive and it is going on the market. The sellers are conservation minded and would like to see the land preserved in a natural state. The interests of the city and commission lie in downstream consequences of a market outcome. Timber and property prices are both increasing; developers and preservationists are attracted to the same terrain. Were development to take place, with land going to the highest bidder, we would face more challenges in maintaining integrity of the upstream environment of our water source. The idea behind purchase is to buffer city land acquired in the watershed closer to the city's water supply. A long discussion ensued. One problem recognized by Zepp and the commission was that it is difficult to say exactly which tracts of land are of greatest ecological value and/or greatest value for protecting the watershed. Land is expensive; public resources are quite limited. It is impossible to purchase all land in the watershed for protection. In this case, the Park Foundation is willing to put up a large portion of the cost of acquisition and the land acquired is adjacent to an existing preserve. The consensus from discussion was that the purchase would be a good idea. This decision would be conveyed to Common Council. Andy Zepp offered to lead a tour of the tract on Thursday, June 24, 7:30 AM. Several members of the commission expressed interest, others were unavailable. Collegetown Terrace: Joe felt that the intent and plans of the developer started with the right spirit and were moving in the right direction. Nevertheless, one could reasonably ask: is the project still too big? Joe had spoken as a private party at a public hearing on the development, expressing his concerns for the neighborhood. There followed discussion of "failing intersections" that would be aggravated by additional traffic. How might the burden of extra people in the Six Mile Creek NA be off -set? Perhaps the developers could be enticed to fund extra hours for the rangers by assessing a fee for protection of environmental amenities. Ranger hours have been cut back for fiscal reasons and there is concern there will not be enough person -power to manage the pressure on the NA. There was support for the "best practices" approach of the developer; the influence of NAC guidelines can be seen as a positive factor, even if not strictly applied. In any event, the strict mandate of the NAC precludes extensive involvement in the project at this stage, as harm to the natural area is unlikely, except for additional traffic from higher density. For a statement of possible impacts, see DEIS http : / /www.twla.com/CTTDEIS.PDF.