I asked the folks at the County Planning Department (Karen Sullivan and Psalm Wyckoff) about the parking lot today, and they were generous with their time and very helpful. Karen made some calls later on and filled in some blanks. It seems it's a three-part story.
(People who work with planning, zoning and code enforcement speak their own language, fluently and swiftly, and it's a language that I don't speak, yet, so some of the vocabulary may be misplaced or inaccurate.)
The land being developed for the parking lot straddles the town-city line, so the code inspectors and Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) in both municipalities are involved. In both the town and the city, the original application for permits was denied, but the ZBA in the City approved a use variance. The Town ZBA has deemed the application incomplete, so no decision has been made there. So at this point, the project is not approved. It's not clear whether the project can go ahead in the city section without the whole thing being approved by both municipalities.
The County gets involved if a project is within 500' of a municipal boundary, and this one fits because it's right on a municipal boundary. However, this is where it gets interesting: the project began, apparently, as a collection of townhouses, and it was sent to the County at that point, about two years ago. Now that the plans have changed, it's not clear whether the City or the town will request that the County look at the project and then make recommendations. The County's rulings in these cases are usually focused on whether the project in one municipality will cause an undue burden on the neighboring municipality, and these rulings are only recommendations; they have no authority over the municipality's final decision. When the County is asked to get involved (and it only gets involved when a municipality requests it), it can do one of four things: approve, disapprove, approve with modifications, or decline to rule because no significant impact has been found.
And finally, the City Code Enforcement office is asking DEC to become involved with the project; more on this as time goes on.
Overall, this project is raising a lot of questions. Apparently, the plan is to market the parking spaces to freshmen for long-term parking, although whether there is a sufficient market to make the project pay is one of those questions. The owner is hoping to get OPT to stop there – but where? It's a busy, residential corner, and for most of the project's length, East Street has a 45 mph speed limit. Not a great place for buses to stop every fifteen minutes.
Anyway, more to come. At least we can be assured that there are people in the middle of this who are asking the right questions. If you want to take more action, contact:
- your City Councilman
- your Town Board member
- the Town of Oneonta Planning Board and ZBA
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