Archive: Opinions

I am unabashedly in favor of a well planned town center.  I know some people don't want it, and some fear it will bring back the big bad sewer, and big bad developers might (heavens to Betsy!) make a profit.  But when the developers are telling the Town RFP Committee repeatedly that they are willing to foot the bill for the infrastructure and are respectful of the Comprehensive Plan and the Town Center Committee's work, not to mention the additional tax base, and the return on the Town's investment in the land I think it will be good for the Town.

I can't begin to tell you how much the Lansing Market has improved my life.  Being able to shop in my neighborhood market has save me uncounted hours in driving and wandering around markets that are bigger than I really need except occasionally.  Since they added the CFCU ATM there it has saved me significant time and gas dollars and allowed me to conduct my business in a more businesslike manner because I can make deposits any day, rather than saving them up for when I have the time to head to a branch of the bank.

I'd love to have be able to pick up sundries or go to a doctor closer to home as well.  And I would love my property taxes to stop siphoning off any hope of being able to afford a sandwich in my declining years.  Those things may happen if there is enough residential density in the town center to support a few retail and professional businesses.

The argument that the developers are the ones who want a town center, not current residents, is ridiculous.  Not the part about developers wanting it, or even the part about them making a profit.  Of course they will make a profit -- why would they be developers if they didn't?  The part about current residents not wanting it is the part that is a lie.  It is current residents who are working on this initiative, and who came to Town Center meetings with ideas and comments that were overwhelmingly favorable to creating some kind of center.  And it is current residents who will ultimately say yes or no to developers.  If the majority of current residents don't want it, it won't happen.

I've seen the proposals.  All of them seem to be based on conservative market studies that say it is feasible for developers to invest millions of their own money in the infrastructure including roads, lighting and yes, pardon the expression, a modest sewer district that will only impact and be paid for the new developments.  Every proposal developers have brought to the RFP committee has been respectful of what the Town has said it wants, and every developer has said they would be flexible.  And they have already demonstrated that they mean it.  Calimar, for example, has agreed each time they've been asked to change the location of their project to preserve the historic railroad bed and town pathways, switched to a smaller footprint and changed the height of their proposed building twice.

I have suffered grueling school board meetings that, for the past five years, have been increasingly depressing because of miserable economic conditions that are forcing taxes higher while forcing the schools to cut programs for our kids.  It's hard not to take it personally when you are a property taxpayer.

I am not saying a town center will be an instant cure, but it will help over time if it can achieve the momentum to attract businesses.  I am still hoping that someone in the Town still wants to bring a small business and light manufacturing park to the northernmost part of the town land, because it will provide more tax revenue while drawing on fewer services.  If they make a profit, great, because they'll expand their buildings and pay more taxes like Transonics Systems did two years ago in the Warren Road Business Park.

As for the niceness of having a walkable town center with paths and some of the people who live there being able to walk to work and walk to shop, what's wrong with that?  It won't hurt any of the existing neighborhoods.  Some people who live in them will go to shop and walk around in the new center.  And it will all be contained in a part of town that is a big field right now, so it will not impact existing neighborhoods in any negative way.  Most of the target market I am hearing about for a town center won't have children pouring into our schools.  I am hoping the added tax base will lower taxes, but I am not so naive as to think taxes will really go down.  But maybe they won't go up so high.

And not having all our tax eggs in the power plant basket is something I strongly believe the Town has to achieve.  Even if the plant does not close, the Town must learn the lesson that one big honking taxpayer cannot be relied upon to provide all that revenue.  It needs to be spread among many businesses so that if one disappears we are never hit with the tax impact we are now seeing again.

Not doing that is shortsighted. As for the details, the Town is taking the right approach.  It had a Town Center Committee, which solicited a lot of ideas and opinions from a large number of townspeople.  It now has an RFP Committee that is evaluating developer proposals and will presumably come up with what is shaping up to be an integrated plan so we end up with a limited, attractive new neighborhood that meets all of the Town's goals without harming the rural character of Lansing that we all love.

What will happen if we do nothing?

Well, we have been doing nothing, and it is already happening.  In the past five years my property taxes have risen significantly.  That has made me wonder how much longer I can afford to live in a town that I love living in.  I saw a projection Monday for a 10.33% school tax rate rise three years from now.  Can you afford that kind of tax rise?  I can't.  I believe that more wealthy people will pay whatever it takes to save the schools, and that will force out those who can't afford what it is going to take.

That will skew the demographic of the town, which will eventually turn it into another Cayuga Heights.  I don't have any problem with Cayuga Heights, but we already have one.  We don't need two, and everybody who lives in lansing seems to want to have a Lansing as well as a Cayuga Heights.

Wouldn't it be great if New York restored all the aid to our school?  Wouldn't it be great if the power plant value doubled as fast as it halved?  Wouldn't it be great if school and county taxes in particular didn't rise higher than the cost of living every year?  Or even went down to a point where people on fixed incomes could keep their homes?  Wouldn't it be great if today's snapshot of Lansing could be preserved forever like the mythical Brigadoon?  Wouldn't it be great if we all won the lottery?

In reality those things don't happen unless someone makes them happen (maybe except the last one).  Building a town center the right way is a way.  It is the best way I have heard anyone propose.  Actually the only way anyone has proposed.  I have waited for the people who oppose it to come up with one alternate idea that would keep the tax wolf at bay while protecting the character of the town and I have not heard a single one.  I rarely see these people at municipal meetings where they could weigh in with opinions and ideas that might help everybody here.  That leaves the town center as the only viable plan right now that will actually, realistically have an ice cube's chance in Florida of saving our town.

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