Smart Growth News

New York

New York Awarded National Smart Growth and Drinking Water Protection Grant

Governor David A. Paterson has announced that New York State was chosen as one of only two states for a Smart Growth technical assistance grant to promote sustainable land use and water quality protection. The Smart Growth Leadership Institute chose New York and Missouri for this year's initiative, entitled ''Aligning State Land Use and Water Quality Protection Programs.'' The program is funded by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

''This grant builds on the work of my Administration's Smart Growth Cabinet, and also provides an opportunity for the State to move to the next level of sustainable land use reform,'' Governor Paterson said. ''This is much more than an environmental initiative – it is also a way to promote economic development and fiscal sustainability by targeting our scarce State resources toward investments that will have long-term benefits. My Smart Growth Cabinet looks forward to working with the Smart Growth Leadership Institute in making that critical link between land use and water quality.''

The grant is part of the ''Enabling Source Water Protection Program,'' which helps selected states align land use and drinking water source protection efforts. The project team includes the Trust for Public Land, the Smart Growth Leadership Institute, River Network and the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators. Experts from each of these organizations will work with New York's State Project Team to identify opportunities and propose new strategies to achieve source water protection goals more effectively and efficiently through sustainable land use policies.

The project is funded under a cooperative agreement with the EPA's Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water. The Smart Growth Cabinet has been incorporating Smart Growth and sustainability into State operations and programs at various agencies, including: the Department of State (DOS), Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), Environmental Facilities Corporation (EFC), Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR), Agriculture & Markets and Department of Transportation, among others. The Cabinet has also been promoting Smart Growth legislative reforms.   5/29/2010

Resource(s): www.state.ny.us/

New York Lawmakers Increase Push for Livability and Smart Growth

''Pedestrians have to be the number-one priority,'' said Assemblyman Sam Hoyt at a news conference jointly announcing Complete Streets and Smart Growth Agendas for New York.

Backed by AARP and an unprecedented coalition of public advocacy group for health care, transportation, biking, business, and the environment, the lawmakers felt the legislation's prospects were better than ever. Complete Streets co-sponsor Senator Martin Dilan promised to ensure that the bill passes, calling many New York roads inadequate and dangerous, especially for seniors.

Dilan's committee is currently identifying and examining the 500 most dangerous intersections to find remedies. The Smart Growth Agenda will help. ''New Yorkers have reconsidered the way in which they move about,'' he observed. ''They have opted for cleaner, more fuel-efficient vehicles. Instead of driving, they now walk and ride when they can. It is time for the state to accommodate their choice. It's time we plan, design and build for a multi-modal state and future.''

Senator Susan Oppenheimer made another point. ''Planning for infrastructure improvements in a way that protects our natural resources makes sense economically, as well as environmentally,'' she pointed out, pleased to work with Assemblyman Hoyt and Senator Montgomery on legislation ''that will incorporate smart growth principles in the evaluation of public infrastructure projects.''

Smart Growth Agenda sponsor Senator Velmanette Montgomery said her legislation recognizes the necessary state role in setting smart-growth principles and requiring builder adherence as a condition for project approval. ''As development increases, shortsighted and poorly planned suburban and urban sprawl continue to threaten the well-being and quality of life of my constituents and residents statewide,'' she stressed. ''This mission without vision cannot be allowed to continue.''   5/10/2010

Resource(s): www.nysenate.gov/ ; www.timesunion.com/

New York City Implements High-Tech Measures to Identify Smart Growth Opportunities

New York City is taking a unique approach to its growth potential. According to The New York Times, data is being collected using low-flying planes equipped with laser systems to make precise measurements of the city. The new data maps acquired using these systems will be of the highest precision and will lend some insight into how the city can develop.

The laser technology has the capacity to count trees and rooftops. More specific information will be gathered about how much wetlands still remain in New York, if any at all. This data will be useful in updating outdated flood maps and give the necessary information to determine if possible changes to zoning, building codes, or emergency response systems are needed. The information gathered will also give light to how much area will be available for solar energy for the city.   5/9/2010

Resource(s): www.nytimes.com/

State Awards $500,000 in Smart Growth Grants for Lower Hudson Valley

Reiterating Governor David Paterson’s interlinked economic and environmental policies, New York Secretary of State Lorraine Cortes-Vasquez awarded $500,000 from the Environmental Protection Fund Smart Growth Grant Program for one regional and six local planning projects to spur community economies, enable transit-oriented development and cut carbon emissions in the Lower Hudson Valley.

''The Lower Hudson Valley region possesses tremendous natural resources and outdoor recreational opportunities,'' Cortes-Vazquez said. ''In recent years, it has experienced rapid growth and development; this growth can either threaten or enhance the quality of life in the region, depending upon the way it is planned. These awards will help communities address the effects of this growth on local and regional development patterns and show how the population boom can be a blessing for the Valley.''

Half of the money, a $250,000 grant, goes to the Open Space Institute (OSI), which will involve five partner organizations – the Regional Plan Association, the Trust for Public Land, the Environmental Defense Fund, Scenic Hudson, and Patterns for Progress – to draw up a valley-wide plan, with a focus on carbon emissions, economic efficiency and quality of life.

The other $250,000 goes directly to local communities. Three grants aim for transit-oriented development. The city and the village of Harrison will use a $50,000 grant to draft zoning regulations and design guidelines for a 3.3-acre mixed-use project flanking the Metro-North Railroad station. The city of Poughkeepsie will put $40,000 into market research to prepare development scenarios for both sides of its Metro-North and Amtrak station. And the city of Mount Vernon will have $35,000 for similar research on the full economic potential of mixed-use development near its three Metro-North stations and a popular bus line.

The other local grants – two at $50,000 each and one at $25,000, respectively – will let the town of Red Hook, along with the villages of Red Hook and Tivoli, amend the town’s comprehensive plan and zoning rules to curb sprawl, protect open space and encourage village-scale development; enable Orange County, in partnership with the city of Newburg and the villages of Maybrook, Montgomery and Walden, to conduct a vacant building inventory and create an adaptive reuse plan; and help the town of Lloyd finish a development analysis for the hamlet of Highland, with a focus on traffic, parking, waterfront access, a rail trail, parks and related issues.   2/10/2010

Resource(s): http://www.dos.state.ny.us/pres/pr2010/2-10smartgrowth.html

Habitat for Humanity Building Denser Affordable Housing

Habitat for Humanity, an affordable housing builder better know for building housing in suburban areas, has embarked on a new development model in denser New York City. The organization has just completed the largest creation in Habitat’s history, an $11.6 million three-building complex on Atlantic Avenue, complete with LEED Gold certification. Over 10,000 requests for only 41 units were received with the price of condominiums ranging from $75,000 to $200,000.

According to this article in the New York Times, Habitat for Humanity has invested more heavily in building larger multi-unit structures that better fit the inner city environment. In the South Bronx, a 50-unit co-op building on Fox Street is nearly finished, and in February, Habitat will begin taking applications for a development a few blocks away for a 63-unit building on Prospect Avenue at Macy Place.

''New York is a very dense city,'' said Ingrid Gould Ellen, a professor of public policy and urban planning at New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. ''So I think that building to the density levels that fit into the neighborhood landscape makes a lot of sense. The affordable-homeownership market is not a market that is glutted right now.''   1/14/2010

Resource(s): http://www.nytimes.com/

Post-Hurricane Katrina Cottages Enter Mainstream Affordable-Housing Movement in New York

First designed by New Urbanism practitioners Andres Duany and Steve Mouzon as a much more livable alternative to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) trailers following Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, ''Katrina Cottages'' have since won many industry and public champions. The cottages are now becoming a model for green, highly affordable, flood-resistant housing on Long Island.

In March 2010, reports The New York Times, Habitat for Humanity of Suffolk County will begin work on its first Katrina cottage in Islip, hoping to build another three or four this year. The 918-square-foot Craftsman-style cottage on an undersized vacant lot received from the town last year will include a small foyer, a living room, an eat-in kitchen, a closet area with a laundry room, two bedrooms and a wheelchair-accessible bath. It will also feature solar panels, low-maintenance vinyl siding and ENERGY STAR appliances, though no air-conditioning.

At an estimated cost of about $100,000 with volunteer labor, Islip’s Community Development Agency (CDA) Executive Director Paul Fink feels the cottage ''will wind up being less expensive than rent'' for many applicants. The winner of the cottage will be selected by a lottery from a pool of earners making no more than 50 percent of the area median income – $47,700 for a family of two. He hopes the town will eventually see some 10 new such cottages each year.

Over the past 30 years, nonprofits like the Long Island Housing Partnership (LIHP) have built about 1,200 affordable homes in Islip. Depending on federal and state subsidies, they cost between $145,000 and $245,000, observed LIHP Executive Vice President Diana Weir, calling Katrina cottages a ''great alternative'' for smaller households. That’s the affordable market segment Director Fink wants to help. “If we look at who is applying to our lotteries, we have more and more smaller families over the last few years,'' he said. ''We have far more single parents and far more single individuals looking to buy a house.''

CDA Chairman Christopher D. Bodkin, who introduced the Katrina cottage idea, and Islip Department of Planning and Development Commissioner Eugene Murphy, who endorsed it enthusiastically, look forward to the first cottage. ''Besides its affordability, it’s a smaller house and it fits into the community,'' stressed Commissioner Murphy. ''It is meant as good starter housing to get people out of basements. For what they pay for rent, they can build equity in a house.''

Habitat for Humanity architect Ed Miller and his colleagues glanced at a Lowe’s catalogue for general outlines, but the cottage design is their own. ''The house is small, but it has nice curb appeal, a nice big porch that a family can sit on, going back to the old days when you could sit on the front porch and talk to your neighbors,'' the architect said, promising to give each new cottage ''its own unique look.''

Learn more about Katrina cottages at www.katrinacottages.com.   1/7/2010

Resource(s): www.nytimes.com/

Pedestrian-Friendly Downtowns and Recreational Trails Can Spur Mohave Valley Revival

An editorial in the Observer-Dispatch issues a call to the Mohave region to ''revive the hearts'' of its communities. If the Mohawk Valley continues its sprawl pattern without population growth, says the author, it will further dilute their strength and force extension of services into the countryside, which is ''a recipe for higher taxes, not progress.'' The author stresses the need to build stronger downtowns and neighborhoods and to promote a quality of life that would increase the region’s pull for potential residents and business leaders.

To seize the new opportunities of the 21st century, the editorial outlines five possible approaches. It tells them to make downtown Utica shine, to promote local villages, to become wiser about growth in towns, to shore up neighborhoods, and to build trails. ''If a decade from now we have more people walking on streets and trails, ''the editorial observes, ''then it is quite likely growth planning will have been effective.'' Then it adds, “The Rochester area is a leader in promoting trails for walking, biking and even canoeing and boating. It has used the Erie Canal as a central part of this effort. We know here how the opening of the Philip Rayhill trail in New Hartford and Whitestown changed recreational patterns for hundred of residents. We need many more such examples, staring with making the canal better marked and more accessible. For a relatively minor investment, the trails will draw residents, and signs will help visitors know that recreation is something we value.''   12/28/2009

Resource(s): www.uticaod.com/

Pleasant Valley Adopts Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Updates to Ensure Smart Growth

After several years of work with the Dutchess County Planning Department, the Pleasant Valley Town Board enacted its new land-use laws – the first zoning code change since 1974 and the first comprehensive plan update since 1995 – both intended to concentrate future development in its three hamlets and make them more walkable.

