Many of us like to bird at the Lansing Center Trails in South Lansing along NY Rts. 34/34B (Auburn Road). The Town of Lansing originally acquired this large parcel of land from New York State a few years ago. Some of you may have noticed that a new road has been cut into the area opposite Woodsedge Road, next to the white Victorian house. This is the new town road that will lead a little way into the property to a development on 13.5 acres of nine two-story "affordable housing" apartment houses and one community building. Going north on the new road the apartments will be on the left. A brief article about this appears in Tompkins Weekly, Dec. 3-9, 2018. This article shows a map of the project, the road, and part of the surrounding land.
The developer was required to keep out of the small "federal wetland" that runs south and west of the new apartments. The present walking trails in the area will still be there, or relocated nearby. But obviously, most the good wildlife habitat on this parcel will be lost to the road, the buildings and lawns. If you look at the copied "plan" for that section of Lansing Center Trails in the Tompkins Weekly article, pg. 9, you see also another long, curved, new road that runs from Conlon Road back (north) of the new apartments to the right (east) edge of the picture - the article says this new, second road would run all the way across the rest of the larger Lansing Trails parcel to join the part of Auburn Road that curves north and runs near the entrance to the Lansing Town Highway Department buildings (by Lansing Grocery Market). However, today I talked to one of the more environmentally-friendly town board members who was on the planning committee for this project and she said that this "second road" won't happen for 1-2 years, if ever. This road is not needed for either this present apartment project, nor a proposed "Phase II" housing project and some on the planning committee fought the idea of this road; to some extent, they did not prevail. This road, if built though, would obliterate a lot of wildlife habitat, be disruptive to birding and hiking, and would no doubt cause the deaths of much wildlife. This property was never intended by some in the government of Town of Lansing or in its Planning Office to be a "forever wild" hiking/birding venue. The trails were put in by an ad hoc citizens group who saw an opportunity to create walking/birding trails in the then vacant land. It was not without much difficulty that they got approval for the trails, but they did and volunteers now take care of mowing the paths, keeping a small garden area, and erecting informational signs. It was always intended by some on past and present Town Boards for this land to be part of locating housing density in the center part of the Town, as called for in the Town's Comprehensive Plan, so as to try to spare converting a lot of good agricultural land to the north into suburban-type housing. So, this is about all I know about this new development. One could go to the Planning Office in Lansing Town Hall (29 Auburn Rd.) and ask to see the plan drawings, M-Th 7:30 am - 4:00 pm. Fri. 7:30 - noon. Donna Scott Donna L. Scott Lansing Station Road Lansing, NY d...@cornell.edu<mailto:d...@cornell.edu> -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
