HomeMy WebLinkAboutPB Minutes 2005-09-06FILE
DATE
TOWN OF ITHACA PLANNING BOARD
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2005
The Town of Ithaca Planning Board met in regular session on Tuesday, September 6,
2005, in Town Hall„ 215 North Tioga Street, Ithaca, New York, at 7:00 p.m.
PRESENT
Fred Wilcox, Chairpersc
Member; Tracy Mitrano,
Howe, Board Member;
Planning; John Barney,
(7:20 p.m.); Mike Smith,
in; Eva Hoffmann, Board Member; George Conneman, Board
Board Member (7:15 p.m.); Larry Thayer, Board Member; Rod
Kevin Talty, Board Member; Jonathan Kanter, Director of
Attorney for the Town; Daniel Walker, Director of Engineering
Environmental Planner. -
EXCUSED
Susan Ritter, Assistant Director of Planning; Christine Balestra, Planner; Nicole
Tedesco, Planner.
OTHERS
Fred Vanderberg, Ithaca College; Chris Papamichael, Domain Cos; Matt Schlaric,
Domain Cos.; Susan Brock, Town of Ithaca; John Rancich, Sky Gardens; Jim Orr, Sky
Gardens; Dave Auble, 111 King Rd W; Carl Sgrecci, Ithaca College; Richard Perry, 107
Bundy Rd; Susan Engelkemeyer, Ithaca College; Glenn Hubbell, 1308 Mecklenburg Rd;
John H. Fennessey, Conifer Realty; Don Crittendon, 173 Bundy Rd; Ann Byrne, 137
Hopkins Rd; Trever Woodworth, 173 Bundy Rd; Peter Trowbridge, Trowbridge & Wolf;
Kathryn Wolf, Trowbridge & Wolf; Andrew Eastlick, Cornell; George Alexiou; Joe
Fitzgerald, Cayuga Medical Center.
CALL TO ORDER
Chairperson Wilcox declares the meeting duly opened at 7:03 p.m., and accepts for the
record Secretary's Affidavit of Posting and Publication of the Notice of Public Hearings
in Town Hall and the Ithaca Journal on August 29, 2005 and August 31, 2005, together
with the properties under discussion, as appropriate, upon the Clerks of the City of
Ithaca and the Town of Danby, upon the Tompkins County Commissioner of Planning,
upon the Tompkins County Commissioner of Public Works, and upon the applicants
and /or agents, as appropriate, on August 31, 2005,
Chairperson Wilcox states the Fire Exit Regulations to those assembled, as required by
the New York State Department of State, Office of Fire Prevention and Control.
PERSONS TO BE HEARD
Chairperson Wilcox opens this segment of the meeting at 7:04 p.m., and asks if any
members of the public wished to speak. With no one wishing to speak, Chairperson
Wilcox closes this segment of the meeting at 7:04 p.m.
Planning Board Meeting
September 6, 2005
Approved
SEAR Determination
Lot Line Modification, 101 Harris B. Dates Drive.
Chairperson Wilcox opens this segment of the meeting at 7:04 p.m.
Chairperson Wilcox — Peter, do you wish to make a statement?
Peter Trowbridge, Trowbridge & Wolf
am Peter Trowbridge, principle in the firm of Trowbridge and Wolf, Landscape
Architects, 1001 West Seneca Street here in Ithaca. There are two other principles
here this evening. Chris Papamichael from Aris Development Corporation and Joe
Fitzgerald from Cayuga Medical Center that are both here as principles of the project to
answer questions if there are questions. As you know, this is a relatively small project.
We are here this evening because as we designed the intersection for the Cayuga
Medical Center and the new Overlook residential project that in doing so there is a
signal pole as part of the new signalization for the intersection that would occur outside
of the existing New York State DOT right -of -way. DOT requires that all of the facilities
be a part of their right -of -way and so this pole being outside of this right -of -way needs to
be incorporated into Trumansburg Road right -of -way for the New York State DOT. So
we have proposed, it's a 300 square foot... either a lot line adjustment or subdivision,
depending on how you read the code and what would happen is that small area would
be conveyed from the Cayuga Medical Center to Aris Development so that we could
proceed with improvements at the intersection. At such time that the improvements
were complete as part of the current permitting with New York State DOT, Aris
Development would then convey that 300 square feet to New York State DOT
contiguous with their right -of -way.
Chairperson Wilcox — Any questions with regard to SEQR or the subdivision? There
being done, would someone like to move the SEQR motion.
Board Member Conneman moves the motion and Chairperson Wilcox seconds the
motion and calls for a vote on the motion. Motion passes unanimously.
Chairperson Wilcox closes this segment of the meeting at 7:05 p.m
PB RESOLUTION NO. 2005 -082: SEQR, Lot Line Modification /Subdivision
Approval, Cayuga Medical Center, 101 Harris B. Dates Drive, Tax Parcel No. 24 =3-
2.1
MOTION made by Board Member Conneman, seconded by Chairperson Wilcox.
WHEREAS:
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1. This action is the consideration of Preliminary and Final Subdivision Approval for the
proposed subdivision of 300 + 1- square feet located on the southeast corner of
Trumansburg Road and Harris B. Dates Drive, to be conveyed. to New York State
Department of Transportation for the installation of new traffic control devices, 101
Harris B. Dates Drive, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 24- 3 -2.1, Office Park
Commercial Zone. Cayuga Medical Center, Owner; Peter J. Trowbridge, Trowbridge
& Wolf, Agent, and
2. This is an Unlisted Action for which the Town of Ithaca Planning Board is legislatively
determined to act as Lead Agency in environmental review with respect to
Subdivision Approval, and
3. The Planning Board, at a public hearing on September 6, 2005, has reviewed and
accepted as adequate a plat entitled, "Survey Map Showing Proposed Parcel to be
Conveyed by Cayuga Medical Center, Harris B. Dates Drive & Trumansburg Road,
Town of Ithaca, Tompkins County, State of New York," prepared by T.G Miller P.C.
dated August 2, 2005, and other application materials, and
4. The Town Planning staff has recommended a negative determination of
environmental significance with respect to the proposed Subdivision Approval;
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED.
That the Town of Ithaca Planning Board hereby makes a negative determination of
environmental significance in accordance with the New York State Environmental
Quality Review Act for the above referenced action as proposed, and, therefore, neither
a Full Environmental Assessment Form, nor an Environmental Impact Statement will be
required.
The vote on the motion resulted as follows:
AYES: Wilcox, Thayer, Howe, Talty, Hoffman, Conneman.
NAYS: None.
ABSTAIN: None.
The vote on the motion was carried.
PUBLIC HEARING
Consideration of Preliminary and Final
subdivision of +/- 300 square feet on the
Subdivision approval for the proposed
southeast corner of Trumansburg Road
and Harris B. Dates Drive to be conveyed to New York State Department of
Transportation for the installation of new traffic control devices, 101 Harris B.
Dates Drive, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 24- 3 -2.1, Office Park Commercial
Zone. Cayuga Medical Center, Owners Peter J. Trowbridge, Trowbridge & Wolf,
LLP, Agent.
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Chairperson Wilcox opens the public hearing at 7:05 p.m. Chairperson Wilcox reads the
public hearing notice and invites members of the public to address the board. With no
persons interested in speaking, Chairperson Wilcox closes the public hearing at 7:07
p.m, and brings the matter back to the board.
Chairperson Wilcox — Would anybody like to consider at the end of the meeting a
discussion, if we have time, about a recommendation to the Town Board about. a
change in the Subdivision Regulations so that the Town might recognize minor
subdivisions?
Board Member Thayer — Like a 300 square foot subdivision?
Chairperson Wilcox — Like a 300 square foot subdivision. We can discuss that maybe if
we have time after the meeting or if we have time at another meeting.
Board Member Thayer — Good idea.
Chairperson Wilcox — I'm not sure that we need to see these. Having said that...
Board Member Thayer - I will move this resolution.
Board Member Thayer moves the resolution and Board Member Howe seconds the
resolution. Chairperson Wilcox calls for a vote on the motion. The motion is carried
unanimously.
PB
RESOLUTION NO.
2005 -083:
Lot Line Modification /Subdivision Approval,
Cayuga
Medical Center,
101 Harris
B. Dates Drive, Tax Parcel No. 24m3 -2.1
Motion Made by Board Member Thayer, Seconded by Board Member Howe.
WHEREAS:
1. This action is the consideration of Preliminary and Final Subdivision Approval for the
proposed subdivision of 300 +A square feet located on the southeast corner of
Trumansburg Road and Harris B. Dates Drive, to be conveyed to New York State
Department of Transportation for the installation of new traffic control devices, 101
Harris B. Dates Drive, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 24- 3 -2.1, Office Park
Commercial Zone. Cayuga Medical Center, Owner; Peter J. Trowbridge, Trowbridge
& Wolf, Agent, and
2. This is an Unlisted Action for which the Town of Ithaca Planning Board, acting as
Lead Agency in environmental review with respect to Subdivision Approval, has, on
September 6, 2005, made a negative determination of environmental significance,
after having reviewed and accepted as adequate a Short Environmental Assessment
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Form Part 1, submitted by the applicant, and a Part ll prepared by Town Planning
staff, and
3. The Planning Board, at a public hearing on September 6, 2005, has reviewed and
accepted as adequate a plat entitled, "Survey Map Showing Proposed Parcel to be
Conveyed by Cayuga Medical Center, Harris B. Dates Drive & Trumansburg Road,
Town of Ithaca, Tompkins County, State of New York," prepared by T.G Miller P. C,
dated August 2, 2005, and other application materials.
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:
1. That the Town of Ithaca Planning Board hereby waives certain requirements for
Preliminary and Final Subdivision Approval, as shown on the Preliminary and
Final Subdivision Checklists, having determined from the materials presented
that such waiver will result in neither a significant alteration of the purpose of site
plan control nor the policies enunciated or implied by the Town Board, and
2. That the Planning Board hereby grants Preliminary and Final Subdivision
Approval for the proposed subdivision of 300 +A square feet located on the
southeast corner of Trumansburg Road and Harris B. Dates Drive, Town of
Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 24- 3 -2.1, subject to the following conditions:
a. Submission for signing by the Chairman of the Planning Board of an original
or mylar copy of the plat and three dark -lined prints, prior to filing with the
Tompkins County Clerk's Office, and submission of a receipt of filing to the
Town of Ithaca Planning Department, prior to the issuance of a building
permit, and
b. Conveyance of the 300 +A square foot parcel to the New York State
Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) and consolidation of said parcel
with the existing NYSDOT road right of way located on Trumansburg Road,
prior to the acceptance of West Hill Drive as a Town road.
The vote on the motion resulted as follows:
AYES: Wilcox, Thayer, Howe, Talty, Hoffman, Conneman, Mitrano.
NAYS: None,
ABSTAIN: None.
The vote on the motion was carried.
PRESENTATION
Presentation of the Ten -year Transportation Impact Mitigation Strategies (TIMS)
and the associated transportation focused Generic Environmental Impact
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Statement (t -GEIS) being jointly undertaken by Cornell University and the Town of
Ithaca. The t -GEIS will address transportation impacts on the community
surrounding the campus related to an increasing population traveling to Cornell.
The TIMS will evolve in response to the feedback obtained from the t -GEIS
process, and may include recommendations for transportation demand
management, multi -modal transportation strategies, access and circulation
modifications, and zoning changes. The Planning Board may also declare their
interest in being Lead Agency for the project. Kathryn Wolf, RLA, Principal -in-
Charge.
Chairperson Wilcox opens this segment of.the meeting at 7:09 p.m.
Kathryn Wolf, Trowbridge & Wolf
Thank you very much. I am Kathryn Wolf of Trowbridge & Wolf Landscape Architects
and it is a pleasure to be here this evening. I am representing Cornell University and I
am the principal -in- charge for the transportation focused GEIS project and
transportation impact mitigation strategies. I am joined this evening by Andrew Eastlick
to my left. Andrew is a transportation planner with Cornell University and he is the
project director for this project for Cornell. To the left of Andrew is George Alexiou,
Martin Alexiou Brassen, Transportation Planners of Raleigh, North Carolina.
Our purpose in coming before you this evening is to introduce you, really, to the
transportation focused, Generic Environmental Impact Statement and the transportation
impact mitigation strategies project. This is really an introduction to give you a little
background as to why we are undertaking this project and the process that we
anticipate as we move forward. I just wanted to make a couple of comments about
George Alexiou, who is here with us this evening from North Carolina. We are very
excited to have George Alexiou on this project team. George is a transportation planner
who specializes in campus transportation planning and he is working on college
campuses all over the United States and is really at the forefront of transportation
planning in college towns, on campuses, and is very familiar with all of the issues that
college towns faced related to transportation. He is very much on the forefront of
transportation demand management and innovative strategies to mitigate transportation
impacts. We are very excited to have him on our team and he's going to be sharing
with you a few examples of things that he's done in some other college town
communities to give you a feel for the kinds of things that he will be looking at for this
project, of course tailored specifically to Ithaca. Following my brief introduction Andrew
Eastlick will provide background on the project including a synopsis of historic growth
patterns in the area. George is then going to talk to you about his transportation
planning experience and then we'll come back to me and I will provide a summary of the
process and an overview of the project schedule. We're going to try to keep that to
approximately twenty minutes.
First of all, what is this project about? Fundamentally, Cornell University is proposing to
take a very broad look at potential growth at the University over the next decade and
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develop an understanding of what this means for transportation systems. This is a
proactive project to understand potential transportation impacts of hypothetical growth
scenarios in a broad sense and then to identify possible mitigation strategies for those
impacts. As a result of this project we anticipate that the Town Planning Board will be
able to better understand individual projects as they come before you, be able to
understand them in the big picture and within the broader context of what we anticipate
to be happening over the next decade.. So we view it as being helpful in that regard.
And, really, at the end of the day what we are trying to do is. have an improved
transportation system. The ultimate goal is to have the best possible transportation
system that we can have for the university and that, of course, impacts the community
and hopefully improves the transportation system for the community. So that's really
what this is all about. So with that introduction I'd like to turn it over to Andrew who is
going to give you some background on the project.
Andrew Eastlick, Transportation Planner, Cornell University
Thanks Kathryn. Good evening. Again for those of you who don't know me, my name
is Andrew Eastlick I'm a transportation planner with Cornell University's :Campus
Planning Office and I'm the project director for Cornell on this transportation focused
generic environmental impact statement. I'm presenting tonight on behalf of Bill Wendt.
Bill Wendt is the Director of Transportation Services and really the project executive for
Cornell. Bill was unable to be here this evening so you get me instead.
just want to start off by saying that I'm very pleased to be here and excited about this
joint collaboration between the Town of Ithaca and Cornell on what to me is a very
exciting project. I'm going to take a couple of minutes and provide a brief background
on what led us up to this point and a little bit more detail on the project itself. I'm going
to start off with historic growth.
