News Tidbits 4/16/16: The Real Estate Shopping Spree

16 04 2016

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1. On Monday, the county’s Old Library Committee received an update from Travis Hyde Properties about the redevelopment. Perhaps the biggest development is that Lifelong is no longer moving into the building. Instead, they will sell keep their office at 119 W. Court Street, sell the historic building at 121 W. Court Street, and have free use of DeWitt House’s community room for classes and workshops. Lifelong would also be the administrator of the community room, so rental fees for use of the room by other organizations will be paid to Lifelong instead of Travis Hyde. Lifelong’s treasurer claims this arrangement will save them $50,000 vs. the original proposal.

According to the Ithaca Journal piece by Andrew Casler, law firms have expressed interest in the 121 West Court Street property, although other business and housing isn’t out of the question. 121 is just outside the DeWitt Park Historic District.

The number of units is down from 60 to 55 (though some of those are now 3-bedroom units…the Tines is reporting 57 units total), and parking spaces are down from 30 to 25, all internal to the building since Lifelong is no longer moving in. Frost Travis is quoted as saying he might be looking into expanding the age range of possible tenants (currently proposed as 55+), but that seems liable to garner significant blow-back from neighbors if pursued.

The current plan is to have approval by September, sale of the property by October, and after any final site plan approval tweaks, construction may begin next Spring.

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2. The Ithaca City PEDC had another crack at incentive zoning this past Wednesday. And the consensus is, everybody dislikes it for one reason for another. Some of the development community feels it doesn’t go far enough, while some local activists feels it goes way too far. Sounds like the plan is striking a good compromise if it’s ticking the stakeholders off for not being more like their way of thinking. But, proof would be in practice, and seeing if any developer would actually be interested in pursuing a plan that utilizes the incentive zoning.

On a related note, Svante Myrick deserve a laurel – when asked at the meeting why there’s a housing shortage in Ithaca, he pretty much nailed it – the growing economy, increasing student and retiree populations, and a renewed interest towards urban environments are driving demand higher than in decades past.

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3. For this week’s eye candy, here’s a perspective drawing of the multistory apartment building proposed at 201 College Avenue. One thing that stands out here that doesn’t in the elevations (the latest of which can be found here) is that the corners are stepped down, so the bulk of the building is lessened. The planning board is expected to agree to be the lead agency for environmental review at its April meeting.

4. So I’m mostly leaving this to my colleague and editor Jolene Almendarez, because she is much more familiar with the Elmira Savings Bank situation than I am. But it’s worth noting that Steven Wells, the Massachusetts man who sold ESB the properties, was on a buying spree this week. On Tuesday, Wells paid $224,000 for 508 West State Street (the old Felicia’s Atomic Lounge), $884,638 for 622 Cascadilla Street where Zaza’s is located, and $1.5 million for 402-410 Third Street, a commercial plaza home to Finger Lakes Physical Therapy.  Felicia’s was noted here on the blog when it went up for sale last August for $350k.

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They all have different owners, and they’re in varying physical conditions. The only thing that unites these three properties is all that are in areas the city as ripe for redevelopment for urban mixed-use in the Comprehensive Plan. Felicia’s was upzoned in June 2013 to CBD-60, permitting a 60-foot tall building, no parking required. 622 Cascadilla is WEDZ-1a, allowing for five floors and no off-street parking requirement. Lastly, 402-410 Third Street is B-4, 40′ max and 50% lot coverage, but allows virtually any kind of business outside of adult entertainment. Those are some of the city’s more accommodating zoning types, so we’ll see what happens moving forward. At the very least, the public relations game will be starting from behind the proverbial eight ball.

5. Out in Dryden, the William George Agency is seeking county legislature approval to issue $2.7 million in bonds to finance construction of a new 24-bed residence hall. The facility will affect about 1 acre, be about 15,000 square feet, and start construction this Spring, taking about one year to build.

As the county deems appropriate, they can approve the issuance of tax-exempt municipal bonds to finance construction projects. First the planning committee signs off on it, and then the general legislature takes it up for a vote. The non-profit residential treatment center secured a $2 million construction loan this past January to fund roof repairs and renovations to cafeteria area. The agency, established in the 1890s, employs over 340, making it one of the larger private employers in Tompkins County.


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Plans Shift into Gear for Maguire Dealership on Carpenter Circle

9 02 2016

This write-up is intended to be an exploration of the project itself. An exploration of the controversy will be heading to the Voice.

Let’s start with a little backstory. Carpenter Business Park was formally established in the early 1990s during the Nichols administration, when the city was hoping to pull industrial and commercial business from the burgeoning suburbs back into the city. Up to that point, the land had been mostly vacant space and earlier on, an informal garbage dump. The community gardens lease began in the late 1980s. Ithaca has had plans to develop an industrial park on the site since the 1970s, but the problem is that the site is relatively small and isolated with one only access road (Carpenter Circle). So no one touched it for over a decade.

