Archive: Opinions

One of the discussions at this week's Town Board meeting touched on the idea of rezoning the 156 acres of town land to create a 'Town Center Zone'.  The benefit would be that the uses the Town now wants to be allowed in the new Town Center would already be allowed, meaning that the time it takes to get projects approved would be reduced.

The current site plan review process is quite thorough, but when a project doesn't fit within the parameters of a particular zone it is subject to treatment as a Planned Development Area (PDA), which is subject not only to Planning Board review, but also to Town Board review.  It is a more excruciating process in essence because a specially defined mini-zone is being created for each PDA.

The Lansing Planning Board already does a thorough job of vetting projects, so it is not a matter of giving proposals less scrutiny.  It is more a matter of determining what we as a town want, and saying that it's OK to built that where we want it built.

Normally a drastic change to zoning like this one would be has too much impact on existing property owners.  It's a bait and switch -- they built in an area because they are assured that there are rules they like.  For instance a convenience store can't pop up next to your house in a residentially zoned area.  Now the zoning changes and all of a sudden your house is surrounded by gas stations.  Your life's investment has now lost a lot of value, as has your quality of life.

But we're not talking about an established residential area here.  We're talking about a huge empty field.  Changing the zoning won't impact the neighbors because there are no neighbors.

The benefit would be to attract developers of the kind we as a town want to build projects of a kind that we want.  Being able to get through the planning process faster is a big draw for developers, because it costs them less in time and money.  And it means they can see a return on their investment sooner.

It seems clear from public meetings that were held on the Town Center a few years ago that people here want one.  They each have different reasons.  I want one because I think it will mitigate our taxes, which I think are too high.  Some people want one because they want some place to shop closer to home.  Others want the proposed senior housing to provide a nice, nearby place for their aging parents, or to provide solid tax-generating properties that won't put a burden on the Lansing schools.  A lot of people want to concentrate the density of development in a central area to protect farmland and natural areas around the town.

A Town Center Tax Incentive Zone has already been formed to help expedite projects the Town Board thinks should qualify for tax breaks in their first years of operation.  I think that creating a Town Center Zone should also be a priority to help insure that the uses we want for our new town center are set in law, and to make that part of developing there less bureaucratic.

Even though it is the same boards approving all the little PDAs, when you have separate mini-zones spread here and there you are bound to have pieces that don't really go with all the other pieces.  On top of that, people nearby no longer have reasonable expectations as to what is being built near them.  Since Lansing is virtually staring its town center from scratch, doesn't it make sense to create a new zone just for that 156 acres that includes everything the boards would normally want, rather than to create virtually duplicate PDAs every time someone wants to build there?

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