This is a map of Tompkins County. This outer boundary being the County boundary.
You see Cayuga Lake, the inner bold boundary of course being the Town of Ithaca.
Also shown on the map are major roadways and in a slightly darker gray the other
municipal boundaries within the county. The population data that's shown is from the
2000 census. As you're all aware, the County's population is just under 100,000, the
Town of Ithaca just under 20,000, and the City of Ithaca just under 30,000. The
remaining 8 towns and 5 villages that are located in the County have a cumulative
population of approximately 45,000. Over the last 30 years the County's population has
increased at a rate of about 1 % per year. Interestingly thought the US Census Bureau
estimated a 1.7% per year increase in Tompkins County for two thousand one, two, and
three in their July 2003 estimate. That's nearly double our historical trend over the past
30 years and at a rate of about 5 times more than what they're estimating statewide for
counties. If this .estimate is indeed true and you carry that rate out until today it would
mean that the current population would be approximately 105,000, which shows an
increase of about 10,000 in 5 years, since the last census. It would also mean that this
decade's population growth would be the largest that the County is facing since the 70s.
Now again, it's just an estimate from the Census Bureau, but in any rate the County is
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growing and will continue to do so. As part of that growth, Cornell University is growing.
The University has set a recommend enrollment cap on undergraduate students of
about 13,000. However, the University has seen a steady population increase in
faculty, staff, and graduate students. Over the past 25 years the University population
has increased at a rate of a little over Y2 a percent per year. However, over the past 5
years that population increase has been at a rate of about 1 % per year, double over
historical trends. The current population is approximately 28,000. It's about 19,000
students and 9,000 employees.
When faced with growth and development obviously a topic that is of concern to the
community is that of transportation and parking. For several years now the Town of
Ithaca and Cornell have participated in countywide discussions about Cornell related
commuting, parking, and transit rider ship. For the past several months, Cornell along
with Town Planner Jonathan Kanter and Town Supervisor Cathy Valentino, have
discussed transportation related challenges and opportunities and have agreed that a
transportation- focused generic environmental impact statement would be the next
logical step to understand ways in which our transportation system, Cornell's and the
community's, really I can be improved. All of this kind of raises some logical questions
that I'd like to address. These questions that I'm going to go over, along with several
others, are actually compiled in a FAQs, which is part of your packet so you may refer to
them for more information.
The first question, so why are we here? The Town of Ithaca's boundaries include the
majority of Cornell's main campus, encircles the City of Ithaca, and also abuts the
majority of the County's other municipalities: In addition, when you begin examining the
home addresses of Cornell employees you see that approximately 25% of Cornell
employees are living and commuting outside of Tompkins County, About 40% are living
within the County, but outside of the Town of Ithaca. Approximately another 15% with
the Town of Ithaca itself. What that means is that on average approximately 80% of
Cornell employees are either originating in or traveling through the Town of Ithaca as
they're destined for Cornell. In order to effectively capture and minimize Cornell bound
traffic before it travels through residential neighborhoods and into the core in downtown
areas, transportation impact mitigations such as park and rides, transit improvements,
really need to be devised from this point out. We want to capture them before they
enter into residential neighborhoods.
In summary, the Town of Ithaca really sits in a strategic location in the County's overall
transportation system and seems to offer the best chance of building a broad
consensus among other municipalities about what transportation system improvements
are desirable to minimize traffic and congestion due to the potential of Cornell growth.
The next logical question would be why the Town Planning Board? Well, this Board is
familiar with and experienced with generic environmental impact statements, the most
recent example being the GEIS o the Town's Comprehensive Plan. The Town, of
course, is also currently working on their own transportation plan and also has it's
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planning charge and is familiar with Cornell bringing transportation improvements before
them.
What is transportation focused GEIS? Well, as you're all aware with your experience
with GEISs, a generic environmental impact statement is flexible enough to explore
hypothetical growth scenarios so a transportation- focused GEIS would identify,
examine, and evaluate transportation related impacts and their possible mitigations of
potential Cornell University growth over the next decade.
What's the proposed action? What is "TIMS "? The proposed action is the development
of what we are calling "TIMS ", which is a 10 -year transportation impact mitigation
strategies. These strategies may include recommendations for transportation demand
management, multi modal strategies including pedestrian, bicycle, transit and parking
access and circulation modifications and zoning changes. Once it's complete, TIMS will
be updated in 5 -year cycles. These impact mitigations, what we're calling TIMS, is what
we'd be seeking approval of adoption of from this Board. That's what the proposed
action is, that's what TIMS is.
So where's the plan? Let's see TIMS? Well, what's unique about this endeavor and
very unusual is that TIMS doesn't exist. Typically, as you all know, with the SEQR
process there's a plan and then you study the environmental impacts of that plan.
However, what we're proposing and what we think is very sound and logical is that the
impact mitigation strategies would evolve in response to the data and the public
feedback that we obtain from the GEIS process. And that in particular the mitigations in
alternative sections of the TGEIS would really inform and shape TIMS.
So how will the TGEIS be used when it's complete? Well, first of all obviously, there's
TIMS, there's the mitigation strategies. But in addition, the TGEIS will be used as a
planning tool, not only be the lead agencies but also by other planning agencies in the
County. Any involved agency will make their own findings with respect to any action
that they undertake that relies in any part on the transportation- focused generic
environmental impact statement. Whether it's a transportation related impact of a future
Cornell building project that they approve or it might even be a transportation
improvement that the municipality or agency itself may make. That way Planning
Boards will have a full understanding of how each individual Cornell building project,
how that individual project's transportation impacts relate to the overall bigger picture of
transportation impacts by Cornell growth as a whole. Our hope and out intent is that the
TGEIS can be a widely used planning tool for the County.
What about projects that come up before the TGEIS is complete? Ones that come up
before we are finished with this project would basically be considered and reviewed as
they are now. The one exception they may be able to utilize some data or some of the
work that we've accomplished depending upon when they come forward. For example,
we might have turning movement counts or other traffic related information that we've
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completed that that project could utilize for its own impacts. But basically projects will
continue as they do now.
That's all I'm going to talk about and at this point I'm going to turn it over to George.
George Alexiou, Martin Alexiou & Brighton
I'm George Alexiou with Martin, Alexiou, Brighton at 2414 Whitecliff Road in Raleigh,
North Carolina. I. really feel privileged to have been invited by Cornell to help them
develop a plan to address their future transportation needs, but not just a plan, a plan
that is state of the art and responsible and just as importantly, as Kathryn said, really
contributes to improved transportation in .this community and this area. Our firm only
does transportation and traffic engineering. We don't do civil engineering. The last few
years I've worked almost exclusively with campuses, a variety of campuses. But we
also work a lot with cities and mpos and regions and states. So we understand how all
these fit together. One thing I tell universities, you're not an island. What you do here
has tremendous impacts. You're usually one of the largest employers in the area so
decisions, policies that you have affect the region, their goals, their aspirations. And
likewise, you need to look out and see what the region is doing and see whether you
can benefit and contribute to that. The typical campus issues are, we come across this
on virtually every campus that we deal with, growth, growth or change. The simplistic
approach is, more growth, more people, more parking demand. At the same time, the
growth is wiping out the most buildable places on the campus which are usually surface
parking lots so you're increasing the demand and you're taking away existing parking.
The old approach was, well let's just grade some more land or build some more parking
decks, but we're becoming increasingly concerned about the impacts of doing that.
Traffic on the campus, we're trying to have a pedestrian campus, traffic in the
neighborhood, the cost of doing it, the sustainable issues that we're all interested in and
concerned about. The challenge really is how do we grow, but not bring along those
adverse impacts or at least minimize those impacts and the real strategy, the focus, is
to enhance and encourage alternatives to driving. Get people out of their cars to the
extent that we can and by doing that we solve a lot of the other problems that could
come along with that. What are these alternatives? This should be a familiar list.
Transit, ride sharing. Cornell has been practicing these strategies for years, they're
actually nationally well known, they're a leader in this area. So what we are looking at is
how do we improve these. How do we make them work better. How do we get more
people to use these alternatives? I'm going to use a couple of examples just to illustrate
who we are, what we do, how we approach this. University of Wisconsin in Madison,
very large campus, in a large urban area than this, but they have a big lake next door to
them. They're also growing but they're trying to do that with minimal increases in
parking. They have goals. One goal is, let's try and provide everyone with an option
that they are going to be happy with. Let's make folks happy to the extent we can rather
than force them to use alternatives. So a menu of custom oriented alternatives that
people will choose and, very explicitly, we want people to choose these alternatives
rather than driving alone. There's no secret about that in Madison. A lot of the policies,
again this list doesn't look too different from the things that Cornell is doing here, but let
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me just say at this point what I've learned over many years and many experiences is
that there is no one size fits all. Every university is unique, every community is unique
and it would be naive of me to come in and say, I've don it elsewhere I know exactly
what you guys need and what the community needs. We'll learn. We'll grow this from
the grassroots up. But regardless we'll be doing a lot of these things, you're already
doing a lot of these things, these are good. What will the final package look like?
That's something that we will workout together as we go along.
One of the tools that we use are surveys. Surveying the travelers who are our
customers. What do they think? How do they travel now? Why do they travel that
way? What prevents them from using alternative ways to travel? What would induce
them to use another way to travel? Let's try and understand the market rather than the
old style of transportation planning is, we'll run some more buses and surely people will
se that that's a good thing to do and we wonder why the buses are not used. Let's ask
folks what their everyday needs are. How many kids do they have to drop off to school?
Why don't . they use a bus, for example? How does the distance from your place of work
effect how you travel? Obviously the farther away you work or live from the campus,
the more likely you are to drive. So we start to get a feel for what are the variables that .
effect people's choice as they get up in the morning and plan to come to work. We do
this for employees, we do this for students.
Some of the questions: what kind of bus improvements would encourage you to think
about using a bus? Some of them are expensive. Faster trip to the campus. Well that
means more buses or bus -way. Or more frequent service. That's more buses too. But
how about the second one there, if I could have the ability to drive occasionally, maybe
could get a set of parking vouchers so that I'm not locked out of the parking system
because I don't drive regularly. Cornell's doing that. We're always realistic. There's
always on the right hand side, a bunch of people who say, I don't care what you do I'll
never use a bus. We're trying to be realistic and practical as we craft solutions for a
particular environment.
Students, for example, simple things like if I knew the schedule. Well, but the
schedule's on the website, but obviously no one ever told them how to get to the
website. It's just communicating better. More understandable, clearer routes. A lot of
people don't understand how bus systems work. We can bridge the gap and that
doesn't cost very much money on anybody's part.
Another tool is mapping where people live because where the live has a big influence
on how they travel. By integrating their survey responses with where they live we
develop kind of a 3 7-D picture of all of our customers and we know from the survey that
folks who live in this area have these opinions and have these particular travel habits.
We can then start to tailor solutions for those people that are really targeted at their
specific needs.
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Bicycles, always really an important piece of a campus transportation system. In
Wisconsin, in Madison, the region, the city is doing a lot to promote cycling. So what we
do is come in and fill in the system, make it a continuous system so people can ride
from home on the street, on the city system, and then move around the campus. Make
sure it's complete so that we don't have missing links.
Another campus, now this is a large campus, University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill,
but in a smaller community, much smaller than here and yet they have been charged to
grow by 30% over the next 8 years. Now Cornell is not talking about anything like that,
this is just a very unusual, in fact probably the most aggressive growth in the country.
They needed to understand, look at the full range of transportation solutions and
impacts. They had to work with the town. What they knew was that they could not
increase parking by 30 %, therefore, they really had to look at other solutions. One of
the reasons is that region is suffering from traffic overload. And why? Well you look at,
well we're going to double our population in 25 years, but the amount of travel is going
to increase even more dramatically than the population so that we have 150 %increase
in travel but our road capacity for a variety of reasons is only increasing by about 1/3 of
the increase in travel. Obviously that's a problem and that's a problem we all have to
deal with.
What do we end up with? That spider network is our road system. Red is bad and thick
red is really bad. That's the future that we're facing and everybody is responsible for
that and we're telling universities, and I think Cornell understands this; they need to be
part of the solution. They need to see this and say what do we need to do to try and
avoid that situation. One thing, because a lot of people live out of the town, outside of a
transit area, again we mapped where they lived and we then developed these wedges
of the direction that people travel to the campus from so we knew which roads they
used as they came into the campus and that allowed us to determine how much park
and ride we needed in each corridor. We've actually started to implement that park and
ride. Park and ride has gone up by 60 %. Now there's a lot where we used pervious
surface so we don't have storm water runoff problems. So we do a lot and we truly
believe in reducing the amount of automobile travel and energy consumption and air
pollution, those sorts of things, we're strong believers in that. But at the same time,
regardless, we still have changes in traffic patterns. We have more parking, or the
parking may change in its arrangement on the campus. So, a very important tool, and a
very important part of our analysis is using these models, fairly sophisticated models, to
understand where the traffic goes, which roads it uses, where it turns at intersections,
and to do an impact analysis and not to necessarily make improvements but to
understand what those impacts are and what the best, most sensitive ways to deal with
traffic changes on the campus. So that's another big piece of the work that.we do.
Kathryn Woolf — I'd like to conclude by summarizing for you the process that we
anticipate undertaking. This is a proactive effort by Cornell and it will be conducted
within the SEQR framework. We're choosing the SEAR framework because we feel
that it really is sort of an ideal vehicle for this type of project. There is already a defined
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process that both the Planning Board and other governmental agencies are familiar
with. And so there's a defined process, a defined way of getting input both from the
public and all of the interested and involved agencies and documenting and
incorporating their concerns. As well, all of the various agencies are able to make their
own findings and so they can focus on what issues are specifically of interest to them.
We will have a public participation process and, of course, public scoping. Additionally,
we're in the process of forming something that we're calling the Resource Committee.
The Resource Committee will be a technical advisory committee. I'm not going to go
through this list, but this is a list of who would be represented on that committee.. It
primarily includes local engineers and planners and other involved in transportation
planning. This committee will meet on a regular basis, provide input, critiques, and
really assist in the development of the fleshing out the scoping document and the GEIS.
In addition, we've identified a very broad list of stakeholders. I've got about 6 slides
here that identify the various types of categories of stakeholders and we would see a
drawing on this list to send out mailings regarding public meetings. We would also draw
on various stakeholder groups at different points in time. Possibly to participate in some
of the surveys that George has talked about. Possibly to participate in focus groups.
We hope that they can provide meaningful input to the development of this project.