According to the Poughkeepsie Journal, the unanimous vote was enthusiastically applauded by most residents at the special town hall meeting December 16. “It discourages the typical suburban sprawl,” said Comprehensive Planning Committee Co-chair Rebecca Seaman about the land-use overhaul, with Co-chair Frederic Wilhelm stressing, “It preserves the rural character of the town and the natural resources of the town, and provides for smart growth.”

Town Supervisor Frank Susczynski, a conservative, voiced satisfaction and relief. “It seems like it was never going to get done,” he remarked, “and fulfilled my dream of getting it done before I died.” To save open space, conserve underground water, and build in the three hamlets – Pleasant Valley, Salt Point and Washington Hollow – the new regulations allow one-acre average lot sizes, but once the town gets central water and sewer lines. it will permit new homes and stores on lots as small as 0.15 acre.   12/20/2009

Resource(s): www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/

New York City Passes Energy Efficiency Laws for Buildings

The City Council of New York City has approved new laws that will require owners of large buildings to conduct energy efficiency audits every 10 years and to operate their buildings in an energy-efficient manner, says a report by Bloomberg News. In addition, ''city-owned buildings are required to retrofit heating and cooling systems when energy savings can recoup the costs within seven years.'' New York also will require that large buildings 'benchmark' energy and water consumption annually.

“Our actions today, which set a new national standard for building energy usage, will bring our aging infrastructure into the 21st century, reduce carbon emissions, lower energy costs, and create thousands of green jobs,” said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.   12/9/2009

Resource(s): www.bloomberg.com/

New York Governor Sees Smart Growth Planning as Crucial

“Smart growth has to be more than a concept. It has to be a protocol in government,” said New York Democratic Governor David A. Paterson in a keynote speech at Vision Long Island’s 2009 Smart Growth Summit in Melville, Suffolk County. Paterson called smart growth planning crucial for the economy and stressed that, had the state invested earlier in such endeavors as revitalization of downtown Wyandanch and the Route 347 corridor, it wouldn’t have been “teetering on the edge” of financial insolvency for years.

As someone who doesn’t drive, reports Newsday writer Eden Laikin, Governor Paterson said downtowns are the most important areas and they should be especially walkable. A vocal supporter of the proposed $3.8-billion, mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly Lighthouse project on 77 acres of asphalt around the Nassau Coliseum, Nassau County, some 10 miles southeast, he stressed the importance of government as a partner in such projects, adding, “We want to make Nassau County the hub of smart growth and mixed-use development.”

Later in the day, the writer notes, the governor signed legislation – spearheaded by Democratic Senator Brian Foley and Assemblyman Robert Sweeney – under which commercial and residential property owners can obtain low-interest, 20-year loans for energy-saving devices, with the debt assessed in a line on the property tax bill, and remaining with the property, not the owner.

As to the Nassau Coliseum area’s development, reports Newsday writer Randi F. Marshall, the winner of the county’s 2005 request for proposals (RFP), New York Islanders hockey team owner and financier Charles Wang said last month the county needs to decide on the project soon, because he and his partner Scott Rechler are ready to consider redevelopment options elsewhere. However, other developers are keeping their eyes on the Coliseum area, too, with five specifically telling Newsday they would respond to a new RPF should the Wang-Rechler team leave.   11/21/2009

Resource(s): www.newsday.com/

New York Commissioner Wants Loan Applications to Include Smart Growth Score

With a 2008 New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) estimate of statewide sewage-treatment infrastructure repair and upgrade costs at $36.2 billion over 20 years, DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis moved to modify the scoring of community applications for low-interest loans from the 1987 EPA-led Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund (SRF), to spend more on upgrades of aged city sewers rather than their extensions into the countryside and let the money work for smart growth instead of suburban sprawl.

“The current scoring system has served us well for years and now needs to be updated to reflect our current policies of encouraging energy efficiency and smart growth principles,” Commissioner Grannis said, announcing the new loan assistance policy, set in consultation with the state’s Environmental Facilities Corporation (EFC), established in 1970, and the public-private Clean Water Collaborative, created by Democratic Governor David A. Paterson last year. While current SRF scoring focuses on a range of public health and water quality factors, the new system will include points for smart growth and sound land use planning, timely sewer maintenance, and the use of leading-edge energy-efficiency technologies.

EFC Acting President Matthew Millea told Albany Times Union writer Brian Nearing that municipal applications for loans to repair sewers can now include piggybacked requests for aid with planned extensions, but under new rules plans for new sewers will only be accepted separately and considered after the present systems are financed, when it’s unlikely any funds will be left because of pent-up and imminent repair and upgrade needs. More than a third of the state’s 22,000 miles of sewer pipes are more than 60 years old, the writer notes, and almost two-thirds of the 600 municipal treatment plants lack budgets for long-term repair and upgrades, with more than a quarter of them built more than 30 years ago and now near the end of their normal service expectancy.

New York Conference of Mayors Executive Director Bruce Munn voiced strong support for a new SRF prioritizing system. “By adjusting the funding formula, and keeping pace with water quality needs, municipalities that have been diligent with capital improvement programs and sustainable water quality management practices will have a greater opportunity to be recognized financially,” he pointed out. “At the same time, the program will continue on its foundation to assist those communities that have compelling needs.”

Secretary of State Lorraine Cortes-Vazques stressed the wider public advantages of integrating low-interest loans for repairs of municipal sewers with the state’s sustainability goals. “Water quality and smart growth go hand-in-hand,” she said. “This new scoring system that aligns state fiscal resources with smart growth principles will benefit all New Yorkers.   11/2/2009

Resource(s): http://www.dec.ny.gov/ ; http://www.timesunion.com/

U.N. Looks Closely at Affordability of New York City Housing

The United Nations wants to know if affordable housing is so tough to come by in New York City that it actually violates human rights and has assigned “a special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing,” to check the city’s affordable housing, says The New York Times. The rapporteur, Raquel Rolnik, spent three days touring the city with housing advocates and city officials to “hear the voices of those who are suffering on the ground.”

Rolnik visited the Atlantic Yards site in Brooklyn to see the results of the government’s use of eminent domain to seize property; the New York City Housing Authority’s Grant Houses in Harlem to see how public housing residents live; and the Bronx to meet residents whose landlords are in foreclosure.

After her tour of New York City, she will survey the housing situations in Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Washington, a South Dakota Indian reservation, and Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Her report to the General Assembly is expected in March 2010.   10/23/2009

Resource(s): http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/

TSTC Urges New Jersey Governor to Enact Complete Streets Policy

Not amused by the persistent regulatory gap between design for roads versus sidewalks and bike lanes – the former unlikely to end abruptly in grassy or impassable spots as the others often do – an advocacy coalition led by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign (TSTC; New York, New Jersey and Connecticut) urged Democratic Governor Jon Corzine to enact a Complete Streets policy to reduce car dependency and make mobility safer, especially for pedestrians, 121 of whom have already lost their lives in traffic accidents this year, a 33 percent increase from the same period last year.

With Governor Corzine facing a tough re-election battle against his Republican challenger Chris Christie, the TSTC is calling on him to ensure Complete Streets is joined by the smart-growth New Jersey Future group, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, Environment New Jersey, the New Jersey Chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), and Disability Rights New Jersey. Crediting the governor for improvements ensured so far under his 2006 initiative to invest $74 million over five years in pedestrian safety, including $15 million for the Safe Routes to School program and $5 million for the new Safe Streets to Transit program, TSTC Communications Associate Steven Higashide and NJ Future Policy Analyst Jay Corbalis noted in a joint post on their web sites that even if there’s “no guarantee that better streets infrastructure would have prevented the deaths of any of the 121 people” killed while walking this year, the routine transportation planners’ concentration on drivers, with needs of others just an afterthought, results in “incomplete streets that create dangerous conditions.”

Speaking on behalf of the six-group coalition, TSTC Executive Director Kate Slevin said, “New Jersey has made strides in recent years towards a more balanced transportation policy, but these (fatality) numbers prove that the state still has a long way to go before our roads are safe for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers.” Others corroborated the urgency of action. “For a variety of reasons, a lot of people are walking, biking, and taking mass transportation in New Jersey, yet we are still building and upgrading streets with no sidewalks, no crosswalks and no bike lanes,” pointed out NJ Future Executive Director Pete Kasabach. “This has to stop.” And AARP New Jersey Chapter volunteer transportation advocate Janine Bauer stressed, “Older people deal with the effects of incomplete streets every day, and make up a disproportionate share of pedestrians killed by cars in New Jersey. The needs of seniors and other pedestrians must be taken into account when streets and highways are built and repaired.”   10/13/2009

Resource(s): http://www.tstc.org/

$1.4 Million Awarded to Partnerships for Land Conservation

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the Land Trust Alliance (the Alliance) recently joined members of the state Legislature and land trust representatives today to announce more than $1.4 million in Conservation Partnership Program grants. The grants, which are included in the dedicated Environmental Protection Fund (EPF), will help enable 47 land trust organizations to dramatically increase the pace, improve the quality, and ensure the permanence of land conservation, resulting in significant environmental and economic benefits in communities across the state.

The Conservation Partnership Program is a public-private initiative funded through the EPF and administered by the Land Trust Alliance, in coordination with DEC. Since 2002, the Conservation Partnership Program has invested in more than 275 projects benefitting 67 different land trust organizations across the state, from Long Island to Buffalo.

A total of $1,417,500 in grants will be awarded through the Conservation Partnership Program to help local not-for-profits sustain critical programs. The funding will help create land trust jobs, strengthen key partnerships with local and state governments, and support programming that advances farm and watershed protection and other community projects across the state.

Forty-seven land trust organizations across New York will receive funds, including the Peconic Land Trust, North Shore Land Alliance, Manhattan Land Trust, Hudson Highlands Land Trust, Mohonk Preserve, Dutchess Land Conservancy, Mohawk-Hudson Land Conservancy, Agricultural Stewardship Association, New York Agricultural Land Trust, Tug Hill Tomorrow Land Trust, Genesee Land Trust and Western New York Land Conservancy.   10/1/2009

Resource(s): http://www.landtrustalliance.org/

NYC Mayoral Candidate Thompson Stresses Need for Smart Growth

''We need thoughtful planning and smart growth,'' said New York City Democratic Comptroller William Thompson -- increasingly backed by unionists, blacks and Working Families Party members in his campaign to win the Democratic primary on September 15 and unseat Republican-turned-Independent Mayor Michael Bloomberg in November -- stressing at a recent candidate breakfast forum that the city expects another million residents by 2030 and that ''(u)rban planning is more than finding ways to accommodate developers.''

Sponsored by the New York Landmarks Conservancy, the Historic Districts Council, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, Landmark West and the Municipal Art Society, reports Villager writer Albert Amateau, the forum focused on their joint ''2009 Citywide Preservation Platform,'' whose first plank urges older buildings' reuse and rehabilitation to save money, energy and the environment, and to boost local economies.

Signed by more then 100 organizations citywide, the platform also calls for neighborhood protection since ''a neighborhood's character is a cornerstone of its long-term viability;'' describes preservation as ''an economic catalyst'' that helps raise property values, strengthen the city's tax base, and enhance tourism; points out that historic religious buildings ''are anchors of many communities,'' often offer social services unavailable otherwise, and deserve creation of a city task force that would identify means to support their maintenance; and recommends staffing and funding increases for the Landmark Preservation Commission (LPC) to speed up its approval process, ensure timely commissioner awareness of pending landmark requests, and establish a protocol for work with the Department of Buildings in emergency situations for landmarks.

