Tompkins County policies are all about following the money – and their policy making is all about finding a usable lens that excuses it.
The Town of Lansing’s AG Zoning District re-zones agricultural activities along the lake to Lakeshore residences: because those areas “are environmentally sensitive” and “potential problems related to steep slopes” [and because rich people want lakeshore houses] – but ignores mile after mile of equally steep slopes of unbuffered agricultural activity along nearby Salmon Creek: one of the major sources of agricultural pollution and impairment of the lake.
Preservation of agriculture is so important that the AG Zoning District radically changes the zoning and allowed activities of a 200 year old rural community: leaving poor non-farming landowners no choice; but to sell out to the rich farming interests – or go under through a regressive tax structure.
And behind it all is Cornell: making lenses for their friends.
Tompkins County: where the rich get richer – and the poor get stepped on — all according to plan.