“Tompkins County: The only transparency is the thinness of their excuses.” It’s filling in the form without accountability for what you write. It’s giving an answer . . . without answering the question. It’s the throng that cheers the dictator; because someone might report that you weren’t there – or didn’t cheer. The reasons for their policy decisions carry the weight of no alternative. Who cares what you believe.
“Stop pretending you care.” Some bumper stickers have more right to be on bumpers than others. Wouldn’t you like those behind you to see what you so often would like to say? In this world of shameless preening and self-promotion; the pretense of caring is one of the most insulting poses.
“The Shroud of Policy” Religious beliefs must be open to examination and proof – but secular beliefs are too sacred for dispute.
Aren’t you tired of people just “saying” – and demanding unquestioning acceptance of their policy decisions? Materialistic beliefs are amenable to materialistic examination.
When they put lead into one end of their black box; and take out gold from the other end: it’s called fraud. When they put lead into one end of their black box and take out nothing from the other end: it’s called “policy.”
O.K. That didn’t work. So then they bring out another black box . . .
“Bobble-head Bigots: Nodding at nothing.” It could be that they’re nodding in empty agreement; but I believe it’s in agreement to keep something hidden — and not for our sakes.
Now is a time of assertions, of attitude, of arrogance, of bigotry; but it’s not a time of questioning . . . they could be nodding in agreement not to publish what happened to you.
Public Government Meetings: “Closed due to COVID – and something else later.” There is nothing that so defines bureaucratic flexibility as the ability to use anything as an excuse – except possibly their ability to get away with it — let’s see you try to use “I’m understaffed,” for not paying your property taxes on time.
And nothing that so defines politicians as their desire to embrace more power.
That’s why COVID was a windfall event in the Darwinian playing field of politics – every disruption is a chance for corruption.
The COVID ban on public meetings streamlined the whole acquisition and approval process – and it’s a perk they don’t intend to give up.
“Tompkins County: Destroying everything that enables rural communities – enabling everything that destroys rural communities.” Rural residents don’t need to see written confirmation from authorities — they see it everywhere around them. County policy of denying representation, remediation, and even basic law enforcement to rural communities [Tompkins County refuses to provide more than one deputy sheriff to police two rural towns] – and their constant tax and assessment increases on poor rural property owners is driving out those who were the community’s foundation – and leaving a vacuum to suck in the drug dealers, law breakers and unwanted.
A recent “Adult Entertainment Ordinance” was enacted to limit all sexual businesses to the town’s rural and agricultural zones [where the families are unprotected and more isolated] “to promote the health, safety, morals and general welfare of the citizens of the Town.”
There’s much more . . . but you get the picture.
Petitions are a democratic tool for meaningful participation in policy making; but in Tompkins County; there is no meaningful participation – because it’s not a democracy.
“Petitions hold no merit.” — Unnamed county superintendent
Like those lesser-born of the past; laboring under royalty and at the mercy of repressive autocracies — the validity of residents’ requests is entirely dependent upon the approval of those in charge; those at the top.
Tompkins County’s Elite have it all their own way — they’re used to having it all their own way.
And with the “representative” power of 40,000 uninvolved student transients, and Legislative districting out of Gerrymandering 101: it’s not likely to change.
They decide. For you . . . and for themselves. Everything. Always. It’s a drug.
Cornell’s Design Connect: Transportation Issue Assessment and Best Practices Guide leaves out the most important planning ingredient: the people. Its self-serving New Urbanism vision sees rural Lansing’s urban sprawl bedroom community as a solution; not a problem – and its recommendations are designed to maximize the community’s size and density. The town’s original rural residents are never mentioned – except as an obstacle. They are “outside the Study area” — outsiders in their own town.
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COMPLETE STREETS
A children’s puzzle-book approach to solving real-world problems
It’s NIMBY planning with Ivy League backing: Cornell’s Design Connect Complete Streets transportation “design interventions” drop the traffic and esthetic of a “mini-city” urban sprawl bedroom community into the middle of a green rural landscape.
It’s part of the University’s plan to solve Ithaca’s residential development and housing problems — by dumping them on someone else: the rural town of Lansing.
Cornell’s Design Connect isn’t just looking to help residents; they’re advocating “changes to town policy and planning procedure” as well.
It isn’t surprising that their policy recommendations echo every other “helping” voice – since it’s all the same voice and the same agenda. While the Design Connect study uses every possible reason for increasing the construction of residential housing in Lansing; it declares that the town should: “Limit the acreage of land zoned for commercial and light industrial uses in the Town. Dis-courage strip commercial development through appropriate zoning mechanisms. Limit heavy industry to existing Industrial/Research (IR) Districts.”
“County” planning has decided that Ithaca should be the only business center, and has actively worked to block Lansing’s attempts bring businesses into town — the Tompkins County Legislature actually went to Albany to stop NYSEG from supplying Lansing with the natural gas that was needed for new commercial and industrial development.
“. . . the southern portion of the town of Lansing will likely continue to serve as a bedroom community for Ithaca professionals and other workers.”
Design Connect’s “Best Planning Practices” not only accept the existence of a major urban sprawl bedroom community in the rural town of Lansing; they seek to greatly increase its size and density through “urban design overlay zones,” and recommend that the town “increase density and provide affordable housing,” change zoning with “reduced minimum open space requirements,” “Density Bonuses,” and “Amended Density Requirements,” – and build a new infrastructure to accommodate that increase – merely tacking on the goals of efficiency and low carbon emissions onto what is clearly not the “best planning practice” for a rural community.
Their recommendations for Lansing include “redevelopment of underutilized properties”; while at the same time there are block after block of old wood-frame houses in downtown Ithaca that would be perfect sites for redevelopment as high-density housing, and thousands of unused acres suitable for building surrounding the City’s core.
The redevelopment of Ithaca’s unused and underutilized building lots, and creation of affordable and appropriate urban housing, will solve the housing shortage, require no new infrastructures, efficiently use existing bus routes, be in the closest proximity to jobs in the education, business, institutional, and health care sectors, increase access to the cultural center of the county, and have the highest possible walkability and the greatest alternative transport choices for residents, while at the same time reducing the carbon footprint for transportation to a minimum.
It would solve every one of Lansing’s housing and transportation problems but one: Cornell does not want that solution.
Everywhere; there is the exhortation for more higher-density housing in the town of Lansing: high-density housing for affordable housing, high-density housing for sustainability, high-density housing for the environment, high-density housing for lower taxes, for the aging, for reducing carbon emissions, for curing cancer, for bringing about World Peace . . . the high-density housing that is needed in rural Lansing to maintain Ithaca’s gentrified, college-town pastiche for students – taking four years of memories, going to a six-figure salary, and adding more coin to Cornell’s corporate coffers.
Trusting the judgement of someone who has Fame, Fortune, and the realization of a dream in the balance can come at a price.
“Nanotechnology” proponents refute the doomsday scenario of The Extinction of All Life On Earth with: “the danger of gray goo is far less likely than originally thought” – and “such dangers lie too far in the future to be of concern to regulators” – or the “more realistic threats associated with knowledge-enabled nanoterrorism” — none of which sounds like, “it can’t happen” or “impossible.”
While the loss of human life from the “unexpected consequences” of emerging technologies falls under the “shit happens” umbrella of scientific progress – scientists do labor under one constant fear — loss of funding.
In an ever degrading and irremediable biosphere; Our technological morality play reads like the script of a horror movie: And no matter how much you shout at the screen — they never learn.
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.