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The Lansing Sewer Committee considered delaying the sewer process to make time to come up with a detailed plan for how the town might develop in the future.  Considering a suggestion from Town Engineer David Herrick to use a strategy similar to one successfully used by the Town of Half Moon, near Albany, committee members talked about developing a plan that residents could try to agree upon, then adapting the sewer plan to make it encourage growth along those lines.  "Stopping everything and saying 'Let's really look at the Town of Lansing and see what we want to do," said Chairman Bud Shattuck.  "Half Moon seems to have done it right."


"Half Moon, north of Albany, had been experiencing regionally a lot of growth," explained Herrick.  "The Town Supervisor told us that the northern third of their town was still rural in character.  Instead of just letting it develop piecemeal they prepared a generic environmental impact statement.  In the course of preparing that they looked at how the town should be developed over time.  In due course they modified their zoning of the area so the model of the town that they envisioned could take place."

Herrick suggested that agreeing upon the kind of Lansing residents want in the future, and then doing what it takes to make it happen that way might mean more support for the sewer if it means preserving the rural nature of the Town while controlling where inevitable growth occurs.  "Not that Lansing is under pressure to come up with a similar strategy," he said.  "Going through that process might help folks understand, who routinely have concerns about development, how the town would look.  To undertake a study of the (sewer) benefit district might be useful in showing where density could occur, and where you wouldn't want it to occur."

But he cautioned, "It wouldn't guarantee that you would have any more consensus than you do now."

Shattuck noted that with the pending sale of Kingdom Farm and the Tompkins County Legislature's desire for affordable housing in Lansing that the Town Board is working with the Planning Board to look at how changes in zoning could encourage growth in the town center, rather than the southern part of town.  This approach would also bring more business to Lansing, creating a cluster in the business section of the town, while southern development would focus business in the Village where the malls are located.

But the committee was concerned about how a delay might affect bond and loan money already pledged to the project by New York State and soon to be approved by USDA Rural Development.  Still, Shattuck said it would be worth exploring.  Andy Sciarabba also expressed concern that if the vote is put off to winter months voters who go south in the winter might be disenfranchised.

"We wouldn't need this study if we had enough money," Shattuck noted.  "If this was an affordable project it would pass.  Money is that dividing line.  Right now we've got 30% for it, 30% against it, and 40% in the middle.  And they're shifted against it because it's so costly.  If it was a free thing everyone would have sewer.  And they would understand the benefit of it."

Shattuck noted that with the time and money already invested in the project it wouldn't be responsible to not take extra time to do what it takes to get it passed, if it is possible to do so.  He said that he envisioned the process taking months, not years, which could push the vote to December.  "This project can not get smaller," he noted.  "That's why we're talking about doing this kind of planning before the vote."

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