During the forum's question-and answer part, moderated by Landmark Conservancy President Peg Breen, Comptroller Thompson noted that the Department of Buildings is criticized more than any other city agency.

''No matter what the borough, people complain about the Department of Buildings,'' he observed. ''The department needs professional people, especially for inspecting construction sites.''

He agreed that the Landmark Preservation Commission needs adequate funds and other resources --''tools and teeth'' -- and closer links with other agencies, including the departments of building and city planning, but he would expect it to pay equal attention to all neighborhoods, without overlooking Harlem and Queens.

He also noted the need to help community boards that now must cut their budgets.

''They are a reliable source of information about our neighborhoods, and we should have as many people as possible involved -- and trained to participate,'' the comptroller said, equally concerned about securing more recreational opportunities for the public.

''We have to be able,'' he concluded, ''to develop public open space and waterfront parks and find ways to pay for them.''

Click here to view the 2009 Citywide Preservation Platform. -- Villager, Crain's New York Business   8/19/2009

Resource(s): www.thevillager.com/ ; www.crainsnewyork.com/

Courts Reject Brunswick Smart Growth Lawsuit

Formed to protect Brunswick's character and environment, Brunswick Smart Growth (BSG) made Wal-Mart withdraw plans for replacement of its older store with a Supercenter, 1000-car parking and a 12-pump gas station on 33 acres near wetlands in 2007, but courts in Rensselaer and Albany counties denied the group's principle-based suits to require the Town Board to update the Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Ordinance before it approves any additional of the several residential ''planned development district (PDD)'' proposals.

Following an earlier decision by state Supreme Court in Rensselaer County, reports Troy Record writer Dave Canfield, state Supreme Court Judge Kimberly A. O'Connor dismissed BSG arguments, ruling that the group's members had no standing to bring the suit since they didn't proved they were adversely affected by the proposed projects.

She wrote that they did not own land nearby these projects, and couldn't back up their claims they would injured as citizens.

Plaintiffs' attorney Peter Henner promised to appeal, pointing out that the judge missed the key point.

''The issue is not about those particular projects. The issue is whether the town can do any project until it gets its Comprehensive Plan in order,'' he said. ''We maintain that this is not just about one or two specific projects. Because it's about an action involving the entire town, then anyone in the town should have standing.''

Plaintiff Joseph Durkin noted that more than 2,000 people signed a BSG petition to update the plan, saying the judge's ruling ''gives new meaning to the expression that you can't fight City Hall.''

Brunswick Supervisor Phil Herrington complained that BSG suits cost the town $38,000 in legal fees and unnecessarily stopped construction.

''They've got some ideas, we've got some ideas -- let's sit down and work together,'' he told the writer. ''Instead of talking, they just keep filing these lawsuits.''

Joseph Durking said he could discuss the impact of specific projects, but the Comprehensive Plan should be updated anyway.

''The simple solution for them,'' he commented on officials' stance, ''is to correct the flaw.''

More about BSG at http://brunswicksmartgrowth.org. -- Record   8/4/2009

Resource(s): www.troyrecord.com/

Upstate Historic Properties to Benefit from Enhanced Tax Credit Program

''New York has a wealth of historic properties, particularly in our small cities, that are falling into disrepair or are underutilized,'' said New York Democratic Governor David A. Paterson as he signed legislation that provides more incentives for the state's 2006 Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit program to spur private investment in distressed urban neighborhoods, especially Upstate, with his office's press release stressing, ''Historic preservation efforts play an important role in smart growth community renewal.''

Shepherded through the legislature by Democratic Senator David J. Valesky and Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, the five-year enhanced historic preservation tax credit measure will gradually raise the cap on the commercial and residential credit value from $100,000 to $5 million and from $25,000 to $50,000, respectively.

It will target ''distressed'' areas -- those with no more than 100 percent of a given Census tract median household income.

It will also increase the credit share of qualified rehabilitation costs for commercial properties from 6 to 20 percent, and offer the credit to lower-income homeowners as a rebate, or a stronger financial incentive with smaller tax liability.

''This is a crucial victory for Upstate New York and our economic development efforts,'' pointed out Senator Valesky during the bill-signing event at the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society. ''The Historic Preservation Tax Credit has the potential to draw developers back to our Upstate cities and villages, to reignite economic activity in our main streets, and to bring people and businesses back to our communities.''

Assemblyman Hoyt shared the sense of accomplishment.

''This law will result in significant investment in our struggling Upstate cities, both in the downtowns and the neighborhoods,'' he observed. ''Buffalo, with her great inventory of historic buildings, will likely benefit more than any other city. In addition to restoring our historic buildings, this bill will create real jobs, revitalize our downtowns stabilize our neighborhoods.'' -- New York State Office of the Governor   7/29/2009

Resource(s): www.ny.gov/governor/

Sen. Schumer Is Surprise Speaker at 2009 Vision Long Island Awards

''Smart growth is the future,'' said New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, a surprise guest speaker at Vision Long Island's 2009 Smart Growth Awards presentation luncheon in Woodbury, commending smart growth advocates and pledging his continued support for their immediate and long-term sustainability goals, especially for expansion of mass transit.

''All of the investment we've made in the quality of life and education on Long Island will be seen in the next 50 years,'' he told about 600 officials, planners, conservationists, developers and other luncheon participants, stressing the importance of dense mixed-use projects like the planned 150-acre Lighthouse redevelopment in Uniondale, Nassau County, for which he seeks federal funds to improve roads, sewers and other area infrastructure.

Expected to generate some $4 billion in private investment and create 19,000 permanent jobs, reported New York Times writer Peter Applebome earlier, the megaproject would include a renovated Nassau Coliseum, sports complex and sports technology center, a convention center, canal and pedestrian plaza, office buildings, and 2,300 high-rise hotel and residential units.

Promoted by Nassau County Executive Thomas R. Suozzi as the centerpiece of his smart-growth vision for ''New Suburbia,'' the project has encountered ''pretty muted'' criticism so far, the writer observed, perhaps because Long Island residents, mindful of the area's invention of tract houses and suburban sprawl in the late 1940s, ''realize that, particularly in this miserable economy, Nassau desperately needs a second act, and this may be the only game in town.''

Still, Executive Suozzi disclaims a ''postsuburban'' shift, expecting 90 percent of the county to remain unchanged.

''We want to be a new suburbia,'' he told the writer. ''We want to keep the good stuff about suburbia and get rid of the bad stuff about suburbia. But the old model of suburbia began 60 years ago with Levittown. It's no longer sustainable.''

And that's exactly the conclusion at the root of Vision Long Island and its annual Smart Growth Awards program, launched in 2002.

This year's winners, selected from among nearly 50 submissions in 11 categories, report Long Island Business News writer David Winzelberg and Long Island Press writer Michelle Regalado, included 12 individuals, municipalities, organizations, companies and plans, all committed to change in land use and development patterns.

They included Lori Baldassare of the Mount Sinai Heritage Center, Trammell Crow Residential, the North Shore Land Alliance, TRITEC, Kingdom Family Holdings, the Nassau Suffolk Coalition for the Homeless, Islip Town Councilmen Steve Flotterton and Phil Nolan, the Dennis Organization, the Town of Brookhaven, the Village of Amityville, and Glen Cove Mayor Ralph Suozzi.

See details at www.visionlongisland.org. -- New York Times, Long Island Business News, Long Island Press   6/19/2009

Resource(s): www.nytimes.com/ ; www.longislandpress.com/

Court Rejects Lockport Smart Growth's Suit Against Supercenter

First proposed in early 2004, a 186,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter on a vacant mall site just a mile south of central Lockport provoked strong neighborhood opposition and a Lockport Smart Growth Inc. lawsuit against the town and the company, but the big-box may soon get built, writes Lockport Union-Sun & Journal reporter Joyce Miles, because a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court has now unanimously backed Supreme Court Justice Richard C. Kloch Sr., who threw out the suit last year.

Describing Justice Kloch's hearing in March 2008, the reporter noted his frequent challenges to Smart Growth attorney Daniel Spitzer's arguments that the town planning and zoning boards shouldn't have granted Wal-Mart a series of ''extreme difficulty waivers'' and zoning variances, that the town's Commercial Corridor Overlay District law gives the planning board no power to grant these waivers, that zoning variances depend on a zoning board of appeals, that the overlay code requires any project of more than 150,000 square feet to obtain a special use permit, and that Wal-Mart could easily scale down its Supercenter.

In combination with the Justice's benevolence toward the defendants, his tilt was obvious to attendees, the reporter observed, quoting mall area homeowner Jim Garlock.

''It went exactly the way we knew it would go,'' he said. ''The judge had his mind made up before he ever stepped foot in the courtroom.''

Rejecting Smart Growth's plea for reversal, the reporter writes, the appellate panel agreed that the town broke neither local nor state law to accommodate the big box.

Town Attorney Daniel E. Seaman gloated over plaintiffs' setback.

''They didn't win on any of their allegations. The (court) made short shrift of every single point Smart Growth argued,'' he said. ''It's very, very special to have this (ruling) come out. It validates the hard work of our planning board, our zoning board, the engineers, everyone.''

Attorney Morgan Jones, special counsel for the town, thought the same.

''The ruling underscores the fact that the town did a very thorough job of reviewing the project,'' he declared. ''The Commercial Corridor Overlay District regulations were found to be in complete compliance with state law.''

Smart Growth's attorney Spitzer felt shortchanged.

''Clearly they looked at all of the issues we raised . . . but there's no elaboration by the panel,'' he pointed out. ''They ruled (the town met) legal standards but they didn't say why. The question is not answered: If a zoning variance and an extreme difficulty waiver (give) the same relief, how can there be different standards for each?''

Since the ruling was unanimous, Smart Growth has no basis to appeal, but if the neighbors want to fight the current Wal-Mart plan further, he added, ''the question is whether other aspects that haven't been challenged should be.'' -- Lockport Union-Sun & Journal   6/5/2009

Resource(s): www.lockportjournal.com/

''No Time to Waste:'' Binghamton Smart Growth Commission Releases Final Report

Convened by Binghamton Mayor Matt Ryan and the City Council in April 2008, the Commission on Sustainable Development and Smart Growth has now released its final report, calling for a comprehensive effort to ensure the city's long-term well-being, with a focus on economic development, green construction, land use, stormwater management, and strong climate-change measures.

Having defined sustainable development as the kind that meets the present needs while ''safeguarding and improving economic, social and environmental resources and the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,'' the commission researched best Smart Growth practices and worked out recommendations for progress in nine broad categories.

Specifically, the commission said the city should reduce greenhouse gas emissions and join the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), now ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, in its Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) campaign; and to embrace Smart Growth principles by gradual integration of SmartCode into city planning, policy and development rules.

The commission also suggested more city efforts to detect and eliminate illicit discharges; to encourage buildings' preservation, renovation and adaptive reuse; promote economic development ''in ways that produce livable jobs, strengthen low- and moderate-income communities, and protect the natural environment;'' and to support local businesses.

''There is no time to waste. The City of Binghamton can and should choose to initiate action on climate change rather than wait and be dragged toward compliance with future State and Federal law,'' the commission said. ''Movement toward climate protection and preservation and improvement of city resources should be a prioritized criterion in all City decisions.''

