Thanks for the history lesson, but I'm still left with this question: Why are we talking about creating "affordable, walkable, bikeable, environmentally sustainable and diverse neighborhoods" when the County is already dotted with beautiful little communities starving for more businesses and residents?
Weren't you arguing a few months ago that we should be trying to increase the density of existing urban areas rather than settling the countryside? Jon George Frantz wrote: > Jon, > > You are correct in that most of the Town of Ithaca is zoned Ag-Agricultural > or CD-Conservation District in order to protect agricultural alnds and > environmentally sesnitive areas. I know, because both of those zoning > districts are my brainchildren. (They are not "large lot" either, but I can > explain that later.) > > In setting asside that several thousand acres of land I also made sure in my > planning that there was enough land zoned for development in the Town of > Ithaca (ie HDR, MDR, LDR zoning districts) to accommodate 4-5 times even the > wildest expectations for population growth in the next 20-50 years. > > That is the land I am referring to. That is the land that the Town of Ithaca > is wasting by catering to large lot development, at the expense of > sustainability. > > Cheers! > > George Frantz > > > > --- On Sun, 3/15/09, Jon Bosak <[email protected]> wrote: > > > From: Jon Bosak <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [SustainableTompkins] Town of Ithaca Stream Setback Law > To: "Sustainable Tompkins County listserv" > <[email protected]> > Date: Sunday, March 15, 2009, 12:52 AM > > > George Frantz wrote: > > "There is plenty of land available in the Town of Ithaca > outside stream corridors and wetland areas that is both > suitable for development and has access to public water and > sewer infrastructure. There is great potential for the > development of affordable, walkable, bikeable, environmentally > sustainable and diverse neighborhoods in a number of locations > throughout the Town. > > That is not going to happen, though, because all but a tiny > percentage of the land available for development in the Town of > Ithaca is zoned for minimum lot sizes of 15,000 square feet or > 30,000 square feet." > > The reason that much of the Town is zoned for large lots is to > encourage agriculture and thus enable the local production of > food. And this is why those same large lots (down to about 2/3 of > an acre -- I'm skipping over a lot of details here) are > specifically zoned to allow keeping most kinds of farm animals and > the structures needed to house them. > > The attitude that would convert our remaining open space to > housing is the one that believes that food should come from > gigantic factories located Somewhere Else and brought to us by > unending supplies of cheap fuel. The conditions that made this > briefly possible are about to come to the end of the line, and > when that happens, we're going to need to have available every > square foot of arable land in the Town. > > The right place for "the development of affordable, walkable, > bikeable, environmentally sustainable and diverse neighborhoods" > is in the settlements we already have in Tompkins County -- the > City of Ithaca, the villages of Trumansburg, Jacksonville, Dryden, > Freeville, Lansing, Groton, and Cayuga Heights, and hamlets such > as Etna, Varna, McLean, Peruville, Newfield, Enfield Center, > Danby, West Danby, Brooktondale, and Slaterville Springs. These > places have plenty of capacity, and in many cases the enonomic > need, for more residents. It's also possible for other reasons, > chiefly traffic flow optimization, that we might want to create > new nodes at Cayuga Medical Center and across from EcoVillage; but > generally speaking, the best way to achieve walkability and > sustainability in the County is to increase the density of > existing urban areas, not spread suburban living across already > threatened open spaces. (I thought from previous posts that > increasing urban density was George's position, so I'm puzzled at > the tenor of his latest message.) > > The problem with the open land in the Town of Ithaca is not that > it's open but rather that it's currently unproductive. I think > what we need in the Town of Ithaca is something like the Land > Co-op that's being developed in the Town of Danby, where owners of > parcels both large and small are forming a cooperative to harvest > scrubland, including land too poor to support anything but native > grasses, for conversion to biomass that can be sold (and is > already being sold) to coal-fired power plants in the region. The > proposed co-op is to include people who would simply allow > contractors to come in every year and harvest the biomass. This > is the kind of initiative we need in order to deal with the future > we face here -- not development that would permanently remove more > land from production. > > Jon > > _______________________________________________ > For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please > visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ > > RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: > [email protected] > http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins > Questions about the list? ask [email protected] > free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org > > > > > _______________________________________________ > For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please > visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ > > RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: > [email protected] > http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins > Questions about the list? ask [email protected] > free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org > > _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins Questions about the list? ask [email protected] free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
