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News Tidbits 8/8/15: A Shocker on Cayuga Street

8 08 2015

1. As reported by several news outlets, the Tompkins County Legislature came to the surprise conclusion last Tuesday to give preference to the Travis Hyde proposal for the Old Library site at the corner of West Court and North Cayuga Streets. The final vote was 8-5.

I’ll be honest, I was shocked. I figured the county legislature would just never come to a resolution, or that on the off-chance that it did, it was going to be in favor of the Franklin Properties proposal, which had by far the most vocal support of the three proposals (the third being the unloved Cornerstone proposal for affordable senior housing). If this has been the city’s site to sell, the decision would have gone to Franklin, so I think this ordeal highlights the somewhat differing interests of the city and county. Regardless, I feel either proposal would have been successful for the Old Library site, and I am pleased to see something moving forward.

From here, the project is to move into an SEQR (State Environmental Quality Review) assessment coordinated with the city of Ithaca. The project also needs to go forward to the Ithaca Landmarks Preservation Council (ILPC) for a certificate of appropriateness. It is quite possible that the design will be changed during those reviews. Once those are approved, a sales agreement will be drawn up late this fall, the county authorizes sale around Christmas, and the actual sale of the property to Travis Hyde would happen in January 2016. If the Travis Hyde project can’t move forward and the sale hasn’t happened, then the county can authorize the Franklin proposal, which would also have to negotiate the same processes to arrive at the selling stage. In sum, a big hurdle has been jumped, but there’s a lot more that needs to happen before any shovels hit the dirt.

2. For all you would-be developers out there, here’s this week’s opportunity – since the folks that own Felicia’s Atomic Lounge have decided to focus on a new restaurant in Trumansburg, their Ithaca site is closing and the property is for sale. On the surface, you get a 1-story, 1,500 SF building at 508 West State Street for about $350,000. Dig deeper and zoning permits a 60′ tall building with no parking required. The city and county have designated the West State corridor as the place where they would like to focus denser development, and the zoning was revised in 2013 to reflect those desires. If/when the property sells, if it merits further attention you’ll see a news update here.

3. Demolition of the Chapter House’s fire-damaged walls is taking longer than expected because the owner had to apply for a certificate of appropriateness from the ILPC to approve demolition. For those that are interested in reading about how water and fire damage have structurally comprised the structure, the application bundle can be found here. Apart from the usual applications like window and roof treatments, the ILPC is also set to begin discussion of 406 and 408 Stewart Avenue, where a new apartment building is likely to be built to replace the one totally destroyed by the Chapter House (and which I wrote about here on the Voice). For those interested in attending, the meeting is at 5:30 PM in the 2nd floor conference room at Ithaca City Hall.

4. Looking at the city’s planning board projects memo for the month, August is going to have a lot og big decisions in store. Novarr’s academic building at 209-215 Dryden in Collegetown is up for preliminary approval, as is Tompkins Financial Corporation’s HQ (shown above) and the Dibella’s sub shop in southwest Ithaca. If INHS’s 210 Hancock gets zoning approvals at the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) meeting next Tuesday, it will be up for final approval at the August planning board meeting as well. The 12-unit “pocket neighborhood” at 215-221 West Sepncer will complete environmental review and possibly granted permission to face the BZA, and the massive State Street Triangle project will have more public discussion and review, with no decisions expected. A very busy month that will hopefully pane out to a busy construction season in 2016.

5. Looks like there’s a potential site being weighed for a new Collegetown fire station. In minutes from the Board of Fire Commissioners, the location is described as being towards Maple Avenue, on land that would either be donated or bought outright. That would place it up by the Fairview Apartments and Cornell facilities, assuming it’s not further out in Ithaca town (services are shared if I remember right). An unidentified consultant has been chosen to review the costs of selling the land in Inner Collegetown and building a new station vs. renovating the current 47 year-old property.

5. Random house of the week turns back to 203 Pearl Street in Ithaca’s Bryant Park/Belle Sherman neighborhood. I spy with my little eye, a large garage opening, a rough-in for a door to its left, a couple of rough window spaces, and lots of roof trusses. It’s supposed to be a 1,276 SF house, but one could be forgiven for thinking the owners are just building a nice garage. The lot was separate when the neighborhood was first plated, but decades ago 201 Pearl bought the land and used it for an in-ground pool. The pool was eventually filled up, and the land subdivided once again this past spring.

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Tags: 209-215 Dryden Road, chapter house rebuild, construction (planned), ithaca, neighborhood pride site, news, old county library site, tompkins financial corporation hq
Categories : construction (planned), ithaca, news

News Tidbits 8/1/15: Tempers As Hot as the Temperatures

1 08 2015

1. I asked someone familiar with the State Street Triangle how the presentations went this week. “About as well as could be expected” was the diplomatic response received in turn.

The Times, Journal and Voice all devoted coverage to the controversial project this week since its CIITAP application was up for review, as well as revised plans being brought forth to the planning board. The project draws detractors from different angles – some because of size, some because it’s student housing, some because of the tax abatement.

The tax abatement is what confuses me somewhat, for reasons related to the theory I wrote up a few weeks ago, which no longer holds water. My own personal thought was that a sort of economy of scale would kick in with greater site efficiency, negating the need for a tax abatement. That isn’t to say that they still couldn’t try for one, because it meets all the CIITAP requirements, just that they didn’t need it (it would have been proverbial “icing on the cake” if granted). But now they’re saying it’s the only way to move forward. I don’t know the financials and what their necessary ROI is (and probably never will), but I’d happily listen to an explanation.

But the point I made in the piece still holds true – if Jason Fane’s project a couple blocks away was rejected for not having enough of a community benefit, market-rate student housing, even that which generates an extra $7.36 million in taxes over a decade, is going to be a big stretch, unless they plan on using the sheer size of it as a selling factor. The city planning board doesn’t have to worry about the controversy, because the project conforms wholly to a central business district zone. It’s going to be the tax abatement issue that makes or breaks this proposal.

2. As part of its 10th anniversary feature, the Lansing Star did a nice retrospective of what’s changed in the past ten years in Lansing. When it comes to development, it isn’t especially kind:

“Lansing hasn’t changed much in ten years. While grand plans for the future of the Town have been explored, not many have been realized.”

The article then goes on to detail how after the sewer initiative was defeated by public vote, a few developers banded together to try and fulfill the town center that Lansing was pushing for. Quoting the article, “the town government couldn’t get its act together to make that happen, even though it wouldn’t be footing the bill for the infrastructure (including sewer)”. About the only development initiative that has taken off is the Warren Road corridor, which was spurred mostly by threats of a major employer (Transonic) leaving the town (and Transonic paid for the sewer study). Meanwhile, the Star characterizes the village government as simply existing for “maintenance” purposes.

The paper notes some successes with parks and wildlife initiatives, but the highlight of the piece seems to be that Lansing is routinely failing to achieve its municipal planning and development goals.

3. Back in Ithaca city, plans are underway for the major renovation of a shopping plaza into professional office space for a local architecture firm. According to documents filed with the county, an LLC associated with HOLT Architects is spending $897,500 on the renovation, and another $415,000 for acquisition costs. The renovations will start in late August should be completed by March 2016. Tompkins Trust Company is providing the financing, and local company McPherson Builders is in charge of general construction.