Click here to read the complete report, or visit the City of Binghamton web site: www.cityofbinghamton.com/ -- Empire State News 06.04.2009   6/4/2009

Resource(s): www.empirestatenews.net/index.htm

Design Manual to Help Create Complete Streets for New York City

In a long-range effort to make New York City's dominant ''utilitarian 1970s-style streetscape'' look and function like a ''European-style'' one -- with pedestrians, cyclists and slow vehicular traffic sharing saner and greener streets -- reports New York Times writer David W. Chen, its Department of Transportation (DOT) published the ''Street Design Manual,'' a product of nearly two years of work by a DOT-led inter-agency Task Force, welcomed by urbanists as a long-overdue document to help people ''think about streets as not just thoroughfares for cars, but as public spaces incorporating safety, aesthetic, environmental and community concerns.''

The DOT will be reviewing development plans for compliance with the 232-page manual, promising quick approval for compatible projects, the writer observes, quoting DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

''If we're going to be a world-class city, we need guidelines that lay out the operating instructions of how we get there,'' said the commissioner, with the mayor writing in the manual that since ''one size does not fit all . . . we have been working especially hard to tailor the streets to best fit the needs of individual neighborhoods and communities,'' streamline the design and delivery process, and build ''design excellence'' into all these projects.

Commending the mayor for his commitment to better streetscapes, Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program Senior Fellow Robert Puentes compared him favorably with the 1930-60-era's ''master builder'' of NYC, Long Island and other area suburbs, Robert Moses.

''Moses had a sort of utopian view of orderly, suburban places that de-emphasized New York's 'cityness,' while Bloomberg embraces the soul of the city itself and recognizes it as a solution to the region's environmental, sustainability, and energy problems.''

See the Street Design Manual and a 1981 Moses obituary in the NYT at www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/about/streetdesignmanual.shtml and www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/20081218.html.-- New York Times   5/19/2009

Resource(s): www.nytimes.com/

Legislation Would Restore Erie County Planning Board

Having found that their land use increased by 38 percent despite a 5.9 percent population loss between 1980 and 2000 -- 72,700 fewer residents; 101 more urban square miles -- the 2006 Erie-Niagara Counties Framework for Regional Growth report called on Erie County to reestablish a planning board, dismantled in 1990, which would help it pursue and implement smart growth as Niagara County's board does, but Erie County Republican Executive Chris Collins threatened to veto a related measure now approved by county lawmakers in a 9-6 vote, with three Democrats joining all three Republicans in the dissent.

The county executive, notes Buffalo News reporter Phil Fairbanks, has 30 days to act on the legislation, and should he veto, its Democratic endorsers would need one more vote to have the two-thirds necessary for an override, with their party colleague, Legislator Robert B. Reynolds Jr. declaring himself as yet undecided.

Democratic Majority Leader Maria R. Whyte, who spearheaded the measure, pointed to a wide spectrum of planning board backers, from developer Paul Ciminelli to the business-based Buffalo Niagara Partnership to the Working Families Party.

''There's a broad and diverse coalition that has come forward to support this legislation,'' she said, also referring to population and land development data from the two-county Regional Growth report. ''Fewer people are supporting more infrastructure, and the consequence is higher taxes.''

A county planning board, she explained, would watch for sprawl-type development and work to promote smart growth among the county's 44 independent municipalities, solely responsible for project approval or denial -- 3 cities, 25 towns and 16 villages.

Republican Legislator Raymond W. Walter summed up opposing views, including that of Executive Collins, saying a planning board would ''create an unnecessary level of government.''

Two days before the vote, Buffalo News columnist Donn Esmonde dismissed the argument.

''The planning board would be unpaid volunteers, without the power to dictate,'' he observed, expecting it simply to ''give us a larger vision'' and mentioning Portland, Oregon.

''Portland raised the bar decades ago with a growth boundary, a radius around the city beyond which no development could spread,'' he stressed. ''The boundary -- tougher than a mere planning board -- forced development inward, erased blight and bucked up public transit. There are other reasons why Portland is healthy and we are on life support, but planning is a big one.''

Click here to see the two-county Regional Growth report (PDF; 74 pages), or click here to see the Niagara County Planning Board programs. -- Buffalo News   4/24/2009

Resource(s): http://www.buffalonews.com/

Climate Smart Communities Pledge to Help New York Communities Go Green

''Global warming is the issue of our time. It's a problem that demands the attention and the action of every government body, every business and every citizen,'' said New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Pete Grannis, encouraging local leaders to sign a new Climate Smart Communities Pledge and offering them a new online guide on how to meet the pledge's goals.

''Local communities can do their part by adopting timely strategies to decrease energy use and waste, increase recycling and supporting a green economy,'' he pointed out. ''By doing so, they can reduce greenhouse gas emissions -- and save taxpayers' dollars.''

The Climate Smart Community Pledge ''will help local governments to do their part to reverse climate change and establish New York State as a model of sustainability on both the local and state levels,'' said Secretary of State Lorraine Cortes-Vazquez, reiterating her department's commitment to close work with local governments ''to promote sustainable, climate-friendly development through Smart Growth planning and energy-efficient buildings.''

The online Climate Smart Communities Guide, drawn up jointly by the Department of Environmental Conservation, the Department of State, the New York Public Service Commission, and the New York Energy Research and Development Authority, will be expanded in the near future to provide more details on strategies for going green.

Click here to view the text of the pledge and the guide. -- New York State Department of Environmental Conservation   2/16/2009

Resource(s): http://readme.readmedia.com/

Controversy Growing Over Long Island Land Preservation

At war over what's best for Long Island -- 1,401 square miles, population of some 7.6 million -- environmentalists envision the island ''without McMansions,'' want to rein in developers before there is ''a Best Buy or Stop & Shop on every street corner,'' and seek protection for 35,000 acres, to save its quality of life, its environment, and its vital farming, fishing and tourism industries, while market advocates argue against hurting the economy and taxpayers, reports Long Island Business News writer Michael H. Samuels, with a peacemaker, Neighborhood Network Executive Director Neal Lewis, hoping both sides will eventually see common interests in smart growth and more housing options.

So far, ''(a)ll it takes is one trip down nearly any major road on Long Island, where strip malls and big-box stores clutter the landscape, to note that environmentalists have every right to distrust developers,'' the writer observes, quoting Pine Barrens Society Executive Director Dick Amper.

''They seem perfectly willing to destroy all that is great about Long Island regardless of the consequences for Long Island's future,'' he said, with Citizens Campaign for the Environment Executive Director Adrienne Esposito adding that another 35,000 acres for preservation ''may sound like a lot, but it really isn't,'' because if viewed ''in the context of how much has already been developed on Long Island, we're already talking about what's left, not about what was lost.''

On the other side, Association for a Better Long Island (ABLI) Executive Director Desmond Ryan calls the proposal ''grandiose,'' asking himself ''who is paying'' for land conservation.

''The reality is that the taxpayers are hemorrhaging big time,'' he replies, describing their payments as fourfold -- to buy land, finance debt services, forego taxes and eliminate any potential new revenue, all of which doesn't include open space maintenance costs.

He also considers Director Amper an extremist.

''Long Island is about 2 percent of the national economy,'' he argues. ''Of that a third is tied to real estate. That's people who buy a house, buy carpets, put on a new roof and buy appliances. There is a spin-off effect that plays a vital role from an economic aspect.''

And ABLI President Mitchell Rechler, co-managing partner of Rechler Equity Partners, notes that with little open space left, much preservation focuses on previously used and now vacant sites, better suited for redevelopment.

In addition, Long Island Builders Institute Executive Vice President Michael Watt and some developers, including RXE principal Scott Rechler, say they are already moving in a new direction.

The former is working with Nassau and Suffolk counties on smart growth, and he assures the writer that developers are ready to respond to any public outcry for multi-family housing, including apartments.

The latter points out that his Glen Isle project, on a former blighted Superfund site in Glen Cove, features open space along the North Shore waterfront.

''You want to try to marry the right amount of open space in the community with the right amount of development,'' he says. ''When you sprawl them out, that's not good for the community.''

To help developers and environmentalists reach a compromise, the writer suggests a trade.

''Developers can't touch parcels of 50 to 100 acres or more if environmentalists agree to allow increases in density to make it easier to build on smaller lots, with any land not planned for development going to open space preservation,'' he writes, asking top antagonists, directors Amper and Ryan if they think ''that's good enough.'' -- Long Island Business News   2/13/2009

Resource(s): http://libn.com/

Health, Energy, and Infrastructure Improvements Highlight New York Gov. Paterson's 2009 State of the State Speech

Though many people think the only way out of the current crisis is to spend more, the state can best strengthen its health care system, improve schools, create jobs, rebuild infrastructure, clean up the environment, and advance clean energy ''not by spending more, but by spending more effectively,'' said Democratic Governor David A. Paterson in his State of the State speech, making this effectiveness principle paramount for all new legislation.

Determined to expand health insurance to another 400,000 New Yorkers and allow inclusion of 19-to-29-years-olds in family coverage at family costs, the governor moved to stop ''overpaying for inpatient or institutional care,'' to ''shift funding to primary, preventive and community-based care,'' and to ''aggressively address the greatest threat to our children's health today, the epidemic of obesity.''

With one out every four New Yorkers under 18 years of age obese and with childhood obesity responsible for diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, the state spends $6.1 billion a year to treat the problems, the governor stressed, his comprehensive counter-strategy helped by First Lady Michelle Paige Paterson.

''Our five-point plan includes the Healthy Food/Healthy Communities Initiative, which offers a new revolving loan fund that will increase the number of healthy food markets, in underserved communities,'' he announced. ''We must also ban trans fats in restaurants, require calorie posting in chain restaurants, ban junk food sales in schools, and place a surcharge on sugared beverages like soda.''

While it encourages children ''to eat right and exercise,'' the state must do more to ''ensure that every child is prepared for college -- and that every child can afford to go'' to college.

''When private lenders refuse to lend to our students because of tight credit markets, we must step in,'' he said, proposing a New York State Higher Education Loan Program, with more than $350 million in affordable loans for needy students.

Turning to economic development, Governor Paterson linked job creation with careful investment in ''smarter, better infrastructure'' that will leverage greater private investments.

''By investing in roads and bridges, in higher education institutions, in statewide broadband installation and the computerization of medical records, and in clean water and wastewater systems, among other projects, we are providing the framework for future economic vitality,'' he pointed out, calling for completion of ''signature projects,'' such as the Peace Bridge, the Tappan Zee Bridge, the Second Avenue Subway, and the East Side Access, along with improvement of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) network.

In this context, the governor focused on energy and the environment.

''It is time to control the cost of energy and how much of it we use. It is time to make New York more energy independent and more energy efficient, to develop our own sources of clean and renewable energy, and to build new statewide systems for energy generation, transmission, and distribution,'' he said, announcing a ''45 by 15 program,'' under which, by 2015, the state will meet 45 percent of its electricity needs thanks to efficiency improvements and renewable power, while creating 50,000 clean-energy jobs, positioning the upstate region to become a research and production hub for hybrid electric car batteries and energy storage technologies, and continuing the fight against global warming.

''We understand that reviving our economy and protecting our planet go hand in hand, so long as we have the vision and courage to act on our convictions,'' Governor Paterson told the audience. ''Our energy policies will drive our economic revitalization and help protect our environment.'' -- Stateline.org   1/7/2009

Resource(s): www.stateline.org/

Editorial Endorses Bus Rapid Transit as Good for People, Good for Smart Growth

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and smart growth ''go together,'' says a Schenectady Daily Gazette editorial, pointing out that Capital District Transportation Authority CDTA ridership jumped together with gas prices early this year and remained high after they dropped in recent months, which means ''people had, or have discovered, other reasons for taking the bus, like convenience, stress reduction and environmental awareness.''

