This morning's Ithaca Journal reports on Thursday night's Town Board meeting, where the comprehensive plan passed with modification to the trails. The Journal also notes that the New York State Department of Transportation will be reducing speed limits on Route 79 in the Town of Dryden from 55mph to 45mph; County Legislator Martha Robertson reported that in a letter she...
After some discussion, the Dryden Town Board approved the Comprehensive Plan tonight, minus the "spiderweb" of additional trails added in September. At the end of the meeting, the board considered both the State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) and the plan, adopted with modifications in a resolution proposed by Councilman Mike Hattery. Hattery's proposal originally seemed kind of mysterious, as only...
This morning's Ithaca Journal front-pages Thursday night's Town Board vote on the Town Comprehensive Plan. The article mentions the eminent domain controversy which appeared in a letter to the editor last month. Supervisor Steve Trumbull says on the trails that: "They're afraid we're going to put in the 40 miles of trail and take their land away, and that's crazy,"...
Unlike Dryden's 1968 General Plan or the currently proposed Comprehensive Plan, both of which looked at the recent past and projected change (and responses to change) based on more of the same, another plan for Tompkins County considers a future in which one key variable has changed substantially. I wondered last year what $3.00 gas would do to Dryden, and...
It's been a while since I wrote about the 1968 General Plan, but I've finally scanned in the section on the local economy. You can read it in clearer (1125KB PDF) or selectable form (1035KB PDF). Dryden in 1968 had already begun its transition from a rural town focused on farming and industry to a more suburban town with greater...
This week's Dryden Courier leads with stories on Freeville's Foxglove Bed & Breakfast, which has been in business since 1997, and the upcoming visit of the Harlem Wizards to take on a team of Dryden school staff and coaches. The Wizards game will be held on Wednesday at Dryden High School at 7:00pm, and is a fundraiser for the Dryden...
I was planning to spend this weekend catching up on a number of stories, but instead wound up resting (for the first time in too long), painting and fixing storm windows, and replacing my windshield wiper blades after a chunk of what appears to have been wet cornbread came flying across Route 13 by the airport. Fraternity prank? Fortunately, the...
This week's Dryden Courier comes folded very strangely, to accomodate an "Ithaca Times Menu Guide" that I suspect was sized for the larger Ithaca Times. Inside, though, there's plenty of information. There's an in-depth look at the summer construction at Cassavant, Freeville, and Dryden elementary schools, including information on the disruptions construction will cause at Dryden into the school year...
I've wondered a bit about the Tompkins County Coalition for Change, not having been able to find much about it. Tom Hatfield, the Dryden Republican Committee chairman and the apparent spokesman for the group, was on WHCU this morning to talk about the group with Casey Stevens. It's the first detailed explanation of the group I've seen, so I figured...
Thursday night's public hearing on the proposed Town Comprehensive Plan demonstrated residents' concerns and hopes for these guidelines for future development in the Town of Dryden. The first speaker, after Supervisor Steve Trumbull had opened the hearing, noting that this process had been in the works for at least seven years, was Ken Miller, a farmer who has spoken at...
This Thursday's Town Board meeting will start with a 7:00pm public hearing about the Comprehensive Plan that's been coming through the Planning Board for the past few years. The Comprehensive Plan lays out the proposed future for the town for the next few decades, dealing with issues from densities for various parts of the town to approaches for preserving agriculture...
The Dryden Town Board will have two extra meetings in the next couple of weeks. The first will be Thursday night, in joint session with the Planning Board. The Planning Board will have two subdivision public hearings at 7:00pm and 7:15pm, and then the two boards will meet jointly to discuss the Comprehensive Plan. The Town Board will also meet...
This morning's Ithaca Journal spends its editorial on the difficulties of sustainable power including hydropower and wind. It doesn't mention Dryden, but in some ways it echoes recent resistance to windmills here. Planner George Frantz, who has been the consultant on Dryden's Comprehensive Plan, has a guest column about house size and sustainability, announcing the Sustainable Tompkins Welcome Salon to...