From the press release published late Friday, HOLT chose the West End location for its walk-ability and centralized location. The building will be renovated into a net-zero energy structure for the 30-person architecture firm. No renders yet, but they’ll be included in a future news roundup when they become available.

4. As written in the Voice, College Crossings at the corner of East King Road and Rt. 96B in Ithaca town is back to the board for revision number three. This one increases the project by a floor, 13,000 square feet and six more apartments. It’s been no big secret that developer Evan Monkemeyer’s had difficulties getting the project off the ground (he resorted to Craigslist for marketing the retail spaces), and given a total of 18,000 SF spread among 8 apartments (doing the standard 15% deduction for circulation/utilities, one gets over 1,900 square feet per apartment) these units are almost certainly geared towards IC students. A solid market since they’re next door, though not likely to elicit warm fuzzies from the neighbors (although based off the response on the Voice’s facebook, most people just don’t care; if only 210 Hancock had it this easy). Previous plans can be found here.

Personal opinion, I’m a little disappointed in the revision. The mixed-use aspect is fine, but I was hoping the developer would tap into some of the ideas presented for the land by Form Ithaca instead of plopping a building in the middle of a 120-space parking lot. Monkemeyer owns a lot of acreage in adjacent land parcels, so this doesn’t bode well for a “walkable center” in Ithaca town.

5. Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services (INHS) is armed with more 210 Hancock studies and analysis as it prepares to go in front of the city Board of Zoning Appeals next Tuesday. With the commercial loading space question settled, it leaves the height variance of 6.5 feet (40 feet zoned, 46.5 feet requested), and the parking variance of 20 spaces (84 required, 64 given). Original/full application here, new addendum analyses here.

The board requested additional information about pile driving and the parking situation. In response, INHS has conducted further analysis and shown that, 40′ or 46.5′, piles would be required either way. INHS has offered in its application to use a “vibratory oscillating” method of pile driving, where piles are vibrated into the ground rather than driven. This reduces noise (no hammer-like banging) and produces less overall vibration. Further parking studies found that 210 Hancock offers a greater percentage of parking than similar buildings like McGraw House, the Cayuga Apartments and Lakeview on Third Street, INHS’s parking study of its tenants was reiterated, and an analysis of its commercial tenants was given – the occupants will have 16 designated spaces from 7 AM to 5 PM, when the daycare and non-profit offices are in operation. After hours, they’ll serve as potential overflow parking.

It’s frustrating to think that a suburban market-rate project surrounded by a parking lot has no opposition, but a transparent project with affordable housing and a lot of community benefits gets so much grief.

6. For home-builders or those looking to build a palatial estate, here’s your latest opportunity – 5.45 acres at the end of Campbell Avenue in Ithaca city are up for sale. The area’s zoned for single-family homes, and the city is encouraging owner-occupied houses in that area. Previously, the property was seen as a potential 10-lot development in the late 1980s/early 1990s, but the plan was never carried out. The biggest barrier is probably that it’s West Hill, where neighbors have taken to going after their neighbors to keep them from subdividing and building homes.

7. Initially, this was going to be a Voice article, but when the revised plans were presented, no renders were included. The Voice’s more general audience wouldn’t be as interested in this piece. But if you’ve read this far, and you read this blog frequently enough, then you won’t mind clickable, expandable site plans (pdf here).

The Hotel Ithaca is once again seeking to expand its offerings.

But this time around, it’s proposing to do in phases. Sketch plans presented at the Planning Board last Tuesday evening call for demolition of the two-story wings as before, but then the construction will be broken up into two phases.

The first consists of a five-story, 51,835 SF wing build on the northern side of the property, next to the gas station on the corner; the second phase, at a later, undetermined date, calls for three more floors on the hotel wing (bringing the new wing to eight stories and 81,600 SF), with a two-story, 18,300 SF conference center to be built on the corner of South Cayuga and West Clinton Streets.

The number of rooms in the addition has been unconfirmed, but given previous plans, it is likely to be little to no change from the current hotel, once the two-story wings are demolished. Until phase two is built, a parking lot would sit on the site of the future conference center.

The hotel is operated by Hart Hotels of Buffalo. Like several other Hart Hotels properties throughout the Northeast, the hotel has no chain affiliation, although the property was a Holiday Inn until the end of 2013. The 181-room hotel initially opened as a Ramada Inn in 1972, and the 10-story “Executive Tower” was completed in 1984.

Zoning at the site is CBD-100 (Central Business District), meaning that a proposed structure can be up to 100 feet (two floors at the least) with minimal required setbacks and no required on-site parking.

Under plans previously presented three years ago, the Hotel Ithaca sought to demolish the two-story wings of the hotel, and in their place the hotel would would build a new 9-story, 115-room tower, a kitchen addition, and a 15,000 SF conference center. The demolition would have resulted in a loss of 100 rooms, so the net gain was a total of 15 hotel rooms.

The then-$18 million project had significant local support from business owners, because Ithaca lacks the ability to host mid-size conferences and conventions (midsize meaning about 500 attendees), which sends conventioneers elsewhere. Currently, the lack of meeting space limits conferences to about 250 guests. The addition of a convention facility is seen as a major benefit to downtown retail, as well as other hotels that would handle overflow guest traffic. Convention traffic typically happens during weekdays, when regular tourist traffic is lowest.

However, the project, which was initially slated to start in November 2012, has failed to obtain financing for construction. The project applied for and received a property tax abatement for the new construction, and the Ithaca Urban Renewal Agency (IURA) even offered the possibility of a $250,000 loan if it would create a financial package that would allow the convention center to be built. But until now, there had been no indication of any plans moving forward.

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Tags: college crossings, downtown ithaca, HOLT Architects, hotel ithaca, hotels, inhs, ithaca, lansing, news, State Street Triangle, suburbia
Categories : affordable housing, hotels, ithaca, news, residential life, Tompkins County

News Tidbits 7/25/15: To Reuse and Rejuvenate

25 07 2015

1. Let’s just outright say it – the Tompkins County Legisltaure’s Old Library decision is a complete mess at this point. As covered last week, there were three separate individual resolutions – one from legislator Mike Lane for the Travis Hyde proposal (first image), and one each from legislators Dooley Kiefer and Leslyn McBean-Clairborne for the Franklin proposal (second image).

They all failed. 8 yes’s are required. The Travis Hyde proposal failed with 5 yes and 7 no’s. The Franklin proposal failed with 5 yes and 7 no’s on Kiefer’s resolution, and 4 yes and 8 no’s on McBean-Clairborne’s resolution. Martha Robertson, a supporter of the Travis Hyde proposal, recused herself because she had received donations from Frost Travis during her failed congressional campaign in 2014. Legislator Glenn Morey, also a supporter of the Travis Hyde proposal, was absent from the meeting.

I don’t see any way this will ever get the eight votes required. Kathy Luz Herrera voted against the proposals because the resolution has a ground lease (meaning the county still owns the land but leases the property), and Dooley Kiefer has stated she refuses to support any of the projects unless they have a ground lease – in other words, these two have mutually exclusive votes. By voting against McBean-Clairborne, Kiefer’s made it clear she will vote against the Franklin project unless it meets her exact specifications. Shinagawa voted against Travis Hyde for not being what the community wanted, but won’t vote for the Franklin proposal unless they guarantee Lifelong’s involved. And Stein has come out in favor of the Travis Hyde proposal. There’s no solution on the horizon.

So now it heads back to the Old Library Committee. Sale to the highest bidder and demolition of the library are real options on the table.