Speed will become another persuasive reason once BRT begins to run on Route 5 between downtown Schenectady and downtown Albany next year or in 2010, covering the distance in about the same 30 minutes it takes by car.

CDTA will make the BRT trips this fast by reducing the route's stops from 90 to 18, enabling bus drivers to keep or make traffic lights green, providing queue-jumper lanes for buses to leave traffic, pick up passengers and reenter the road in front of cars, and installing bus-stop ticket machines and real-time arrival information boards, to free drivers from selling tickets or waiting for passengers.

''The only way to make the trip faster would be a dedicated lane,'' the editorial observes, agreeing with CDTA that its bus speed predictions make such a lane superfluous, but expecting the agency to reconsider should the Schenectady-Albany run exceed 30 minutes.

Advocating ''smart-growth policies that push development projects -- residential, commercial and industrial -- along the bus line,'' the editorial calls it encouraging that CDTA's plan includes transit-oriented development (TOD), a concept also supported by the Capital District Transportation Committee, the regional planning agency.

''BRT,'' the editorial stresses, ''is a way to make a good bus service even better, more efficient and more used, while making our neighborhoods stronger, people healthier (as they walk to and from the bus stop) and our environment cleaner.'' -- Daily Gazette   12/23/2008

Resource(s): www.dailygazette.com/

New York Governor Spitzer Creates Smart Growth Cabinet

''New York's economy and environment are inextricably linked. Quite simply, smart growth is smart business,'' said Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer as he signed his Executive Order creating a Smart Growth Cabinet -- a multi-agency working group led jointly by the Governor's Deputy Secretary for the Environment Judith Enck and Deputy Secretary for Economic Development and Infrastructure Timothy Gilchrist and focused on ways to curb sprawl and promote sustainable land use.

''Smart Growth is a bottom-up process that relies on the active participation of the communities involved,'' the governor stressed. ''My Smart Growth Cabinet will listen to local leaders and residents to find out what will work best for their communities, and then assist them in making smart growth a reality.''

The creation of the cabinet, expected to hold its first meeting in January, follows recent state Economic Development Council study findings that the two quality-of-life factors most important for locating businesses are ''access to outdoor recreation and vibrant, livable urban centers,'' and builds on the first gubernatorial budget's $2 million Smart Growth Fund and three region-specific initiatives.

The Lower Hudson Valley Smart Growth Grant initiative, says a gubernatorial press release, will help communities plan for development and economic growth spurred by major state infrastructure investment projects, including Stewart Airport, the Tappan Zee Bridge, and the Route 17 conversion into I-86.

The Adirondack Park smart growth initiative will help economic growth in targeted areas by integrating municipal planning with environmental stewardship and open space protection.

The Central Catskills program will help revitalize town and hamlet centers in the Route 28 corridor.

Growth management advocates and conservationists applauded the governor's decision to set up the Smart Growth Cabinet.

''This Executive Order moves New York into the vanguard of state smart growth initiatives across the country,'' pointed out Regional Plan Association President Robert Yaro. ''The Executive Order will help New York achieve its economic development, affordable housing, land conservation and climate change goals.''

New York League of Conservation Voters Executive Director Marcia Bystryn said, ''With this Executive Order, Governor Spitzer is leading the way in tackling one of New York's most complex challenges: urban sprawl.''

And Preservation League of New York State President Jay DiLorenzo added, ''Governor Spitzer is setting a course for New York State that will result in significant reinvestment in our downtowns, Main Streets, and older neighborhoods.''   12/10/2008

Resource(s): www.ny.gov/governor/

Gov. Paterson Announces State-Local Initiative Providing Smart Growth Help to Brownfields Program Communities

Having awarded more than $23.3 million from the State Environmental Protection Fund's Local Waterfront Revitalization Program for 88 planning, design, and construction projects October 31, Governor David A. Paterson and Secretary of State Lorraine Cortes-Vazquez announced two weeks later the Brownfields Smart Growth Spotlight Communities Initiative, which will link the Governor's Smart Growth Cabinet with participants in the state's Brownfield Opportunity Areas (BOA) Program, demonstrating how current state programs ''can support and complement local efforts to redevelop brownfields and simultaneously achieve neighborhood revitalization and smart growth objectives.''

Beginning with needs and revitalization tasks in affected areas of the South Bronx, the town of Babylon, and South Buffalo, the initiative will establish best brownfields-reuse practices and techniques, all transferable to other BOA communities.

Stressing the need for investment in the state's future even in ''economically trying times,'' Governor Paterson said, ''The Brownfields Smart Growth Spotlight Initiative helps us achieve that goal by building on our commitment to the smart growth principles of sensible, balanced development in town and city centers in need of revitalization. The partnership between BOA community participants and my Smart Growth Cabinet will ensure that the improvements we make create jobs and generate growth as we protect our environment.''

Secretary of State Cortes-Vazquez called smart growth ''a fundamental tenet'' of her department, with the BOA program fostering ''redevelopment of our cities and community centers by establishing the necessary strategies for investment in these areas.''

And Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Pete Grannis added, ''It makes perfect sense to incorporate smart growth principles into the BOA visioning process. These spotlight communities will serve as models for the revitalization of our struggling region.'' -- New York Department of State   11/17/2008

Resource(s): http://www.dos.state.ny.us/

Joint Venture Aims to Jump-Start TOD Efforts in Tri-State Area

In another effort to help integrate transportation and land use in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metropolitan region, the Tri-State Transportation Campaign (TSTC) and the One Region Funders' Group launched a new community assistance grant program, along with an online TOD clearinghouse, to encourage transit-oriented development (TOD) in municipalities ''ready to address the linkages between affordable housing, energy efficiency, and development near transit stations.''

Offering up to 15 small grants to municipalities in the region, writes TSTC Executive Director Kate Slevin on its web page, the program ''fills a void in New York and Connecticut, where formal transit-oriented development programs have been slow to materialize,'' while complementing the current New Jersey transit village program and encouraging projects ''to include affordable housing and green building design.''

Fund for New Jersey President Mark M. Murphy said, ''We hope this program pioneers new directions in transit-oriented development by supporting projects that are more inclusive of affordable housing, LEED certified buildings, and energy efficiency.''

Fairfield County Community Foundation (CT) Program Director Yolanda Caldera-Durant added, ''Our lifestyles, environment, and economy are changing daily. We believe these grants give communities the boost they need to plan for more equitable and environmentally sound futures that are really important given the challenging economic times that we are currently facing.'' -- Tri-State Transportation Campaign   9/25/2008

Resource(s): http://blog.tstc.org/

Support Grows for Proposed Erie County Planning Board

''We need to work together and not have a parochial approach to land use management,'' said Partners for a Livable Western New York funder and real estate lawyer George Grasser at a Hamburg Town Hall meeting on a prospective independent countywide planning board -- a subject of legislation first proposed by County Legislature Democratic Majority Leader Maria R. Whyte and now in the Energy and Environmental Committee -- urging its creation as necessary to curb sprawl without affecting local autonomy and likely to help the county save some $800 million on infrastructure extension over 25 years.

The dollar estimate, reports Buffalo News writer Phil Fairbanks, comes from the ''Framework for Regional Growth -- Erie and Niagara Counties'' planning report, with Buffalo Niagara Partnership vice president of business development Laura Smith saying besides those savings ''(i)t's also important for business to have clarity and certainty in the development process.''

Backed by a growing coalition of stakeholders, ranging from the League of Women Voters to the American Planning Association, the writer notes, the proposed countywide planning board would coordinate and steer development, review and assess projects, and provide expertise to local jurisdictions, but leave to them the final decision in each case.

Not dependent on and unsusceptible to local politics, the board would include nine voting members from all of the county's geographic sections, six non-voting members from planning and development agencies, and at least two appointed professional planners.

Legislative majority leader Whyte said public input from three community meetings -- in Buffalo, Amherst and the last in Hamburg -- will help legislators hone the board creation bill before it goes for a plenary vote. -- Buffalo News   9/16/2008

Resource(s): www.buffalonews.com/

Green LITES Program Will Score New York State Road and Bridge Projects

In the first proactive move of this kind nationwide, New York State Department of Transportation Commissioner Astrid C. Glynn launched a Green Leadership in Transportation and Environmental Sustainability (Green LITES) scoring program, under which all state road and bridge project designs completed after September 25 will be ranked as ''certified,'' ''silver,'' ''gold'' or ''evergreen,'' depending on their eco-friendly elements, with Secretary of State Lorraine Cortes-Vasquez stressing the initiative's importance for smart growth.

''The Green LITES program fully embraces the principles of smart growth, which integrate land use and transportation planning to reduce automobile travel and fuel consumption, minimizes greenhouse gas emissions, and enhances our quality of life,'' Secretary Cortes-Vazquez said. ''As the agency that houses Governor Paterson's Smart Growth Cabinet, the Department of State applauds this initiative. It is fast becoming clear that smart growth is smart energy policy.''

Similar to the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification system, Green LITES will rate transportation projects in four categories, including site selection, water-quality and air-quality protection, waste minimization, and overall innovation.

''By encouraging sustainable transportation project designs,'' pointed out Secretary Glynn, ''we are taking significant steps to conserve our natural resources, enhancing the quality of our lives and reaffirming our commitment to future generations.''

Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Pete Grannis echoed the statement.

''At times in the past, construction projects and environmental protection have been at odds. But they don't have to be,'' he observed. ''The new Green LITES program will encourage new approaches and ensure that transportation projects are done in the most environmental way possible.''

The initiative drew praise not only from conservationists, including Audubon New York Executive Director Albert E. Caccese, Nature Conservancy Acting State Director Kathy Moser and Preservation League of New York State President Jay DiLorenzo, but also from Federal Highway Administrator Thomas J. Madison.

''This effort,'' said the latter, ''is only the latest example of New York setting the standards for environmental sensitivity in transportation planning.'' -- New York State Department of Transportation   9/16/2008

Resource(s): https://qa.nysdot.gov/index

New York City Converting Two Midtown Broadway Lanes to Pedestrian Boulevard

Under a program ''to turn underused street space into public plazas in each of the city's 59 community board districts,'' New York is closing two left lanes of the four-lane Broadway stretch between 42nd Street and Herald Square -- where Broadway intersects with 34th Street and 6th Avenue -- and spending $700,000 to remake them into a pedestrian boulevard, with a bike path, cafe tables, chairs, umbrellas and flower planters, all to be ready by mid-August, reports New York Times writer William Neuman, quoting City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan.

''Broadway is not famous because there are a gazillion cars going through it. We're trying to have the public space to match the name,'' she said. ''It's a really important signal of how we can transform the streets.''

Its blueprint helped by prominent Copenhagen-based urban designer Jan Gehl, this new seven-block Broadway Boulevard's maintenance will cost about $280,000 a year, mostly for flowers and planters, a responsibility assumed by three involved business improvement districts -- the Times Square Alliance, the Fashion Center Business Improvement District, and the 34th Street Partnership.

''I'm envisioning it as a public park on the street,'' said Fashion Center Business Improvement District Executive Director Barbara Randall, confident the boulevard will change Broadway's whole visual and mental image, with people thinking of it ''as a destination where you can watch the world go by.''