The Planning Board sent the Draft Comprehensive Plan to the Town Board on Thursday night, voting 6-0 to send it forward. Unlike the public hearing, the board didn't take public input this time, instead focusing on earlier comments. Apart from some minor language changes, the largest issue was a concern about the trail map. The board had previously removed lines...
This week's Dryden Courier leads with an article on the windmills Cornell has proposed building on Mount Pleasant, which could provide 10-15% of the university's electricity. Neighbors are less than happy, and the Courier reports that 15 of them signed a petition opposing the windmills. The key paragraph on the windmills' future seems to be: [Dryden Zoning Officer] Slater told...
In this morning's Ithaca Journal, Briefly in Tompkins and a second Briefly in Tompkins list some positions open to applications from residents of Dryden: The Dryden Youth Commission, a joint commission between the Town of Dryden, Village of Dryden, and Village of Freeville, has an opening for a Village of Dryden resident. The Dryden Zoning Board of Appeals has an...
It's been nearly a month since I last posted pieces of the 1968 General Plan for Dryden, the never-adopted but highly informative complement to the current Draft Comprehensive Plan. The newer plan notes: Residential development, excluding residential development within the two villages, accounts for about 3,150 acres of land, or about 5.2 percent of the total land area in the...
I've been slack in covering the February Town Board meeting, and the minutes are now available if you want full details on what happened. Some key moments stand out in the meeting, so here are some highlights. I've bolded subjects for easy looking around. After a long search, the Town Board appointed Kimberly Gazzo, a Village of Dryden resident who...
This week's issue of the Dryden Courier includes a detailed story on the Village of Dryden's January Board meeting. There's some explanation of the continuation of the multiple unit housing moratorium extension and its future: Mayor Reba Taylor said Tompkins County Planner Ed Marks questioned the extension, but conceded the village was doing its homework with studies and with and...
There isn't any news or opinion about or from Dryden in the Ithaca Journal today, but their legal notices include this piece announcing the further extension of the Village of Dryden's moratorium on new multiple residence construction: ATTENTION VILLAGE OF DRYDEN RESIDENTS PLEASE TAKE NOTICE THAT_at it's regular Board meeting held on February 17th, 2005, the Board of Trustees of...
This morning's Ithaca Journal reports on last night's hearing on the revised Draft Comprehensive Plan. Residents expressed concern, and some hope, about changes that would eventually come to their neighborhood, and as the article notes, the Dryden Lake area was of particular concern to a number of speakers. Looking over maps after the hearing. (My photo, not the Journal's.) One...
Dryden County Legislator Mike Lane is cited in this morning's Ithaca Journal as saying "he wants the Legislature to vote on changing the cycle to every three years, a move he proposed twice last year but was shot down both times by his colleagues." Lane goes on to say: "Some of us have been hearing about the new assessments," Lane...
In this morning's Ithaca Journal, Cathy Wakeman's Dryden Town Talk takes a look at Welsh pony trainer Amy Schwartz and rider Junelle King, National Grand Champion of the United States Equestrian Foundation Welsh Pony Division. Schwartz is raising 30 ponies at Kelviden Farm on West Dryden Road, and chairs a large Welsh Pony show at the State Fairgrounds. Wakeman points...
This morning's Ithaca Journal reports on last night's Town Board meeting. They lead with the question of the purchase of land for the new Town Hall, writing that: In an unexpected move, the Dryden Town Board went into executive session at the end of its meeting Thursday night without taking action on the proposed purchase of land for a new...
This morning's Ithaca Journal reports on last night's Town Board meeting. They lead with the question of the purchase of land for the new Town Hall, writing that: In an unexpected move, the Dryden Town Board went into executive session at the end of its meeting Thursday night without taking action on the proposed purchase of land for a new...
The survey in the 1968 General Plan for the Village of Freeville continues to be amazing, again listing use for every parcel as it was in 1966. This graphic shows an inset concentrating on the now vanished railroad tracks in the northeast end of town: A piece of the map of Village of Freeville Land Use from the 1968 Dryden...