Finally, an overall schedule. We are looking to have a Resource Committee kickoff
meeting later in the month of September. We are hoping to come before this Board in
October where we would hope you would establish lead agency and declare positive
declaration. That would allow us to move forward with public scoping in November and
then continued development on the scoping document and targeting December to adopt
a final scope. That would allow us then to begin the preparation of the GEIS and
Mitigation strategies in 2006.
That concludes our presentation. We thank you for your attention and we are happy to
entertain questions if you have any.
Ms. Hoffmann — I would like to know how you are proposing to get this information that
you are gathering out to the public, so that people can think about what the impacts are
of them and come back with thoughtful questions and comments?
Ms. Woolf — Well, I think there will be a variety of strategies for reaching out to the
public and at this point in time we haven't fully defined that outreach plan. The first
step, of course, is to develop the scope and define what will be addressed in the
document. Once that is defined then I think we are in a better position to, for example,
look at the stakeholders that have been identified. The stakeholders list is not set in
stone, so we're open to suggestions for groups that might be added to the stakeholders
list. But I think once we have the scope defined so we know in more detail those issues
that will be analyzed and studied we then can identify what are the groups that need to
be outreached to. And we do anticipate that there would be mailings and special
meetings and information gathering, surveys, a variety of tools. All of which we don't
know at this point in time. Those are to be developed as part of the process, but it's
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intended very much to be a process that involves the community: That is absolutely the
intention, but the specifics of that have not been defined at this point in time.
Ms. Hoffmann — I'm asking the question, in part, out of experience of what happens on
this Board. I find very often that when the public does come in, it doesn't happen often
enough I'm afraid, but when people from the public come in and tell us what they think
of things, that we learn things from them that we hadn't thought of. I would just like this
to happen in this process too, so that you don't set up a framework and only then you
go out to the public and you've sort of closed off some way for the public to have input.
Ms. Woolf — Well, Eva, you know that's absolutely an excellent point and I think that one
of the things that is unique about this project that specifically speaks to that is that we
are not starting with a plan. Often someone comes forward with a plan and then you do
a DEIS on that plan. We're saying, let's identify the issues, let's identify what we need
to study, and then develop the proposed mitigation strategies out of that analysis. So
think, it's an open process to begin with, we're not coming to you with a preconceived
notion of what the transportation strategies are. It will be developed as part of the
process and I think that that process in and of itself is helpful in accomplishing what you
are stating. But I agree with you and I think that we're certainly, that is certainly our
hope as well and we need to identify specific measures to make sure that that happens.
Ms. Mitrano — I'd like to follow up on that question because I have the same concern.
First of all, it's good idea to mention that this is terrific that you're taking a proactive
stand and trying to appreciate the demographic changes and how the university and the
Town and all the surrounding areas in the County are going to accommodate those
changes. In terms of the process could you, in a nutshell, just tell me what then would
the relationship be between the "TIMS ", whatever Cornell would initiate, and what you
want, expect, and hope the Town Planning Board would do in that process. And I think
once I understand that just a tad better, I might have a better understanding of what
Eva's addressing which is how and in what ways are we sure that the Town Planning
Board still has the same opportunity it has today to hear from the public. And then I
have some follow up questions to ask about your stakeholders.
Ms. Woolf — I'll try to make it simple. The first step, of course, is to develop the scoping
document, which defines what will actually be studied. We view the Resource
Committee as, and that includes the City, the County, the Town of Dryden, on and on.
That's a very, it's sort of a regional input to that. We view the Resource Committee as
being important to working with us to flesh out the scoping document as well, of course,
as input from this Board and.the public scoping that would occur here. So that's really
the first step then, is to agree on the scoping document, which really defines our table of
contents, in a way, for what will be studied in the GEIS. So that will then begin to define
what we're going to analyze, that will begin to define what kind of traffic analysis George
is going to undertake and what might be some various methods for collecting the
information that we need. That will all become clearer as we develop the scoping. As
we begin the development of the GEIS, that will come first, okay. So based on the
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scoping document we then proceed with the GEIS. We begin to undertake all of these
various studies, analysis, input from the community, input from the various stakeholders
groups to gather information. And we're looking at this all in the context of looking at
different potential scenarios for Cornell. _ We're going to look at alternative growth
scenarios for Cornell. We're also going to look at how much is the region expected to
grow, regardless of Cornell. These studies will then begin to point to potential impacts
under certain growth scenarios over the next decade. And that's our timeframe that
we're looking at, over the next decade. These analysis will then begin to tell us, we
might start to have a problem out by such and such intersection and in these areas 10
years out we could start seeing some problems out there. So how might we mitigate
those problems? What are some possible strategies for mitigating those problems? So
then we are going to start to look at mitigation strategies for these impacts that we've
identified... (turn tape) ... these mitigations strategies then become the TIMS, the ten -
year transportation impact mitigation strategies. That becomes the TIMS, and that is
then the document, or the set of strategies, that we're asking the Planning Board to
approve. And the GEIS will have analyzed all of the impacts. That will be the analysis
and background that generates the strategies.
Ms. Mitrano — At that moment when you are asking us to approve the TIMS, we would
still be able to undergo the same process that we do with the approval of virtually any
other application?
Ms. Woolf — Correct. The GEIS is a generic, so it is not project specific. Now, it's
possible if there are some short term projects that we know a lot of specifics on, some
projects may be outlined very specifically, but in general it's looking more broadly at
scenarios so when future projects come forward, a future project is submitted like
projects currently are submitted, it goes through its own SEQR review. Hopefully many
of those projects we will then understand what the transportation impacts of those
projects are because that growth that is being proposed by that project has been
anticipated by the GEIS. So, we would hope that when certain projects would come
forward and you would feel satisfied that the transportation impacts of that project have
already been addressed. Other impacts, visual, other impacts would have to be
analyzed like they are analyzed under, you know, specific to that project, like they are
currently analyzed for any project. If a project comes forward and has some
transportation scenario completely different than was anticipated and outlined in the
GEIS then it would also have to analyze its transportation impacts if its impacts had not.
been analyzed in the GEIS.
Ms. Mitrano — With the TIMS, it sounds like we would speculatively be approving
environmental impact on the issue of traffic and that would not be specific to a. particular
plan that you would be bringing forward say to do a parking lot or build a building. Is
that correct? .
Ms. Woolf — With TIMS you're approving transportation mitigation strategies. That's
what you're approving. And it could be as some examples, it might identify some good
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locations for park and ride lots, maybe some modifications to transit, bike paths, specific
parking lots. So that's what the TIMS would be approving and then the GEIS hopefully
will address transportation impacts of projects as they come forward but you will make
that assessment on a project -by- project basis as they come forward. You have the
complete; each project gets submitted just as it's submitted now. And then we'll say,
okay has the transportation impact been addressed by the GEIS? Let's take a look at
what the GEIS said and, oh yes, that seems to have covered it or maybe not.
Ms. Mitrano — So it doesn't obviate the need or the responsibility of us to look at the
transportation issue on each individual project.
Ms. Woolf — Correct.
Ms. Mitrano — Okay, that was my first questions.
Mr. Kanter — If I could just add to that. The first thing that this Board would actually
approve or adopt would be a findings statement in regard to the generic environmental
impact statement and I forget how many of you were involved in the Cornell Precinct 7
GEIS, but basically what that did, and this would be the same thing with this document,
the Planning Board would make it's own findings just as the City agencies, other
municipal agencies, could do when certain actions came up. This Board would make its
own findings in regard to the transportation impacts that have been identified in the
GEIS. And that's basically up to this Board to determine. There's no set statement that
you would put in the findings other than the fact that it would have to be based on the
information provided in the GEIS. So whatever the Board would be committing to would
be up to the Board to decide what it wants to commit to and those would be put in the
finding statement.
Ms. Mitrano — I do understand that. What my concern was is that in whatever approvals
that we would offer at that stage that it, wouldn't short circuit the opportunity to revisit
discreet issues about transportation on a particular application. That was my only
question, including public. hearings and all of that.
Ms. Hoffmann — And I would also hope that it would be possible to add additional traffic
mitigation strategies over these ten years as they become available. That we are not
locked into just what has been decided in this process, because there may come up
other ways of mitigating traffic that we haven't thought about yet.
Mr. Eastlick — Eva, one of the things we're proposing is that this is a ten year look at
these strategies but it would be updated every 5 years, in 5 year cycles,.that way we
could reassess and see maybe what isn't working or what the current trend is and
always make sure that we're doing as much as we can to improve our I transportation
system.
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Ms. Mitrano — Transporters would be nice. My second question, Kathy, stakeholders.
Are you looking for these people to be sources of information or are you looking for
them to be approval bodies, or do you have bifurcations or trifurcations of stakeholder
that hold different roles in this process.
Ms. Woolf - The stakeholders is really a list of groups that we view as interested public.
Some of them, it is true that we also identified municipal boards and boards that might
also be involved agencies because they might also have to give approvals to some
project to some point in time. I mean some of the mitigation strategies might not be in
the Town; they might be in the City or in other municipalities. And so some of the
stakeholders are also, we've also included all of the boards of all of the surrounding
communities that might have some interest. But those boards are also represented on
our generally, many of those boards are also represented on our Resource Technical
Committee. The stakeholders were really sort of the broadest net we could come up
with. We view that as, it's really just a list to draw on in the future if we want to get the
word out that there's going to be a public meeting, who should we get the word out to if
we are going to conduct surveys, if we're going to have focus groups, if there are
specific issues that we're trying to educate ourselves about. This is a list that we can .
draw on both for public input and education and participation. I think all of those things.
Ms. Mitrano — From one policy person to another, you might want to think of different
tiers of those groups, who might be just information gathering, who might be education,
and who might be approval.
Ms. Woolf — That's a good suggestion. I think we had that on there once.
Ms. Conneman — I assumed you said you're going to look at alternative strategies and
alternative scenarios and raise the what if, but I have another question. Mitigation
strategies by Cornell to do this. For example, if Cornell restricted cars student could
bring to campus that would change a lot. in my opinion.
Ms. Mitrano — It might change their enrollments too.
Ms. Woolf — Mitigations strategies are not limited to any particular, mitigation strategies
certainly there will be some by Cornell, there might be some in the Town, there might be
some by the County. Really, whatever is a good idea for transportation in the
community we want to get it out there and then figure out who is most appropriate to
implement that mitigation strategy?
Mr. Conneman — George did not mention anything about that on the Wisconsin campus.
I wonder if you considered that, was that part of their plan?
Mr. Alexiou — Which one in particular?
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Mr. Conneman — Particularly whether you would limit the number of automobiles that
students could bring.
Mr. Alexiou — Wisconsin has 45,000 students and they have 300 parking spaces for
students. They have a lot of housing near; it's private housing, within walking distance
or within a bike ride of campus. There they use a lot of these little mopeds to get
around, kind of unfortunately. But there are a lot, and that works there. Some other
campuses I've been to, for whatever reasons, restricting students has not worked or
does not work. But I think we want to look at everything. There's a very broad menu of
options and some of these we can do a little, some of them we can do a lot. And it's a
matter of getting the right package that embraces everybody, and most people are
relatively happy they realize it could have been worse but generally we can live with
these kinds of options and maybe some (inaudible) because they see that that's the
best thing for the university and for the community.
Mr. Conneman — I just want to be sure that you look at that because I think that's a very
important factor. By the way, Tracy, if we have to provide parking spots to attract good
students, let them go to Harvard cause Harvard has no parking on campus. But I do
think looking at the alternatives and not excluding something because Madison doesn't
do it is a good strategy. Because I think you want to look at everything.
Mr. Alexiou — I think the bottom line is if we're aware of a strategy that we've heard of or
seen, if you bring a strategy up, or a member of the public brings something up we're
going to put it on the table, we're going to look at it.
Mr. Conneman — I think that what Eva 's first question, we're you going to look at all of
these things.
Mr. Howe — I can foresee as public meetings start that, sometimes at these public
meetings folks will focus on problems today, not even ten years out, so will that be
factored in to any mitigation strategies because currently there's existing problems? By
the way, I'm no sure I saw Forest Home Improvement Association on your list of
stakeholders.
Ms. Woolf — I think it is there.
Mr. Howe — Because they have a traffic calming committee in Forest Home as well. So
anyway I just hope that existing problems can go through this.
Ms. Woolf — That's an interesting question. I think the intention here is that we're really
focusing on future growth and obviously, I guess; if we can fix some existing situations
with that future growth, but the intent of this is not to look at what are the problems are
today.
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Mr. Talty — You indicated that Cornell is one of the leading universities with regard to
this type of planning. In your expertise have there been any glaring oversights by
Cornell so far.
Mr. Alexiou — I'm sure they're not perfect at everything. This is a long process and
we're talking about the next few months really scoping what work we're going to do.
Mr. Talty — I'm going to ask that same question again later. So I'll let you off the hook
now.
Ms. Hoffmann — I'd like to go back again to informing the public, which I'm very
concerned about. I know that there are neighborhoods in the Town that do not have
active neighborhood associations, and there's not an address where you can send out a
letter saying we would like to know what you think of this. I don't know if this is true .of
outlying communities in Tompkins County, but I imagine it might be because people live
further apart and maybe there's not the cohesiveness of Forest Home for instance,
where there are a lot of people living very close together who talk to each other a lot
and get together about problems. So I'm really concerned that you look at other public
ways of informing people that this is going on, like making sure that there are
newspaper articles and things like that on a regular basis.
Ms. Woolf - I think media outreach will be important and in fact, it didn't show up on the
list here, but on our stakeholder's list we have media outlets to accomplish exactly what
you are talking about. So we have recognized that and is a point well taken.
Ms. Hoffmann - And you mentioned surveys of students and of staff at Cornell. Have
you thought about doing surveys in the communities of the residents who are not
connected with Cornell?
Mr. Alexiou — We can certainly think about it? There are some communities we've
worked in where the general transportation planning process has already repeatedly
elicited a lot of good information that's led to a definition of issues, good planning
transportation principles, goals, and objectives and that's been the foundation of the
regional whether it's a city, town, or mpo area plan and that certainly forms a very
important context for the work that we do. But the idea of, as part of this, undertaking
surveys, we'd have to look at the logistics of doing that. How we identify folks, whether
we do it in a less formal way where we just ask people to give us opinions or whether
we try and do it in a„ more statistically valid way so that we have information we can use
in a quantitative sense. Yes, these are ideas that we need to think about.
Ms. Hoffmann I appreciate a lot of the expertise that you have and I think that's
wonderful, but I would hate to think that all of this is done by experts, whether it's you or
the committee of experts or people on various local boards. The public needs to be
involved more.