2. Turning to Lansing town, the planning board there has approved plans for the 102-unit Cayuga Farms townhouse project for a 31.4 acre parcel off of North Triphammer Road near Horvath Drive. First reported last Friday by the Lansing Star, the project received negative SEQR determination (meaning that, following the state’s environmental review guidelines, that the planning board decided the project will have no serious detrimental impact on the community) and issued preliminary site plan approval.

However, one issue still remains to be resolved before any shovels hit the dirt – sewer. The project currently has a modular package sewer treatment proposal that would work in place of the voter-defeated municipal sewer, and allow for denser development than the town’s rule on septic tanks. But the DEC’s interest in that type of treatment has been mixed. It could be a while before the situation gets sorted out.

Readers might remember this project because it’s one of the few I’ve openly derided. The 102 units are townhouse-style apartments marketed towards the upper end of the market. They would be built in phases over a period of several years.

3. Now for some eye candy. Included with this week’s planning board project review committee agenda are additional renderings for John Novarr’s project at 209-215 Dryden Road. Doing a quick visual cross-check with the initial renderings, there don’t appear to be any substantial design changes, and the colorful metal cladding appears to retain the same pattern as before. Getting a little poetic here, the cascading metal bars are reminiscent of water running down a wall.

The city’s Full Environmental Assessment Form doesn’t express many worries about the project; some concerns have been raised about too many pedestrians on the street (the building would add 420 people to Collegetown’s sidewalks at the outset, 600 when fully occupied), but that seems to be about it for now.

The $12 million project is moving right along in an effort to start construction this fall. Declaration of Lead Agency and some CEQR discussion (the city’s more stringent version of SEQR, State Environmental Quality Review) are expected at the July planning board meeting. Plans call for 76,200 SF building with three floors of classrooms and three floors of offices for Cornell’s Johnson School Executive MBA program. The building would be ready for the Big Red’s B-students in April 2017. The property would remain on the tax rolls.

4. A couple of interesting news notes courtesy of the Ithaca Urban Renewal Agency (IURA) Agenda:

First, popular downtown restaurant Madeline’s is looking to obtain an agency loan as part of a renovation project. The $470,000 project would add three jobs, only one of which pays living wage. The restaurant on the first floor of the Rothschild Building (the two-story building in the above photo) hopes to take advantage of the new hotels going up, and law firm Miller Mayer moving its 60 employees into the Rothschild Building. Previously the firm was in the Chemung Canal Trust Company building further up the Commons.

Second, the Finger Lakes School of Massage has applied for an agency loan to facilitate a move from West Hill to downtown. The school would move its ~34 staff and 75-95 students into 10,804 SF of leased space on the Rothschild Building’s second floor, with a further 1,700 SF on the ground level for a retail store and alumni massage clinic. The space would be renovated at a cost of about $194,300.

Although both projects come with risks (Madeline’s being a restaurant, FLSM having some worrying financial statements), both projects have been recommended for loan approval. The FLSM and Miller Mayer news suggest that most of the office space in the old Rothschild Building, left vacant when Tetra Tech moved to Cornell’s office park in 2010, has now been refilled.

The new window cut out built recently into the Rothschild Building’s east facade is part of the space where FLSM is moving into.

5. And now another reuse project – at 416-418 East State Street, currently home to an underused 7,600 SF office and a connected manufacturing/storage building. The house dates from the 19th century, with various additions as recent as the 1970s. According to plans filed with the city, an LLC linked to Argos Inn architect Ben Rosenblum has plans to convert the old manufacturing space into a bar and storage space, with renovated offices and a 2 bedroom apartment in the original house. The project will include an accessory parking lot, revised landscaping and handicap access. Area and setback deficiencies have resulted in the need for a zoning variance, but a parking variances won’t be required because the bar will have after hours parking across the street at Gateway Plaza. The building itself won’t change dimensions, but the change in use triggers the city zoning laws.

There have been some concerns expressed about this project – at least one neighbor is vociferously opposed to a bar, citing noise problems and concerns about smokers, and the county planning department is not a fan of the traffic and parking arrangement. Offhand, I think a bar is legal in B-4 zoning, but the noise impacts will merit further scrutiny.

The project is definitely something of interest to the Voice’s audience, but in an email, Rosenblum said that details are still being worked out and that he’d prefer to discuss the plan at a later date.

Scott Whitham is serving as a consultant, and local architect Jason Demarest is designing the renovation.

6. Some very substantial changes are in store for Campus Advantage’s $40 million, 240-unit State Street Triangle project at 301 East State Street in downtown Ithaca.

The Texas-based developer has recruited the assistance of Ithaca architecture firm STREAM Collaborative to help redesign the 240-unit project. And there’s clearly been a lot of work since the previous planning board rendition.

In this revision, a much greater emphasis has been placed on the street interaction and active street uses. Gone is the soaring corner, and in its place is a design with a greater use of horizontal elements (like the decorative belt above the third floor) in order to give the building a more human scale – crucial when you’re planning one of the largest buildings in Ithaca.

The developer is also seeking to remove the northbound turning lane from Aurora onto State Street, and replacing it with a pedestrian area with widened sidewalks, outdoor seating and dining spaces. The land would have to be procured from the city, or some other type of collaboration would have to take place with city officials and engineers.

In documents provided in the city’s planning board agenda for next Tuesday, the developer notes that the project remains student-oriented, but in order to play down comments of it being a massive dorm, 10 4-bedroom units were reconfigured into 40 studio apartments that the developer hopes will be appealing to non-student tenants looking for a less expensive, modestly-sized space.

The State Street Triangle project is also exploring LEED certification.

The project still has a lot of details to be addressed – city transportation engineer Tim Logue has expressed concerns that the traffic study underestimates the number of car trips, and has asked for a revised study. The project is also under closer analysis because the potential addition of 600 residents into downtown Ithaca would put a greater stress on utilities and infrastructure.

These and other questions are likely to be topics of discussion at next Tuesday’s meeting.

The State Street Triangle may be pursuing a CIITAP tax abatement (so much for my theory a couple weeks ago), but the city has not uploaded the application at the time of this writing.
7. Looks like a busy meeting next week for the Ithaca city planning board. In order:

1. A subdivision at 106-108 Madison Street on the Northside. The applicant wishes to create a new lot on the east side of the existing lot, for the purpose of building a new-single-family home.

2. A. Declaration of Environmental Significance and BZA recommendation for the Dibella’s sub shop proposed at 222 Elmira Road

B. Declaration of Environmental Significance, BZA recommendation and potential approval for the 1,100 SF addition to the Maguire Chrsyler/Fiat dealership in Southwest Ithaca

C. Declaration of Environmental Significance, and potential approval for the two duplexes proposed at 112 Blair/804 East State Street

D. Site-plan approval for the first phase of the Tompkins Financial HQ (the new drive-through in the current HQ’s parking lot)

E. CEQR (the city’s version of SEQR) discussion for 215-221 W. Spencer Street

F. Declaration of Lead Agency and CEQR discussion on 209-215 Dryden (the Novarr project noted above)

G. Declaration of Lead Agency and CEQR discussion on State Street Triangle (

noted above)

H. Sketch Plan – Hotel Ithaca Expansion. Readers might remember a 9-story addition and convention center were approved for the Hotel Ithaca almost two years ago (shown above). Nothing has happened with the expansion plans, for reasons which had been attributed to financing. Dunno what we can expect this time around, but we’ll find out next week.

