Archive: Opinions

I’m Doug Baird, and I live in Rural Lansing – I want to make that difference clear because “Agricultural” is the word used over and over to describe “Tier 2” in the Lansing Town Board’s “Engineer’s Report.” Agriculture is the well protected, well reported occupation of only a minority of its residents - the struggling rural majority is rarely even mentioned. The agricultural interests, it’s true, are a poorly represented segment of Lansing’s taxpayers – but the rural population is not represented at all.

Let me now say that I find “Sewer Benefit Area” to be a strangely inappropriate term, because, if there is any benefit, it’s apparently not to the Lansing taxpayers.

This report is saturated with phrases like “diverse selection of housing choices”, “higher density development” and “multi-family” dwellings. What does all that mean? Let’s take, for example, a parcel specifically mentioned in the report – in section “F”- beginning at the bottom of page 5 [Ironically it’s Agricultural Land] Take a look at Heritage Park Townhouses, Inc. You can look it up in the very useful documentation that was NOT mailed, but can be downloaded from the town website. It’s a parcel of 52 plus acres located at 148 Ridge Road. Now, assuming that the development, with the help of this sewer scheme and the Comprehensive Plan, allows only one dwelling unit per half-acre, which is definitely not “high density”, that would mean over 100 units. And if the development only averaged one Lansing school student per unit, at $13,000 per student, it works out to over 1.3 million dollars of additional school taxes every year. A more likely ratio of two school children per unit would bring the cost to $2.6 million yearly in additional taxes. And, while this is a large parcel, it’s only one of a number of parcels that will be developed for housing. Once you start putting in numbers, it’s obvious that this is not a plan of “Sustainable Growth”, it won’t “Stabilize the Local Tax Base” and will never, ever “offset the loss of taxable value” of AES Cayuga – In fact, it seems certain to do just the opposite.

The report is mostly well documented and filled with numbers – but the most important part is still missing – the part which shows how this project will really affect the town of Lansing. We definitely need to put real and verifiable numbers to the parcels in the proposed sewer area, and produce a report where the many rumors can be addressed - especially those regarding how this sewer plan ties into the Comprehensive Plan, developers and future Lansing taxes.

Thank you.

Doug Baird
Lansing, NY
v9i20