The Town of Dryden has posted a revised version of its Draft Comprehensive Plan. This is the one document I'd encourage everyone interested in the future shape of Dryden (including the villages, even though they're not included) to read. The Planning Board will be having a public hearing on this document February 17th at 7:15pm at Dryden Town Hall (map)...
The survey in the 1968 General Plan for the Villages of Dryden and Freeville is stunning work, listing use for every parcel. I'll post Freeville this week, and here's the Village of Dryden for now. This graphic shows an inset concentrating on West Main Street right next to the intersection of Routes 13 and 38: A piece of the map...
The Zoning Board of Appeals is meeting tonight at 7:30pm at the Dryden Town Hall (map). I'll post the rest of February's meeting list when it's available, but wanted to make sure to point out the ZBA, as they've had some especially challenging issues lately, especially on Observatory Drive above Varna. Update: The February schedule of meetings is now posted....
After the introductory material on land use patterns, the 1968 General Plan goes into one of my favorite features: a building-by-building survey of the Town as a whole, with additional maps for Etna, Freeville, and Dryden. The map for the Town as a whole includes some very tiny type, so I had to scan it at a higher resolution, producing...
After examing Natural Features, the 1968 Dryden General Plan looks at land use patterns. The opening section of this describes Dryden as suburbanization was starting to affect it, but before many of the newer developments in town were built. Land Use Patterns (181KB PDF, or 9KB text) The next few sections include one of the more stunning features of this...
The next section of the 1968 Dryden General Plan looks at a set of issues that haven't changed much since then: natural features, like hill slopes, watersheds, and soils. Natural Features and Resources Topography (77KB PDF, or 4KB text) Natural Features photo (2766KB PDF) Soils, Groundwater, and Climate (283KB PDF, or 14KB text) Soil Permeability photo (1373KB PDF) Soil Permeability...
Continuing into the body of the 1968 Dryden General Plan, I've scanned the first two sections, an Introduction and Historical and Regional Context. For completeness, I'm including pictures and maps in separate files, as they tend to be enormous: Introduction Intro photo (3282KB PDF) Introduction (55KB PDF) Historical and Regional Context Historical and Regional Context (180KB PDF) Historical and Regional...
As the Planning Board comes closer to completing the Draft Comprehensive Plan, it seems like a good time to reflect on the fate of the last plan Dryden did, the 1968 Dryden General Plan. Apparently it was never adopted by the town, but copies of it are available at the Dryden Town Historical Society and Town Hall. (Thanks to Town...
This morning's Ithaca Journal catches up to the Victorian Christmas event the Village of Dryden held December 3rd, exploring how it and the wreaths along West Main Street came about. Cathy Wakeman celebrates a warm fire and a cup of tea on a cold day, and looks at the Kitchen Cupboard and caroling in the Village of Dryden. She also...
Dryden's number of accidents involving deer is up to nine this year from three last year, though it isn't clear if this year is high or last year was low. On the opinion page, Edward Marx,Tompkins County Commissioner of Planning, describes the vision of the new County Comprehensive Plan, which the County Legislature will have a public hearing on tomorrow....
Today's Ithaca Journal has a picture of children packing gifts at the Bethel Grove Bible Church for the Operation Christmas Child program of Samaritan's Purse. An Etna resident, Susan Morse, and her dogs Kiss and Whisper, are noted in K-9 news qualifying for and completing dog obedience titles. Near Dryden, the Journal reports on the progress of Caroline's planning process,...
Although the Town of Dryden notices page still shows the October 28th meeting of the Planning Board, I'm pretty sure that tonight is the Planning Board's November meeting, the 3rd Thursday of the month, at 7:30pm at the Dryden Town Hall (map). Looking over past articles, I seem not to have reported on the October 28th meeting, so here's a...
This morning's Ithaca Journal takes a look at the silt problems in Ellis Hollow that came up at this month's Town Board meeting. Jennie Daley talks with residents near the intersection of Turkey Hill, Ellis Hollow and Quarry Roads about their well problems, as well as with John Andersson, Environmental Health Director for the county Health Department, Deb Gross, Town...