In the early 2000s, a company under the name Ithaca Templar LLC bought several of the parcels for $2.2 million, but the land remained vacant and the properties eventually went into foreclosure. The foreclosing lender put the land back on the market last spring. Enter Carpenter Business Park LLC, and the $2.7 million August and September land/building sales that my colleague Nick Bogel-Burroughs covered for the Voice. Nick provides a great background on the land sales and initial city reaction to the then-rumor that the Maguires had purchased the land.

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Now a little background on the Maguires. The Maguire family of auto dealerships, started in Trumansburg in 1977, is the eleventh-largest employer in the county with over 420 staff. Phil Maguire and company previously approached the town of Ithaca with the idea of developing a headquarters and series of dealerships on Route 13 near Seven Mile Drive. However, the town board wanted to make the area a PDZ, while Maguire wanted an outright rezoning, which would have given the company more freedom with the way they used the site. The two parties couldn’t come to terms, and the proposal was tabled. Had it been a few years earlier, the plan probably would have been more acceptable, but as proposed it was counter to the small business and low-density residential the town was envisioning for the Inlet Corridor in its newly-passed Comprehensive Plan.

Meanwhile, in the past few years, the city’s been trying to figure out how to redevelop the Waterfront, and Carpenter by extension. Currently, it’s industrial land. Commercial buildings need only be 2 floors to be legally permitted, but residential is not. Waterfront mixed-use zoning had been floated in late 2013 and early 2014, but several city officials and at least one common council member shot the idea down. Then came last June’s Form Ithaca charrettes of what could be done under the ideas of the new 2015 Comprehensive Plan, and the passage of the plan itself. The dense, mixed-use, walkable allure grew stronger and has become the city’s official stance, but the zoning has yet to be updated as the plan recommends. The city does allow for Planned Unit Developments (PUDs) on industrial land that could allow residential use, but only at the Common Council’s discretion.

So in the current case with the waterfront, it’s another situation where the core of the issue is that the proposal conflicts with a newly-passed Comprehensive Plan. It’s hard not to feel a little sympathetic towards the Maguires, who seem to suffer once and again from awful timing.

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Timing and location issues noted, it’s an otherwise very attractive proposal as car dealerships go. Above is a copy of the site plan. The area to the upper right is the NYSDOT redevelopment with the preferred layout; essentially a placeholder, since development is years off, if it ever happens. The Maguires propose a $12 million, 50,000 SF LEED Gold building with rooftop gardens, solar panels, extensive landscaping, rainwater harvesting, and a solar-powered battery charging station for electric cars. This location would sell the Ford, Lincoln and Nissan brands. The site proposes employee, service and some car display parking where power line ROWs prevent construction of permanent structures.

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The project, with a proposed launch later in 2016, is intended as a Phase I – Phase II would renovate the current Ford/Lincoln/Nissan dealership at 504 South Meadow Street into the new Hyundai/Subaru location (at a cost of $5 million), and then Phase III would expand the Fiat/Chrysler/Jeep/Ram location into the old Hyundai/Subaru space (cost of $1 million). The three-year set of plans would result in about $18 million of investment.

Community benefits would be complimentary parking for the community gardens and farmer’s market, and sales and tax revenues. A report from TCAD suggests an increase of $340,000 annually in property tax revenue, and $436,000 annually in sales taxes ($776,000 total, of which the city’s share is about $294,000). TCAD projects the direct creation of 57 jobs when all phases are completed, with an average annual wage of $44,300. TCAD also predicts 13 spinoff jobs.

So, it looks like a great project. But it’s the location issue that will drive the controversy.

Along with the Maguires, local firms TWMLA, T.G. Miller P.C., and Schickel Architecture are working together on the proposal.

 


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News Tidbits 10/17/15: Pressing the Issue

17 10 2015

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1. It looks like the Amabel housing development has another site plan. New pedestrian paths, a relocated community garden, and some substantial tweaks to the layout of the house, including a small access road for three homes near the southern termination of the loop road with Five Mile Drive (older plans here).

Marketing for the project hasn’t officially started, but New Earth Living LLC’s (Susan Cosentini’s) website does have interior renders for one of the proposed house styles, as well as an informational PDF. Plans call for Net-Zero energy efficiency homes, meaning that the amount of energy generated on site will power all the project’s energy needs. Example homes included in the PDF range from 1,184 SF to 2,083 SF – it looks like there will be four home models with alternate configuration options. Prices have yet to be announced.

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The Amabel project, proposed for 619 Five Mile Drive just southwest of the city of Ithaca’s boundary line, has been in the works for the past couple of years, a sort of grand follow-up to New Earth Living’s Aurora Street Pocket Neighborhood in Fall Creek. The project will have about 30 single-family homes at full build-out.

I know some of the more pessimistic readers here may call this suburban sprawl with a green sheen, but it’s a lot better than a cul-de-sac.