Launched without fanfare, the writer observes, the work reflects Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's commitment to cutting the city's pollution and traffic congestion, mostly in Manhattan, while expanding open space and encouraging alternative mobility modes, especially biking and walking.

The mayor also makes clear that since state lawmakers blocked his plan for congestion-pricing in Manhattan south of 59th Street, he will implement ''smaller-scale initiatives to wrest at least part of the street from cars and trucks.''

The city has already carved up small plazas in several neighborhoods, banned cars on Park Avenue on three Saturdays next month, and begun to explore a bicycle-sharing program.

Many people on the street, the writer reports, welcomed the Broadway remake.

Though some wondered about the impact of Broadway narrowing on Midtown traffic, Commissioner Sadik-Khan said it will be negligible, noting the two-lane Broadway configuration north of Times Square and south of Herald Square.

One of the lucky ones to get a folding chair at the stretch's only plaza -- while others shared steps of a Golda Meir platform with pigeons -- garment district manufacturer Andre Fisher told the writer, ''I think we've got enough places for cars and not enough places for people to sit.'' -- New York Times   7/11/2008

Resource(s): www.nytimes.com/

Developer Announces Plans for 9300-Unit Mixed-Use Brentwood Project

''Now that gas is $4 a gallon, it is important that suburbia look into building higher density smart-growth communities,'' said Edgewood-based Heartland Development partner David Wolkoff as he and his father Gerald told the Long Island Regional Planning Board they will build their huge mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly complex on 460 acres of the former Pilgrim Psychiatric Center in Brentwood -- with 23 percent of its proposed 9,300 housing units deemed affordable -- in three phases, reports Newsday writer Rick Brand, to prove very early that ''the young and empty-nester tenants'' will really drive less and conserve water.

They expect the complex to halve the number of outside car trips, with jobs and transit within walking distance, and a transportation manager helping form car pools and directing shuttles to the Deer Park commuter train station.

Regional Planning Board Executive Director Michael White agreed the phased construction will allow analysis of impacts over time, opening an opportunity for changes and corrections.

Now completing their draft environmental impact statement, the writer notes, the developers hope to have it ready for a September hearing by the Islip Town Board, which controls the area's zoning.

In the first phase, they want to build 3,500 housing units, plus 300,000 square feet of offices and a 550,000-square-foot downtown area, with a mix of shops, eateries, movie theaters and other cultural and nighttime amenities.

Residents, David Wolkoff pointed out, will have ''all they need in a 'walkable' distance.'' -- Newsday   7/9/2008

Resource(s): www.newsday.com/

Empire State DOT Debuts ''Smart Growth -- Smart Planning'' Website

''Unprecedented gasoline prices coupled with improved public transportation marketing are making the average citizen think twice about driving his or her vehicle alone and pushing them to consider public transportation alternatives,'' said New York State Department of Transportation Commissioners Astrid C. Glynn at a New York Public Transit Association conference in Utica, announcing augmentation of the department's web outreach with a ''Smart Growth -- Smart Planning'' site and reasserting Governor David Paterson's commitment to smart growth as ''an integral part of government planning.''

The new site, www.nysdot.gov/smartplanning, offers a primer on smart-growth principles in transportation and checklists for community planning and development frameworks.

Citing increases in transit ridership from the suburbs to Syracuse and to Albany by some 35 and 25 percent respectively, Commissioner Glynn stressed the need for cross-jurisdictional multi-sector ''infrastructure investments to create connections,'' that is, ''to provide for access to transit that is easy to navigate, whether on foot, bicycle or car.''

She promised that her department will be providing education and other means to help communities prepare comprehensive smart-growth plans and draw transportation-sensitive zoning maps and ordinances.

Commenting on the new site, Secretary of State Lorraine Cortes-Vazquez said, ''For decades, transportation policies have contributed to sprawl. We now know that sprawl is simply not sustainable, economically and environmentally. Commissioner Glynn's Smart Growth initiative will align transportation project review with principles of Smart Growth and sustainable development. This initiative ushers in a new and enlightened view of the important connection between transportation and land use in the state.'' -- New York State Department of Transportation   6/19/2008

Resource(s): www.nysdot.gov/portal/page/portal/index

Erie County's Low-Density Development Poses Challenge for Aging Suburbanites

Until 1960, three-quarters of Erie County's million residents lived within the roughly 100-square-mile metro Buffalo and the rest in villages that also had everything but hospitals in easy walking distance, but now, writes Buffalo Artvoice magazine contributor Bruce Fisher, three-quarters of its numerically identical population is spread over an area seven times larger, mostly in cul-de-sac subdivisions, with the October 2006 storm that cut power for several hundred thousand people -- many living alone, frail, elderly, and totally dependents on cars and social services -- showing ''why low-density redistribution of population is a problem.''

With power gone in some areas for a week, he observes, ''real estate that is isolated from social networks and basic supplies doesn't look so safe or so smart.''

Noting that seniors over 60 will increase from 20 percent of county residents in 2000 to more than 25 percent by 2015, he writes, ''For the generation that came of age in the 1950s, their achieved ideal of cul-de-sac living means that today, they are stranded far from the rest of life. They're also isolated from the people in the private agencies whom the state and county will rely on to help the cul-de-sac tribe as it ages.''

Although gas prices may halt further sprawl, he believes that could happen sooner if the Republican-controlled state Senate approves a bill to stop the endless increases in funds for new roads, sewers and other infrastructure in ''ever-spreading suburbs for a static population.''

Sponsored by Democratic Assemblyman Sam Hoyt and fought by ''the developers' lobby, which would rather keep the sprawl machine going,'' the bill passed the Assembly last year but was defeated in the Senate; the Assembly approved the bill again this year, and, with endorsement from Democratic Governor David Paterson, it awaits a Senate decision next month.

''Smart growth is about good goals like land and energy conservation, but when you boil it down, it's really about public safety,'' said Assemblyman Hoyt. ''State money is running scarce as it is. We can put the brakes on sprawl, but we've got a very practical problem -- we're never going to be able to afford to keep building more and more new infrastructure for the same number of people, much less a smaller number. It just doesn't make sense.'' -- Artvoice   6/4/2008

Resource(s): http://artvoice.com/

Smart Growth Could Be ''Hard Sell'' for Western New York Developers

Inspired by Smart Growth or New Urbanism, differently sized yet predominantly compact, mixed-use and walkable communities -- like Atlanta's highly popular Atlantic Station, featured by National Public Radio last month -- ''could be the new green wave of the future for Western New York, changing forever the built environment as we know it in an era of obscene gas prices,'' but they have been ''a hard sell for local developers,'' reports Buffalo News writer Irene Liguori, with some projects blocked by neighbors and others kept by officials in the approval process for years.

''We are behind the times here in Western New York,'' said Buffalo Niagara Builders Association president-elect Bill Tuyn, a ''passionate proponent'' of walkable communities, built by his company, Greenman-Pedersen Inc., in other states for years.

Area builders are ready, but ''(s)ix people (in the audience) can kill a project, even if the vast majority of the public supports it,'' he pointed out. ''We need to have people in the room at these meetings representing smart-growth principles.''

Buffalo developer Dominick Piestrak, who badly wants to replicate Maryland's award-winning Kentlands in the area, but had to shelve two similar plans so far, called opponents of such projects out of touch.

Commenting on the troubles of another firm, Benderson Development Co., with a smart-growth proposal in Amherst, he said, ''Here you're saying to people: 'Look, we're going to eliminate the need for you to drive, and everybody will be better for it.' When gas prices hit $5 a gallon, people are going to say: 'Geez, I sure wish I could walk to my favorite restaurant.' They will realize the value of a walkable community.''

They finally realized the value in Lancaster, but it took Marrano/Marc Equity Corp. eight years of effort and compromise to get a Lancaster Town Board rezoning approval for its walkable 271-acre Pleasant Meadows project.

Its central 40-acre greenspace, the writer reports, will incorporate wetlands and be surrounded by shops, offices and homes of all types and prices, enabling residents to stay from their first purchase of a starter home through a possible downsizing to a patio home or other smaller unit.

In some localities, ''elected officials find themselves reacting to a vocal minority, instead of looking at what's best for the community as a whole,'' observed Marrano/Marc Equity Corp. vice president for land and diversification Victor A. Martucci. ''At some point, the cost of driving is going to force people to change their lifestyles, and this type of development is perfect for addressing that problem. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when.''

Enthusiastic about walkable communities, Lancaster Councilwoman Donna G. Stempniak attributed opposition to misunderstanding and complacency.

''A lot of people think 'smart growth' means 'no growth','' she stressed. ''That's not true. It's a mind-set we've got to change, and that's above and beyond what the zoning codes can do. We need to rethink our energy use. We can't just buy energy-efficient cars -- we need to plan communities so that the everyday services we need are closer to us.'' -- Buffalo News   5/28/2008

Resource(s): www.buffalonews.com/

Transit Village Could Mean New Life for Former Long Island Rail Station

Closed in 1986, the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) station near Republic Airport may eventually be reopened on another nearby site, thanks to a large proposed transit village in the perpendicular Route 110 corridor between the East Farmingdale site -- owned by Babylon -- and Huntington, some 10 miles north, which would make the station a focal point for commuters not only from east and west, but also from north and south, writes New York Times contributor Stewart Ain, quoting Babylon Supervisor Steven C. Bellone and Huntington Supervisor Frank P. Petrone.

''We are going to develop a comprehensive vision plan that would make sense from an environmental, housing and economic development perspective,'' said the former, and the latter stressed, ''This would be the one place on Long Island that would have a north-south mass transit connection.''

With LIRR chief planning officer Elisa Picca expecting the railroad to spend $3.5 million on a feasibility study for the station before 2010, both towns intend to launch preliminary Route 110 work on their own, considering a five-to-seven-mile bus loop for the 125,000 corridor workers, many of whom would be able to switch from cars to trains.

The transit village, the writer reports, could include a total of 1.2 million square feet of residential, commercial, and industrial space, with housing considered especially important.

Pointing to expansion of the Broad Hollow Bioscience Park on the Farmingdale State University campus along Route 110, Long Island Association chief economist Pearl M. Kramer said, ''Once we develop a bioscience cluster, it will spill over into the general business community along the Route 110 corridor and we will need housing for them.''

And Democratic Congressman Steve Israel of Huntington concluded, ''The real beauty of this project is that it is not one of these sprawling developments where we would need to bankrupt ourselves to buy gas getting there.'' -- New York Times   5/11/2008

Resource(s): www.nytimes.com/

Pace Law School to Establish Master's Degree Program in Real Estate Law

Citing the American Planning Association's (APA's) Planning magazine projections for 33 percent population growth -- to 400 million by 2034 -- and for related construction of some 70 million housing units and 100 billion square feet of offices, stories, factories, institutions, hotels and other commercial facilities, with two-thirds of the 2050 stock yet to be built, the White Plains, Westchester County-based Pace Law School announced the region's first master's degree program in real estate law, to prepare lawyers for developers, tenants, financial institutions and environmental groups throughout the ''vibrant and growing real estate market, full of opportunity and riddled with complexity.''

Led by Professor Shelby D. Green, with his team of scholars and seasoned practitioners including Professors John Nolon, Mark Shulman and Seth A. Davis, the program -- only the third in the country, after those at the University of Miami and the John Marshall Law School in Chicago -- will offer ''a distinctive interdisciplinary mix of law, business and dispute resolution'' reaching further than three years of law school allow.