Today's Ithaca Journal explores the many issues around land-use planning and agriculture in Dryden. The article looks at farmers' concerns about disappearing ag land, their financial needs, and different possible ways of addressing the issue. There's also an article on 14-year crossing guard Margie Albern, who helps kids cross the street safely at Cassavant Elementary School in McLean. Elia Kacapyr...
The Dryden Planning Board met Thursday night, first approving a subdivision and changes to an existing subdivision, and then focusing on two of the more difficult parts of the Draft Comprehensive Plan, agriculture and trails. The first item on the agenda was a public hearing about a proposed subdivision at approximately 200 Hunt Hill Road (map). Kent Moore wanted to...
I was away last week, so I'm covering two issues of the Dryden Courier in one article. Both issues focus on farming issues and the start of the school sports seasons. In the September 8th issue, Courier reporter Tony Hall looks at the difficulties caused by increasing costs on the Dryden elementary school renovations and the challenges of extending the...
As I just mentioned, there will be a meeting to discuss agriculture and planning in the Town of Dryden on Monday, September 13, at the Dryden Veterans Memorial Home (map) from 7:30pm to 9:30pm. Debbie Gross, the Dryden Environmental Planner, sent me the material they've sent out, including a letter to farmers (7KB PDF), a revised "Plan Recommendations" chapter (100...
Dryden Environmental Planner Debbie Gross wrote me today with news that the August meeting of the Town of Dryden Planning Board has been cancelled....
As I get closer to the Dryden/Ithaca boundary, one parcel really stands out. It's 45 acres of Cornell fields, actively farmed. It's large enough to build a community on it, and it's convenient to Cornell and not far from East Hill Plaza. It's large enough that it could have internal roads or even sidewalks, and be a rare pedestrian-friendly area....
This morning's Ithaca Journal examines the Village of Dryden's possible extension of its moratorium on multi-unit housing development. New York State has awarded the village a grant for executing a comprehensive plan, and the planning process is underway. I'll be curious to see the implications of this quote from the article: The document reportedly backs up the idea that rentals...
This morning's Ithaca Journal has an article on the volunteers keeping the Lakeview Golf Course going. Town Supervisor Steve Trumbull appreciates their efforts: "Those members who are donating time, fully free, mowing the course, mowing the greens, donating money for gas -- those guys are unsung heroes." Trumbull notes that the town's preference is for a private buyer to purchase...
At last night's Town Board meeting, the board heard five different public hearings, as well as two points of citizen's privilege. (The Recreation Partnership discussion was apparently postponed.) The first hearing was on an application by Andrew and Elaine Morenus for a special permit to operate a home appliance and furniture rental business, Home Necessities, at 234 Johnson Road (map)....
The Environmental Planner's report examined the need to revise the Town Hazard Mitigation Plan and a kiosk on the Jim Schug Trail. Debbie Gross reported in a letter (247KB PDF) that while "Dryden chose not to participate in [the county hazard mitigation plan] process because Dryden already had a recently developed plan... Dryden needs to go through an update process......
It doesn't look like I'm going to have time to write up the rest of the June Town Board meeting the way I'd like to, and the town's minutes are already available, so I'm just going to talk a bit about the meeting beyond the infrastructure and recreation issues I've already covered. If you've been curious about the construction at...
The Town of Dryden Planning Board gathered Wednesday night and held public hearings on and gave approvals to two subdivision proposals in Etna. Phase I of the Daniel Armitage subdivision, lots A, B, C, and D on the map (134KB PDF), at the intersection of Sheldon and Wood Roads, received final approval, while Phase II, lots G-1, G-2, and G-3...
For the second time this year, the Planning Board didn't have a quorum, so the meeting was purely discussion of the Draft Comprehensive Plan's agriculture section with the crowd of farmers and farm representatives who were there. (The three public hearings on Etna subdivisions had to be postponed.) The discussion began with a general distribution of photocopies, some of which...
