Lysander — Developers in charge of the proposed Cabbage Patch and Melvin Farm incentive zoning developments will have to wait for the next Lysander Town Board to decide the fate of their projects. The board voted Monday night to cancel the public hearings on the two applications, which had been scheduled for Dec. 28.
While the board voted to cancel the Dec. 28 hearings, Town Clerk Lisa Dell clashed with the board over the notification of residents. At the Nov. 30 meeting, the board discussed sending letters to residents within 300 feet of the proposed Melvin Farm site to notify them of the public hearing, but they only voted to authorize the town clerk to place public notices in the Messenger and the Post-Standard.
Dell sent a letter dated Dec. 1 to residents who live within 500 feet — not 300 feet — of the proposed Cabbage Patch site on Emerick Road. She also sent a letter dated Dec. 2 to residents who live within 300 feet of the Melvin Farm site on Route 370, but Councilor Andy Reeves said Nov. 30 that there is only farmland within 300 feet of the Melvin Farm site.
The board ended up voting Monday night to send cancellation notices to these residents, but not before Dell engaged in a shouting match with Supervisor John Salisbury and Deputy Supervisor Melinda Shimer, whom Dell accused of not wanting to inform the public of the Melvin Farm proposal.
“Why do you not want the people around Melvin Farm to know?” Dell said.
Shimer said that the board discussed sending letters but never authorized Dell to send them.
“I never said I don’t want people to know,” Shimer told the Messenger. “We had never approved it [the letters] — why did they go out?”
The resolution to send cancellation notices included the stipulation that Salisbury must approve the notices before they are sent. Dell told him she would send them if he wrote them.
continued — “It doesn’t say for me to write it,” Salisbury said. “You are the town clerk.”
“I think you seem to forget that,” Dell said.
County disapproval prompts cancellations
Salisbury said that while both the Lysander Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals had approved the applications, the Onondaga County Planning Board voted Dec. 2 to disapprove both applications. Without the county’s approval, the town board would need at least four votes to approve the projects.
“We do not have four votes on this board for this development,” Salisbury said.
Why did the county nix the incentive zoning proposals?
In a Dec. 2 resolution disapproving the Melvin Farm application, the Onondaga County Planning Board (OCPB) said it “does not have adequate information to assess the impacts and merits of the project at this time.”
The OCPB outlined several areas of concern and recommended “more robust community discussion” regarding development on the Cold Springs Peninsula.
“Community discussion would optimally include identification and notification of potentially affected property owners, presentation of anticipated upfront and life cycle costs and funding sources, and potential direct expenses and property tax implications to affected existing homeowners on the Peninsula and townwide,” the resolution said.
The OCPB is also concerned that the sewer capacity Marden Associates plans to provide will not be enough.
“As stated, the current proposal would provide for eventual service for an additional 550 units through the Melvin Farms project via one of two proposed means; however, using rough estimates, it appears that the need for capacity may be greater than 550 units,” the resolution reads.
The OCPB listed a total of possible 825 units in areas where expanded sewer capacity could be needed:
• 200-plus units south of Route 370
• 200-plus units in two locations to the north and east
• 250 units in current and approved dry sewered developments
• 75 riverside units
• 100 additional older residences on septic in the area.
In addition, the OCPB questioned whether such a residential development can coexist with its agricultural neighbors.
The OCPB criticized the Melvin Farm’s “segregation” of houses by price and encouraged “increased integration of housing types” and the inclusion of affordable housing in the development.
As for the Cabbage Patch development, the board again cited having inadequate information and encouraged more community discussion.
“The board recommends more significant preliminary review, to include not only the applicant’s quantification of provided benefits, but also town analysis of the fiscal impacts of the proposed project and financing strategy for the proposed sewerage of additional lands to the west,” the OCPB resolution read.
The OCPB also called the town’s reliance on state grants for capital costs “risky.” The board suggested the town of Lysander work with the village of Baldwinsville and the town of Van Buren on a plan for allocating the limited capacity of the Baldwinsville-Seneca Knolls Wastewater Treatment Plant.
“The board also encourages consideration of a more detailed planning process for the incentive zoning area prior to subdivision approval on a site by site basis, to ensure desired outcomes from dense buildout,” the resolution read.
continued — Councilors Bob Geraci and Roman Diamond voted last month against sending the incentive zoning applications to the planning and zoning boards, and Reeves said Monday night that he would not vote for the Melvin Farm proposal in its current state.
Aside from the laundry list of reasons the county disapproved the incentive zoning applications, Salisbury also claimed the OCPB did not receive a letter from town engineer Al Yager and Comprehensive Land Use Plan committee chair Bill Lester that Salisbury wanted to include with the applications.
“At my request, Al [Yager] and Bill Lester wrote a letter to the Onondaga County Planning Board explaining what the incentive zoning plan was and answer[ing] questions of what they had requested,” Salisbury said. “That letter, by the decision of the administrative staff, did not go to the county planning board.”
Salisbury did not specify which “administrative staff” was responsible for the omission, but he said during the work session preceding Monday’s meeting that the county did receive comments from four people opposed to the incentive zoning proposals.
“It was kind of not a fair thing to the town of Lysander,” Salisbury said.
At the Nov. 5 town board meeting, Dell said she had received the Melvin Farm application in her office. The board voted 3-2 at the Nov. 5 town board meeting to refer the Melvin Farm application to the county. At the Sept. 14 meeting, the board voted 3-2 to refer the Cabbage Patch proposal. Geraci and Diamond cast dissenting votes both times.
Reeves said the town board was not trying to force the issue of incentive zoning before the end of the year. Reeves, Salisbury and Shimer will leave office Dec. 31. Reeves said having the approval of the town’s zoning and planning boards and the OCPB would make the negotiation process easier for the incoming town board and developers.
“We were trying to jam this thing into a better position for negotiation,” he said.
Salisbury said he was “shocked” by the OCPB’s disapprovals, especially the decision on the 37-lot Cabbage Patch proposal. Salisbury said the addition of those 37 homes would reduce costs for the residents of the Whispering Oaks Sewer District.
“To get a negative declaration on this Cabbage Patch just doesn’t ring proper to me,” he said.