''Today's real estate specialist must know not only the real estate field, but how it interacts with tax, corporate, environmental, land use, and many other areas of the law,'' pointed out Professor Davis. ''An LL.M. in real estate law provides the opportunity to study these areas of interactions in depth, and to gain specialized knowledge beyond what a traditional J.D. curriculum offers or a law firm associate can hope to gain.''

Pace University President Stephen J. Friedman added, ''New York's real estate market is the richest and most complex in the nation. This new LL.M. program will prepare lawyers to thrive in it by providing access to cutting edge scholarship and practical experience.'' -- Planning magazine   5/9/2008

Resource(s): www.westchester.com/index.php ; www.pace.edu

$1.3 in Grants Announced for New York State's Smart Growth and Sustainability Work

In a double boost for sustainability, Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Pete Grannis joined a group of state lawmakers and land trust officials to announce $825,000 in 52 grants for 40 local and regional land trusts, hailing the trusts as ''an invaluable partner to state and local governments in the implementation of smart growth principles,'' and the next day he accompanied Governor David A. Paterson in an announcement of $500,000 in smart growth planning funds for six communities in the Catskill Park, reiterating, ''Smart growth is based on belief that environmental protection and sustainable development can and must go hand-in-hand -- especially in communities surrounded by state forest preserve.''

One of the state's greatest natural and touristic assets, said Governor Paterson, the Catskill Park ''is also home to more than 70,000 permanent residents whose livelihoods are intertwined with the continued protection of the region's natural heritage and appropriate economic development opportunities.''

Both sets of grants come from the state Environmental Protection Fund (EPF), just replenished with $1,575 million, an unprecedented amount since the fund's inception in 2002.

The land trust grants, distributed through the New York State Conservation Partnership Program -- a landmark public-private initiative overseen by DEC and administered by the national Land Trust Alliance (LTA) -- will help local trusts create nature preserves and save ecologically essential land, including wildlife habitat, watersheds, wetlands and aquifer recharge areas, and working farms or forests.

The smart growth Catskill Park planning funds, administrated by DEC together with the Department of State (DOS), will allow the communities of Andes, Middletown, Olive, Shandaken, Fleischmanns and Margaretville to pursue resource protection and economic development projects, including town and village center revitalization.

''Sprawl and strip development threaten the viability of traditional town and village centers in the Catskill Park,'' said Secretary of State Lorraine Cortes-Vazques. ''By helping to revitalize these vital centers, we begin to set a course toward economic and environmental sustainability in the region.'' -- Land Trust Alliance, State of New York 04.16-17.2008   4/16/2008

Resource(s): www.lta.org/ ; www.state.ny.us/

New York State Earmarks $900,000 for Urban Forest Funds

''Communities benefit greatly from new tree planting and other healthy forest initiatives,'' said State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Pete Grannis, inviting applications for some $900,000 of its Urban and Community Forestry funds. ''The new round of DEC grants is another opportunity to take part in this success and help further improve the environment and quality of life in urban centers.''

Available to municipalities, public interest corporations and authorities, school districts and qualified nonprofit groups, the grants will range from $2,500 to $75,000 -- depending on municipal population -- and will require a matching contribution.

Eligible projects include tree inventories and management plans, tree and shrub planting and maintenance, green roof and rain garden construction, and other green infrastructure works.

In addition, DEC is offering communities $1,000 Quick Start Arbor Day grants, without a match requirement, to help them garner support for an Arbor Day tree program.

''The grant program complements DEC's ongoing initiatives to address the issues of climate change, environmental degradation, environmental justice, and urban sprawl,'' states a DEC press release. ''In selecting sites, appropriate consideration should be given to under-served neighborhoods, as well as targeting local environmental issues. Applicants are encouraged to form regional partnerships and submit proposals that help implement watershed protection and Smart Growth initiatives with green solutions.''

See details at www.dec.ny.gov/lands/5285.html.   4/14/2008

Resource(s): http://media-newswire.com/

FTA Administrator: Failure to Vote on Manhattan Congestion Plan ''Short Sighted''

Puzzled by state lawmakers' inability to pass the landmark Manhattan congestion pricing plan -- introduced by Mayor Michael Bloomberg last April and recommended after some revisions by a special legislative commission in January -- Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Administrator James S. Simpson said ''New Yorkers have now forfeited nearly $500 million annually for mass transit improvements and $354 million in immediate federal funds,'' and they ''will not have the chance, any time soon, to discover what people in Stockholm, Rome, London and other European cities already know: congestion pricing works!''

Pointing out that Prague will be next and that Miami, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Seattle got federal funds to devise congestion pricing plans, Administrator Simpson, formerly on the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board, called the lack of an Assembly vote on the plan to cut Manhattan traffic and pollution ''very disappointing, as well as short-sighted.''

He also challenged those who think congestion pricing is ''an 'elitist' approach'' to a critical problem that can only worsen.

''Well, there is nothing 'elitist' about miles of gridlock at rush hours,'' he stressed in a speech at the New York Building Congress' construction industry breakfast. ''It affects virtually everyone -- commuters, truck drivers, taxi drivers, buses, and even straphangers crammed onto the subway. It affects this region's ability to provide the mobility that's so vital to keeping New York a workable, livable community. And it affects our productivity and our quality of life.''

Noting that traffic gridlock costs the regional economy an estimated $13 billion a year, reports New York Times writer Sewell Chan, Administrator Simpson urged ''trying new things,'' including congestion pricing, high-speed electronic bridge and tunnel tolls, and ''public-private partnerships,'' under which the private sector assumes some of the costs and risks involved in designing, building, and operating transit systems. -- New York Times   4/10/2008

Resource(s): www.nytimes.com/

Lessons Learned: N.Y. Legislature, City Must Learn to Work Together to Solve Transportation Problems

The main lesson of the Manhattan congestion-pricing plan collapse in the New York legislature is that the state and New York City must work better together to ''get people moving faster and more comfortably in cars, buses and subways,'' writes the New York Public Interest Research Group's Straphangers Campaign senior lawyer Gene Russianoff in a New York Times guest opinion, alarmed that without the new toll revenue the Metropolitan Transportation Authority faces a $17.5 billion deficit in its proposed $29.5 billion five-year capital budget.

To avert the deficit, ''we need other sources of funding or increases in the corporate, real estate and gasoline taxes,'' he points out, calling for a meticulous environmental review of all traffic reduction options, ''from congestion pricing to restrictions on driving days based on license plate numbers to mandated car pooling.''

Such a full environmental study would better inform lawmakers, many of whom indicated they had only a truncated review for Mayor Michael Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan.

In addition, the lawyer makes four suggestions.

Lawmakers, he writes, should enable the city to make its Manhattan buses run faster, with other cities showing the advantages of dedicated bus lanes, bus cameras ticketing cars for lane violations, and traffic signals ensuring buses priority.

What's more, the state should let the city issue residential parking permits, which would discourage drivers from cruising through neighborhood streets in search of parking spots.

On its own, he continues, the city should cut its ''incredible'' number of 142,000 special-parking dashboard permits -- not counting the fakes -- by the mayor's promised 20 percent, which could take 28,000 cars off city streets on workdays, ''more than a third of the number that congestion pricing was meant to eliminate.''

The city should also increase coin meter rates in Manhattan to help pay for neighborhood improvements ''that make street safer for pedestrians and bicycle riders,'' while expanding the higher-rate Muni-Meter parking machines to crowded areas outside Manhattan. -- New York Times   4/9/2008

Resource(s): www.nytimes.com/

Editorial: Failure to Enact Congestion Pricing Hurts Big Apple's Green Transportation Options

The failure of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan for the mostly-jammed lower Manhattan area hurts not only the city's efforts to ease traffic but also its prospects for funding ''greener transportation options'' and much-needed road and bridge repair, writes Barnard College professor of history and urban studies Owen D. Gutfreund in a New York Times guest commentary, telling readers that to escape the trap of ''an obsolete and counterproductive transportation policy'' and a political system seemingly incapable of addressing the problems, ''(w)e should start by adjusting tolls to take into account the vehicle's cost and fuel efficiency and the wear and tear on roads that different cars cause.''

The author of 20th-Century Sprawl: Highways and the Reshaping of the American Landscape, professor Gutfreund counters the criticism of higher tolls and user fees as regressive because more stressful for lower-income earners, pointing out that this logic ascribes greater fairness to the current system of funding highways from property and income tax revenue, which only increases its unsustainability.

''So here's the answer: charge a premium for expensive and inefficient vehicles,'' the professor writes. ''Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, has already taken this step, tripling toll charges for S.U.V.s. We should take this one step further, requiring that vehicle registration include designation in tiered classes, taking into account weight, sales price, emission rating and gas-mileage efficiency. Tolls would be levied according to these classes. Smaller, cheaper and more environmentally friendly cars would pay less, while drivers of more expensive, wasteful and higher-polluting cars would pay more.''

Calling it ''everything a tax structure should be: fair and progressive, while rewarding socially beneficial consumer decisions and penalizing selfish, destructive ones,'' professor Gutfreund also notes its fairer allocation of ''the actual highway costs among users, since heavier vehicles produce more wear and tear on road surfaces, requiring thicker pavements and more frequent repairs.''

This approach, he adds, ''would meld transportation policy with sustainability planning -- a marriage we need, so that we can repair our roads and highways while also warding off environmental disaster by providing improved mass transit alternatives and encouraging more responsible consumer choices.'' -- New York Times   4/9/2008

Resource(s): www.nytimes.com

Mayor Bloomberg Criticizes Assembly Democrats for Refusing to Vote on Manhattan Congestion Pricing Plan

''It takes true leadership and courage to embrace new concepts and ideas and to be willing to try something. Unfortunately, both are lacking in the Assembly today,'' said New York Independent Mayor Michael Bloomberg upon the refusal of its Democratic majority to vote on his proposal to alleviate the city's gridlock and pollution through congestion pricing of $8 for cars and more for trucks entering Manhattan below 60th Street between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays, a plan backed by numerous environmental, labor, business and public health groups, but opposed by many Queens, Brooklyn and suburban officials as regressive and Manhattan-centric.

''The word 'elitist' came up a number of times,'' said Queens Assemblyman Mark Weprin about talks among Democrats and at an emergency meeting held by Democratic Governor David A. Paterson, who did his best to save the plan.

Bronx Assemblyman Ruben Diaz, Jr. called it ''morally reprehensible and unconscionable to subject the 1.4 million residents of the Bronx to a potential double whammy'' of congestion prices and another transit fare hike likely soon, ''without addressing traffic congestion concerns in any of the four boroughs outside of Manhattan.''

All in all, reported New York Times writer Nicholas Confessore and Albany Times Union writer James M. Odato, Assembly Democratic Speaker Sheldon Silver could count on fewer than 25 of the majority's 107 votes, not enough to pass the plan even with all 42 GOP votes promised by minority leader James N. Tedisco.

Since the New York City Council was also mostly critical of the plan, but eventually endorsed it 30 to 20 on March 31, Mayor Bloomberg expected a similar Assembly result.

Indignant over the withholding of the plan from the floor, he said ''it takes a special type of cowardice for elected officials to refuse to stand up and vote their conscience.''

Approval of the city's congestion pricing by both the City Council and the state Assembly would have given the city a prompt infusion of $354 million in Federal Transit Administration (FTA) funds to jump start transit improvements and would have secured almost $500 million annually for further expansion projects.