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2. The village of Lansing sent off their updated Comprehensive Plan to the county planning department this week for review and approval. Now, planning should be the village’s forte, since the village of Lansing was founded in the 1970s as a backlash against the construction of commercial and residential properties along Triphammer and Route 13, including what’s now The Shops at Ithaca Mall. The plan was last updated in 2005, and draft of the new plan can be found here.

The village seems to note with some distress that although population growth has slowed, traffic has continued to increase (due in large part to significant growth in Lansing town; many town residents pass through the village to get to employment centers in Ithaca). North Triphammer Road has already been widened, but there are concerns about the ability of infrastructure to handle further traffic increases. The village also notes a strong rise in the 55+ population, as well as the same affordable housing issues that plague Ithaca and much of the county; in Lansing’s case, the median household income can afford a $171,000 home by their estimate (2.5 x $54,721 = $136,800 qualifying mortgage, + 20% down-payment), but the average house in Lansing costs $258,000 (affordable to a household making ~$82,500; note all the numbers are 2010 values). The plan also shows that fair market rent in Lansing increased 64.1% from 2005-2015, meaning that unless a renter had an annual wage increase of 5.8%, they paid more of their income towards housing year after year.  29.4% of homeowners and 39.1% of renters pay above the HUD’s 30% of total income threshold for affordability. The village is concerned it will price aged residents right out of their homes.

In an effort to combat the growing problem, the village wants to focus new housing along main thoroughfares with easy bus access and bike infrastructure, and is aiming for smaller homes and apartments geared towards aging-in-place and senior communities. The village notes that 500 to 600 units of housing could potentially be developed over the next few decades (note Lansing averages ~10 units per year), mostly on the large, low-density home lots near the lake. These would almost certainly be geared towards the highest income brackets, but the benefit of greater supply might relieve pressure on other homes.

On the business end, the village would also like to encourage Cornell to relocate back-office and research operations to village sites. There’s also a push for senior-oriented businesses and a possible rethinking of the malls, not an uncommon thought in this age where malls are struggling and dying off.

There are arguably two senior developments planned that already fit their “want” category – the 12 senior units planned for the Lansing Meadows PDA (the ones planned next to BJ’s on Oakcrest Road), and 62 senior units for the CU Suites site on Cinema Drive (photo from last week above). Other residential growth will be fairly “organic”, with new homes built at the whim of owners and mom-and-pop builders. A new commercial medium-traffic zone along Hickory Hollow Drive might open some more business opportunities; as for Cornell, they seem to be more focused on their East Hill Village plans, but research park tenants are always a possibility.

The village plans to update its comprehensive plan again by 2025.

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3. On the topic of plans, here’s a progress report just released by the Ithaca Urban Renewal Agency regarding its five-year plan.

If you wanted another reason why housing in Ithaca is so expensive, the plan alludes to it here:

“A spike in local construction costs has delayed the start of construction on a planned four-unit first-time homebuyer project and a public facilities project that will improve a public recreational area. We anticipate these projects moving forward once they have been able to close their funding gaps.”

The four-unit homebuyer project is the townhouse project planned by INHS for 402 South Cayuga Street (shown above). INHS director Paul Mazzarella said the project was due to receive bids last month, and if they were within INHS’s budget, it would start construction. It hasn’t started.

Ithaca’s a small labor pool, so you either truck in labor from elsewhere and incur the wrath of construction unions, or you go local and pay a premium. But even then, with the relative burst in activity as of late, the local pool is getting tapped out and that’s driving prices up. Non-profits like INHS don’t have a lot of wiggle room in their budgets, and city government just won’t build if they can’t get affordable bids for infrastructure work. It also impacts programs that provide low-cost home repairs to those with low and fixed-incomes, because those low-cost repairs are no longer low-cost, and fewer people are able to be served.

One could one look at this as either a reason to limit approvals (which the construction trade unions are opposed to) or introducing more out-of-town labor to the market (which the trade unions are also opposed to). Stuck between two metaphorical rocks.

So long story short, in a region where the cost of housing is climbing dangerously fast, the city has a lot of work left to do meeting its affordability goals, with many actions/programs falling well short of annual numbers needed to meet the 5-year goal statistics. Hopefully some progress will be made in the upcoming year.

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4. The mayor has dealt State Street Triangle a serious blow by announcing his opposition to the State Street Triangle, first reported on his facebook page and picked up by every news outlet in town, Svante Myrick cited the student housing focus and massing concerns for his opposition (he explicitly stated the height, 11 stories and 116 feet, was appropriate for its location, the 300 block of East State Street in the heart of downtown Ithaca). This is a big setback because apart from his social influence, the mayor sits on the county IDA, which is the governing body that votes on tax abatements.

A couple of the outlets have reached out to Campus Advantage, which is busy trying to formulate a response. They’ve hired a PR firm for whenever they’re ready. It could be the end of the project, it could still go on, it could be drastically altered. The chips have been tossed into the air, let them fall where they may.