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Tags: 209-215 Dryden Road, architecture, collegetown, downtown ithaca, hotels, IURA, lansing, old library proposals, State Street Triangle, suburbia
Categories : architecture, collegetown, Cornell, hotels, ithaca, news, residential life, senior housing, Tompkins County

News Tidbits 7/18/15: Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back

18 07 2015

1. The Old Library conundrum continues. At last Friday’s meeting, the committee was unable to come up with an endorsement. As it also turns out, absent legislators Peter Stein and Kathy Luz Herrera can no longer re-introduce the preferred developer vote because absent legislators can only re-introduce a resolution for the subsequent county meeting – in other words, they didn’t put it up for a re-vote on the 7th, so that option is no longer available. Stein didn’t make a resolution, and Luz Herrera was once again absent from the meeting.

Now things get a little more haphazard. Individual legislators can introduce resolutions for a preferred developer, which Dooley Kiefer and Leslyn McBean-Clairborne are doing for the Franklin/STREAM proposal (the 22 condos and medical office space, first image), and Mike Lane for Travis Hyde (the 60 apartments with space for Lifelong, second image). Either one would require eight votes in favor. Martha Robertson’s recusal makes the Travis Hyde proposal a little less likely to hit that magic number, but unless anyone’s had a change of heart, if Kathy Luz Herrera and Peter Stein don’t both vote in favor of the Franklin proposal, nothing moves forward. The county gets left with a building they can’t make a decision on and don’t want to keep.

The building needs hundreds of thousands of dollars in renovations at this point, not to mention routine maintenance; the lack of a decision could be a weight on any legislator’s re-election prospects. If there is no decision, what happens next is anyone’s guess; spending money to mothball the building, demolition, or even selling the property on the open market. whatever the case, this is definitely not a comfortable position for the county to be in.

2. Looks like the Amabel housing development in Ithaca town is undergoing some site plan changes once again. Quoting the web page, “[w]e recently came to the conclusion that it is far better to park the cars at each house then to have car parks within the common space, allowing 2 cars per house if needed. This also allowed for more guest parking spaces.” Rather than having a road go through the middle of the housing development, the development is now encircled by the road coming in and out of Five Mile Drive. I asked developer Sue Cosentini of New Earth Living LLC if those were garages facing the driveways, and the reply was “no, [but] they may be carports though.” As a result of the revised site plan, the project would need to go back in front of the Ithaca planning board for re-approvals.

3. Recently, Finger Lakes ReUse has been working on plans to open a new “downtown” branch and HQ at the site of the former BOCES Building at 214 Elmira Road on the edge of big-box land. The plans for the gut renovation of the ca. 1950 building (Ithaca’s first big-box supermarket) have been in the works for a while, and grants have been awarded to fund the project.

One thing that appears to be a recent addition, though, is a three-story, 20,000 SF office building. The building, described as the “Main Headquarters”, is strictly a conceptual proposal. The grant announced in December funds two new buildings, the renovation and what could be either be the proposed 5,000 SF warehouse to the west of the existing building, or the “tenant space” occupied by Boris Garage at 210 Elmira.

The office building is an interesting idea, adding density to the often-underutilized Southwest Corridor and showing what future plans might be in store for the non-profit.

4. It seems like there was an unpleasant surprise at this month’s IDA meeting – the motion from committee member Will Burbank to put a moratorium on all tax abatements until a county CIITAP is in place for local labor/construction unions and prevailing wage policy. For those unfamiliar, a moratorium is in this case a temporary prohibition of all new tax abatements. After considerable debate and a split opinion from committee members, the motion was rescinded until next month.

Speaking as a matter of opinion, it might seem like a good idea on the surface, but an all-out moratorium sounds more like a case of “throwing out the baby with the bath water,” as one of my professors used to say. Generally, the policy for businesses to hire the contractor with the best price and a strong record for quality, on-time work. Sometimes that’s a local business with local labor; sometimes it’s a company in Binghamton, Syracuse or Rochester. Hence the debate.

The problem with a moratorium is that it stops everything applying for a tax abatement, including projects that already have plans to use local labor. And to be frank, local governments have a terrible track record with moratoriums, frequently extending them because of bureaucratic red tape. I think the unions support the CIITAP idea, but a moratorium that could place even larger numbers of their membership out of work for 12 or 18 months is undesirable and politically damaging. Local labor is important, but a moratorium isn’t the best approach.

On another note, the IDA did unanimously approve the tax abatement for the Tompkins Financial Headquarters project.The 7-story, 110,000 SF building proposed for 118 East Seneca Street in downtown Ithaca will likely start construction later this year.

5. In economic news, Ithaca Beer had its informal groundbreaking Thursday the 16th for its expansion. The 23,800 SF addition by HOLT Architects will triple brewing capacity when it is completed in approximately eight months. The expansion at their site in Ithaca town is expected to create 22 new jobs.

6. Also in Ithaca town, a senior living facility is looking to receive final approval on its expansion. Brookdale Senior Living is looking to obtain final site plan approvals for its 32-unit Clare Bridge Crossings expansion at 101 Bundy Drive on West Hill. Brookdale is planning to start construction of the one-story 23,200 SF addition this October, with the first tenants moving in around October 2016. There’s no mention of job creation in the application, but there is a letter of opposition from a Cornell professor concerned that new construction will be detrimental to current residents.

Noted previously here back in May, the Brookdale site is a PDZ that consists of two facilities at the moment – Sterling House is a 48-unit assisted living facility, while Claire Bridge Cottage is a 32-unit facility specializing in memory care (Alzheimer’s and dementia). The new building, “Clare Bridge Crossings”, is designed to bridge the gap between the two – patients who might be in early stages of illness and experiencing mild symptoms, but otherwise still capable of some degree of personal independence. The whole complex is in the process of being renamed to Brookdale of Ithaca.

The new building will be tucked between the other two structures, so it won’t be visible from the street. Along with the new building, there will be updates to parking, landscaping stormwater facilities, and the addition of a couple of courtyards between the buildings. The architect is PDC Midwest, a Wisconsin firm that specializes in memory care facilities.

7. Let’s end off this week on a high note. Chances of a Chapter House rebuild are looking good. The owner’s looking into reusing the walls that remain standing, and even what’s left of the floorplates. The idea is to have the building look like it did before (though perhaps with a modern fire suppression system, one imagines). Looking forward to sharing renderings as they become available.

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Tags: amabel, chapter house rebuild, ithaca, old library proposals, tompkins county, tompkins financial corporation hq
Categories : collegetown, construction (planned), ithaca, news, senior housing, Tompkins County

News Tidbits 7/11/15: Trying to Make A Dent in the Housing Deficit

11 07 2015

1. We’ll start this off with a brief data map, courtesy of Curbed NY. The Urban Institute, a DC think tank, quantifies the country’s affordable housing problem with a detailed study that lays out, county by county across the whole United States just how many units are affordable to what it labels “extremely low-income” (ELI) households, who make 30% or less of county median income. In Tompkins County, this means families of four making $23,200 or less during 2013, the latest year for which data is available. The full report comes with an interactive map.

Nationwide, the numbers aren’t very good – in 2013, only 28 of every 100 ELI families could find affordable housing, down from 37 out of every 100 in 2000. In Tompkins County, the situation is even worse – it’s gone from affordable housing being available for 19 out of every 100 ELI households in 2000, to 16 out of every 100 ELI households in 2013. There was only two other counties in the northeast that fared worse – Centre County, PA, home to State College and Penn State, and Monroe County, PA, a far-flung NYC commuter county.

