A line in the sand

Last night by a narrow 4-3 margin, the Geneseo Planning Board voted to require that the new Lowe’s store face Volunteer Road and not Rt. 20-A. This represented a final tip of the hat to the Gateway District zoning which has been largely eviscerated by the PDD process.

After that token nod, the board then voted 7-0 to approve a positive SEQR finding so that a store more than 4 times bigger than that zoning allows could be built. As part of the plan they also approved a new access road on Rt. 20-A at Morganview, which is sure to create another non-functioning intersection. But, hey, what’s one more when your whole town is already gridlocked?

I do appreciate that the four-member majority of the board did hang together and wring a few final concessions out of the developer, but the whole sordid saga leaves a bitter taste in the mouth and many unanswered questions. Will Geneseo learn anything from this long 3-year battle?

One would hope that an immediate moratorium on PDD application could be put into effect until the Master Plan process is completed and any needed rezoning can be adopted. And speaking of Master Plans, wouldn’t it be nice if the community could have just one unified plan covering the town, the village and the Gateway?

I’m also still waiting for even one of our elected officials on either the town or village level to advance a realistic plan of how we will deal with the growing gridlock on Rt. 20-A, and most importantly, how we will pay for it. In that regard, it is absolutely essential that a new Access Management Study be done on a larger scale as soon as possible, and this time, without political interference.

It’s also long past time that we remember that the Gateway is still an Empire Zone and we come up with a plan to market it successfully for what it was originally designed to be: a primarily non-retail, business and light industrial center.

If Please Don’t Destroy Geneseo were to disband today I believe we would leave a small mark on the future of Geneseo. We have raised the public consciousness about the dangers of sprawl and the importance of supporting our home-town businesses. How long-lasting that impact would be is hard to guage.

After the last Big Box War ended in 1992 with the construction of the first Wal-Mart, there was an effort to draw a line in the sand and prohibit future sprawl. That effort which led directly to the Gateway zoning was somewhat successful for about 12 years until the Super Wal-Mart started a new round of development.

From this history, we can see that attempts to limit sprawl can weaken over time when passions and memories fade, new leaders take the reins and shiny new Big Boxes appear at the gates. The price of preserving what’s left of our historic small town will be eternal vigilance, both by those in leadership today, and by those to come in future generations.

Of course, PDDG is not going out of business just yet. In the next few weeks we will conduct a full review of our legal options. One obvious option is to bring an Article 78 lawsuit to challenge what we view as a very tainted SEQR process.

I can think of better ways to spend my summer, however, a decision on this must be made within 30 days of the filing of the Findings decision that was made last night. Future actions on the application by the County Planning Board and the Geneseo Town Board may also need to be challenged, but none of these decisions are mine alone.

The people who have worked so hard in opposition to this project and have funded our efforts are entitled to a realistic appraisal of our legal options. Bill Lofquist and I are determined to provide that, so stay tuned–and please continue to express your thoughts through comments on our blogs!

What happened at the Planning Board?

Commentary by Bill Lofquist and Corrin Strong

Note: Over the past week it has become clear to me from comments posted on our blogs and heard on the street, that many people are confused about exactly what happened last week in the Geneseo Planning Board. Bill Lofquist and I sought to untangle the complex background of this process in this commentary which will also be published in this week’s Livingston County News.

It would not be surprising if the casual observer of the Lowe’s controversy were totally confused by the combined PDD and SEQR process currently coming to a climax in the Town of Geneseo Planning Board. For the past two years the board members have struggled to find their way through a very complicated state environmental review process (SEQR) while processing the first application under a new and equally complex local Planned Development District (PDD) zoning law.

Those who have tried to follow the process more closely have had to learn a whole new vocabulary, mainly composed of acronyms. In the SEQR process alone we’ve been through the EAF, the Positive Declaration, the Scope, the DEIS, the FEIS and now the Findings statement. At the local level we’ve seen the proposal be recommended by the Town Board, given Concept Approval by the Planning Board and go prematurely to the County Planning Board.

After the SEQR Findings are finally adopted by the Planning Board, possibly next Monday, the proposal will have to go back to the County Planning Board for further review, then to the Town Board for PDD zoning approval and then back to the Planning Board for final site plan review. Does anyone have a road map?

We at Please Don’t Destroy Geneseo have also been guilty of injecting the acronym PDDG into the local vocabulary. Depending on your point of view, PDDG is either a visionary group of local citizens who are trying to preserve what is best about our historic small town, or a group of anti-growth cranks and pointy-headed professors who are trying to take Geneseo back to the 19thcentury.

So, about now, you are probably wondering, what exactly did the planning board do, why did they do it, and is it legal? Since the planning board is not in a position to explain itself publicly, we thought we would give it a try.

In making its Findings under SEQR, the Planning Board was charged with taking a “hard look” at the potential environmental impacts of the project and making sure that they are mitigated to the maximum possible extent. The term environmental impact is very broad and can take in, not only standard pollution of our air and water, but also traffic problems and even community character.

Both SEQR and the PDD law also require the Planning Board to consider the impact of any action on the existing planning goals and zoning laws of the town. PDDG has gone to great lengths to document the history of the planning and zoning of the Gateway, and has shown that it has a clear intent to prohibit the sprawl of large retail boxes any further east on Rt. 20A.

Basically, the Planning Board, in voting last week to downsize the Lowe’s and turn it towards Volunteer Road, was recognizing the significance of that underlying zoning and planning. They found that allowing the developer to build too large a store facing Rt. 20A would have the environmental impact of eviscerating our well-planned zoning and further damaging our community character.

That decision, which is in the nature of a compromise, is sure to leave true believers on both sides unhappy. Project supporters, who think the developer should be given carte blanche, will be afraid that, in Planning Board Chairman Dwight Folts’ words, the applicant might “walk.” Project opponents would have preferred that the building be made even smaller or not be approved at all.

It is the sign of a good compromise when all sides are at least a little unhappy. Despite our own unhappiness, however, we believe that the process has worked well enough. The Planning Board has found a balance that gives some respect to the existing zoning, but allows a no-doubt popular project to go forward with some limitations for the public good.

We expect that the developer will huff and puff about not getting everything they want and perhaps even threaten litigation. We also expect to see members of the Town Board look for ways to overrule their own planning board. Neither of these efforts is likely to be successful. The developer has no legal right to demand a bigger building, and the town will ultimately have to accept the mitigations required by the lead agency under SEQR.

As for PDDG, we will continue to monitor the situation closely to see what further steps we may need to take. At this point it would be foolhardy to think that the battle is over or that it might not ultimately end up in court. We do believe, however, that the Planning Board has made an important first step in resolving this controversy and that its decision should be supported by fair-minded citizens on both sides.