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5. House of the week. This week, a trip out to Maple Ridge in Dryden. Maple Ridge is a housing development within the village that had the unfortunate luck of launching right before the Great Recession. After struggling, it’s been picking up in the past couple of years with five houses built since 2013. This modular home is the “Cayuga Lake” model offered by American Homes in Dryden. The pieces have been assembled and fastened together on top of the poured foundation, and some finish work has started. The uncapped foundation section is most likely a future garage. Modular homes tend to move through construction pretty quick, and this one will likely be finished in time for the holidays.

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6. The county and city hosted a meeting discussing possible waterfront re-development plans for the NYS DOT site on Thursday night. Three plans were presented, two mixed-use commercial and residential, and a third that the Journal describes as just being “hotel”, but given the 7.66 acres on site, is probably mixed-use with a hotel component.

The third option is a little bit of a throwback because the city long-saw the waterfront as prime for a hotel. But the market has shifted towards downtown and Route 13, and with the market adding new hotels at a pretty good clip over the next few years (Marriott, Canopy, Holiday Inn Express), a hotel in that area is pretty unlikely. Local lawyer/developer Steve Flash proposed a five-story hotel on Inlet Island in 2007, but in the days before the waterfront zoning allowed five floors, the project was opposed and shelved.

An initial cost of the move is being pegged at $14 million, but it isn’t clear if a potential buyer would pay that directly, or the county/city, who then get reimbursed by a buyer. $14 million is quite an amount, but given the site’s potential, it’s feasible (but don’t expect any outside-the-box thinking; a developer will want to minimize risk since they have to make such a huge initial investment).

If anything is clear, it’s that, contrary to the opinion of at least one speaker at the meeting, most folks would like the snow plows and road salt stored somewhere else.

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6. I don’t comment on politics. I don’t comment on candidates. But I will comment on issues. And, probably no surprise to readers here, I find it worrisome when anti-development candidates come forward.

By and large, development in Ithaca isn’t happening “for the sake of development” like in the 1990s, when the local economy was mired in recession. It’s happening because the Ithaca area has added 6,000 jobs in ten years, mostly in healthcare and education. Cayuga Medical Center has added over 500 positions in 10 years, and while Cornell’s direct employment hasn’t changed much, the university has added nearly 2,500 students. That has created demand for thousands of units, but when combined with the slow pace of development within the county over the past decade, the result has been a critical housing deficit.

This is one of the major reasons behind the current affordable housing crisis – high demand, plus insufficient increases in supply, have resulted in very low vacancy rates and have made it a seller’s paradise when it comes to housing.

If you plan on selling your house or rental property and retiring to Florida in the next couple of years, you’re in for serious bank! Everyone else, whether through rents or increased tax assessments, ends up with a much greater burden. Housing costs are a big player in how Ithaca became the 8th most expensive city in the country.

If there are thousands of people coming here for work or retirement, and new housing isn’t there to absorb them, the wealthier folks moving in will simply pay a premium on what exists, and price out the existing working and middle class who can’t afford those premiums. Which some people are okay with.

Ithaca doesn’t need to “slow down” development, because that’s one of reasons why the affordability crisis is as bad as it is. What Ithaca needs is to be proactive about development, and generally it has been under Mayor Myrick. The city has actively worked to reformulate general guidelines like the Comprehensive Plan (first all-new plan since 1971!) and is starting work on part II, working on neighborhood-specific themes. Myrick’s government has also identified and maintained targeted development areas, like Collegetown’s Form Zoning and downtown density. The mayor has even come to bat for the $30k-$50k/year working class folks that “breed trouble” and need affordable housing, like with INHS’ 210 Hancock project.

Affordability is a long-term effort and a multi-pronged approach, by keeping vulnerable families in their homes, and providing new homes to accommodate the growing economy and population.

There’s still a lot of work to do, but hell, it’s a start. Sticking fingers in ones’ ears isn’t going to make the housing crisis go away.


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News Tidbits 5/23: Cast A Discerning Eye

23 05 2015

1. Starting off this week’s round-up, here are some new renders of PPM Homes’s apartment project proposed for 215-221 West Spencer Street just south of downtown.

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Note that C & D are the same design, but mirrored. The general forms are pretty much the same as the original sketch plan, but the porch and windows have been altered and the rooflines have been tweaked on A and B to give the Spencer Street facade a little more visual interest.

The 12-unit, 4-building project is being described as a “pocket neighborhood”. The two upper buildings closest to West Cayuga will have three two-bedroom units here, and the lower buildings facing West Spencer have a combined four two-bedroom units and two three-bedroom units, for a total of 26 bedrooms in the project. 12 parking spaces are provided as required by zoning. The owner is looking into remote net-metering of an off-site solar panel installation to provide all of the project’s electricity needs. The site will launch into the formal planning board review process next month.