While much of the talk about affordability focuses on the middle class getting priced out, it’s worth noting that the tight housing market and college-centric rental market have had a continued negative impact on what little housing there is for the poorest tiers.

2. Staying on the topic of affordability, the county is all set to sell a foreclosed vacant lot in Freeville to INHS for the express purpose of affordable housing. This was first mentioned on the blog a couple of weeks ago. The 1.7 acres of land off of Cook Street in Freeville is assessed at $25,000, but the county is generously selling the land to INHS for the low price of $7,320, which is the amount owed on back taxes and “required maintenance”. This project would be next to Freeville’s other affordable housing complex, the 24-unit Lehigh Crossing senior apartments south of the parcel. Those were built in 1991 and are managed by a for-profit developer out of Buffalo (Belmont Management).

As noted previously, the village of Freeville (population 520) is outside of INHS’s usual realm of Ithaca city and town, but INHS expanded its reach when it merged with its county equivalent, Better Housing for Tompkins County (BHTC) last December. This is likely to be the first new rural project post-merger, and the first new affordable housing development outside of Ithaca in several years. BHTC had a string of failures prior to the merger. For INHS, after the controversy with Stone Quarry and 210 Hancock, taking on a development site that’s likely to have less opposition will be a welcome change of pace.

3. No full decisions from the Board of Zoning Appeals on the 210 Hancock project, but there was plenty of acrimony. Of the three requested variances (height, parking and commercial loading), only the commercial loading variance was granted at Tuesday’s meeting, with the height and parking up in the air until additional information is received about pile driving impacts and winter odd-even parking. INHS has just over two months to submit the additional information.

The same vitriolic sentiment could be applied for the Old Library proposals, where legislator Martha Robertson has been called out for a possible ethics violation, and emails on the Fall Creek Neighborhood Association listserve have turned unpleasant. All in all, it’s been a pretty harsh week for anything related to development in or near Fall Creek.

Some of the 210 opposition is upset that they’re being perceived as “classist”, but when the gentleman leading the opposition posts tweets like this to the #twithaca page for all to see, a negative reaction shouldn’t be a surprise. As for the old library debate, the legislature’s Old Library Committee met on the morning of the 10th, but no endorsements were made.

4. A couple of details worth noting for ILPC’s meeting next Tuesday – “early design guidance” for work planned at 201 W. Clinton Street, and “discussion” about 406 and 408 Stewart Avenue in Collegetown.

201 West Clinton, also known as the Hardy House, was built around 1835, and was previously the home of the local Red Cross chapter from about 1922-2011. After the ARC moved out, it was restored and converted back to a private residence. The house was more recently reviewed/approved for solar panels, and I dunno what’s in store for this next round.

As for 406 and 408 Stewart Avenue, those would be the addresses for the historic (ca. 1898) three-story red-shingled apartment house destroyed during the Chapter House fire last Spring, and the fire-damaged but still-standing apartment house to its north. They are/were operated by CSP Management, the same folks tending to the Simeon’s project. So let’s keep hopes up for a possible rebuild faithful to the original 406.

If you still need your weekly dose of crazy, here’s a rather paranoid screed submitted as part of an application to the ILPC. I can only imagine the committee’s initial reaction to this.

5. Time to move another Collegetown project into the “under construction” column – 307 College Avenue, a.k.a. Collegetown Crossing, will hold a formal groundbreaking on Monday at 10 AM. The 46-unit, 96-bedroom project was approved last September after a years-long debate over parking; the project was only able to move forward when the new Collegetown zoning went into effect last year. Expect a 12-month construction period, with occupancy likely in August 2016. Collegetown Crossing, which also includes a 4,000 sq ft Greenstar grocery store branch, a pocket park and a TCAT transit hub, is being developed by the Lower family and their company Urban Ithaca.

6. Looks like we’re on to another iteration of the proposed pair of duplexes at 112 Blair / 804 East State Street in outer Collegetown. Updated file here, previous plans here. It kinda feels like there’s a disconnect going on – the neighbors basically don’t like the houses for being boring pre-fab duplexes; the developer, Demos/Johnny LLC (Costas Nestopoulos), doesn’t want to change that, but is willing to adjust the site layout and invest in extensive landscaping in an effort to hide them. The two sides have met and they seem close to a compromise.

Rather unusually, the 12-bedroom project (4 units with 3 bedrooms each) will open to student tenants in January 2016, after a construction period of September-December 2015. Being a small project, there will probably be enough intersession shuffling to make it work.

7. Here’s another small project getting a revision – the Maguire Fiat/Chrysler addition down in bog box land. Still adding 20 display spaces, but the addition has grown from 1,165 SF in the last version to 1,435 SF, include a small 418 SF second story intended as a lunch room. This project, which will need an area variance, is also looking at September-December 2015 buildout.

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Tags: affordable housing, collegetown, collegetown crossing, inhs, ithaca, neighborhood pride site, news, old library proposals, tompkins county
Categories : affordable housing, collegetown, construction (planned), ithaca, news, residential life, Tompkins County

The Case For More Housing

7 07 2015

Last week, Ithaca mayor Svante Myrick and county Legislator Martha Robertson issued an opinion piece on the need for more housing, and especially affordable housing, in the city and county. There were two, fairly simple reactions to the article – readers believed it and agreed there was a housing issue, or they thought it was bunch of lies.

Being a data-driven person, I decided to delve a little deeper into the numbers behind Myrick and Robertson’s claims.

Let’s start with the 2006 housing study that was cited in the article. According to that study, performed by Vermont-based Economic & Policy Resources Inc. (EPR), 2,127 rental units and 1,767 owner-occupied units would be needed by the end of 2014, for a total of 3,894. These numbers were determined using the 2005 housing deficit (871 units), economic trends and population/demographic trends. Some readers may remember the quote of “4,000 units of housing” cited in news pieces back in the mid-2000s, and this is where it comes from.

Using data from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development’s State Of the Cities Systems (SOCDS) Database, new housing permits were pulled for the same time period as the study’s projection, 2006 to 2014. From 2006 to 2014, Tompkins County added 1,124 single-family homes and 910 multi-family housing units (apartments and maybe a few co-ops or condos), for a total of 2,034 housing units. In what is a surprise to no one, the majority of multi-family housing was built in the city of Ithaca, and the majority of single-family homes were built in surrounding towns. The county had 40,069 housing units in 2006, so in that nine-year span there was about 5.1% growth in housing units, to 42,103.

The EPR study stated that 3,894 housing units would be required. With 2,034 units actually built, that means only 52% of the housing needs identified by the study were met. Breaking it down further, homeowners, occupying mostly single-family properties, fared a little better – with 1,124 built of the 1,767, that meant 63.6% of the homes that were needed based on 2006-2014 projection were built. However, for rental units, which are mostly multi-family housing, it was only 910 of the 2,127 needed – 42.8%. Not even half.

This wouldn’t be a problem if the economy slowed down or population growth leveled off, but neither of those occurred. Even with the recession a few years ago, job totals have increased quite a bit, with o ver 6,000 jobs have been added to the county since 2006. The population has also increased – Tompkins County had 99,997 residents in 2006, and in 2014 it was estimated to be 104,691. Rather oddly, the county added 3,049 housing units from 1997-2005, the previous nine-year period, but only 3,482 residents. Population growth has climbed even as housing construction has dropped.