The Planning Board meeting , tonight at 7pm at the Dryden Town Hall (map), will include hearings on three subdivisions near Etna: two phases of the Daniel Armitage subdivision (one at the corner of Wood and Sheldon Roads, and the other at the corner of Wood and Etna Roads) and the Ardis Adams subdivision in the 400 block of Etna...
Most of my Town Board reporting this month has been late because I've been too busy to get to it. Today's story is a little different, in that I'm lucky to have waited for the final draft of the Town of Dryden Storm Water Management Program Annual Report (747KB PDF, or 16KB executive summary). Town Environmental Planning Debbie Gross gave...
The May Town Board meeting opened with a hearing on amendments to the local law on siting telecommunications towers, changing the rules to encourage the shared use of existing towers. No one spoke on the matter, and eventually it passed 5-0. During Citizens' Privilege, Peggy Walbridge asked about the upcoming work on Hunt Hill and Genung roads. Highway Superintendent Jack...
Last night, the Planning Board approved a subdivision modification, scheduled a hearing for a subdivision, and had a sketch conference on yet another subdivision, before talking about the agricultural parts of the Draft Comprehensive Plan. The first discussion dealt with a request by Anne Marie Card to change a 1989 subdivision on Annee Lane (map). The modification took one parcel...
There are two planning-related meetings in Dryden tonight: The County Planning Department will hold a meeting explaining the draft of their Comprehensive Plan at Freeville Village Hall (map) tonight at 7pm. The Town Planning Board is meeting at 7:30pm tonight at the Dryden Town Hall (map). Judging by the list of items they're covering and last month's meeting, they'll likely...
County Legislator Mike Lane is quoted in today's Ithaca Journal on the state's Empire Zone program, which has left Tompkins County as one of 11 counties without one. Lane says that "it would be different if only really economically depressed areas were targeted for zones." He also notes that the county's Industrial Development Agency is conservative about handing out tax...
Kathy Zahler writes with news from a neighbor: Dryden's Conservation Board is seeking two members to fill open positions. The board meets on the second Tuesday of each month at 7:30. Its job is to analyze data and make recommendations to the Town Board involving conservation and ecological issues. For more information, call Steve Bissen at 539-6934....
Today's Ithaca Journal includes schedules of assessment hearings and comprehensive plan meetings. The local advisory board for assessments will meet at the Dryden Town Hall (map) on Thursday, May 20th, from 3pm to 6pm to hear property owners who wish to contest their assessments. The County Planning Department will hold meetings explaining the draft of their Comprehensive Plan at Dryden...
As part of the process for the Tompkins County Comprehensive Plan, the Planning Department held an open house and meeting on Thursday at the Dryden Town Hall. The open house started at three, with displays up and Deputy Commissioner of Planning Joan Jurkowich and Planning Analyst Tom Mank taking questions from visitors. Tom Hatfield of the Town of Dryden Planning...
While the Draft Tompkins County Comprehensive Plan contains a lot of information, it's pretty enormous overall. They've broken it down into pieces by section, but even those sections are pretty large. Using Adobe Acrobat, I've broken it into smaller pieces and "refried" those pieces so that their file sizes are small, and broken a few maps out as separate files....
If the Town of Dryden Draft Comprehensive Plan wasn't enough planning excitement for you, you can now add the Tompkins County Comprehensive Plan to your reading list. I haven't had a chance to read it, but I'll be looking it over and writing more soon. Also, on April 29, the Tompkins County Planning Department will be holding an open house...
Thursday night's Planning Board meeting included a sketch conference for a proposed sudivision on Sheldon and Wood roads near Etna (map) as well as continued discussion of the Draft Comprehensive Plan's sections on hamlets and agriculture. The Planning Board welcomed new member Jim Crawford, and approved the minutes from the previous meeting, the first minutes to appear on the town's...