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Mr. Kanter — In Cathy and my discussions with Cornell early in the process we thought
this would be a great opportunity on the Town's own Transportation Plan which started
with a public survey, a resident survey. So, I think we can really build on that to a large
degree. You're right it probably doesn't cover a number of people in other areas and
maybe there's a way we could supplement what we did, but again trying to -most
efficient with the process not to duplicate what we've already started with but to use that
to build on to would be the. best way to do it.
Ms. Valentino — I just wanted to say that I consider the outreach to the rest of the
community and the different people a major portion of my job. That's what I'm going to
be doing as part of this whole study and where we go with it is, as you people have
heard me say before, the Town of Ithaca touches almost every single community,
there's only two municipalities that we don't touch, Groton and Caroline, and we almost
touch Caroline. I have a regular ongoing working relationship with the Mayor of the
City, with all the supervisors in every one of the towns. I think the Town of Ithaca, our
professional staff, has really worked hard over the years to build up that relationship, a
good working relationship and I think that's going to be the perfect launching pad for us
to reach out to people that are in those neighborhoods. Using the Star Trek thing, going
where no one has gone before and finding new life forms wherever they might or
wherever those ideas happen to be I think is exactly what I see as part of my major
contribution to this study is to make sure that everyone that wants to be involved and
everyone that has a good idea or even a not so good idea, as long as it's an idea and
they want to put it forward that we're going to look at that. I see the Planning Board,
you folks, as being the important connection that says, look we need to have more
public meetings, we need to get to these people, we need to get to those people,
whatever you feel that needs to be done for public outreach I think it's our responsibility
for the rest of us and for Cornell to make sure that that happens.
Mr. Wilcox — A couple comments that I'd like to make. We still have a resolution in front
of us, which we can decide to consider this evening, which would request the involved
agencies to concur with the Planning Board being lead agency for environmental
review. If we are the lead agency, my assumption is that a public hearing would be
scheduled for the scoping process so that would occur here, in front of us, which
addresses I think Eva's issues brought up early on.
With regard to TIMS, I see that as approving concepts, is the way I see that. And then
Cornell will come with specific actions hopefully that directly result from those concepts
and I don't see that we would lose any control over either the environmental review.
Cornell would simply hopefully be able point to a generic environmental impact
statement and reference that information when they come with a specific project. The
other comment was about notifying the media. Cayuga radio group is represented here
tonight I believe. The one thing that Cornell can do is provide information to the
newspapers and the radio but that doesn't necessarily mean that will get on the air or be
published so just because something doesn't appear we should necessarily fault
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Cornell. There are a lot of people who want to put stuff in the paper, either on the
editorial page or other places, and it is simply all can't be done.
Mr. Kanter — We talked about setting up a real good website as well. We're finding with
our own Transportation Plan, we just have set up it's own separate website which
guess we will very soon be going public and fall kinds of opportunities for updates and
information and input that way but we have to tell people that it's there.
Ms. Mitrano — Who's hosting it?
Mr: Kanter — We are. For this EISA project we're not sure whether it would be a Town
hosted or Cornell hosted but either way we both have the resources to do it.
Mr. Wilcox — If you don't mid there are many other representatives of Cornell in the
audience. Would someone else like to make a statement at this time?
No one expressed an interest in making a statement.
Mr. Wilcox — Kathryn, do you need anything else from us at this point, or George?
Would someone like to move the resolution as drafted?
PB RESOLUTION NO. 2005 -084: Lead Agency De_si_gnation, Cornell University
transportation- focused, Generic Environmental Impact Statement (t: GE /S), And
Ten -year Transportation Impact Mitigation Strategy (TIMS)
MOTION made by Board Member Howe, seconded by Board Member Talty
WHEREAS.
1. Cornell University has submitted a report outlining a proposal for a
"transportation- focused Generic Environmental Impact Statement (t -GETS) and
Ten -year Transportation Impact Mitigation Strategies (TIMS)"; dated August 26,
2005, being undertaken by Cornell University in cooperation with the Town of
Ithaca. The t-GEIS will address transportation impacts on the community
surrounding the campus related to an increasing population traveling to Cornell.
The TIMS will evolve in response to .the feedback .obtained from the t -GETS
process, and may include recommendations for transportation demand
management, multi -modal transportation strategies, access and circulation
modifications, and zoning changes. Cornell University, Applicant; Kathryn Wolf,
RLA, Principal -in- Charge (Trowbridge & Wolf, LLP); Martin, Alexiou, Bryson
(Transportation Consultants), and
2. The proposed transportation- focused GEIS would be a generic environmental
impact statement that will identify, examine and evaluate Cornell's transportation-
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related impacts and potential mitigations for possible projects, plus hypothetical
growth scenarios.. over the next decade. The GEIS is a tool available under the
New York State Environmental Quality Review Act, commonly referred to as
SEAR. Unlike an Environmental Impact Statement, a GEIS is flexible enough to
explore hypothetical or alternative scenarios, and
3. The Town of Ithaca is the logical municipality to serve as lead agency in the t-
GEIS initiative. Its boundaries encircle the City of Ithaca and abut most of the
county's other municipalities. On an average workday, 80 percent of Cornell
employees travel through the Town of Ithaca on their daily commute. The town
has a key role in the county's overall transportation system, and is in the process
of completing its own transportation plan, and
4. The Town of Ithaca Planning Board would be the most appropriate agency to
serve as lead agency to coordinate the review of the t -GEIS because the TIMS
involves a planning process to identify alternate growth scenarios and alternate
strategies to mitigate impacts of those scenarios, the Planning Board has
experience in coordinating and reviewing other environmental impact statements
(including the Cornell Precinct 7 GEIS), and the Planning Board is familiar with
and deals on an ongoing basis with the review of Cornell University projects
relating to transportation, parking, access and circulation issues, and
5. The report referenced above, which includes a Full Environmental Assessment
Form, Part 1, a description of the proposed action, and a cover letter (August 26,
2005) indicating that the applicant proposes to prepare a transportation- focused
Generic EIS and is requesting a positive declaration of environmental
significance for the Planning Board's consideration,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED:
That the Town of Ithaca Planning Board hereby proposes to establish itself as lead
agency to coordinate the environmental review of the proposed transportation- focused
GEIS and Ten -year Transportation Impact Mitigation Strategy, as described above, and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That the Town of Ithaca Planning Board hereby requests the concurrence of all involved
agencies on this proposed lead agency designation, said concurrence to be received by
the Town of Ithaca Planning Department within thirty days from the date of notification
of the involved agencies.
The vote on the motion resulted as follows:
AYES: Wilcox, Thayer, Howe, Talty, Hoffman, Conneman, Mitrano,
NAYS: None.
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ABSTAIN: None.
The vote on the motion was carried.
MINUTE APPROVAL
PB RESOLUTION NO. 2005 -085: Approval of Minutes: August 16, 2005
MOTION by Chairperson Wilcox, seconded by Board Member Conneman.
RESOLVED, that the Planning Board does hereby approve and adopt the August 16,
2005 minutes as the official minutes of the Town of Ithaca Planning Board for the said
meeting as presented.
The vote on the motion resulted as follows:
AYES: Wilcox, Conneman, Howe, Talty, Thayer.
NAYS: None.
ABSTAIN: Hoffmann.
ABSENT: Mitrano
The vote on the motion was carried.
Mr. Wilcox — At 8:18 the next item is the consideration of a sketch plan review for the
proposed Ithaca College School of business building located north of Job Hall on the
Ithaca College Campus, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel Nos. 41 -1. -31.2 and 41. -1 -30.4,
Medium Density Residential Zone.
The proposal includes construction of a new 42,000 + /= square foot building for the
School of Business, which will include. new classrooms, faculty offices, conference
rooms and an atrium along with approximately 16 parking spaces located on the lower
level of the building. The project will also include new landscaping, walkways, lighting,
and storm water facilities. Ithaca College owner /applicant. Mr. Fred Vanderberg, agent
Mr. Vanderberg — This evening, to my left Ms. Susan Engelkemeyer. She's the Dean of
the Business School at Ithaca College. To my right is Carl Sgrecci, Vice President for
Finance and Business Affairs. We apologize. Robert A. M. Stern was supposed to be
here to night to do this presentation, but as you all know the airports today sometimes
get congested and there's problems there. Stern is stuck in Boston. I'm not sure what
time they'll be here. They talked to me a little after 6:00 p.m, and they still hadn't
boarded the plane yet for Syracuse. So they're kind of lost in space right now.
Hopefully maybe he'll show up here before I get through.
We wanted to get together with you folks. We met with some of the Town employees a
month ago and went through a power point presentation to them. It was the same
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power point presentation that was given to us
people a feel for this project, it's pretty unique,
that most of the community will be too when tl•
only from a building standpoint but also from a
talk to you more about that if you want to talk
planning to teach in the business school.
Planning Board Meeting
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at our competition. Just to try to give
we're very excited about it, and I .think
iey hear about where it's going and not
curriculum standpoint. And Susan can
about sustainable curriculum that she's
We can start out with this first board. This shows the location of the new business
school.. It's to the north of Job Hall. It's positioned kind of east and west of Friends and
Job, between there and the chapel to the north. The building is about 42,000 square
feet as we stated in our (inaudible). The building is trying to obtain a platinum lead
certification, which is the highest there is in the lead certification ranking. We're going to
use a lot of sustainable parts to this building. A lot of sustainable elements from solar to
gray water retention. That was big thing that we met with the Town about because you
didn't have any accommodations in your actual rules and.regulations on gray water use.
That was a concern of ours and I think we ironed that out pretty well. They've actually
drawn up a regulation for it now. So anyway, we're going to have green roofs. You can
see the green roof as it comes off out of this additional part, wing of the building to the
west. A lot of glass, day lighting in every office space. In the interior of the building no
space will be without day lighting whether it comes from skylights, from terraces, lots.of
glass, lot of things going on there. It stays with the master plan. It enhances the master
plan. You folks have seen the master plan. This deviates from our master plan, but
everybody at Ithaca College thinks this is an enhancement to what we had as far as a
master plan because it gives us a lot more green area. You can see that the main
entrance comes up in here. It's all green. You can see that Stern has, they talk big
picture, has gone into more development than what we ask for but in their presentation,
where the fountains are, they created what the call this greenway going to the hill center
and this is going to allow people with accessibility issues to traverse this slope without
having that wall there. Now it currently holds the fountain back. There's no way for
them to get from this part of campus to that part of campus without going through a lot
of maze here, through buildings, up elevators, and then out through. So it just
enhances that whole thing.
Coming in around Billingham it just gives the college a new main entrance, a better
vision of a front door. Any questions on this one?
Ms. Hoffmann - You're talking about some nice things for this building like a lot of light
and view and so on, but I'm wondering how high is it compared to Friends. Hall and Job
Hall and will it block the views from those two buildings.
Mr. Vanderberg — Where it sits in between these two there pi
sight line. on Friends Hall, which is a classroom building. But
Job is over this lower wing, it's hard to see here, I can show
we've go on another board here. You'll see better the
dimensional so it's hard for you to really grasp that part of it.
-obably will be some loss of
actually Job the way it sits,
you on another sketch that
orientation of. This is 3-
In a 2- dimensional drawing
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we can actually show you a little better the orientation of that building. But, yeas, there
will be some sight line lost especially on the first floor.
Ms. Hoffmann — But are all those buildings the same height, pretty much?
Mr. Vanderberg — Well, no this building is going to set down in with the elevation drop, it
will be down in. This elevation will be about the same height as Job Hall. Here's a 2-
dimensional, Eva, you can see where the school of business sets. Its backed off, it's
set back off these other buildings far enough and it's going to drop down in elevation
where we're not going to interfere with any views from Job Hall out across. I think it will
block some sight line of Friends, but there again this is computer labs in this first floor
and then classrooms on the second and third. As far as it blocking any views from any
administrative buildings, it would be nice if it didn't block any, but that's just not the
case. This walkway that connects the two buildings is in the process, it isn't in the
project yet, but we're seriously considering that. This would actually give us
handicapped accessibility from this building if this was a main door to the campus. You
can see how the driveway changes here and the parking lot structure. You could bring
students in at the new school of business and take them right directly over and tie them
into that spine that runs full length here to the campus center. So they'd have an
interior chase way all the way through from building to building. And also we're talking
about putting a covered catwalk across on the second floor, which actually tie into the
Job Hall roof and then into the center part of campus, which would give access there to
the center part of campus, which we've never had. So when you couple that with this
green area we're making this whole area a lot more accessible in this plan. We're
shooting for using 60% less energy in this building that we would if it was built under
normal construction standards. Here's a larger sketch of the same thing we just talked
about. This would be a glassed in corridor much like the spine is now that runs through
so it would be very open, airy kind of a crossover between the two buildings. The
school's going to be teaching tool. Not only are they going to teach it in curriculum, but
the building is a living tool of what sustainability stands for and what it represents.
They're going to have a wall in here that's going to have all the digital readouts of what
this building's saving in energy versus what it would be if it was a constructional
standard building built by just standards of the construction industry.
Ms. Hoffmann — That's all very exciting. What does LEED actually stand for?
Mr. Vanderberg — Leadership and energy efficiency design
Any other questions? This is just sketch plan. Right now we're doing valued
engineering on the building. That's why we didn't get as specific as we might have,
because there could be some changes in it and many times people latch on to things
when they see it and then when they see a change they wonder what's going on. So
this is only sketch plan, but this is more informational than anything else so that if
there's any questions or anything that maybe...
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Ms. Hoffmann — Well I do have some more questions.
Mr. Vanderberg — Okay.
Ms. Hoffmann — You mentioned in the write up that the roof will be vegetated or
reflective? Could you talk a little more about that?
Mr. Vanderberg — Well, it's a choice that we'll have to make through valued engineering.
There's more costs to a vegetated roof. A vegetated roof, of course, absorbs a lot of
rainwater and moisture that occurs here quite often. Not this summer, but most of the
time, and it keeps the storm water bound on the building. Most of the storm water from
this building will be recycled and used for flushing toilets, for irrigation, for all those kinds
of things. We'll have a gray water system that will collect the rainwater off of here. The
reflective roof is a white roof. Under LEEDS points, there's points for each one of these
LEEDS Elements and you have to have 52 points to be a platinum building which is
very hard to achieve but the white roof actually gives you as many points under LEEDS
Certification as a vegetative roof. Now the vegetative roof, of course, with Job Hall
looking down on it is aesthetically going to be a lot more pleasant to look at than a white
rubber roof. But these are all things to be taken into consideration through the valued
engineering.
Ms. Hoffmann — What kind of plants would one put on a vegetative roof?
Mr. Vanderberg — Sedum, they use a lot of sedum. It doesn't require a lot of water and
it flowers, it's nice. I guess the only drawback to it probably it's going to attract bees, it
could be a problem. But we'd have to be careful in that selection. There will probably
be some evergreens in it.