Perhaps most importantly, the 2006 EPR study never accounted for changes in student population. It assumed net zero change for the purpose of the study, which focused on permanent residents. Unfortunately for the housing situation, there’s been a huge growth in student population. Cornell added 2,040 students from 2006 to 2014. Ithaca College added a more manageable 178 students. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average rental unit in Tompkins County houses 2.14 people. The county’s staring down 1,036 units it didn’t plan for, and as noted in the opinion article, Cornell plans on increasing its enrollment further.

For the record, IC has added student housing in the period from 2006 to 2014 – an addition to the Circle Apartments south of campus, which opened in 2012 and increased campus housing capacity by 138 beds. While South Hill students are driving up housing demand, the overall impact is minor.

In contrast, when Cornell rebuilt its West Campus Housing during the 2006-2014 time period, there was no net increase in the total number of beds. The Big Red has had no gain in student housing since new dorms opened on North Campus in 2001. With the impending closure of the 480-bed Maplewood Park student housing complex, the situation may get worse. No one can force Cornell to build new housing, but their burgeoning student population does add a substantial strain to the market.

Given the numbers above, Tompkins County fell 1,860 units short of its 2014 housing goal; add in the unexpected influx of college students, and the number rises to 2,832. It wasn’t good to have some affordability problems when the county was 871 units short of a balanced market in 2005; at the 2014 deficit of 2,832 units, the impacts become much more severe, which is why housing affordability has become such a big issue.

Myrick and Robertson’s column might be an opinion, but the statistics give their opinion a lot of weight.

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Tags: affordable housing, ithaca, news, statistics, tompkins county
Categories : ithaca, news, statistics, Tompkins County

News Tidbits 7/4/15: With Liberty, Justice, and Housing for All

4 07 2015

1. It looks like the some of the Planning Board members had some choice words for opposition to the 210 Hancock project. The board did not waver in its unanimous support of the project, and passed it forward to the BZA. This week, the Common Council passed 7-2 a resolution to approve giving $100,000 from the joint city-county-Cornell affordable housing fund to the 210 Hancock project. The dissenters were first ward (South Hill/West Hill) representatives Brock and McGonigal, which, looking at previous votes related to development, is no surprise.

At this point, the remaining votes left are a Board of Zoning Appeals vote on July 7th, and the Planning Board vote at the end of July. The BZA tends to vote with the Planning Board’s recommendation, so it looks like the biggest hurdles for INHS’s project have been cleared.

But that isn’t stopping both sides from trying. The opposition to 210 Hancock has launched a website to try and stop the project, and supporters of the project have launched a petition on change.org (which hosted the opposition’s petition).

2. Random house of the week – this week, a photo of a new single-family home under construction in the Belle Sherman neighborhood at 203 Pearl Street. 203 Pearl is the result of a subdivision approved by the city during the spring; the lot had previously been combined with 201 Pearl and used as an in-ground swimming pool, which has been filled in at some point. According to the zoning subdivision application, the new home will be 1,276 square feet, likely making it a spacious 2-bedroom or a more modest 3-bedroom.

I was a little surprised to see this one already underway – there was a similar lot subdivision on a nearby block of Cornell Street that happened in 2006, but the home (215 Cornell) wasn’t built until 2013. As an observation, most single-family subdivision plans seem to take a few months or so before work starts.

3. In case you missed it, here’s a link to the housing crisis op-ed penned by Ithaca mayor Svante Myrick and Tompkins County legislator Martha Robertson. For readers of Ithacating or Ithaca Builds, the problem is already known – the county, and the city especially, are becoming increasingly unaffordable, with one of the primary contributors being a lack of new housing to accommodate its growing population. The op-ed cites 15,000 commuting in from the outside the county (stat here), almost a third or renters pay 50% of their income to housing (HUD recommended max is 30%), and that the estimated need for new units was 2,127 for 2006-2014, and the city built 657 in that time (I’m thinking of doing some data magic for Monday night’s blog entry, but rest assured, the county-wide number built is still far less than what’s needed).

Notably, it’s mentioned that Cornell intends on adding yet another 1,300 students in the next few years, in addition to the nearly 2,500 they’ve added since 2005. That means another 1,300 bedrooms that will either get built, or 1,300 residents that will drive the rental prices even higher. Apart from Cornell’s closure and probable redevelopment of Maplewood, there’s nothing on the horizon for student housing from the Big Red, and that is putting an increasing strain on the rest of the county. Add in the thousands of jobs added in the past decade, and smaller growth at schools like IC, and it’s clear that Ithaca and the neighboring towns need to identify and promote areas for smart, sustainable development in order to manage the growth (looking at you, Form Ithaca).

It’s an enviable position to be in; Binghamton, Elmira and many other communities would love to have this problem. But it also needs good stewardship to keep the situation from getting out of control.

4. In other Planning Board news, the city has advocated on behalf of the Franklin Properties proposal (first image). At least seven ladies and gentlemen of the Common Council have also signed a letter in support of the Franklin project. The Franklin proposal is the condo project that seeks 22 condos, medical office space and a cafe in the old library, reusing the shell of the 1967 structure; the other proposal, from Travis Hyde (second image), calls for a wholly new building with 63 apartment units, office space for senior-focused non-profit Lifelong and community space.

The proposals have been sent back to the Old Library Committee for another possible vote at an undetermined date. Originally, a vote at the legislature’s July 7th meeting was considered likely. Hopefully the legislature doesn’t drag their feet on this.

There have already been a few emailed grumblings from the 210 Hancock opposition that hint the old library proposals are next, accusing both of them of being too dense for Ithaca, and this puts neighborhood groups in a bind if the projects they’ve spent months advocating are now suddenly under attack from neighbors. We’ll have to wait and see just how much and how intense the opposition is once a proposal is selected and begins to move forward. It will be watched here with great interest.

5. Sticking with the Planning Board, here’s their review of the city’s comprehensive plan. Members have their own individual suggestions – one suggests that percentages of affordable housing should be required in all new projects rather than encouraged, and another suggests that population growth is too much of a focus. The document will be up for another round of public review before it gets passed on to the Common Council for their comment and vote.

If one should feel so inclined, the plan is here, and comments can be emailed to city planner Megan Wilson at mwilson@cityofithaca.org.

6. There’s potential right now for a redevelopment of the long-vacant Masonic Temple at 115-117 North Cayuga Street, one block north of the Commons. Jason Fane, in partnership with the Downtown Ithaca Alliance, has announced plans to apply for a “New York Main Street Program” development grant that would allocate $100k-$500k towards rehab and a new building elevator. Several re-uses options are still being explored, but in the meanwhile, the grant has the Common Council’s benediction. The 20,000 sq ft building was built in 1926 and made a historic landmark in 1994.

7. Last but not least, here’s some news worth noting, courtesy of the Tompkins County IDA. As part of the review of Tompkins Financial Corporation’s (TFC’s) tax abatement, board members asked what TFC plans on doing with its current buildings. CEO Greg Hartz responded that 119 and 121 East Seneca would be held onto and rented out, with the bank retaking space in those buildings as it needs. However, their office and bank on the Commons (the historic 2 and 3-story buildings on Bank Alley just south of the M&T Building) would be sold. Being in the downtown historic district and in good shape, it’s very likely that they would be undergo some type of renovation/re-use, perhaps first-floor retail with residential above. The buildings comprise 18,000 square feet above-ground (12,000 on the first floor) and 6,000 square feet of basement storage.

