The Village of Dryden Planning Board unanimously approved a site plan for ten apartment buildings near Dryden High School, "Poet's Landing", including both senior housing and low-income housing. There's a lot to address in the approval:
To mitigate safety concerns, the project will include a cross walk, signs and flashing yellow lights at the intersection between the high school and the development, and a large holding pond to keep runoff from contributing to flooding, said Gene German, chairman of the board.
In addition, the developers, Rochester-based Conifer Realty, will have other conditions to fulfill, including an additional, independent stormwater study to determine if the project will increase the risk that nearby Egypt Creek could flood during storms.
Mayor Randy Sterling:
supported the board's decision and that the new development will provide the area with working-class housing.
"We have no new developments right now," he said. "Dryden needs this."
Residents at the meeting weren't so positive, and comments on the article are uniformly negative, with one commenter suggesting a departure from Dryden. In blogs, Dryden Daily KAZ worries that the blinking yellow light really isn't enough of a traffic solution.
The County Industrial Development Agency is considering incentives for low-income and energy-efficient housing.
The regional job outlook is a bit brighter than it was.
Finally, Don Decker of Freeville has an op-ed about culling deer herds, wanting the numbers reduced but preferring hunting to coyotes.
I tend to think the coyotes have an important role to play in getting our local ecosystem back to balance - despite likely having lost a pair of sweet cats and a number of ducks to them - but also think hunting is very necessary. Decker worries about coyote "havoc on ground-nesters, which includes birds, rabbits and even their own species." I worry more about deer demolishing all the undergrowth that those creatures need to support themselves. We definitely need to reduce the deer population, and I don't think hitting them with cars is the way to do it.
Posted by simon at January 8, 2011 6:48 AM in Ithaca Journal , Village of Dryden , economy , ecosystems