Ms. Hoffmann — There was a word on page 4 where you list all the various exciting
energy saving ways of doing things and it's called "anaphalcy recovery"? What's that?
Mr. Vanderberg — It's a heat wheel. What you do is you circulate say your exhaust from
your restrooms, other areas, through this wheel and this empathy wheel will actually
pick up that heat. It's like an air -to -air exchanger. It's got a median in it that collects the
heat and then it will sling it off into a clean air stream and put it back into the building.
Mr. Wilcox — We're going to learn a lot.
Mr. Vanderberg — I think it's a great thing because I think you are going see more of this
as time goes on and the more you know about it, that you can learn and we can learn at
the same time with you, the better of you're going to be when you make your decisions.
Ms. Hoffmann — I had another question about the parking and it's not clear from the
drawings, you haven't developed it obviously, but it looks as if you'll enter into the
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parking on the ground level, on the north side of the building, and then I guess the
building will be dug into the hillside so it will be partially underground.
Mr. Vanderberg — That's still up in the air. There again that's a valued engineering
thing. In the first take on this the garage is underneath, there's 29 spaces under there.
Of course that isn't enough to take care. of the whole building but it will take care of a
good part of it, especially, the handicapped parking and then there's some kind of an
incentive there also if people have hybrid cars that they would have special parking
because they were driving hybrids. They actually would be able to park under there.
There's a lot of ideas right now that are just really floating out there. If we can try to
incorporate that into the building it would be a nice asset to the building to have the
parking underneath where it was out of sight. But I don't know that financially it could
become a burden for us.
Ms. Hoffmann — I was going to ask if you might consider making two levels of parking.
One on the level that you are proposing it and then another one going down from that
entrance to a level below. That way you could double the 29 parking spaces.
Mr. Vanderberg — Unfortunately we all have a budget we have to stick to. I'll bring that
to people's attention, but that might be financial burden to this project.
Ms. Hoffmann — Initially but maybe in the long run it might be a good way of doing it.
Mr. Vanderberg — They've also talked about parking off farther to the north that would
be on permeable pavement that will allow the water to go through it. We're talking
about recycled pavement and different things with that. There's a lot of talk out there
right now on this parking issue and I wouldn't want to lock us in on it. But in the first run,
you're absolutely right there is a parking garage underneath the building, but it's only 29
spaces.
Mr. Wilcox — Therefore, I would expect that someone would address the decline in
parking spaces at least for now. Either why you think that you can reduce the number
of parking spaces by whatever, it's about 30 or 35, or where you're going to make up for
the parking spaces.
Mr. Vanderberg — There's some other creative things going on. Right now it's too early .
for us to come and talk about it but there's some other things going on here with this
changing of this front entrance and how that might work into the plan down the road.
Mr. Wilcox — My assumption is that you need every parking space that you have.
Mr. Vanderberg - Yes. I'd buy into that.
Ms. Hoffmann — I think overall this is very exciting.
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Mr. Vanderberg — Well, we're very excited about it and I think it's just the right thing to
do and I think it's going to set a standard for the community.
Mr. Wilcox — Carl and Susan, would either of you like to make a statement or comment.
Mr. Sgrecci — For those of you who have seen our master plan and perhaps recall it
there was a development of what we called Main Street and this would be the first
building that would help form that Main Street all the way through this part of the
campus. There's a possibility of another building being in front of Dillingham Center and
even another one over in front of what we currently call Muller Faculty Center. r.
Sgrecci — Eva's concern about views is an issue for "us as well, but the way that we are
looking at it, this is going to create a very pedestrian friendly environment here with
these buildings all the way across campus and for any views that ultimately get taken
away from these buildings will be replaced by views that are these buildings that are
going below them when it all gets in place many years to come.
Board
Member
Hoffmann
— But from there I would think that it is the view over the lake
that is
the most
important
one.
Mr. Sgrecci — And what is interesting, there
say how many years that I have been in my
don't have it any more just because of the
original landscaping of the campus 40 years
to deal with. So there are some views that
What they were 25 or 30 years ago.
are a number of places in Job Hall, I won't
office, but I used to have a lakeview and I
existing trees that have grown up from the
ago and that is just an issue that we have
we currently have that are not as good as
Ms. Engelkemeyer — When Fred started out he talked about the lead certification. Our
goal is for platinum and if you are aware of that there are less than a dozen buildings
currently that hold that. We may not be able to .achieve that level, but even the next
level down there is only 50 buildings. So we are very proud of the fact that we are
working very hard to design a building that is not only sensitive with the environment,
but also trying to enhance the spirit of community building in the building so when you
see further plans you will see spaces that are designed for teamwork and collaboration
and interaction that don't currently exist in some of our building_ s. So we are really
excited about what this is going to do for our campus.
Board Member Conneman — When you come back, we . would like you to tell us
something about underground parking because a lot of places in the world they do that
and they are very happy with that. It seems to me in Ithaca we sort of dismiss that. At
least one institution has dismissed that as being impossible and it seems. to me that I
would like to know what your take on that is.
Mr. Vanderberg — Yeah. It is definitely not impossible. It is very possible. We have it in
our original drawings of this building. If we brought plans down that showed the plan
view of each floor you would see it and its Stearns way of trying to make up for the
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displaced spaces on campus. I mean their recommendation; actually their
recommendation to us was that every building that we build from here on out we should
look at that. Replacing that parking that we are taking up and put it in under the building
where it can't be seen, but it is a necessity. It is actually better space than what you
have in the great out -of- doors, but it is very expensive. So the structure it takes to hold
up the upper floors because you can't do great beams or slab on grade and because
you have to go with the undersub basement gets to be expensive especially when you
are doing a lot of rock excavation as we have up there. We have a lot of it, but it is not
off the charts yet. It is still in the mix. That is something for us to look at.
The other thing I didn't talk about was the front of this building, you can't see it
very well here, but there is a glass wall here that will house the solar collectors. The
second thing that it also does is allows people to open their windows so that they get
ventilation in the summer and the fall or spring without having the papers blowing off
their desk and a lot of other things. It creates a curtain wall there, just a separation
between the outdoors, but it still feels like you are out there because you get that fresh
air coming through the building because they are going to use a lot of ventilation in this
building that is going to occur just naturally because heat rises. It will draw it out
through the roof parts of the building without the use of power to ventilate it.
Chairperson Wilcox — Pardon my perplexed look, but buildings, office buildings now
days you can't open the windows.
Mr. Vanderberg — Right. This has got a lot of theory in it that it not your norm.
Chairperson Wilcox — I mean something as simple as that would be a great
I
mprovement to any employee to be able to open a window, even to hear the natural
noise outside sometimes.
Mr. Vanderberg — Well, they are going to do a lot of that in this building.
Attorney Barney — I may have missed one thing that you said before. What is the
LEED?
Mr. Vanderberg - Leadership and Energy Efficiency Design.
Board Member Thayer — You said. that there were only 50 buildings in the United States
for the second level?
Mr. Vanderberg — In the world.
Board Member Thayer — In the world? Oh, my.
Mr. Vanderberg — If this building is built to platinum, it will be the only one like it in the
world. It will be the only academic building in the world.
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Board Member Thayer - Nobody's built platinum one?
Mr. Vanderberg — They have built platinum buildings, but not an academic building,
especially a business school.
Board Member Talty — Are you aware of where the closest one is to our location?
Mr. Vanderberg — The closest platinum building is in Overland, Ohio.
Chairperson Wilcox — Fieldtrip.
Board Member Howe — It would be great just to have a Robert Stearn building in Ithaca
as well.
Mr. Vanderberg — Yeah. They are a great company and as you know, Stearn is the
dean of the Architectural School at Yale.
Chairperson Wilcox — Anything else? Good luck to you.
Mr. Vanderberg — Thank you.
Chairperson Wilcox — Thank you very much.
Chairperson Wilcox closes this segment of the meeting at 8:39 p.m.
SKETCH PLAN
Consideration of a revised Sketch Plan for the proposed Sky Gardens
Condominiums located on the north side of Mecklenburg Road across from
Rachel Carson Way, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 27 -1 -14.2, Agricultural Zone,
and a 45 +/- lot subdivision for single- family homes on approximately 65.6 +/-
acres, on a portion of Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 27 -1 -11.2. The condominium
proposal includes the construction of approximately 200 condominium units in
multiple buildings, a great hall, an indoor /outdoor swimming pool and
entertainment area, a spa and fitness center, tennis courts, several miles of
walking paths, new roads and parking lots, and. stormwater facilities. John
Rancich, Owner /Applicant. The next agenda item, the proposed Perry
subdivision, involves subdividing off a 65.6 +/- acre parcel from the Perry
property, to be consolidated for development of 45 +/- single family lots, and will
be discussed in conjunction with this proposal, with the SEAR determination and
Public Hearing for Perry following.
Chairperson Wilcox opens this segment of the meeting at 8:40 p.m.
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John Rancich, 363 Hines Road, Enfield NY
Sitting to my right is my friend and counsel, Jim Orr of Garrity Communications. He has
been helping me out with a lot of visuals and marketing strategies and things like that.
What I am here for is to tell you a little bit more about what I am trying to do. 1
have been talking about this condominium project for a 1.5, 2 years now. Everyday it
becomes more and more refined, a little more complicated and I think much, much
better. About 6 months ago, I struck a deal with Dick Perry to buy this land of his, which
is about 65 acres, which changed the scope of my project. The Perry Farm, if I can set.
this up here for a second. This is the entire Perry Farm and it goes out to Bundy Road.
Some of you are very familiar with this development up here. What I am proposing to
buy from Dick Perry is this red area and that farm, that part of his farm, adjoins my
existing 93 acres, giving me a total of 158 acres. This section of the farm is zoned R15,
which allows me to put 15,000 square foot lots in which could give me 115 -120 lots on
that area. I don't want to do that. I want to go for a much lesser density looking at 45,,
481 42, I'm not exactly sure. What I have got planned is a road that comes off 79 winds
around, accesses my condominium project, this area here will be. left farm or green or
something. The road will go back onto the Perry land, swoop down through here with a
couple of cul -de -sacs, hook to this road here, which is as of yet is unnamed or could be
called Riley Drive. The Town has a right -of -way on this road and they have the right -of-
way right out to Bundy Road. I would propose that this road come in, connect here and
go back out through Linderman Creek, back to 79 and eventually connect to Bundy
Road. That is what I want to do.
Board Member Mitrano — That's good.
Jim Orr, Garrity Communications
I am Jim Orr, Vice President Senior Marketing Consultant with Garrity Communications
and on a personal note I was a 1982 IC grad in the school of communications and
recently came back to this area so I am very happy to be here. The one thing that
would like to articulate in terms of describing the project is that what I think Mr. Rancich
is endeavoring to build here is not your average same old, same old condominium
complex and subdivision. When I say that I mean that he is really trying to build
something that is architecturally quite beautiful in look and form and that it will be built
with an attention to detail in terms of all the architectural accouchements and aesthetics
that will harken back to something from old European, like an old European village
using key builders materials like ... think of tudor styling and round stone walls and flat
stones walls, but a very, very beautiful look and feel that is anything like the norm. With
that said, though, his main goal and one of the things that intrigued me about this
project is that it has an overall look and feel, if it is built the way that he envisions it that
will have a very comfortable architectural look that will sit on that hill and. compliment its
surroundings and in no way standout in a striking form that anyone would find anything
but a very appealing addition to the Ithaca community. Thank you very much.
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Chairperson Wilcox — Let me just tell members of the public that the way we put this
together is we wanted. to allow Mr. Rancich and the board wanted to see some
information about the Sky Gardens Complex. It's been a while since you were here and
we saw your original proposal. We thought it was important to put the proposed
subdivision in context so that we could understand how.that land would be incorporated
into the land that Mr. Rancich owns or controls right now. The purpose here tonight is
not to, obviously, not to approve anything having to do with this development. What is
in front of us in an understanding of where he is going and our ability to understand and
learn and provide comment and then to consider the actual subdivision as what we will
refer to as the Perry Farm parcel.
I was actually hoping for more detail with regards to Sky Gardens at this point.
That is not a criticism. I was just hoping to see more.
Mr. Rancich - The reason there is not more detail is because I don't have the
detail... I'm not looking for anything tonight except more conceptual approval. I have
been at this a long, long time. I'm not trying to ram this sort of thing through because
everyday that I spend with it, it grows. The details have changed. The stuff that I have
that I could have brought to you to show how we have come along in the past 12
months are things that I have now said that is not going to work as well as I want it to.
So we are still looking. At some point in the future I will be able to come here with a
picture of the whole place laid out and a picture of some of the buildings and some of
the water features and some of the topy areas and all of the stormwater things that I am
going to have to do for these projects or as one, if you look at, are all at an advantage to
me actually because I have got waterways, ponds, fountains, streams incorporated into
the whole project. Over here, this is to the north of my property or I should say Dick
Perry's property, and we won't look at this one because this is the one that I attempted
to show how dense the zoning would allow this to be. This one here is a much less
dense. This is a gorge down through' here that is quite deep to the very west and
becomes shallower and shallower until it comes almost to grade level. I haven't figured
out exactly how to protect that whether it would be done through deed restrictions or
whether it would be done through a third party ownership or even perhaps Town
ownership so that that could be preserved in close to its natural state because I would
like to put a walkway and a bike path through there and up over the hill. I have
walkways and bike paths planned all through here. 1.
Chairperson Wilcox — When you were here before, when asked about the cost of the
condominiums, I believe you said $150,000 - $200,000 or $175,000 - $200,000. Where
are you now?
Mr. Rancich — They are higher and everybody that I have talked to in the real estate
marketing business and with the way that the real estate market here in Ithaca and all
over, as a matter of fact is going, I believe if I had a model to show, even a computer
model, and I could actually demonstrate with a drawing or simulation, I believe that
would start selling these at $200,000 like hotcakes.
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Planning Board Meeting
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Chairperson Wilcox — So the price has gone up a little?
Mr. Rancich — The price will go up. The price can go up because I am offering so much
to the residents of the condominium association and the residents that build houses on
these lots will end up being part of the condominium association. All the condominium
amenities will be available to the public. Some for free, like the biking paths and the
jogging paths, and others at a fee, the swimming pools and the great hall, which will be
great, tennis courts and all the stuff that we are trying to put there. I'm trying to build a
community. As an aside, I am going to live here.
Chairperson Wilcox — Have you spoken with representatives from Conifer?
Mr. Rancich — I have had some talks with Conifer. Conifer has a problem. They want to
develop some elderly housing here and they don't have a plan for their land back here.