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Categories : news

206 Taughannock Boulevard Construction Update, 6/2015

30 06 2015

These photos date from the 13th, but they’re still worth sharing (and technically, it’s still June, so calling it a June update is valid). The fiber-cement siding has been attached to most of 206 Taughannock Boulevard, where a 2-story furniture store and warehouse built in the 1970s is being converted into a mixed-use building with 7 apartments (4 1-bedroom, 3 2-bedroom). A few sections still have insulation and (what I think are) wall studs showing.

A drawing of the new plans posted in a ground floor window gives more information about the project. “The Apartments at 206”, as the new building will be called, bears only a moderate resemblance to the render provided in the window. The rendering posted, which dates from September 2014, indicates that the residential conversion was designed by local architect Claudia Brenner. Brenner designed the renovation of the Lehigh Valley House next door into a mixed-use building with ground-floor commercial spaces, other active-use (a branch police station), and six condominiums last year. It looks like the work on the Lehigh Valley House’s ground floor is still wrapping up.

Some of the trim boards are missing, the roof-line doesn’t match, and the materials don’t look quite right, especially the seemingly random gray cementboard next to the garage. Dunno what exactly is going on here, but since this didn’t need planning board review (there was no change in square footage, only a re-pruposing of the structure), the regulations aren’t there to make the structure to look like its render. Facade details and the sunscreens will be installed at some point, presumably. The renovation, estimated to cost $350,000, is the work of the Zaharis family, who owned and managed the furniture store before it closed in Spring 2014.

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Tags: 206 taughannock, construction, ithaca, photos
Categories : construction, ithaca, news, photos

Some Thoughts on 210 Hancock

29 06 2015

Originally a part of last week’s news roundup, this opinion piece has been made into its own article by request. The opinions expressed here are mine alone and are neither endorsed or rejected by the Ithaca Voice.

Here is a project that’s been transparent, incredibly transparent, throughout their whole planning process. At first, there was little opposition. Now, it threatens the proposal, apartments, townhomes and all.

A wise man once told me in when I was preparing a piece, “There’s no point in talking about this with you, the public’s going to have issues with it either way”. At this point, I’m inclined to believe him.

I’ve read the petition, and I’ve read the facebook comments. It’s regrettable, to say the least.

A lot of the comments just seem to be misinformed. People saw the petition, thought that INHS was only building the apartments, and signed it. The petition was worded with charged and selective language. I’d like to take a few minutes out to refute and argue some of the commentary.

“there must be a safe place for children to play…”

“People need access to green space, yards and the ability to get outside directly from their living space.”

“I want my 3 year old to grow up in a neighborhood where he can safely ride a bike, play sports and walk his dog.”

You’re right. That’s why the project, as proposed by INHS and tweaked by the city Planning Board, builds a playground that blends into Conley Park without the threat of vehicular traffic (shown in the plan below). Adams Street and Lake Avenue would be removed, allowing kids living in the apartments and townhomes to go the playground without crossing any street.

“I’m a lifelong resident, and I’m frankly getting tired of seeing all these areas getting bulldozed and developed…especially when we have dozens of empty/condemned houses and buildings just sitting around!”

The rental vacancy rate is 0.5%. A healthy market is 3-5%. Further to that, if there are dozens of homes, even if they were for sale, it’s still not enough to handle the demand, which is in the few thousands.

“inadequate parking planned.”

“The parking issue is already a problem. This will only make it worse.”

“I am a Fall Creek resident and do not want this area in our neighborhood to resemble Collegetown in density or difficulty in parking.”

84 parking spaces are required by zoning, 64 are proposed. However, only 22 spaces are expected to be used by the 53 apartments. In the parking study of INHS tenants, 41% of apartment tenants have 1 car, 12% of those have two. One of the reasons why INHS’s parking utilization is so low is that many of its apartments are rented by seniors – for example, Breckenridge Place is 60% seniors on fixed incomes. With limited mobility and/or income, many don’t maintain personal cars.

In a sense, although the Cornerstone project for affordable senior housing wasn’t selected by the Old Library site, the INHS project on Hancock Street may serve in some ways as a reasonable alternative.

“We don’t owe any developer a profit on their development.”

INHS is a non-profit community developer. The townhouses sold at Holly Creek over the past year were in the $105-$120k range. For comparison’s sake, the townhomes in the Belle Sherman Cottages sold for double that, and those aren’t even considered high-end (high-end would be the $410,000 townhomes in Lansing’s Woodland Park).

The reason why construction won’t start until Fall 2016/Fall 2017, with the apartments finishing up in Fall 2017/Fall 2018, is that they are completely reliant on government grants and donations from community supporters. The townhouses won’t start for a couple of years (their time frame is 2018-2020) because funding for purchasable units is more difficult to get. Just like with the condominium debate, the government is more likely to disburse a grant if it knows there are buyers waiting in the wings. And for low and moderate-income households, far more are capable of renting versus buying. As for the rent-to-own option suggested by the petition writer, it’s speculative, complicated, and NYS/federal HUD will not provide grants for that type of property acquisition. INHS couldn’t do it if they wanted to.

“[need]assurance mixed income will be there”

It will. As I wrote in March:

“210 Hancock will have 53 apartments – the 3 bedrooms have been eliminated and split into 1 and 2 bedroom units, so the number of units has gone up but the total number of bedrooms remains the same (64). The units are targeted towards renters making 48-80% of annual median income (AMI). The AMI given is $59,150 for a one-bedroom and $71,000 for a two-bedroom. The one-bedroom units will be rent for $700-1,000/month to those making $29,600-$41,600, and the two-bedroom units will rent for $835-$1300/month to individuals making $34,720-$53,720. Three of the units will be fully handicap adapted.”

“A 54 apartment high-rise is not the appropriate place for children to grow up, low income or not.”

“It is too dense and not suited to Fall Creek or Northside.”

“I moved to Ithaca and settled in Fall Creek to live in a small town.”

For starters, it’s harder to make housing affordable if there are fewer units on the a plot of land. Secondly, because the INHS project takes lead on the city’s right-of-way (ROW) on Lake Avenue and Adams Street, the calculated density per acre is 23.6 units per acre. Cascadilla Green, one block to the north, is 20 units per acre. Also note that units are 1 and 2 bedrooms per unit; most of the houses on blocks in Northside and Fall Creek are 3 bedrooms per unit.

What probably bothers me the most are some of the comments in the online petition for INHS.

“Shame on you “Ithaca Neighborhood Housing” for even thinking of creating something that will breed trouble…”

“This is an uncivilized proposal…”

“if all on welfare, this will invite crime…”

One of the reasons I harp on affordable housing is that I grew up in affordable housing. This 147-unit mixed-income complex in suburban Syracuse. Apartment 28E. I shared a bed with one of my brothers until I was 10, and even after my mother was finally able to buy a small ranch house, we shared a bedroom until he graduated and went to college two years before I did (by that point, we had moved on up to bunk beds). My mother did what she could. We were never more than working class, but she worked hard (still does) and made sure her kids worked hard.

At least some of the comments are kind enough to be “I want affordable housing but”. Others really make it sound like that those in need of affordable housing are a contamination of the community. Those statements aren’t worth debating. They’re just hurtful.

