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The Lansing Sewer Committee continued to work on clarifying facts to answer questions they expect in a Lansing Planning Board meeting Monday, as well as from residents in as yet unscheduled public information sessions.  Earlier in the week committee members spoke with representatives from Stearns & Wheler GHD, an engineering and consulting company that will be designing an SBR waste treatment plant for the town,  to confirm figures in a Map Plan and Report submitted by Hunt Engineers, Architects, & Land Surveyors in May.

Questions about the plant included a concern that the daily capacity was listed in the Hunt report at 105,000 gallons per day.  Stearns & Wheler engineers guessed that figure was a typographical error that transposed a zero and a five.  They said that the plant capacity should be 150,000 gallons per day to allow for 20 years of growth in the sewer district.

They also suggested substituting a sand filter instead of the disk filter recommended in the Hunt report.  Lansing engineering and Planning Coordinator Jeff Overstrom said there is no significant cost diffence between the two, and Stearns & Wheeler the sand filter would be more effective in reaching the desired phosphorous levels.  A 20% contingency fund was also suggested instead of the 10% in the Hunt report.  Town officials compromised at 15%, which will only add about $30 to cost per EDU.  These changes would bring the total project cost from $9.8 million to $10.2 million.

"It is good to kow that Stearns & Wheler agrees with us on the plant," Committee member Noel Desch said.

Engineer David Herrick is scheduled to present cost estimates for adding a second district to the project to include a Cayuga Farms, a 138 town house condominium project that is planned along Triphammer Road south of Asbury Road, and a smaller project west of Cayuga Farms planned by developer John Young, at the July 11th meeting.

Committee member Andy Sciarabba went over a document that answers questions submitted by two Planning board members point by point.  He asked other committee members to email him additions to the document before Monday's Planning Board meeting.  Supervisor Kathy Miller said it will be important to distinguish between affordable housing and low income housing, noting that there is a negative association in most peoples' minds with low-income housing, and that people typically confuse the two.

She explained that the definition of affordable housing in Tompkins County is based on a household income of about $66,000.  People in this range could qualify for rents between $315 and $1,000  per month, between 30% and 90% of the median income. You have to qualify by making that much to get affordable housing. A senior affordable housing project is one of two major projects initially proposed for the Town Center.

Miller, Sciarabba, and Overstrom will fly to Buffalo and Cincinnati Tuesday to look at completed projects developed by the developers of the two proposed projects, NRP Group and Calimar.  Miller says she wants to see real projects to gauge the quality of the construction and design.

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