The steeply-sloped 0.47 acre parcel has been vacant for several years, and currently sees use as an informal 12-space parking lot. The property was originally marketed for affordable housing projects only, but received no purchase bids. Once the affordable stipulation was removed, the parcel was marketed once again, and Ed Cope bought the parcel for $110,000 on March 6th.

The building designs are the work of local architect Noah Demarest of STREAM Collaborative.

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Random aside, I just found out that PPM’s Ed Cope is a Cornell biologist. And here I thought writing this blog and being an air quality scientist was an interesting contrast.

2. There might have been a day in not-too-distant past where someone said, “You know what Ithaca needs? Mini-golf.” Apparently someone heard those wishes. the Town of Ithaca’s Planning Committee will be looking at a possible zoning modification down near the intersection of Elmira Road and Seven Mile Drive that would allow a mini-gold establishment to move forward.

Stretching my memory here a bit, I seem to recall a mini-golf place up by Trumansburg, but if my google search is any indication, it closed a couple of years ago. I suppose there’s a niche to be filled.

Now comes the question of, “Does this fit with the town’s new Comprehensive Plan?” Here’s the description the town proposes for the Inlet Valley Gateway, including the area in question:

The Inlet Valley Gateway district is intended to be a setting for a mix of office, small-scale retail, hospitality, and tourism and agritourism uses, with low-impact light industrial, artisanal industrial, and skilled trade uses.
The scale, architecture and landscaping of future development will need to be carefully designed and articulated.

This area should retain a semi-rural character, with deep setbacks from arterial streets, wide spacing between uses, landscaped front yards, and vehicle parking sited on the side and/or rear of structures. Shared curb cuts will reduce potential conflicts with highway traffic. Sidewalks should follow streets, with connections to adjacent areas planned for residential development. Architectural design, landscaping, and site planning regulations should apply to all uses in this area, including industrial uses. Agglomeration of mechanical commercial uses, and incremental expansion of commercial zoning resulting in strip commercial development, will be strongly discouraged.

It sounds like that if the site is designed right, it could be a good fit. Probably a better fit than the Maguire’s dealership/HQ plan that was shelved a few months ago.

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3. Here’s a couple of photos of the new duplex being built at 514 Linn Street. Each unit will be 3 bedrooms, and the apartments will be completed this summer. The building is being built on the foundation of the previous home that existed on the site, which dated from the late 1800s and was a near-copy of the peach-colored house next door. 514 Linn is being developed by the Stavropoulos family, who run the State Street Diner.

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4. In an effort to win over the city, Texas Roadhouse is tweaking their proposed restaurant off of S. Meadow/13. Latest render here. Members of the planning board have previously expressed concerns that the original design had the entrance facing northward into the parking lot rather than the street, and that not enough attention was being placed on the street-facing west side. If the render is any indicator, the modified proposal still has a primary entrance on the north side of the building, but the street-facing side has a handicapped entryway, and the landscaping has been spruced up. Dunno if it’s what the board quite wanted, but they’ll decide if it’s good enough during their meeting next week.

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5. Looks like Pat Kraft’s Dryden South project (205 Dryden) has a website up and running. The 10-unit, 40 bedroom project will start site clearing in a few weeks, with excavation/foundation work going through the summer (according to an interview conducted by the Sun, Kraft hopes to have structural steel rising by the time students get back in late August). The 6-story, 65′ building will house Kraftee’s on its first floor, with two units of four bedrooms each on each floor above. units will be available for rent starting next August.

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A neat little detail from the site is this old conceptual sketch done by Jagat Sharma for the site. Note the April 2009 date at lower right; this project has been in the planning stages for years, even though it only hit the Planning Board last Spring. On a personal note, I’m glad this hulking box didn’t end up being the final design.

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6. For those interested in what’s going on with Simeon’s, here’s an updated sketch design of the rebuild, courtesy of the Ithaca Landmarks Preservation Council (ILPC). The somewhat controversial side balcony/overhang is gone. About the only major difference between the original entrance and the rebuild is the location of the front door, which is now on the left (west) side instead of being in the center.

7.. Looks to be a quieter meeting for the planning board this month. No new sketch plans, and only one project, Texas Roadhouse, is being considered for approval. Here’s what’s up for discussion at Tuesday’s meeting:

IA. A minor subdivision to create a new home lot a 212 Hook Place on West Hill.

IB. A minor subdivision to divide a property on Hector Street on West Hill. The sisters applying for the subdivision are splitting the land among themselves but intend to keep both lots “Forever Wild”.

IIA. 210 Hancock gets its public hearing and possibly its Determination of Environmental Significance (which if okayed means that the project can be considered for prelim approval in June). I’m hearing there might be opposition mobilizing against the project. Given how transparent the whole design process has been, and that this is affordable housing in an urban area that struggles with housing costs, I’m going to be very, very disappointed if this happens.