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Categories : news

News Tidbits 6/27/15: A Bad week for YIMBYs

27 06 2015

1. Starting this off with least controversial news-maker this week – John Novarr’s 209-215 Dryden Road project, which I wrote about for the Voice here and with site plan details and SPR/render links here. The first article’s a little helter-skelter as a write-up because there was a lot of frantic 11:30 PM fact-checking going on in an effort to get the news out.

The $12 million, 12,000 sq ft proposal is smaller than Collegetown Dryden, but more importantly, the project isn’t residential; it’s classroom and office space for Cornell’s MBA program, three floors for each of those uses. That definitely brings something different to Collegetown and its mostly residential focus. With assurances given that the property will be kept on the tax rolls, the initial opposition appears to mostly be related to the design, which to be honest, is rather avant-garde and an acquired taste (not one I’ve acquired, to be honest). However, bringing 200 staff and a few hundred professional students into Collegetown would be a real asset for businesses struggling to stay open amid the neighborhood’s 32/36-week profit window.

209-215 Dryden Road is within the MU-2 zoning from the looks of it, so a trip to the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) seems unlikely at the moment. We’ll see what happens moving forward, this one could be a fairly smooth approvals process.

2. For a smaller developer, Ithaca-based Modern Living Rentals has been pretty busy this year. Along with 707 East Seneca Street and 902 Dryden, they have a modular duplex (3 bedrooms each, 6 total) currently under construction at 605 South Aurora Street in Ithaca city. A construction permit was issued back in 2014, according to the city planning report. The orientation is a little odd in that the new duplex is being built in front of the old home on the property, since the house is longitudinally centered but set back on its lot. Taking a guess, the intended market is likely IC students. The new units look like they’ll be ready for occupancy in time for the fall semester.

3. Here’s an interesting piece of news, courtesy of the Tompkins County Government Operations Committee – plans to sell a vacant lot to non-profit housing developer INHS. In its May minutes, the committee announced intent to sell a vacant, foreclosed parcel in Freeville for affordable housing. The property is described as a 1.72 acre parcel on Cook Street in the village, which through a little deductive searching, turns up the lot in the map above, just north of the Lehigh Crossing Senior Apartments. The minutes state that INHS is in the process of drafting up an acquisition offer for the county attorney.

Freeville is outside of INHS’s usual realm of Ithaca city and town, but INHS expanded its reach when it merged with its county equivalent, Better Housing for Tompkins County (BHTC) last December. This might be the first new rural project post-merger. The Lehigh Crossing Apartments have 24 units on 2.3 acres, so if INHS were to build at the same density, this site would be looking at something around 18 units. Not big, but not inconsequential, especially for a 520-person village.

4. A decision to decrease sewer hookup costs in Lansing village also shares some details about a senior housing project in the works. The news comes from the Lansing Star, where the village voted to decrease its sewer hookup fee from $2,350 per unit to $1,000 for the first unit and $500 for each additional unit. Apparently the high fee was the result of the lack of a permitting process in the 1990s.

The article notes that the developer of a mixed-use request had requested a fee waiver because it would have cost $138,650 for their “59 units of senior housing”. Now it will be $30,000. Not as good as a waiver, but still pretty good. Lansing village only has one project that meets the description provided, the 87,500 sq ft Cinema Drive project covered here previously. The semi-educated guess back in May was 51 units, so the ballpark estimate wasn’t too shabby.

5. It’s official, 327 Eddy is under construction. Asbestos removal has been completed and the Club Sudz building is coming down. The Fontanas hope to have the building completed and ready for occupancy by next August. In replacement of Club Sudz’ and Pixel’s 7 units and 2,500 sq ft of commercial space, the new 5-story building will bring 1,800 of retail space and 22 new units with 53 bedrooms to the market.

Eagle-eyed readers might recall the building was originally going to be six floors, but a floor was lopped off since it was approved.

6. Updated renders for 215-221 West Spencer Street, coming right up. A little more detail on the facades, some window updates from the last version, and…well, honest personal opinion…it’s a very attractive design. Materials could underwhelm it, but as presented, it appears to be a lovely addition to South Hill. Good work STREAM Collaborative.

The 12-unit, 26-bed project plans to start construction next year. The project replaces an informal (dirt) parking lot.

7. Touching on the Old Library decision briefly, a public meeting on the two proposals will be held Monday June 29th at 6:30–8:30pm at Greenstar’s “The Space” (700 West Buffalo Street). Douglas Sutherland will represent Franklin Properties (first image) and Frost Travis will be presenting for Travis Hyde. Should the County Legislature decide to take another vote to see if the stalemate will be broken, the next chance will be at their July 7th meeting.

EDIT: The public meeting scheduled for the 29th has been cancelled .

8. Onto the thornier topics – Not sure what was worse this week, the reaction to the State Street Triangle project, or the INHS Hancock Street opposition. The objective, non-partisan write-up about the State Street project is on the Voice here. This and news piece #9 are opinion pieces, feel free to ignore them.

At least the State Street objections (latest renders here), I can understand the initial shock and recoil; there’s this perception that Ithaca is a small town, and this doesn’t jive with that. Regardless, by Ithaca standards it is massive, 11 stories with 289,000 sq ft of space and 620 bedrooms; if this was, say, a four-story building with an 11-story tower on the closest third to the Commons, the reaction would probably be less vitriolic (people would still hate it, but let’s entertain this thought exercise).

But that probably won’t happen. Not with this developer, or with any developer that purchases the Trebloc site. Here’s my theory why, and it goes a little more in-depth than “they want maximum profit”.

In December, Jason Fane’s 130 East Clinton project was rejected for tax abatements, and one of the reasons cited was that market-rate housing wasn’t enough of a community benefit. State Street Triangle is mostly apartments – it contains only a modest amount of retail space, with less than 13,000 sq ft it’s not even 5% of its usable space. If it were to apply for an abatement, it would likely be rejected for the same reason.

Arguably, they could try commercial office or even industrial “maker spaces”. But the market demand for office space doesn’t seem to be growing much, and industrial uses don’t tend to be a good fit in heavily populated areas. A developer could even try condos, but if developers knowledgeable with the area are hesitating, than a bank won’t hesitate to hold off on financing (aside on that – if the Old Library goes condo, other developers and financiers will view it as an experiment, or more positively, a pioneer; until it’s clear that the project is successful, don’t expect more condos in Ithaca).

However, nothing changes the fact that building downtown is quite expensive. So, being a for-profit company, if you want to build in an expensive area, you have two options to ensure return on your $40 million investment and get the construction loans you need – build as much as possible, and/or make your units as expensive as possible. If you’re a company that specializes in student housing, you’re not going to push the latter because there’s a lower ceiling on what students can afford. That would be my guess on how State Street Triangle came to be.

There are a few possibilities that might make the project more palatable to community members, such as free bus passes for tenants or a 10% affordable housing requirement within the tower (if the INHS project oppositions are any clue, this is going to be the only way to go from here on), but given the costs, those ideas just might kill the project completely. Which is exactly what some folks are looking for.

At the very least, let’s let the Planning Board do their work. If they can help change this:

to this:

Let’s see what they and the developer can negotiate here.

9. Now for 210 Hancock. Here is a project that’s been transparent, incredibly transparent, throughout their whole planning process. At first, there was little opposition. Now, it threatens the proposal, apartments, townhomes and all.