Desperate times?

It is said that “desperate times call for drastic measures,” and that is the only possible explanation for why the Geneseo Town Board would recklessly dive into the site plan business in an attempt to overturn their own Planning Board. (See yesterday’s Clarion News Blog.)

The town finally adopted the PDD zoning for the Gateway Town Centre last Thursday afternoon, but the vehicle, Local Law 2, also included a laundry list of directives about site plan that normally fall within the jurisdiction of the planning board. Even worse, a lot of the town board’s site plan ideas are in direct contradiction to the recommendations recently made by the Planning Board and the Town’s Architectural Review Committee.

Most controversial, perhaps, is the town’s concession that the proposed Lowe’s building can have a peak height of 45 feet. This is in contradiction to the 35 feet allowed by the town code and the 40 foot compromise approved by the Planning Board.

At the Planning Board meeting last Monday, where this matter was discussed with members of the Architectural Review Committee before a 4-2 vote to adopt the 40-foot limit, representatives of the developer claimed that they needed to have the 45 feet because having a big sign was part of Lowe’s “trademark.”

Having just finished a 5,000 mile road trip around the country, I can confirm that Lowe’s does have some of the most God-awful signs around. On the other hand, I have seen the beautiful stores in Dublin, Ohio and at Penn State, Pa. where there are no big ugly signs on the buildings at all, so it is clear that Lowe’s will make exceptions if a host town sticks to its guns.

Note: A reader sent in this picture of the Dublin Lowe’s. I never noticed the small sign, probably because I was distracted by the large atrium!

So, why did the town crumble? Contradicting and micromanaging your own planning board is not a good way to build warm and fuzzy feelings in the town government or the community. The town must know that and yet four of the town board members stuck their necks out for the developer.

For the answer, of course, we need to look no farther than the daily headlines. The economy, especially anything to do with housing and banking, is crumbling at an alarming rate. No one knows where the bottom is, but it has scared the Big Box Home Improvement stores enough that both Home Depot and Lowe’s have been furiously canceling construction of new planned stores, and in some cases, closing existing stores.

In this environment could a sign less than 45 feet high have been the “deal breaker?” Apparently the developer was successful at convincing the town board that it was. There doesn’t seem to be any other explanation for the political risk that the majority of the board has taken.

In the end, of course, Lowe’s will make its final decision on whether to build based on macro-economic factors and the state of the local economy, not the size of the sign. By blinking on the sign height, however, the town has sent the message that Geneseo is desperate for business no matter how ugly the building.

Whether the Planning Board, in its final site plan review, will obey the town’s directive is an interesting question. Hopefully the Planning Board will hold firm and protect its jurisdiction by rejecting this unwarranted intrusion.

Ironically, two of the votes for a 40 foot limit came from members appointed since the Lowe’s controversy started. When your own hand-picked appointees are trying to tell you something, perhaps it is time to listen.

P.S. I know my vacation from this column lasted longer than promised, but I’ve been having too much fun enjoying my new life as a tennis pro. I don’t promise to continue writing on a weekly basis, but will again when the spirit moves me.

Slowing down

After 18 years of writing this column (the last 15 months online) I ‘m going to take a little break. It seems like a good time for a vacation to recharge my batteries. A lot of my energy for the past few months has gone into the construction of my new tennis court and the formation of the new Genesee Volley Tennis Club. (I have a blog for that too, but you have to be a club member to access it!)

In addition, the PDDG movement seems to have run its course. As predicted, the people with the big money and the expensive lawyers usually win these things, although I think we did accomplish a lot in encouraging the Planning Board to find a compromise and raising the community’s consciousness about the importance of supporting local business.

There may well yet be a lawsuit over the project, but if there is, it won’t be me leading the charge. I’m tired and looking to turn to a new chapter in my life: Tennis and also making my Genesee Graphics business successful.

In that regard, we will soon see the opening of our own category-killer in the form of a new Staples in town. They obviously provide many of the same services that are available at our copy center, however, our competitive advantage will still be our expertise in graphic design. That is something that only comes from years of experience that the average Staples employee will not have.

Actually, it will be a great convenience for us to have the Staples so close. We buy a lot of our paper and other supplies from them and have been making almost weekly trips to Henrietta to do so. That’s a lot of $4 a gallon gas we will save!

Now we will see if the sermon on supporting locally-owned business over the Big national Box will help us. I have a lot of confidence in our niche, so much so, that I just signed a one-year extension of our lease in the Scoville Building. I hope I won’t be disappointed.

I will probably resume this column in a month or so, sooner if events warrant or the spirit moves me. Until then, I’ll see you around town and on the court!