B. Texas Roadhouse is up for Determination of Env. Signif. and possible Prelim/Final Site Plan Approval

C. Tompkins Financial’s new HQ will be reviewing parts of its Environmental Assessment Forms; no decisions expected

D. Declaration of Lead Agency (Planning Board agrees to conduct review) for the Maguire Fiat addition.

The board will also be conducting a review of State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) forms used in determining environmental significance.


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News Tidbits 4/4/15: And They Called It “PlanIthaca”

4 04 2015

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1. According to Ithaca Builds and those on a VIP list-serve, the Lofts @ Six Mile Creek have released tentative rental prices. $1,220/month for a studio to $2,655/month for a top-notch 2 bedroom. Using the affordability rule (30% of monthly income), one gets $48,800-$106,200 year – given the median income in Tompkins County of just over $53,000/yr, these prices could be described as upper-middle tier. I can already hear the grumbling from commenters on the Ithaca Voice if a construction update gets posted.

The 45 units are set to be completed this summer, but those looking to take a sneak peek can sign up for an April 18th tour of the building, courtesy of the Downtown Ithaca Alliance.

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2. Here’s an updated aerial site rendering of INHS’s 210 Hancock redevelopment. The changes to the affordable housing proposal are largely in site landscaping and layout, the biggest changes being the closure Lake Avenue and moving the playground (which is not rendered in the aerial). Traffic studies, stormwater management plans, and parking studies can be found here (it turns out that compared to the old supermarket, there will be slightly more AM traffic, and a lot less PM traffic), revised site layout here, and about 18 other documents in the April site plan review planning board directory on the city’s website. 210 Hancock will be undergoing review by the city Planning and Development Board at their April meeting.

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3. Turning to another INHS project, the Greenways development is going for final approval with the town of Ithaca’s Planning Board next Tuesday. The full suite of documents can be found here. The designs above, for buildings A, B, C, D, and E in Phase I, are very nearly final, though Building C looks like it was accidentally uploaded in grey-scale. B-E will have three units each, 2 2-bedroom (1,100 sq ft) and 1 3-bedroom (1,300 sq ft). Building A will have 2 2-bedroom and 2 3-bedroom units. In sum, Phase I has 16 units and 38 bedrooms. Assuming the other units are the same configuration, the final product will have 46 units and 110 bedrooms. Build-out could take 6-8 years according to the docs, and Building K in Phase II interferes with 0.09 acres of wetland, which the Army Corps of engineers requires to be filled in before development (wetlands under 0.1 acres and not contiguous with any other wetland can be filled in without need of replacement).

The designs are by local architect Claudia Brenner. The floorplans are designed with nearly identical layouts to save money, but the varied use of exterior architectural details and colors does a nice job of giving each building a unique appearance.

Readers might recall that these for-sale owner-occupied units are being developed for the affordable housing segment (individuals/families with incomes of $38k-$57k), and that Cornell is giving INHS the property for below market price on the condition that Cornell employees that fall into the income restraints have first dibs on the units as they hit the market. The property also makes use of “woonerfs“, so-called living streets that are shared by bikers, pedestrians and vehicles, and typically have a speed limit of no more than 10-12 MPH.

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4. The city of Ithaca’s draft Comprehensive Plan is now online. The 66-page draft, called “PlanIthaca”, can be looked at here, and the proposed land use map here. Over the past year, the Comprehensive Plan Committee has been busy fleshing out the original 16-page draft document to the full-fledged PlanIthaca document above. The city will be hosting a series of open houses throughout the city during April for interested parties to look through the plan and comment, with the first open house on Monday April 13th from 3:30-5 PM at St. Luke’s in Collegetown. Comments can also be submitted by email to city planner Megan Wilson at mwilson@cityofithaca.org.

I’ll probably expand on the plan in a future post, but readers of the blog won’t be surprised by anything it says. The map appears to be lacking the neighborhood mixed-use zoning, which from reading the plan appears to be an accident. Otherwise it’s the exact same map from last spring’s write-up.  There’s a couple of interesting concepts that will be explored as things move forward beyond the plan – ideas such as city-wide form-based zoning and a transfer of development rights between properties would make for a large departure from current policies.

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5. If you’re looking for a little more light weekend reading, feel free to check out the double feature article on the Tompkins Financial HQ plans running the weekend on the Ithaca Voice. Summing up a few salient details here, the total project will cost $26.5 million, add 77 new jobs downtown over the next decade, and run from about June 2015 to January or February 2017. The new headquarters will be about 110,000 square feet in size, 7 stories and 100 feet tall, the maximum allowed by zoning. The first floor will have a 6,600 square foot (66 feet x 100 feet) bank branch, with parking for 20-25 cars behind the first floor and under the overhanging upper floors. A basement floor will also add 6,600 sq ft of space, and floors 2-7 will have 16,300 square feet each. Across the street at 119 East Seneca Street, a new drive-thru will be built underneath the existing building, consisting of revised drive-thru lanes, surface parking, an ATM and a 985 square foot teller building.