The Planning Board will be meeting tomorrow night at 7:30pm at Dryden Town Hall (map). Their focus will be on the Draft Comprehensive Plan, particularly agriculture and transportation. Last month's Planning Board meeting was pretty active, and closed with concerns about agriculture. Update: David Weinstein reports on an addition to the agenda: A sketch conference will be held at Thursday's...
A lot of Thursday night's Town Board meeting was spent on infrastructure issues, ranging from sewer issues to cell phone towers to roads. The meeting included two public hearings on sewer districts, one affecting the area north of the Village of Dryden and one affecting the Varna area. The Board changed the billing for the Cortland Road Sewer District so...
As noted here previously, the Town of Dryden will be having a public hearing on the removal of phosphorous from the City of Ithaca's sewage treatment plant, which serves the Varna and Route 13 area sewer districts. Today's Ithaca Journal has an article on the City's approval of extra cost for the work and controversies in the contract. The Town...
Lynn Richards, Senior Policy Analyst at the EPA, gave a general presentation on Smart Growth last night, explaining how planning is changing to encourage the creation of landscapes which accomodate people - and not just cars - once again. Smart Growth approaches focus on ten core principles, which are worth listing to give a broad idea of where this goes:...
EPA Senior Policy Analyst Lynn Richards will be speaking at 7:30pm tonight at the Ramada Inn (map) on "Smart Growth: More Choices, Better Places". I'm especially interested in this, as Richards has written recently on Alternatives to Subsidizing Edge Development: Strategies for Preserving Rural Landscapes, and will hopefully talk about some issues relevant to situations like Dryden's current planning process....
Thirteen people, including four Dryden residents, met last night at Rogues Harbor in Lansing as part of the Sustainable Tompkins project. This was the first meeting of the "salon", which will gather every Monday there through May 3. (There are salons every night of the week, but this is the one that seemed closest to Dryden.) The meeting, which ran...
Today's Ithaca Journal includes a guest column on the Sustainable Tompkins initiative: Its aim is to consider what this region would be like if it were better designed to assure economic stability, social well being and the continued integrity of our ecosystems. As noted last week, they're holding "Sustainability Salons" for the next six weeks. None of those are in...
Senior Planner Heather Filiberto and Planning Analyst Tom Mank of the Tompkins County Planning Department presented work on the Tompkins County Comprehensive Plan last night at the Varna Community Center. The scope of the county plan is very different from the Town of Dryden Comprehensive Plan. The county is not specifying details of how to build in the county, as...
The Tompkins County Planning Department will be presenting the Tompkins County Comprehensive Plan on Wednesday, March 24th, at 7:30pm at the Varna Community Center (map). The plan hasn't yet been released to the public, and this meeting (along with others in the county) "is designed to give Varna residents an opportunity to view key maps and information, and contribute ideas...
This month's Planning Board meeting had a quorum, unlike last month's meeting, and was able to move forward with changes to the plan, though only two members of the public (myself included) were in attendance. Four planning board members, Dryden's Environmental Planner, and two people attended the meeting. The Board started with discussion about training possibilities, some on storm water...
Tonight's Town of Dryden Planning Board meeting will continue to examine the Draft Comprehensive Plan and proposed changes to it. The Draft Comprehensive Plan page on the town's site notes: The Planning Board discussed the first three topics at its February meeting, however no actions were taken because a quorum was not present. At the upcoming March 18th meeting (Thursday...
Conservation issues were important at Thursday's Town Board meeting, which started with a (very quiet) public hearing on changing the Conservation Advisory Council to a Conservation Advisory Board, spent time on environmental planning issues, and concluded with a discussion about purchasing an enormous parcel, a golf course, on Dryden Lake, for reasons that may have something to do with conservation....
[This Thursday's Town Board meeting had enough to it that I'm going to publish a series of articles on what happened, focusing on specific topics, rather than try to cover it in one huge piece.] The Town Board resolved the annexation issue this Thursday, voting 3-2 in favor of findings proposed by Mike Hattery that put annexation in a much...