I have talked with the Conifer people and they have asked me for a right -of -way to my
land right through here, which I haven't granted them yet, but I told them that I would. It
would be a mutual right -of -way of course. It may just be an emergency right -of -way for
fire service. What I suggested to Conifer and they said they weren't sure if they could
afford it right now that they have a road that comes in about to here. I suggested
that ... well it's down here. Sorry. It comes right in here. I suggested... it comes to about
here ... I suggested they extend it here and then I would build the rest of these roads. I
didn't get a positive or a negative from them. I got it sounds like a nice plan.
Chairperson Wilcox — I acknowledge that there is a representative from Conifer here
this evening.
Mr. Kanter — I made it pretty clear to Mr. Rancich in talking about the development of
that Perry parcel that there would absolutely have to be a second road access
somewhere because this board cannot under our subdivision regulations nor would the
fire department approve a dead end road with the length it would take on from
Mecklenburg Road up through those lots without it looping either to the north or to the
south. So it is essential that that happen one way or another.
Mr. Rancich — The other thing
Town, I don't know the status
which would be this road here
this. I don't know if the Town
is that Dick Perry has agreed to grant me, as well as the
of the Town's right -of -way from here out to Bundy Road,
Here is Bundy Road out here. I don't know the status of
owns that or has a right -of -way across it It has been an
unclear thing. Maybe Mr. Barney can tell us; I'm not sure, but I have asked that
question a few times and have not gotten a ... but irregardless, the Town has some right
there. Dick Perry has agreed to give me the right to go to Bundy Road, across that
same right -of -way. I don't quite understand all the legal ramifications of that, but I know
that the intent is to provide access from Route 79 to Bundy Road.
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Mr. Walker — Just a little clarification for history because it has been quite a while.
There is a proposed road that has preliminary approval from this Board and we have an
easement across that so that we can access our Town park prior to that road becoming
a dedicated Town road.
Chairperson Wilcox — The park that was created as part of the Conifer.
Mr. Rancich — There are two parks. If I may, correct me if I'm wrong. This is one park
that the Town owns. This park was given to them by the Perry's. This park here was
given by Conifer or Linderman Creek, making a large park here with eventually this road
that is now on Linderman Creek's property would access the park. There is also, I
believe, another small park that has been given to the Town. There is a small park right
here that the Town owns now called the Tot Lot.
Mr. Kanter — It was meant to have play structures for the Perry Lane subdivision.
Mr. Rancich — Okay. This road that was drawn on this survey and on my plat are roads
that exist on proposed Town maps.
Board Member Howe — Fred, I was not here in April of 2004. 1 didn't think to ask for the
minutes. This is an agriculture zone currently where the condominium complex is being
proposed. Was there some sense when this was talked about before that there was a
willingness to rezone that? I guess I would have to go back to the minutes to...
Mr. Kanter — Mr. Rancich appeared at the Town Board first prior to coming to the
Planning Board to discuss the possibility of rezoning. The Town Board expressed
interest in doing that and referred it to this board for a recommendation and that was as
far as it went because normally a recommendation comes with the development and
more detailed plans.
Chairperson Wilcox — We have seen sketch plans before, but it hasn't gotten to the
point where it was something that we could approve.
Mr. Rancich — My whole plan, including the purchase of the Perry land is predicated on
me being able to do something close to what I have planned. Now, if you wanted to put
it in the special land use so that the Town Board or the Planning Board and I believe the
Planning Board has been put as lead agency on my. project, am I correct on.that?
Mr. Kanter — Actually the Planning Board did declare its intent to serve as lead agency
for the rezoning and site plan. We did circulate the notice and heard back from a few so
technically speaking the Planning Board is lead agency. But that actually did not
include the 45 plus or minus lots that we are talking about now. So if we were to
proceed with that as part of the whole concept of the development we would need to
recirculate the lead agency notice.
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Chairperson Wilcox - As the project has changed significantly.
Mr. Rancich — The project has changed. That is why, again, I don't have all the details
that you want to see and that I want to show you because of this huge change and
mentioned right from the very start that this is not a project done by one guy. I need all
of your help in addition to many members of the community that I have contacted and
have put their 10 cents in or 10 dollars. Basically, if I can't get conceptual approval for
what I want to do, I am unable to give Dick Perry his money and I want to get rid of that
money bad.
Chairperson Wilcox — First of all, I am not sure we are going to give you anything like an
official conceptual approval. I think when you were here last time you got a sense from
the board that go back and work on your drawings and work on your plans and we
would see what you came up with, but the indication was from both the Town Board and
the rezoning from this board was that you should proceed. Having said that, I am now
speaking only for myself. My approval or disapproval of the project will depend upon
the plans that you present. Okay? Conceptually we have a mixed development of
condominiums and single- family homes. Conceptually so far we have a proposal to
create roughly 42 single family lots where the zoning would allow a lot more so nice big
lots. The subdivision is not your conventional cookie cutter like subdivision. We could
maybe be a little bit more creative with the lots, but generally from what I have, which is
not much, we have this right now. I don't have an objection. That is not to say that
won't have an objection later when you come in with the details.
Mr. Rancich — Well the details...
Chairperson Wilcox — I don't know what the rest of the board ... they can express their
own opinion.
Mr. Rancich — The details of this part of the plan can change according to whatever we
come up with. Its pretty much basically a subdivision that I will sell lots with I don't want
to say very restrictive deed restrictions, but there are going to be deed restrictions that
are good for that whole community. They will ensure that all the homes built on these
lots reflect the same architecture. The same old European styling as the condominium
association. I am not going to spend millions and millions of dollars here, have
somebody put up some stone houses that are not reminiscent that are exactly alike .
many, many of the house in Cayuga Heights or better and then allow someone to put
pink vinyl siding on their place. It's not going to happen.
Chairperson Wilcox — Do you need to sell those lots to pay for building the
condominiums?
Mr. Rancich — I do not. I would like to be able to.
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Chairperson Wilcox — I am not going to get into your personal finances, I just thought
that was a reason for...
Mr. Rancich — No, I do not. I would like to.
Board Member Mitrano — It looks exciting. I think we are all excited in one way or
another. We just need to see more information in order to give the specific kind of
approval that you maybe seeking, but otherwise it is very exciting. I am very delighted
that you are doing...
Mr. Rancich — It is a really cool project.
Board Member Thayer — Very ambition. I would much prefer to see vineyards there,
obviously, but...
Chairperson Wilcox — Would you just for the record point that you live ... that your house
adjoins?
Mr. Rancich — There it is. Right here.
Board Member Howe — I would just ... any time that we may change agricultural zone to
something else, I would hope that we would not take that lightly.
Mr. Rancich — One thing
the opportunity to point
multi - family. This is mul,
is MD, medium density.
density.
that I do want to point out to the Planning Board that I did have
out to the Town Board on this map here, this whole area is
�i- family, I believe. It is a higher density. It is R -15 maybe. This
This is medium density; this is multifamily. This is medium
Mr. Kanter — The original R -15 zone covered about the eastern third or quarter of your...
Mr. Rancich — This chunk of my land right here used to be R -15, 15,000 square feet.
Mr. Kanter — When the zoning revisions were done and went into effect April of 2004
that R -15 strip was taken away and the whole property is now zoned agricultural.
Mr. Rancich — But that zoning change happened as you may or may not know with my
stringent objections. I had purchased this land when it was zoned not agriculture. A
few months after I bought it and I didn't buy it for a dollar an acre. A few months after I
owned it the zoning changed. So that has had me on record from start. as objecting
strenuously to that change after the fact. What I tried to point out, excuse me, is that
this is medium density all the way. to here. This is multiple residence, this is medium
density. All I am doing is drawing a line right like this and putting my development in
What would be, a natural progression of the Town's growth. If you look at any zoning
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map, you will see that my chunk of land obtrusively sticks into the growth area, which I
don't want to be a hard guy about that.
Board Member Hoffmann — Can I ask you...I have forgotten what your proposal looked
like last time you came in with a sketch plan review so I can't remember if you had 200
units proposed.
Mr. Rancich — I did have 200 units proposed and that is in the narrative. 1 didn't have
anything more than what you are pretty much looking at. I had some larger boards with
some buildings on it, but I wasn't able to give the Town Board a clear view of the kind of
buildings that I wanted to build. As a matter of fact, I went through the time and energy
and expense of showing a little movie, which was nice except I showed the wrong
buildings. So I was told, I got scolded and said come back with the right buildings and I
haven't done it yet because I got sidetracked with the Perry purchase and it changes
the scope of the project so much. An extra 60... it doesn't double it. I had 93 acres,
now I.have 158. It just changes the scope of it.
Mr. Kanter - In terms of the zoning issue, the comprehensive plan showed this area
basically as a transition between the growth area of the Town and the agricultural zone
and when we did the zoning revisions we went on the side of expanding the agricultural
portion so instead of removing agricultural from the property we extended it to the whole
property. But when this went to the Town Board for discussion on the concept of
rezoning, the Town Board indicated a possibility of considering that rezoning if it were
done in a way where the development could be concentrated on the eastern part of the
property and the western part of the, property could remain as open areas. It sounds
like ... its pretty much what Mr. Rancich did present originally in the concept drawing and
it sounds like that is pretty much the same.
Mr. Rancich — It is still exactly the same concept. I am trying to leave... here is Route
79. Here is Rachel Carson Way, 'here is a power line running across here. I am trying
to leave everything that fronts on Route 79 I'm trying to leave green, a cornfield, and
apple orchard, I don't know. Then all of the western portion here I want to leave green
because this is. underneath the power line and it can stay green. It can be reforested. It
could be a cornfield. It can't be a golf course.
Chairperson Wilcox — You can't build there anyways.
Board Member Mitrano — There's your vineyard.
Mr. Rancich — Well, I can build there. I just don't know if it is a wise thing.
Board Member Conneman — I'm the one that will always defend keeping something
agriculture, but in this case I think this makes a lot of sense. There is only one thing
that I would be very interested in you preserving and that is that gorge because I have
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walked over that more times than most people here except Dick. It seems to me that
that is a very important part of making it special.
Mr. Rancich — That gorge, which right now belong to Dick Perry and runs right down
through here, we've identified in that narrative as something that is an asset to our
development. Not only the people that are living in these homes, but the rest of the
community that right now that gorge is private property and I am hoping to through
some mechanism whether that piece of property is owned by a third party or there are
deed restrictions or easements across someone else's land or the public I haven't
figured that out, but I want everybody to be able to enjoy that.
Board Member Thayer — Dan, what is the situation with water and sewer there?
Mr. Walker — On water supply?
Board Member Thayer —Yeah.
Mr. Walker — The R -15 zone, the lower half, the lower third of this property off of Route
79 is within the service area, pretty much everything east of where the road is where it
comes in. It is kind of marginal if you go to the mid -point of the lot and further west, but
the land kind of slopes and is a little bit lower. I would be concerned about water
pressure at the top six lots on the Perry property, but below that the pressure would be
fine.
Board Member Thayer — Really.
Mr. Walker — The topography kind of bends to the north and west there and its kind of a
little bit. of a hole in there. The Perry Lane property currently is on the Trumansburg
Road water tank, but the West Hill water tank is. at a slightly higher elevation so that
boosts the pressure up a little bit higher.
Board Member Thayer — And the sewer situation?
Mr. Walker — It all flows down hill. It depends on where it is connected. Right now the
Conifer property's drain out to Mecklenburg Road at the intersection of the City line at
Hector Street there is a right -of -way that the Town owns to Oakwood Lane, which could
be a route for the sewer for the center part of the properties and then there is sewer line
down on Trumansburg Road, which might present some challenges getting there
because of the topography, but it is physically possible to do it.
Mr. Rancich — I had also mentioned to someone in the Town or perhaps it was Alfred
Eddy when he owned my farm and there was some talk about the water tower going
where it did go over on Rachel Carson Way or up here, which is the high point of this
land, I have no objection to making an arrangement with the Town to have a water
tower on that land some place if it is necessary. I'd rather not pay for it, but if it has to
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happen it would. In some of these lots that may have marginal pressure, I can do that
with an in -house storage tank and pump.
Board Member Talty — I would hope when the more detailed plans come back that traffic
is certainly brought up because I am a big proponent of safety in this area and I'm
looking at a minimum of 400 cars.
Mr. Rancich — You are exactly right and to answer your question prematurely I have had
access to the traffic studies done for Linderman Creek and the amount of traffic that is
allowable for that State road 79, Route 79 to the west of here is under used to a huge,
huge degree. So, yeah, there is going to be more traffic. There is no doubt, but in
terms of the study that I have seen, which was not a study on my property, but a study
right next to it showing impact very minimal. So I don't think we'll have a problem with
that and that will be one of the things that this Planning Board as a lead agency, you
guys are going to tell me what you want me to do. You are going to say if you want this
or that or if you want a traffic study or if you want me to catch a couple of butterflies or
something, you are going to tell me all of that and I'm going to do it.
Board Member Talty — I just want you to know that I was on the record that I did not
agree with that survey. I don't pretend to be an expert, but I do know that the current
traffic on these roads, I'm not sure it can handle how much more.
Mr. Rancich — I'm not an expert either. I just looked at the results of the test that in all
honesty I couldn't tell you that I understood it...I mean I understood it when it says
minimal impact and when the State says the road is designed for 100,000 cars a day
and there is only 30,000 going on it and those are not the accurate numbers. I just
know that that was the spacing.
Mr. Kanter — Yeah. Traffic impact will be a big issue with the environmental review and
as we have been doing with these kinds of large -scale developments, it will be for both
the subdivision and the condo proposal together so that we can see the accumulative
affects of it. In other words even if Mr. Rancich only wants to start with developing the
42 lots, we are still going to have to look at the whole picture.
Mr. Rancich — That is how I want to do it anyways. Like I said, I put this up here to
show that there could be according to this zoning 115 -120 lots. I don't want to do that. I
don't want to crowd that. I don't want to build that sort of development. I want these
lots to be huge. I want my cluster. This will be open space housing and my open space
housing and my clustered development will be the condominiums and the overall
density of now 158 acres of land with 250 units is low.
Board Member Mitrano — I'm good.
Chairperson Wilcox — Anyone else like to comment? Can I ask you gentleman to take a
seat? We will give the public a chance to speak here.
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Don Crittendon, 173 Bundy Rd
I am going to be one of the people most affected by this. I'll just point out where I am.