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Tompkins County’s Comprehensive Plan

3 02 2015

5-1-2012 120

In keeping with the recent talk of Comprehensive Plans, Tompkins County has just released their new plan, their first since 2004. That might not seem like a big deal, but in that time period, the county has probably added 4,500 residents and a couple thousand housing units, so it’s more important than it might seem at first glance (for the sake of comparison, every county community except Ithaca city has made a plan since 2000; the city’s dates from 1971). Currently, the plan is in review and up for adoption by the County Legislature at their meeting on the 17th. The 109-page document has been in the works since the fall of 2013.

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Generally, the county doesn’t play a big role in what does and doesn’t get built in its constituent villages and towns. Building projects are required to get county input, but the county isn’t about to stop anything, nor does it have much authority to (unless you’re applying for tax breaks, like Jason Fane’s 130 E. Clinton project). Perhaps the largest point of contention at the moment is the intermunicipal NYSEG natural gas pipeline, which Lansing wants and needs to sustain its growth, but the county has issues with, saying it could upset their green energy goals. On the opposite end of the scale was the Cayuga Ridge project for the Biggs parcel, which the county planned to sell to an affordable housing developer, but received significant blowback from the West Hill community. Cayuga Ridge was later cancelled when a site check by the developer revealed more wetlands than previously thought.

Anyway, back to the plan. It’s available in small chunks on this page, or for those whose internet connection can handle all 109 pages at once, here it is.

The general theme here from a housing standpoint is to fill in the spaces within the city, villages and hamlets. There’s a strong push on the county level to keep farmland from being scooped up for new development – a major threat, considering some of the cheapest land to develop in the county happens to be far-flung agricultural properties, where a relative lack of neighbors and shoestring small town planning boards can make for a quick and easy process. The logic is, if development takes place in communities that are already settled and already have employers and amenities, it limits the need for getting into a car for every trip, and makes for a more “sustainable” environment and stronger communities. Urban/infill development also makes for a lower tax burden per new unit added – there’s no need to pave new roads or extend utility lines.

The county is also becoming a bigger proponent of mixed-use development – apartment buildings with retail on the first floor, projects that have space for both homes and offices, and so forth. The logic is the same as before – if it’s convenient, people are more likely to walk, and patronize their own community. Trends in smaller households leads to the county’s suggestion of smaller housing units, as well as more senior housing for the greying population that chooses to “age in place”.

This all sounds great on paper, but there are many issues in practice. Anti-development sentiment, the ideal candidates for development aren’t for sale, outdated municipal zoning and so forth.

Economically, the county plans on sustaining its biggest contributors, education and healthcare, while making an effort to diversify with incentives towards manufacturing, high-tech/tech startups, food processing, agriculture and tourism. Specifically, they’re hoping to leverage the Cornell tech scene into permanent jobs and new economic development, which has met with some success, though nothing on the scale of, say, Silicon Valley or the Research Triangle. The high taxes, isolated location and lack of access to capital are major hurdles in an area that has plenty of brain power to tap into. The county is hoping to alleviate some of the burden by utilizing the state’s STARTUP NY program, and supporting resources like the new Rev business incubator in downtown Ithaca.

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The county only seems to be expecting 3,000-6,000 new jobs in the next ten years – a number that seems a little conservative, if recent growth is any indicator. The county (aka the Ithaca metro, following the Federal BLS) has added 8,400 jobs since December 2004 (63,700 jobs in December 2004 to 72,100 in December 2014).

On an individual scale, the county is seeking to expand broadband internet infrastructure and maintain the airport, which has seen a sharp decrease in travelers over the past year, putting its long-term feasibility at risk. There will also be continued funding towards planning studies (a study examining the NYS DOT relocation from the waterfront is the latest example), tourism advertising and tax abatements when appropriate.

Finally, the county expounds the affordable housing issue, noting that 38% of renters and owners are above the “affordable” threshold, there are over 15,000 in-commuters, and very low vacancy rates creates a disincentive for slumlords to fix up their overpriced properties, which in turn makes communities less energy-efficient. Unfortunately, the county doesn’t offer many solutions. They note an affordable housing fund paid into by itself, the colleges and the city of Ithaca, put the partnership is set to expire this year, and the future is uncertain. The other is “increasing community support for the construction of more housing units”, which is much easier said than done.

There also sections on encouraging mass transit and alternative (non-car) commuting, natural resource preservation and wetland management, but those are too close to my day job for me to want to write about. But in sum, the theme is infill development in the hamlets and established areas, make the area more eco-friendly, preserving farms and green space, trying to expand affordable housing options and continue growing the economy. All of which are great goals, but given that these interests can conflict with each other, there will likely be many debates over the next several years.