Yesterday I looked at the populations of the Dryden portion of McLean and the hamlet area north of the Village of Dryden. The Draft Comprehensive Plan proposes an average density for these hamlet areas of eight units per acre, like it does for Etna and Varna. Figuring out the current density seems like a good first step toward evaluating the...
The Draft Comprehensive Plan actually defines four hamlets within the town, though Etna and Varna are the two most frequently discussed. The other two hamlets are fragments, one being the Dryden side of McLean, which is largely in the Town of Groton, and the other being a tract of land north of the Village of Dryden and east of Route...
The legal notice for the hearing on the law turning the town's. Conservation Advisory Council into a Conservation Board has been published. The hearing will be at 7:00pm on March 11, coinciding with the regularly scheduled Town Board meeting....
I didn't make it to this month's Town Board meeting, so I was especially interested to see the minutes which recently appeared. As a number of issues were discussed at different points in the meeting, the summary below attempts to cluster information by subject rather than time. Citizens question the town The meeting started with Robin Seeley's question about actions...
Yesterday's article explored the population of Varna and Etna, but even though it's interesting to know that downtown Varna's population is larger than Freeville's (679 to 505), the numbers needed to evaluate the statements about density in the Draft Comprehensive Plan have to relate those figures to area. Page 54 of the Draft Comprehensive Plan says: "the residential development density...
This week's sort-of Planning Board meeting on the Draft Comprehensive Plan's impact on Etna and Varna left me wondering about how many people actually live in the hamlets and what we data was available about them. In particular, the rental/owner-occupied question comes up regularly. The census doesn't provide data for Etna or Varna because neither is incorporated - they're places,...
Last night's meeting for "discussing revisions to the Draft Comprehensive Plan" wasn't precisely a Planning Board meeting, as only two members of the board were there (four are necessary for action), and only six people were in the audience, including County Legislator Martha Robertson. George Frantz, the planner consulting on the work, and Debbie Gross, the Town of Dryden's Environmental...
Tompkins County will consider ending annual assessment, after a number of years in which real estate prices and assessments have increased substantially. State aid supporting annual assessments may not come this year, and property-owners have been unhappy. On the other hand, as Legislator Kathy Luz-Herrera points out, if prices were to fall again, people could be stuck with inflated assessments...
While the Town of Dryden Planning Board takes up revisions to the Draft Comprehensive Plan for hamlets tonight, the Ithaca Journal reports that the Village of Dryden will have a public hearing on maintaining their housing construction moratorium while discussing a call for proposals on their own Comprehensive Plan. The Village recently received a $15,000 state grant for planning, and...
The Town of Dryden Comprehensive Plan page now indicates that: The Planning Board will be discussing revisions to the Draft Comprehensive Plan over the next several meetings. Public comments have been summarized into the topic areas listed below. This list is not in order of priority - all public comments will be considered carefully. The Planning Board also recognizes that...
Planner George Frantz (who is, among other things, the consultant working on the Town of Dryden Comprehensive Plan) has a strange but certainly thought-provoking guest column in the Ithaca Journal today. While it purports to be about a specific traffic proposal in Ithaca, much of its venom is directed at places like the Town of Dryden and their impact on...
David Weinstein, a member of the Town Planning Board who commented here a while ago, sent me some letters he's sent the Planning Board suggesting changes to to the Draft Comprehensive Plan. There are two sets of suggestions. The first is a general look at the plan, while the second is detailed changes to the section on hamlets. Two paragraphs...
The Town of Dryden Public Notices page (local copy) announces a meeting for Tuesday, January 27, at the Dryden Fire Hall (map), noting: The purpose of this meeting is to discuss ways to improve communications between the Town of Dryden and the Fire Departments that serve its residents, together with such other business as the board may deem necessary. There...
I pulled out my Town of Dryden Zoning Map (available at the town office - I haven't seen it on the Web) to compare it to the Future Land Use Plan, and was reminded of a a feature on the zoning map that isn't mentioned in the Draft Comprehensive Plan: the M-AA district. The functioning of this zone, which includes...
