I can't believe there is still debate about a 90 foot height limit!!!
There are three months left in the City of Ithaca's moratorium on construction in Collegetown, seen Thursday afternoon looking west across the intersection of College Avenue and Dryden Road. Common Council is debating an urban plan that addresses issues of building height, density and transportation. (SIMON WHEELER / Staff Photo)
'Neighbors' debate Collegetown plan
By Krisy Gashler •
kgashler@gannett.com • January 23, 2009
ITHACA - There seems to be no clear direction for Common Council's action on the Collegetown urban plan, with wide-ranging differences of opinion among Council members on height, density and the controversial transportation plan.
Council held its first actual discussion of the urban plan at a planning committee meeting Wednesday night. Though the committee includes only five Council members, eight of the 10, plus Mayor Carolyn Peterson, attended and participated.
The wide-ranging discussion, including public comment from half a dozen permanent residents, branched beyond the plan itself to the more basic issue of what makes a "neighbor" and "neighborhood" in Collegetown.
In one emotional exchange, permanent Bryant Park resident Joanne Trutko and Alderman Svante Myrick, D-4th and the only student on Common Council, each outlined their scenarios for talking to a neighbor in Collegetown.
Trutko said if the Collegetown urban plan is accepted, with its proposed increases in height and density in the core, a neighborhood conversation would go like this:
"My investors and I have bought the property next door to you on Linden Avenue. Oh by the way, we're tearing it down. Oh neighbor, instead of taking up 45 percent of the land, we're going to take up 65 percent of the land. So, neighbor, say goodbye to your air and sun, light and a garden," Trutko said. "Oh, and did I mention, neighbor, we're not putting in any parking? I know that is a key problem that was identified in the neighborhood plan ... but what are two- to three-hundred more cars on Linden Avenue?"
Myrick responded that "I live in a neighborhood, too," and without the urban plan, and the new development it is meant to spur, conversations with his neighbors will continue to go like this:
"I say, 'Hey neighbor, how's it going?' And they say, 'It's not going too well for me. I'm paying $1,200 a month to live in an apartment that's too small, too tight, has no light, has no air, and I have no choice because there are no vacancies left.' Or, 'my landlord's unresponsive because he knows there's nothing else I can do,' ... 'I live in a place that's unsafe. I live in a place that's falling down,'" Myrick said.
Aside from near-unanimous support for design guidelines in Collegetown, Council members split on critical aspects of the urban plan, especially the "sustainable transportation plan."
That plan calls for increasing density in Collegetown while reducing or eliminating developers' parking requirements. It recommends the city control parking using market tactics like drastically increasing the price to park on the street and de-coupling parking from rent so that renters see exactly how much of their rent goes to their housing and how much goes to parking.
Alderwoman Jennifer Dotson, I-1st, noted the success with which Cornell controls parking on its campus using a variety of tools, notably very expensive parking.
"To be blunt, I think some parking pressure is a tool we can use," to encourage students not to bring cars, Dotson said.
Alderwoman Maria Coles, D-1st, said the transportation plan is "absolutely the weakest part of the plan."
The plan suggests the city allow developers to pay a fee to the city in lieu of constructing on-site parking. The fee is meant to fund things such as alternative transportation, pedestrian and bike improvements, and potentially a remote parking garage.
"Without knowing where that long-term parking is going to be located, how are we to know how much developers should be charged?" Coles said.
Alderman Dan Cogan, D-5th, said that while neighborhood concern about parking spillover is valid, the city will have to do something to make a substantial change in how many students bring cars to Ithaca.
Council members may feel it's anathema to their principles to use market forces that allow only the wealthiest to park, but they should look past that to the greater good of improving alternative transportation for all students, Cogan said.
Alderwoman Mary Tomlan, D-3rd, said permanent residents in and near Collegetown worked hard to establish their residential parking permit system and the city should think very carefully before altering a system that has worked.
One component of the transportation plan calls for allowing students to buy expensive permits to park in nearby neighborhoods. In comments before a variety of city boards, permanent residents have universally disliked this idea.
Alderman Eric Rosario, I-2nd, said the transportation plan and its goals to charge for the true cost of parking is both the most "seductive" and the "weakest" part of the plan.
Even with developers paying in-lieu fees, "the city's going to end up paying a lot more than we'd ever get from developers," Rosario said. In addition, enforcing the parking plan would cost the city more in police time, he said.
On allowing 90-foot-high buildings in the core of Collegetown, another plan recommendation opposed by permanent residents, several Council members expressed reservations.
Peterson said she thinks the plan's goals can still be met without going to 90 feet.
Alderman Joel Zumoff, D-3rd, said one of the primary goals of the urban plan was to increase the density in Collegetown to prevent renter sprawl into neighborhoods.
"I don't know how you're going to do that without building up," he said.
With the 18-month construction moratorium in Collegetown ending in April, Peterson suggested Council aim for the "low-hanging fruit" in the plan and work from there in the future.