Tompkins County planners don’t counsel – they conspire.
We no longer create our communities by living in them – we just inhabit the communities our government creates.
They do all the planning. They have all the planners. They have all the power. They have all the cards.
When a Tompkins County Department Director blatantly lied about existing conditions to avoid regulating influential corporations — nobody did anything.
When the County Ethics Advisory Board was informed of this — they would not even acknowledge the incident.
When I told residents that I was writing a book documenting the circumstantial case for widespread misconduct and corruption in Tompkins County — they frequently said: “It’s going to be a big book!”
When I sent copies of the book to County officials — they would not even acknowledge they received it.
When I sent copies of the book to University and College authorities and professors — none of them would acknowledge they received it.
The County Code of Ethics declares: “Public officers and employees must observe a high degree of moral conduct to maintain public confidence” — while the overwhelming opinion of the public is that the County is corrupt. Everybody know which is correct.
“A Clue type game for a clueless Society” Is it a “beat down at the puppet show?” or an “adjudication by stone the unbeliever” the “wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time in the green space” – or even an “organ harvest in the school room”?
Ms. Green, Halfaman Yellow, Megalomania Magenta, Racial Red, Patrician Plum, and White-boy Blue are the characters – the game board is done – I’ll just finish the cards – and free download for fun.
Nothing so exemplifies the modern “greater good” fiction as Form Based Codes. It expresses the “community’s vision” – as decided upon by authorities. It replaces neighborly conversations with authoritarian regulations. And it imposes an all-controlling “New Urbanism” Colonialism on the ignorant and unthankful rural communities. New Urbanism Planners replace debate with declarations and people with projections – turning communities into cages for an ordered future.
Their overarching principles are Efficiency, Authority, and Legality — Humanity has no place in their New Millennium mix. Form Based Codes channel Stalin and Mao in creating an invasive doctrine of order and force. It’s a planning so detailed — not even a Tardigrade could survive Transection.
“The New Urbanism is entitlement for planners.” If you want to gather money and power – enable those richer and more powerful than you. That’s the main ingredient for success in today’s stratified bureaucracy. The New Urbanism and Form Based Codes are elitist mapmaking of a new territory — all that we had left of us.
Our communities; always growing and changing to meet the needs of those who lived in them — were “inefficient” – or more accurately; did not conform. Form Based Codes give planners the chance to create building block neighborhoods; and officials the power to control everything within them.
It’s a ground up paradigm of the new society: People are encouraged to make comments – and officials do whatever they please.
In “The List of Adrian Messenger” – the victim’s last words were a breathless, “Clean sweep. Clean sweep.” — A fitting epitaph for Euclidean zoning’s humanist precepts under the heel of Form Based Code (FBC) regimentation.
This New Urbanism regulatory device has an authoritarian clout that garners approval from all those who aspire to be those authorities.
Our “old fashioned” and “inefficient” Euclidean zoning is ridiculed by Form Based Code proponents; who want to replace “what can we agree on?” with “do this because we say so.”
In the darkening of our enlightenment; experts and professionals increasingly cleave to the Political-Corporate-Institutional Centrality for profit — and survival.
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What’s really wrong with “Euclidean” zoning?
It’s one area of government where people still have the right to discuss and to decide — as neighbors – and as themselves.
Form Based Code proponents want to change all that.
Form Based Codes ensure only one thing; the overriding regulatory power of authorities to enforce conformity to their wishes — once that power is given; there is no taking it back.
Like the “Nine-Point Plans” that are so beloved by agricultural polluters and their cronies – Form Based Code implementation limits the public to ineffectual commenters; with no meaningful participation or oversight in the decision making process. All the pre-planning sales talk of multi-day “charrettes” and public input is merely window dressing with no legally defined existence. Form Based Codes are designed to promote development, not to protect residents.
Contrary to common ethical standards; the discussion surrounding the adoption of Form Based Codes is limited to praising its beneficence; and never touches on its inherent flaws nor discloses the extent of its authoritarian powers.
The dream of planners: to design communities as efficient interlocking parts; and only afterward “populate” them – and the desire of authorities: to control all within their sphere [without annoying objections and obstacles] – combine in the creation of Form Based Code environments: the biggest threat to human worth and individuality since the Skinner Box.
The inclusion of Form Based Codes into the Town of Lansing’s Comprehensive Plan strategy reveals much about the process and intent of government in Tompkins County:
The “Town of Lansing Comprehensive Plan” could more accurately be called: “Cornell’s Plan for the Town of Lansing.”
The complete marginalization of Lansing’s residents took place in three steps:
1. Cornell’s Survey Research Institute prepared and administered a questionable survey; the results of which were recanted during public outcry, and later quietly reinstated as the underpinning mandate for all the Town’s Comprehensive Plan policy decisions.
2. Cornell’s fraudulent “Rural Sprawl” domino effect scenario was adopted without debate by Lansing Town authorities; a fear provoking concoction designed to suppress rural opposition and legitimize the creation of a “mini-city” with thousands of housing units; thus artificially maintaining Ithaca’s “small-town living” as an attraction for the students and professionals needed by an ever-expanding University and growing business center — and keeping thousands of acres of suitable building land in Ithaca untouched and taxes lower by placing the housing for their workers and families, and the high cost of services, in another municipality.
3. Cornell’s Design Connect Form Based Code planning offered an unopposable regulatory power to block any possibility of resident oversight or revision.
What was the Town of Lansing’s decision process for the inclusion of a Form Based Code future in their Comprehensive Plan?
A simple one:
This is how things work in Tompkins County Government: authorities “identify a need” – they develop a plan – and they adopt the plan. Form Based Codes streamline the development planning and approval process by removing the public from any planning or approving — that’s one more reason why politicians, planners, and developers everywhere are so enamored with this tool of power.
“Form Based Codes are for Authority. Behavior Based Codes are for Humanity. Which one will Politicians choose?” Do you need to ask? They’ve already shown us their choice.
We are living in a society that is at odds with our knowledge of humanity and dignity. Everything that is natural in human interaction and community can only be achieved through the permission and intervention of Authority.
Those who support the power to discriminate against any of us; are those remove the freedom from all of us.
As you can see in this “Rise of the Evil Ones” graphic: if we don’t clean up government; they’ll clean us up. It’s not so big a step from an unresponsive government; to one that responds in ways that may terrify us. Some people just won’t conform . . .
Increase the density of the rat population – and they go crazy. It’s a myth – they say. So what’s our excuse? In a world so Doctrine-ordered; maybe our craziness is ordered too. Form Based Craziness. Maybe the craziness is so we can’t see what’s going on. Or maybe the craziness is to stop us from living comfortably together. Craziness gives a great power; but without sure control.
Will the craziness destroy us? It’s not brinkmanship – it’s a pattern of abuse: If they can’t have the world . . . then no one can.
“Form Based Code” advocates always postulate the best of all worlds for their own plans; and the worst for everyone else’s. This follows the modern technique where one side of an argument also presents the case for the opposition – invariably to their detriment. [A real debate, like real public participation, is considered a dangerous throwback.]
These planners use the same arguments as dictators have always used: decision making by citizens is inefficient and contains too many varied and conflicting viewpoints for a properly directed society. And their vision of everybody rowing together under one authority does not preclude the use of galley slaves.
Like architectural drawings; where the buildings come first and the people are thrown in in later – Form Based Codes are all about power of codes; not the lives of people. Their vision is not about making people happy – it’s about making people conform.
In a time when the public has no meaningful say in policy making – it’s beyond foolish to increase the scope of government policy making power.