- By Dan Veaner
- News
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"It sits there and it's not feasible for a station that we want," says Commissioner Jeff Walter. "Every year we don't put it back on the tax maps we're losing tax dollars. Everybody is -- the fire district and everybody else. We don't intend to use it so we might as well get rid of it."
The 'For Sale' sign went up on Oakcrest Road in June
Station 5 was built in the Village of Lansing in 1972. Over 20 years ago the district purchased two parcels across the street with the idea of building a new firehouse. Or at least that's what the current commissioners think the purpose was. A few years ago the district started plans for a new Village firehouse, because Station 5 is too small to hold modern fire equipment and the Village of Lansing accounts for about half the annual emergency calls. Village officials didn't want a firehouse on the Oakcrest site, and offered land next to the Village Office as an alternative.
"We didn't really want it down there either," Commissioner Chairman Robert Wagner says. "It was too far out of the way for access. It would take more time to get anywhere from that property."
But this year the commissioners decided to put that project on hold because the cost was too high and they were not convinced the plan would best serve the Village.
Access was the other reason. When a volunteer fire fighter receives a call from the 911 center, he or she must get to the nearest station to get gear and equipment. Then they drive fire or EMS equipment to the site of the emergency. With only one volunteer who lives near the village station, it didn't make sense to build an expensive firehouse there. But officials say a scaled down version will eventually be built somewhere in the Village.
"There is definitely a need, because you have the daytime response when a lot of people work down there, or are at the mall, so the truck gets out," Walter says. "But night time there is only one member that lives down that way. When we replace the truck we have there with newer trucks that meet FDA guidelines, they won't fit in the station that is currently there. So we do have to do something in the future so we can put the proper trucks in that station."
Between Oakcrest Road not being an ideal spot and Village official's opposition to locating a larger station there, Fire Commissioners don't envision ever building on the site. "Being a municipality you could do that, but why make trouble?" says District Secretary Alvin Parker.
 District Treasurer George Gesslein oversaw the vote Tuesday evening. Registered voters signed in and marked a paper ballot that was then placed in a cardboard box. |
Parker notes that when the new station is eventualy built it will have bunkers, and with volunteers living in the station equipment stored there will get more use. Currently one truck is stored at the Oakcrest station with Bangs ambulance using the second bay to quicken their response time to Lansing, Dryden, Cayuga Heights, and parts of Ithaca. Fire officials have scaled down the four-bay plan to a firehouse with three bays that will accommodate a quint and one other fire truck. A quint is a combination of a pumper truck and ladder truck.
"Right now we have an agreement with Bangs that they park in our station on Oakcrest Road so some daytime responses will be a little quicker," Wagner says. "We're thinking we will want another bay if that continues, plus if there is a need for an additional vehicle in the future, we'll have the bay."
The Tompkins County Department of Assessment values each of the two 5-acre parcels at $125,000 fair market value. That is down from last year's full market value of $147,059, but the same as the assessed value for 2007. Zoned for residential use, they have water, electrical and natural gas service, and fall within the Ithaca School District.
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