Here's Williams Creek down here and I'm all this so I have a big interest in trying to
keep Williams Creek protected. There are people that do hike up around through there
and Dick has been generous enough to let a lot of people hike over on that side of the
gorge. I appreciate that, but I always thought when Perry Lane went in that those
houses crowded up a little too close to the gorge so that it. did prevent people from
enjoying that gorge. In protecting the gorge, I would like to see it .protected not only
for ... to be able to enjoy it, but also from all the light pollution that you get, all the noise
pollution and all houses all back in there. I think that what we have been doing over
there is adding a lot of people in these compact units condominiums and low- income
housing and things like that. It seems like we are losing an awful lot of open space and
maybe there should be a trade off for being able to build this condominium and maybe
leave it at that. Why do we need to have the condominium plus the single family
housing there? Can we keep some open space in there? So that is my main concern
that Ithaca does having this feeling of open space and we protect our gorges and not to
just cram houses all in there so that people can't use it. It seems like again if you are
losing some agriculture maybe you could shift it over and put it back into this field.
There is a power line that runs through here and I really can't see you building houses
in there. Maybe that could be swapped somehow. This upper field for some kind of
agriculture or open space. If anybody wants to walk that gorge I would be happy to
walk it with them at some time if any of the Planning Board members want to take a look
at it.
Board Member Mitrano.— I'd go with you.
Mr. Crittendon — I own on one side of the gorge and Dick owns on the other side, down
to you get to Perry Lane and then I think Dr Swed and George Dentes own right there
and then you go back over to Dick's land.
Mr. Kanter — If the board wants to set up a joint site visit we could arrange something.
Board Member Mitrano — Sure. That would be fun.
Mr. Crittendon — Thank you.
Ann Byrne, 137 Hopkins Rd
I do want to say something about the gorge that it is a lot of shale in there so that if you
do have a hiking path along there and people start walking down in there they are going
to break that gorge down and it is one thing that I would hope that when you look at it
you pay attention to that when you are walking. It is one thing to have walking trails, but
then people are going to venture down into there and there is a lot of wildlife as there as
well, coyote, fox, a lot of deer and that high density is an excellent point that it seems
that the people who come to this board say we are not going to use the density of the
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land, but we are going to cram in more I
people and more people brings in more traffic,
even traffic to the gorge and traffic to the area. The green space is something that we
really need to look at. Thank you.
Chairperson Wilcox — She makes a good point about paths bring people into areas and
there might be reasons not to put ... you can make it difficult for people to get into the
gorge, but you can't prevent it. Something to consider.
Mr. Rancich — My idea in preserving the gorge and making it a little more accessible
was something that costs me money that I thought I was doing something good for the
general public. I certainly wasn't trying to cost myself a lot of extra money and
heartache to get rocks falling on people's heads and eroding the gorge. Should the
Planning Board decide that the gorge is to be closed to human beings that is pretty
easy. I don't understand the intent.
Chairperson Wilcox — We can't close it. The landowners own the land. The Planning
Board just cannot tell the landowners what to do, but what we can do is ask you to
consider whether it is appropriate to put in paths and trails to make it easy for people to
walk the gorge or whether it is appropriate to not.
Mr. Rancich — I understand entire and I could take that away easily. I was giving that as
a benefit and if its looked at negatively than it is an easy thing to just say then all the
land can be owned by each individual lot owner right down into the gorge, and the
individual lot owners can have deed restrictions preventing them from building on the
side of the gorge or doing something down in the gorge, but it would be up to the
individual lot owners who went into their gorge or not. That's easy enough.
Chairperson Wilcox — That might be a reasonable way to proceed.
Board Member Hoffmann — I think one needs to know more, but we have had some
negative experience with the South Hill Trail where a lot people do walk on the trail and
enjoy that very much and they don't venture off the trail into the gorge, but then there
are some that do, especially youngsters on mountain bikes and such or whatever those
bikes are called that are motorized in some way. They have torn up a lot of the land
next to the trail.
Mr. Rancich — My idea of biking and jogging paths through my whole condominium
project, which was originally the only thing that I was doing as I am trying to expand it
now, there was a plan to connect my biking and jogging paths with already established
or future planned jogging paths. There used to be a map here showing paths going all
the way up towards the hospital for bikes and joggers. It was .my attempt to incorporate
through my land something that I envisioned the Town and the townspeople wanted to
do. I'm not a jogger. I've got nothing against it, but I'm not building a jogging path me.
Board Member Mitrano — I'm with you.
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Chairperson Wilcox — Any other feedback?
Board Member Thayer — Maybe if you shrunk the back lots, John, on those so there is
more green space prior to the ravine there?
Mr. Rancich — None of that is a problem, Larry, and that is all some of the input that I
want from this Planning Board to say hey how about this, how about that. What we are
looking for now is a mechanism that the Planning Board says yeah you can do
something and I don't care if it says exactly my plan and if you want to revise it or torque
it around a little bit, I am fine with that and I am not in a hurry. I am in a hurry to do what
I said in the beginning of my little talk and that is to put some money in that man's
pocket and I can't do it with the idea that somebody might say well, that's really nice that
you bought all that, but guess what, you ain't doing anything with it. You are leaving it
just the way it is and if that's the way it is going to be then Dick needs to stay the owner.
Chairperson Wilcox —Larry, I agree that we want that area protected. What I'm not sure
is, do we want large lots, very deep lots that go back 30 -40 -50 -100 feet can be
permanently protected or do we make the lots smaller and we take that land along the
gorge and create a "Town park" or land that is deeded to a condominium ownership
group or something like that. We can accomplish that both ways.
Mr. Rancich — One of the things that you may want to look at and is something that]
thought of, instead of taking the Perry land and turning it into a typical subdivision,
which is what it is zoned for. I went for the MD zoning because I thought that would be
the easiest to not only comply with the existing zoning and to maximize... my lots are 3
times the size required and in some cases 4 or 5 times the size required. What the
Planning Board may want to do is say you know, we really like your condominium idea
and we don't like this subdivision idea very much. So because now instead of having
93 acres you've got 158 acres, we think you ought to build 300 condominiums instead
of 200, but you ought to leave all this alone.
Board Member Thayer — Can't do that, can we? It's zoned for residential.
Attorney Barney — We have a little problem with the zoning period because of where
you are putting the condominiums... (not audible).
Mr. Kanter — I think that the idea that Mr. Rancich is suggesting is that the MDR zoned
area, which is where the Perry subdivision is of 42 lots doesn't require a rezoning.
Although we could build townhouses /condominiums on that through a cluster provision.
So you could theoretically build some number of condominium units on that property,
which might reduce the number of the condominium units on the former Eddy property.
Board Member Thayer — But we can't insist that he does that.
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Planning Board Meeting
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Mr. Kanter — No, but it sounds like he is willing to be convinced if that is what this board
prefers seeing. That is the message that I am getting from Mr. Rancich. In other words,
he sounds like he is still very flexible to consider any number of different development
options for the two combined properties and would like input from the Planning Board in
that regard.
Board Member Hoffmann — I'm a little hesitant about having too much of one type of
housing concentrated in any one area. I like to see mixtures of housing types just like I
like to see mixture of price ranges in an area so that you don't get one area for this kind
of person and another area for another kind of person.
Mr. Rancich — I am in front of this board for its biased or unbiased suggestions. I'm in
favor of mixed use. I think it gives me a broader base of customers. I think that the
young professional couple that wants the condominium and no hassles and the older
retired couple that wants a condominium and no hassles would be very interested in my
condo living with all its amenities and all the wonderful things that will be happening
there. An up and coming family that actually wants their own home, their own chunk of
land and they want a 5 or 6 or 8 bedroom house, they are accommodated over here. I
tried to make it so that I could accomplish the Town's goals of building roads on that
land that the Town has a right -of -way on. The connection to Bundy Road is something
that I was trying to do 25 years ago when I came in and I talked to Tony Cerrache, Dick
Perry will attest to this, 25 years ago I talked to Tony Cerrache, Alfred Eddy and Dick
Perry and I wanted to build a road, from Westhaven here I think straight across to
Bundy. That was 25 years ago. I didn't have the where - with -all to do that so I didn't do
that, but I'm back.
Board Member Hoffmann — As far as that space along the creek, I know that in our open
space plan we don't talk only about parks but we talk about wildlife corridors and
greenways of different kinds so that maybe if you were to be able to not extend those
lots to the north quite as far north as they are, but to leave them short of that to create
more of a corridor along the...
Mr. Rancich — I could easily do that. Who owns that then? That is a comment that
made early that I didn't know how to protect that whether it was through a third party
that owned that whole gorge. Of course I can't own the whole gorge because it is
already owned by a couple of other people that their land goes into the gorge. So there .
are some legal complications there that I don't quite understand how to protect that
gorge. I know it can be done and it is my intention to do it.
Board Member Mitrano — Do you have a good attorney working with you on some of
these matters?
Mr. Rancich — Yes. Yes, I do, but I don't know what direction to send it. I thought
everybody would like to be able to get into the gorge and walk around there and now
I've got the feeling and I'm actually pleasantly surprised that you would rather have
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Planning Board Meeting
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restricted access to that gorge and that is perfect. That is a different legal problem to
restrict access to something as opposed to allow it.
Board Member Howe — I think that I need to get up there and walk around.
Board Member Mitrano — Yeah. I do, too.
Mr. Kanter — Its not necessarily that we don't want any people in the gorge, but I think
the comment was that if you build a path there then they would come, more people than
maybe you want in there would go in there. I don't think the idea is to totally restrict
anybody homeowners, people who live right there to use it because they do now.
Chairperson Wilcox — Just not make it easier.
Mr. Kanter — Don't encourage overuse of the gorge, but don't'make it so restrictive that
nobody can go in there.
Mr. Rancich — If it is owned by each individual that their land goes to that gorge and
they have deed restrictions on what they can do there, it will be up to them as to who
can walk across their land. If it is owned by a third party, i.e., the Town for the lack of a
better entity. The Town ,then has the problem of owning it and all the liabilities of people
being hurt in it.
Mr. Kanter — I don't think that Town... (not audible).
Mr. Rancich — My answer is I don't know, but my intention is to protect the gorge.
Mr. Kanter — It could be a land trust. It could be the homeowner's association.
Attorney Barney — Or you could build it with restrictive covenants to allow people to go
across the back end of the lot. I mean there are a number of ways that you could go.
One way I would not suggest thinking too long about is ... (not audible).
Chairperson Wilcox — We'll want to button this up if we can this evening.
Board Member Hoffmann — I was just going to make a comment about another way of
looping the bike path or the walking path would be
to the north, it could go along the road that you
western most turn around and you could allow a li
there.
instead of going in back of those lots
ire proposing and then come to the
tle strip of land between the two lots
Mr. Rancich — Perfectly acceptable, Eva. I mean I am not at a lack for ideas. I've got a
billon ideas. I'm at a lack for what ideas are acceptable.
Chairperson Wilcox — Then we are all set? Okay. Lets move on to the next item.
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Chairperson Wilcox closes this segment of the meeting at 9:33 p.m.
SEAR Determination
Perry 2 -Lot Subdivision, 107 Bundy Road.
Chairperson Wilcox opens this segment of the meeting at 9:34 p.m
Chairperson Wilcox — I will remind the members of the public and the neighbors who are
here that the board is now being asked to consider a two lot subdivision and the
information that you have seen before this gave some indication of how the lot to be
subdivided off and potentially acquired by Mr. Rancich could eventually then be
subdivided to create single family homes, but tonight before us simply subdividing the
Perry lands into two lots. Having said that. Mr. Sgrecci the floor is yours. Just your
name will do. We have your address from before.
Mr. Sgrecci — I am here in a different capacity at this part of the program as agent for
Dick and Mary Louise Perry, my mother and father -in -law. I have inverted this chart so
it might be a little easier. Just to give you a reference of the farm as a whole. This is
Bundy Road. This is the Alterra complex and the ravine, the gorge that has been the
source of discussion here tonight, which naturally splits the farm for most of the distance
here. The portion that we are proposing to be subdivided and sold to Mr. Rancich is
outlined in red, approximately 65 acres. Leaving approximately 55 acres of the original
farm intact and with the Perry's. The proposal is a request to subdivide it into these two
parcels so that it can be sold. This is the...to clarify here, the Town does have a right -
of -way for the use of this, which was labeled on some of the original developments on
this as Riley Drive. Professor Riley was the original owner of the farm, if any of you are
familiar with Riley Rob Hall at Cornell University. He was the original owner of the farm
and the Perry's bought it from him. So we thought that would be some kind of a nice
historic tribute to have if that was ever built to have that be possibly the name of it. The
town also has the right -of -way, if it so exists, to go over this way with the highway as
well. So that is the sum of the proposal. It is to divide the property into two parcels.
Board Member Mitrano — When did your parents -in -law purchase it, Mr. Sgrecci?
Mr. Sgrecci — 1951.
Board Member Mitrano — And is the portion to be subdivided off currently farmed?
Mr. Sgrecci — It is all into hay, as is most of it over here. I think it was outlined in the
material that we provided to you. It's been an operating dairy farm until they retired. 20
years ago and since then it has been used primarily as raising hay.
Chairperson Wilcox — Any other questions with regard to environmental review?
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Board Member Thayer — I am not sure if I should vote on this. What do you think?
Chairperson Wilcox — That is your call. What is your determination ?.
Attorney Barney — Do you adjoin it?
Mr. Kanter — He joins parcel a.
Chairperson Wilcox — He does adjoin the parcel under discussion.
Attorney Barney — People take different positions in that circumstance. Some people
vote and other decides in the interest of maintaining the perception of non - biased that
they decide not to vote. I don't think that there is a right or a wrong.
Chairperson Wilcox — I should appoint out to members of the public that if the
subdivision is approved and Mr. Rancich purchases the property, he could build a
single- family home on that 60 -odd acre lot if he so chose.
Mr. Kanter — With a very long driveway.
Mr. Walker —With consolidation.
Chairperson Wilcox — Did we require consolidation with the other one?
Mr. Kanter — Absolutely. Otherwise it is landlocked. So he could build one house on
the new consolidated lot.
Chairperson Wilcox — Any other discussion with regard to environmental review?
Board Member Conneman moves the motion and Board Member Mitrano seconds the
motion.
PB
RESOLUTION NO.
2005 -086: SEAR: Preliminary
and Final Subdivision,
Approval,
Perry Two -Lot
Subdivision, 107 Bundy Road,
Tax Parcel No. 27441.2
Motion made by Board Member Conneman, Seconded by Board Member Mitrano
WHEREAS:
1. This action is consideration of Preliminary and Final Subdivision Approval for the
proposed two -lot subdivision located at 107 Bundy Road, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel
No. 27 -1 -11.2, Medium Density Residential Zone. The proposal involves subdividing
off a +/- 65.634 -acre parcel from the +/- 119.966 -acre parcel for consolidation with
the adjacent Tax Parcel No. 274-14.2 (off Mecklenburg Road). Richard A. and
Mary L. Perry, Owners /Applicants; Carl Sgrecci, Agent, and
Hel
Planning Board Meeting
September 6, 2005
Approved
2. This is an Unlisted Action for which the Town of Ithaca Planning Board is acting as
Lead Agency in environmental review with respect to Subdivision Approval, and
3. The Planning Board on September 6, 2005, has reviewed and accepted as
adequate a Short Environmental Assessment Form Part 1, submitted by the
applicant, and Part 11 prepared by the Town Planning staff, a survey map entitled
"Subdivision Map — Lands of Richard A. and Mary Louise Perry, 107 Bundy
Road, Town of Ithaca, Tompkins County, New York, " prepared by Allen T.