 


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News Tidbits 8/2/14: It’s Gotta Go Somewhere

2 08 2014

Here’s the semi weekly digest for your mid-summer doldrums…

1. Yet another round of Carey Building design tweaks. Updated renders and more here. At least now the renders include the proposed Hampton Inn to its north, which shows just how dense this corner will be (not unlike its historical precedent, when the massive Strand Theatre occupied much of the block). Better yet, that blank wall on the west face has windows and will be home to a “art wall” for a mural. The roof and facade have been tweaked since the last update, and I think it’s fair to say that this is a substantial improvement over the initial proposal.

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2. I had the updated PDF of the 323 Taughannock Boulevard proposal stored away for the next news update, but Jason at IB wrote an in-depth article about the development in the meanwhile, which is much better than a blurb on this blog. Most notably this time around is the inclusion of color renders, which is just as much a hodgepodge of influences as the design itself. The 20-unit, 23,000 sq ft, $3.5 million waterfront development would be under construction in the first half of 2015, if approved. Replacing a run-down waterfront bar, it has the potential to pioneer development of Ithaca’s waterfront, where controversial zoning was passed in 2011 to allow for larger projects such as this.

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3. Now for something different. The project on Troy Road in the town of Ithaca is trapped in the red tape. At last check, the developers, the perhaps disingenuously-named Rural Preservation Housing Associates, were trying to figure out where to go, as they’re having difficulties gathering enough support from the town board for a Planned Development Zone. This PDZ is required because the project proposes 166 units; the max under cluster zoning, which doesn’t require a Town Board-approved PDZ, is either 153 or 154. According to a recent town Planning Committee meeting, the alternative to the 154 or so clustered units is up to 104 units of even more sprawling single-family housing (52 lots with two units each), which is within zoning and could be rented out if they have trouble selling. The developers have been considering community meetings to quell public dissent and to learn what would get the PDZ apartment development passed. For the record, they’ve said they are open to prohibiting undergrads from renting and occupying units, which is possible since students are not a protected class under the law.

TL;DR – it’s a mess. I’ll add that in with the Biggs parcel issue, and the (weakening) opposition to INHS’s Greenways in East Ithaca, that the town has achieved the trifecta of development battles on all of its hills.

There was an interesting housing study that I came across for the Troy Road parcel, created by some Cornell City and Regional Planning (CRP) students for a course. The first phase as designed by the students would have 14 affordable (owners making 80% of county median income) housing units with 11 1180 sq ft. 2-bedroom and 3, 1355 sq ft. 3-bedroom homes, utilizing state tax credits to keep sale costs between $140k and 155k. Their proposal would have require changing the current zone from low density to medium density, which would have made such a project a non-starter.

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4. Meanwhile in Lansing, they’re weighing in on 102 townhomes. If Ithaca were an island, anti-development could be great. But since other towns are building housing and adding residents that will travel through the town to get to the employment centers in the city, then the residents of the town of Ithaca had better figure out a more effective strategy to managing growth other than knee-jerk no’s.

5. Some members of Ithaca’s West Hill community listserve is engaged in a thought exercise – seceding from the town and making their own village to specifically oppose any development proposed in their community. This isn’t without precedent; the village of Lansing was founded in 1974 due to fears stirred up by the construction of Pyramid Mall. West Hill, in turn, fears housing, especially low-income housing, due to the negative influence from low-income, high crime apartment complexes such as West Village. The “Minority Report” that they gave to the town planners was described as “a polemic of the proposed [Comprehensive] Plan as a whole, and offers few comments on any specific goals and recommendations“, and the town spent six pages excoriating the bombastic report. It’s another TL;DR for most, but the gist of the West Hill Minority Report is that the town encourages sprawl and ghettos and should only allow very small areas for development, even deconstructing some currently-built areas due to an increasingly unsustainable environment. I understand their angry reaction due to the high crime in southwest Ithaca, but all this is the administrative equivalent of over-correcting a car in a skid.

6. And then there were 5 – Since INHS is focusing on the Neighborhood Pride site, the non-profit is withdrawing from old library competition. Looks like John Schroeder can add DeWitt House to his entries in his “Unbuilt Ithaca” book draft. But don’t worry, they’ve already starting working towards redevelopment of the old grocery store, by issuing a request for qualifications (RFQ) for those interested and capable of designing their new infill project.

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7. At a glance, this call for bids on this parcel of city land at Five Mile Drive would seem to be wide open…except a local green housing developer has been targeting this plot for quite a while. It’s a bit like advertising a job when you already have someone lined up for the position. Oddly enough, I have yet to hear opposition this one; maybe it’s too far south for West Hill to care.

8. Lansing village is getting a mosque, according to the Star. The project, to be built at 112 Graham Road by the Al-Huda Islamic Center of the Finger Lakes, will result in a 4,828 sq ft mosque, with a small minaret if money provides.

Rendering courtesy of Lansing Star

Rendering courtesy of Lansing Star


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