While the Draft Comprehensive Plan notes the existence of mobile homes in Dryden, it doesn't talk much at all about their future. It recognizes that: Manufactured housing (a.k.a. mobile homes) accounts for a significant proportion of the housing stock. There are an estimated 1,150 manufactured homes in the town, of which approximately 890 are located within 17 mobile home parks....
I made it to last night's informational meeting on the Town's Draft Comprehensive Plan, held at the Dryden Town Hall. (The hearing on annexation was at the Village Hall, at the same time, and there was a bit of confusion.) There were about 25 people at the start, and probably 35 people total were there at some point. Barbara Caldwell...
The last of the informational meetings on the Draft Comprehensive Plan will be held tonight from 7 to 9 PM at the Dryden Town Hall, 65 E. Main Street (map). I'll be at this one, finally!...
After writing about how NYSEG's headquarters building seems to be in steady decline yesterday, I started thinking about how it's always been a strange island anyway. While it dominates the Route 13/366 intersection, it doesn't feel like it's actually contributed that much to the area's development. I suspect the gas stations may benefit slightly as employees fuel up and buy...
The building I refer to as "NYSEG headquarters" looms everytime I drive home along Route 13. It's an enormous complex, and dominates the overlapping area of Routes 13 and 366. The "Utility Headquarters" sign indicates a left turn lane just for it, and it has multiple entrances and exits into this intersection area. It seems to be less and less...
I've been away all week, so I didn't get to attend either the Varna or the Freeville informational meetings on the Draft Comprehensive Plan for Dryden. The Varna meeting seemed pretty well-covered in the paper, but I've seen no similar coverage for the Freeville meeting. I'm especially curious what people thought of the plans for encouraging development to Freeville's northwest....
I couldn't make it, but I'm happy to read that three dozen people showed up for the Varna informational meeting on the Dryden Draft Comprehensive Plan. It sounds like the tough questions about increasing density in Varna while having no guarantee that the road will be changed to make pedestrian life possible were asked, and hopefully they'll have an impact....
There is a public information session about the Draft Comprehensive Plan at the Varna Community Center (map) tonight from 7 to 9 PM. Unfortunately, I can't make it, being a couple of hundred miles away. The counter on the page for the draft plan is only at 118, which is depressing. I worry that I'm about fifteen of those hits....
George Frantz, of the firm creating the Dryden Comprehensive Plan, has an editorial in the Ithaca Journal today about visions of a much more compact Ithaca at Cornell's Urban and Regional Studies program. He's right that the distributed "American city that has evolved since 1900 is in fact a historical aberration," and that we don't need to be sprawled across...
After spending the past few days talking about things in the Draft Comprehensive Plan that worry me, it's probably a good idea to talk about things in the plan that intrigue me. The discussion of Cluster Subdivisions on pages 50-52 of the plan is interesting. Cluster Subdivisions "provide for an alternative method for configuring building lots, dwellings, roads, utility lines,...
The Draft Comprehensive Plan makes some suggestions based on water and sewer systems that leave me wondering whether water and sewer are a blessing or a curse for a community. Given the taste of the water from the (barely functioning) well we still have, I'm very happy to have water to my house; the questions are a little bigger than...
In reading the Town of Dryden Draft Comprehensive Plan, I'm growing more and more concerned about things that I'm not seeing discussed, in particular the balance between rental units and owner-occupied housing. The plan notes on page 40 that: In Varna the lack of maintenance of rental properties owned by absentee landlords is resulting in the appearance of blight... When...
In addition to the Draft Comprehensive plan mentioned earlier, the 1999 "Future Land Use in the Town of Dryden: Alternatives and Recommendations" is available online. It was performed by Cornell's Department of City and Regional Planning. More food for thought....
The Town website now hosts the 2003 Draft Comprehensive Plan. This is a fascinating document with lots of pieces, but I'll be a while digesting before I comment on it in depth. The draft (without maps) is 2.4MB long, so it'll take a little while even if you have a high-speed connection. If you're on dial-up, you'll need to be...