Fulkerson, LS, dated 211 12005, and other application materials, and
4. This proposed two -lot subdivision will enable the conveyance of Parcel B to the
adjoining landowner to be consolidated with Tax Parcel No. 27 -1 -14.2. Parcel B
may become part of a future development proposal for a residential subdivision,
and has been described as such in the Sky Gardens sketch plan discussion with
the Planning Board at the September 6, 2005 meeting. Since this two -lot
subdivision will not result in any specific development on the parcel in question, and
because the environmental impacts of any future development proposal will be fully
evaluated, and such subsequent review will clearly be no less protective of the
environment, the Planning Board believes that a segmented review of this two -lot
subdivision is warranted, and
5. The Town planning staff has recommended a negative determination of
environmental significance with respect to the proposed Subdivision Approval;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED:
That the Town of Ithaca Planning Board hereby makes a negative determination
of environmental significance in accordance with the New York State Environmental
Quality Review Act for the above referenced action as proposed and, therefore, neither
a Full Environmental Assessment Form, nor an Environmental Impact Statement will be
required, and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That the Town of Ithaca Planning Board is processing this action as a permitted
segmented environmental review, pursuant to 6NYCRR Part 6173(g)(1), for the reasons
stated in item 4 above.
The vote on the motion resulted as follows:
AYES: Wilcox, Thayer, Howe, Talty, Hoffman, Conneman, Mitrano.
NAYS: None,
ABSTAIN: None.
47
Planning Board Meeting
September 6, 2005
Approved
The vote on the motion was carried.
Chairperson Wilcox closes this segment of the meeting at 9:37 p.m.
PUBLIC HEARING
Consideration of Preliminary and Final Subdivision Approval for the proposed 2-
lot subdivision located at 107 Bundy Road, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 27 -1-
11.2, Medium Density Residential Zone. The proposal involves subdividing off a
+/- 65.634 -acre parcel from the +/- 119.966 -acre parcel for consolidation with the
adjacent Tax Parcel No. 27 -1 -14.2 (off Mecklenburg Road). Richard A. and Mary L.
Perry, Owners /Applicants; Carl Sgrecci, Agent.
Chairperson Wilcox reads the public hearing notice. The public hearing is opened at
9:38 p.m. and Chairperson Wilcox invites members of the public to address the board.
With no persons interested in speaking, Chairperson Wilcox closes the public hearing at
9:40 p.m.
Chairperson Wilcox — John, would you like to make a statement?
Mr. Rancich — Yes, I would. I want to make it clear to the board that my purchase of the
Perry's land, which I have negotiated and struck up a fair deal with Dick Perry is
predicated on me being able to do something besides build a single family home there
and I want to go on the record for that, which I guess I'm there. Right?
Chairperson Wilcox — You are on the record and this board will wait your detailed plans
in order to make that determination.
Board Member Howe moves the motion and Board Member Talty seconds the motion.
Attorney Barney — Condition a of paragraph 2, we would flexibility of ... what Jon is telling
me and what I don't quite understand is the idea is to have parcel b have access out to
the north to Bundy Road.and likewise to have parcel a have access across parcel b at
least as far as parcel b goes with the thought that it might come down to Route 79. It
talks about reciprocal easement agreements to be approved by the Town Attorney, but
now I do understand. I would like to spell that out just a little bit more in the language,
with that change... and I can clear that up with Jon.
Chairperson Wilcox — So as drafted 2e would not change in terms of it's meaning, you
simply want to change the wording to make it clearer.
Mr. Kanter — Right.
PB RESOLUTION NO. 2005 -087: Preliminary and Final Subdivision Approval,
Perry Two -Lot Subdivision, 107 Bundy Road, Tax Parcel No. 27 -1 -11.2
.•
Planning Board Meeting
September 6, 2005
Approved
Motion made by Board Member Howe, Seconded by Board Member Talty.
WHEREAS:
1. This action is consideration of Preliminary and Final Subdivision Approval for the
proposed two -lot subdivision located at 107 Bundy Road, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel
No. 27 -1 -11.2, Medium Density Residential Zone. The proposal involves subdividing
off a +/- 65.634 -acre parcel (Parcel B) from the +/- 119.966 -acre parcel for
consolidation with the adjacent Tax Parcel No. 274-14.2 (off Mecklenburg Road).
Richard A. and Mary L. Perry, Owners /Applicants; Carl Sgrecci, Agent, and
2. This is an Unlisted Action for which the Town of Ithaca Planning Board, acting as
lead agency in environmental review with respect to Subdivision Approval, has
on September 6, 2005, made a negative determination of environmental
significance, after having reviewed and accepted as adequate a Short
Environmental Assessment Form Part I, submitted by the applicant, and Part ll
prepared by the Town Planning staff, and
3. The Planning Board, at a Public Hearing held on September 6, 2005, has
reviewed and accepted as adequate a survey map entitled "Subdivision Map —
Lands of Richard A. and Mary Louise Perry, 107 Bundy Road, Town of Ithaca,
Tompkins County, New York, it prepared by Allen T. Fulkerson, LS, dated
21112005, and other application materials,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED:
1. That the Town of Ithaca Planning Board hereby waives certain requirements for
Preliminary and Final Subdivision Approval, as shown on the Preliminary and
Final Subdivision Checklists, having determined from the materials presented
that such waiver will result in neither a significant alteration of the purpose of
subdivision control nor the policies enunciated or implied by the Town Board, and
2. That the Planning Board hereby grants Preliminary and Final Subdivision
Approval for the proposed two -lot subdivision located at 107 Bundy Road, Town
of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 27 -1 -11.2, Medium Density Residential Zone, as shown .
on the survey map entitled "Subdivision Map — Lands of Richard A. and Mary
Louise Perry, 107 Bundy Road, Town of Ithaca, Tompkins County, New York,"
prepared by Allen T. Fulkerson, LS, dated 21112005, for the purpose of
subdividing off a +/- 65.634 -acre parcel (Parcel B) from the +A 119.966 -acre
parcel for consolidation with the adjacent Tax Parcel No. 27 -1 -14.2 subject to the
following conditions:
..
Planning Board Meeting
September 6, 2005
Approved
a. Revision of the plat to include a note that Parcel B is to be consolidated with
adjoining Tax Parcel No. 27 -1 -14.2 prior to signing of the plat by the
Planning Board Chair, and
b. Consolidation of Parcel B with adjoining Tax. Parcel No. 27 -1 -14.2 within six
months after Final Subdivision Approval, and submission to the Town of
Ithaca Planning Department of a copy of the requests to the Tompkins
County Assessment Department for said consolidation, and
c. Submission of one original or mylar copy of the survey map to be recorded
and three dark -line prints of the survey map, all revised as indicated in "a"
above, and all signed and sealed by the licensed surveyor who prepared
the survey with the required surveyor's certificate, for signing by the
Planning Board Chair, and
d. Submission of the receipt of filing of the plat in the Tompkins County Clerk's
Office to the Town of Ithaca Planning Department, prior to issuance of any
building permits on Parcel A or B. and
e. Submission of a reciprocal easement agreement to ensure rights of ingress
and egress between Parcels A and B over the "Proposed Riley Drive" 60
foot wide right -of- -way, which is shown on the plat for future dedication to
the Town of Ithaca for highway purposes, for review and approval by the
Attorney for the Town, such easement to provide that the owner of Parcel
A will have an easement for access southward over Parcel B to the south
line of Parcel B, and the owner of Parcel B will have an easement over
Parcel A northward to Bundy Road, such easement agreement to be
provided and approved prior to signing of the plat by the Planning Board
Chair, and submission of a copy of the reciprocal easement agreement
upon recording of said document in the County Clerk's Office,
AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:
That the Planning Board found in its resolution of Final Subdivision Approval for Sterling
House of Ithaca and Sterling Cottage (formerly Woven Hearts), dated June 16, 1998,
that the parkland dedications shown on that final plat, consisting of the "Proposed
Parcel to be Conveyed to the Town of Ithaca for Park Purposes" together with the
"Proposed Tot Lot" that was to be dedicated to the Town in conjunction with previous
subdivision of the Perry parcel, shall fulfill the parkland reservation requirements of the
entire remaining lands in the original 133.76 +/- acre parcel which was the subject of the
Sterling House Final Subdivision Approval. Said parkland areas were conveyed to the
Town of Ithaca, and therefore, the Planning Board hereby finds that no additional
set -aside will be required by the Planning Board in conjunction with the current two -lot
subdivision or any future subdivision of the remaining lands of Perry (Parcel A).
50
Planning Board Meeting
September 6, 2005
Approved
The vote on the motion resulted as follows:
AYES: Wilcox, Thayer, Howe, Talty, Hoffman, Conneman, Mitrano.
NAYS: None.
ABSTAIN: None.
The vote on the motion was carried.
OTHER BUSINESS
Mr. Kanter gives the board a brief overview of the agenda for the next Planning Board
meeting.
ADJOURNMENT
Chairperson Wilcox adjourns the September 6, 2005 Planning Board meeting at 9:46
p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Carrie Coates Whitmore
Deputy Town Clerk
51
TOWN OF ITHACA PLANNING BOARD
215 North Tioga Street
Ithaca, New York 14850
Tuesday; September 6, 2005
AGENDA
7:00 P.M. Persons to be heard (no more than five minutes).
7:04 P.M. SEQR Determination: Lot Line Modification, 101 Harris B. Dates Drive.
7:05 P.M. PUBLIC HEARING: Consideration of Preliminary and Final Subdivision approval for the
proposed subdivision of + / -. 300 square feet on the southeast corner of Trumansburg Road
and Harris B. Dates Drive to be conveyed to New York State Department of Transportation
for'the installation of new traffic control devices, 101 Harris B. Dates Drive, Town of Ithaca
Tax Parcel No. 24- 3 -2.1, Office Park Commercial Zone. Cayuga Medical Center, Owner;
Peter J. Trowbridge, Trowbridge & Wolf, LLP, Agent.
7:10 P.M. Presentation of the Ten -year Transportation Impact Mitigation Strategies (TIMS) and the
associated transportation focused Generic Environmental Impact Statement (t -GEIS) being
jointly undertaken by Cornell. University and the Town of Ithaca. The t -GEIS will address
transportation impacts on the community surrounding the campus related to an increasing
population traveling to Cornell. The TIMS will evolve in response to the feedback obtained
from the t -GEIS process, and may include recommendations for transportation demand
Management, multi -modal transportation strategies, access and circulation modifications,
and zoning changes. The Planning Board may also declare their interest in being Lead
Agency for the project. Kathryn Wolf, RLA, Principal -in- Charge,
7:50 P.M. Consideration of a Sketch Plan review for the proposed Ithaca College School of Business
building located north of Job Hall on the Ithaca College campus, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel
No.'s 41 -1 -30.2 and 41- 1- 30.4, Medium Density Residential Zone. The proposal includes
construction of a. new +/- 42,000 square foot building for the School of Business which will
include new classrooms, faculty offices, conference rooms, and an atrium,along with
approximately 26 parking spaces located on the lower level of the building. The project will
also include new landscaping; walkways, lighting, and stormwater facilities. Ithaca College,
Owner /Applicant; Fred Vanderburgh, Agent.
8:30 P.M. Consideration of a revised Sketch Plan for the proposed Sky Gardens Condominiums located
on the north side of Mecklenburg Road across from Rachel Carson Way, Town of Ithaca
Tax Parcel No. 27 -1 -14.2, Agricultural Zone, and a 45 +/- lot subdivision for single - family
homes on approximately 65.6 +/- acres, on a portion of Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 27 -1
11.2. The condominium proposal includes the construction of approximately 200
condominium units in multiple buildings, a great hall, an .indoor /outdoor swimming pool and
entertainment area, a spa and fitness center, tennis courts, several miles of walking paths,
new roads and parking lots, and stormwater facilities. John Rancich, Owner /Applicant. The
next agenda item, the proposed Perry subdivision, involves subdividing off a 65.6 +/- acre
parcel from the Perry property, to be consolidated for development of 45 + /- .single family
lots, and will be discussed in conjunction with this proposal, with the SEQR determination
and Public Hearing for Perry following.
OVER
TOWN OF ITHACA PLANNING BOARD
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARINGS
Tuesday, September 6, 2005
By direction of the Chairperson of the Planning Board, NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that Public Hearings
will be held by the Planning Board of the Town of Ithaca on Tuesday, September 6, 2005, at 215 North Tioga
Street, Ithaca, N.Y., at the following times and on the following matters:.
7:05 P.M. Consideration of Preliminary and Final Subdivision approval for the proposed
subdivision of +/- 300 square feet on the southeast corner of Trumansburg Road and
Harris B. Dates Drive to be conveyed to New York State Department of Transportation
for the installation of new traffic control devices, 101 Harris B. Dates Drive, Town of
Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 24- 3 -2.1, Office Park Commercial Zone. Cayuga Medical Center,
Owner; Peter J. Trowbridge, Trowbridge & Wolf, LLP, Agent.
8:40 P.M. Consideration of Preliminary and Final Subdivision Approval for the proposed 2 -lot
subdivision located at 107 Bundy Road, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No. 27 -1 -11.2,
Medium Density Residential Zone. The proposal involves subdividing off a +/- 65.634-
acre parcel from the +/- 119.966 -acre parcel for consolidation with the adjacent Tax
Parcel No. 27 -1 -14.2 (off. Mecklenburg Road). Richard A. and Mary L. Perry,
Owners /Applicants; Carl Sgrecci, Agent.
Said Planning Board will at said times and said place hear all persons in support of such matters or objections
thereto. Persons may appear by agent or in person. Individuals with visual impairments, hearing
impairments or other special needs, will be provided with assistance as necessary, upon request. Persons
desiring assistance must make such a request not less than 48 hours prior to the. time of the public hearings.
Jonathan Kanter, AICP
Director of Planning
273 -1747
Dated: Monday, August 29, 2005
Publish: Wednesday, August 31, 2005
TOWN OF ITHACA
PLANNING BOARD
SIGN -IN SHEET
BATE: September 6, 2005
(PLEASE PRINT TO ENSURE ACCURACY IN OFFICIAL MINUTES)
PLEASE PRINT NAME
PLEASE PRINT ADDRESS /AFFILIATION
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