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 

The Parking Lot

I've gotten a number of calls and e-mails regarding the planned parking lot at the top of East St., where Bugbee Rd. and Meadowbrook Lane intersect it. The vacant lots on that corner, on either side of Meadowbrook Lane, have been bulldozed and graded recently, in preparation for what the owner hopes will be a lot for long-term parking for 300+ student cars.

Everyone who contacted me had concerns about the project, concerns that I share. Many questions are unanswered: questions about foot traffic crossing East St. and traveling through neighborhoods, security, lighting, runoff (and many other environmental concerns), increased traffic, and others.

I went to City Hall to talk with Robert Chiappisi, city Code Enforcement Officer, last week. Many factors make this a complex issue. The land is part in the City, and part in the Town, which (usually but not always) means that the County gets involved. The project has been given a preliminary variance, but each step requires approval, and Mr. Chiappisi, who will be making the decisions about those approvals, has grave concerns about the project as well.

I'll be at the Meadows for a committee meeting on Friday, and I'll stop in at the County Planning Department office and see if I can learn anything more about how this all works, and what's in store for that neighborhood. I'll let you know what I learn, here at the weblog. Stay tuned.

MOSA Letter

If you were down to the Oneonta MOSA transfer station in March, you might have been handed a letter from the Executive Director of MOSA, Dennis Heaton, listing reasons why he thought Otsego County's plan to depart from MOSA was a bad idea – specifically, because it will cost Otsego County citizens a lot more to dispose of their trash: “In summary, Otsego County citizens will pay substantially more if Otsego departs MOSA.”

I don't know about you, but I don't think this was a good idea – especially since Mr. Heaton didn't inform the MOSA Board that he was going to distribute a one-sided argument on an important and complex topic to whoever showed up at the transfer station. There are better ways to get your point across, in our media-rich world. Worse, it turns out that his facts were cherry-picked and incomplete; he did not mention, in many instances, many of the MOSA expenditures which would occur even if Otsego County remained with the Authority.

Cathy Clark, the Otsego County Board Chair, wrote to Mr. Heaton, outlining the errors in his presentation, and calling his attempt to 'impugn' and 'undermine' a member county of the Authority 'regrettable.' I'd be glad to send you a copy of it if you'd like to read it, especially if you've seen Mr. Heaton's letter.

The truth is, we don't know the details of how everything is going to work out. The County Board decided to leave MOSA well before I arrived, and everything I've heard convinces me that it was a good decision. It's a decision we're going to stick with, and I think it's going to turn out well for the citizens of Otsego County.