While Governor Paterson moved to gather a broad-based solution-finding panel, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters reacted to the news from New York by announcing immediate discussions with other cities that might use the $354 million to reduce their traffic and pollution. -- New York Times, Times Union   4/7/2008

Resource(s): www.timesunion.com/ ; www.nytimes.com/

$1 Million in Smart Growth Grants Designated for Adirondack Park Communities

In a sign of a ''new era of partnership'' between Albany and the Adirondack Park region, in the state's tourism-dependent scenic north, Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Pete Grannis announced a total of $1 million in Smart Growth grants for 18 communities in support of their ''progressive array of forward-thinking projects,'' with the Department of State's smart growth program director Paul Beyer stressing a movement toward environmentally sustainable economic development regionwide.

Flanked by lawmakers from both parties, area officials, environmentalists, academicians and others at the announcement in Lake Placid, report Adirondack Daily Enterprise writer George Earl and Watertown Daily Times Albany correspondent Tom Wanamaker, Commissioner Grannis commended the grant winners for their grassroots problem solutions, and encouraged applicants now omitted to continue their planning efforts.

Local residents should no longer ''be looking in from the outside on decisions being made in Albany,'' he said, a view shared by state Republicans Senator Elizabeth O'C. Little.

''Balancing stewardship of the environment with the economic, housing and infrastructure needs of our Adirondack villages, towns and counties is critically important,'' she observed, pleased ''to see this partnership between the state and our local governments.''

State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry President Cornelius B. Murphy pointed out that the Adirondacks can spur its economy and gain greater energy independence through ''green energy,'' with conversion of defunct pulp and paper mills into ''bio-power'' plants.

''Green is synonymous with economic activity,'' he said. ''Green is the new red, white and blue.'' -- Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Watertown Daily Times   3/26/2008

Resource(s): www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/ ; www.watertowndailytimes.com/

Report: Brownfield Tax Breaks Not Delivering for New York Taxpayers

Faced with a $4.6 billion budget deficit, the state should urgently reform not only tax-break programs for brownfield cleanup and Empire Zone businesses, but also low-interest loans for municipal water systems, which together could save it more than $1 billion annually while easing the related developmental impact, asserts the Environmental Advocates nonprofit in its ''Wasted Green: How Lost Revenue & State Spending Shortchange New York Taxpayers & the Environment'' report, whose author David Gahl says, ''It's more important now than ever for New York state to rethink how we are spending tax dollars.''

Since the current brownfield program offers developers tax breaks based on land redevelopment value rather than actual cleanup cost, they concentrate on the least contaminated prime sites and ignore the most polluted, reports Ithaca Journal writer Dan Osburn from Albany, quoting Environmental Advocates Executive Director Robert Moore.

Now, a developer benefits more from cleaning up a brownfield for a high-rise in Manhattan than from doing the job on a postindustrial site in Yonkers or Rochester, the director points out, citing the example of a $500 million hotel, office and residential complex in downtown White Plains, whose developer is getting a $110.3 million brownfield tax break because the site once included a gas station.

By basing the breaks on the real cost of site cleanup, he stresses, the state could save about $1 billion over 10 years, enough to remediate some 54 sites statewide.

The same goes for the 1986 Empire Zone program, created to help revitalize the state's poorest areas but lax in environmental enforcement toward recipient companies, which got up to $558 million in tax breaks last year alone.

Similarly, the state's $331 million revolving fund of low-interest loans for municipal drinking-water system improvements is too often contributing to sprawl, with a total of $190 million in 60 loans since 2002 funding water line extension away from population centers.

Gubernatorial spokesman Matt Anderson says the governor has scrutinized state outlays, already saving almost $2 billion in his proposed budget and proposing ''significant reforms to the Empire Zone and brownfields tax credit programs.''

Director Moore expressed support for these steps, but says they don't go far enough.

See the report at www.eany.org. -- Ithaca Journal   2/22/2008

Resource(s): www.theithacajournal.com/

''Sense of Place'' Key to New York's Economic Competitiveness, Says State Smart Growth Director

''If we don't manage growth with a sense of creating places again, places with a sense of place,'' the state will lose its economic competitiveness, said recently appointed New York State Director for Smart Growth Planning Paul Beyer at a meeting of the Long Island Regional Planning Board and about a hundred government, civic and business leaders in Haupauge, telling listeners he wasn't there to define ''what smart growth is on Long Island,'' because it depends on their communities, but implying its meaning contextually as planning focused on targeted density, access to transit, and similar changes necessary to solve community problems.

He mentioned insufficient housing for the young and empty-nesters and the supposed conflict between economic development and open space preservation, reports Newsday writer Daniel Wagner, also quoting his characterization of the gubernatorial Smart Growth Cabinet's work on region-specific needs as a ''bottom-up'' process.

The writer adds that in introducing the speaker, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy repeated his call for state infrastructure money to flow down and make smart growth possible, because the county can't fund the necessary sewers and other facilities on its own. -- Newsday   2/20/2008

Resource(s): www.newsday.com/

Kingston Officials Reviewing Hudson River Shoreline Project

Kingston officials may again have to reevaluate a controversial mixed-use project -- with 1,750 housing units -- planned by Yonkers-based AVR Realty Company for 524 acres along the Hudson River, reports Kingston Daily Freeman writer Paul Kirby, quoting Friends of Historic Kingston President Avery Smith, who said, ''The size and visual impact of the proposed Hudson Landing would be counter to smart growth, not just for Kingston and neighboring communities, but for the entire Hudson River shoreline.''

Though the company scaled down the residential portion from the 2,182 homes, townhouses, condos and apartments planned six years ago and worked with city planners to make other improvements, residents still raised serious concerns last October, and now Friends of Historic Hudson have presented city officials with two detailed analyses of developer-commissioned material.

The analyses reveal that the development would violate the city's 1992 Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan (LWRP) and the state's scenic protection policies.

In the analysis of the Environmental Impact Study, Scenic Hudson Senior Planner Jeffrey Anzevino found that should the project proceed without changes it would result ''in radically transformed landscape with forested shoreline and bluffs replaced by a dominant wall of buildings.''

In the analysis of the Visual Impact Study, a Terrence J. DeWan & Associates team concluded that the project would be ''out of character with the Hudson River National Historic Landmark District'' and ''impair settings of the Estates District Scenic Area of Statewide Significance.''

With both analyses recommending radical reduction of the project's density and suggesting a four-story building cap, City Planner Suzanne Cahill told the writer that officials are reviewing all data, stressing, ''We have not reached a conclusion one way or the other.'' -- Daily Freeman   1/21/2008

Resource(s): www.dailyfreeman.com/ ; www.scenichudson.org/

Mayor Bloomberg Outlines Strategy for a Sustainable New York City in PlaNYC

Population growth and concomitant small business expansion have added urgency ''to the need for modern infrastructure'' and sparked PlaNYC, ''our strategy for creating the world's first truly sustainable city,'' said New York City Independent Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his seventh State of the City speech, pledging further efforts to reduce the city's carbon footprint by making construction and old buildings greener, and by introducing the nation's first system of congestion pricing, which ''will help us achieve four critical, interconnected goals: reducing traffic congestion; raising money for mass transit; improving our air quality; and fighting climate change.''

Since ''(b)etter mass transit is key to our economic growth,'' the city refused to wait until the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) extended the number 7 subway line and broke ground for the first mile last month with its own funds, the mayor said, proud of his five-borough economic development strategy.

The city rezoned one-sixth of its area in the past six years, including some 40 blocks of underused land on Manhattan's West Side, which ''set the stage for the neighborhood's revival,'' he continued.

Investment of more than $4.5 billion in infrastructure, public parks and other amenities is ''unleashing the forces of the private sector.''

This year, rezoning and continuation of a $3 billion infrastructure investment will help the South Bronx.

The city will also rezone 125th Street in Manhattan, St. George on Staten Island and Willets Point in Queens, will work with partners ''to bring the magic back to America's first playground: Coney Island,'' and will do its best ''to pick up the pace at the World Trade Center site,'' while revitalizing nearby Fulton Street and opening the first section of ''the hottest new park in the country: the High Line.''

Among other key projects will be transformation of some 30 acres of prime waterfront in Long Island City ''into the largest new development of middle-income housing since Starrett City more than 35 years ago,'' Mayor Bloomberg said, stressing, ''As you know, affordable housing is the foundation of strong communities.''

That's why, he pointed out, ''we created the largest affordable housing program ever undertaken by any city -- 165,000 units by 2013, enough for 500,000 people, more than the entire city of Atlanta,'' with construction and preservation of 69,000 units already financed.

To help families buy and keep their homes, the newly-created Center for New York City Neighborhoods will start this month assisting ''families who've been hit hardest by the sub-prime mortgage crisis,'' the governor said, again emphasizing, ''Keeping housing affordable is essential to remaining a city that welcomes the middle class.''

And ''to help more New Yorkers enter the middle class,'' he promised to further promote tourism, ''an industry that offers tens thousands of jobs for those on their way up the economic ladder.''

Adding that later this year, the city's new work of public art, four man-made waterfalls in New York Harbor, will symbolize ''how our entire waterfront is coming back to life,'' the governor said he is more optimistic about the future than ever, calling the city energetic, vibrant, inspiring, strong, and full of promise. -- The City of New York   1/17/2008

Resource(s): www.nyc.gov/

Citing Misuse of Term ''Smart Growth,'' Builders Association President Suggests New Phrase for Common-Sense Development

Echoing New York State Builders Association (NYSBA) Executive Vice President Phillip Larocque, who wrote in the Albany Times Union on the recently created gubernatorial Smart Growth Cabinet that some groups' misuse of smart growth as no growth jeopardizes affordable housing, Buffalo Niagara Builders Association President Bahman Bavifard writes in the Buffalo News that since obstructionists and Not-In-My-Back-Yard (NIMBY) proponents deprived the term much of its meaning, it may be time to restore its ''original intent of seeking a common-sense balance between development and other community concerns'' and to replace it perhaps with the term ''winning growth,'' as signifying ''a win for the community and a win for the economy.''

His proposed ''winning growth'' would let communities ''convert dilapidated buildings into assets,'' reclaim brownfields, and attract new taxpaying entities while creating good-paying jobs, keeping people and their spending power in towns, expanding local tax bases, reducing the tax burden on individuals and businesses, and making the region more competitive and healthy.

Promising that winning growth ''would never view the debate between economic development and community development as being in conflict,'' he calls for a middle ground.

''It's wrong to advocate unstructured, unrestrained growth regardless of its impact,'' he writes. ''But it's equally wrong to say 'no' to every project and view growth as a destructive force in a community. The longer we allow the debate to occur at these two extremes, the longer we will wallow in economic stagnation and decline.'' -- Buffalo News   1/11/2008

Resource(s): www.buffalonews.com/101/index.html

Gov. Spitzer Emphasizes Building Livable Communities in 2008 State of the State Speech

''We must make New York -- once again -- the best place to live, work and raise a family'' by securing economic growth through world-class education, health care reform, and job creation, with a sharp focus on reducing the state tax burden, investing in infrastructure, revitalizing Upstate and ''building livable communities,'' said Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer in his second State of the State address, stressing, ''Smart people and strong infrastructure draw business. Strong, vibrant communities are what keep them.''

Having invariably heard during his trips across the state that property taxes are too high, the governor told lawmakers, ''We cannot grow if property taxes continue to force young people out of the state and our seniors out of their homes.''

With about two-thirds of property taxes taken by school districts, Governor Spitzer proposed a bipartisan reform commission, under Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, which would look at ''unfunded mandates'' on school districts and municipalities and find ways to ensure ''the highest quality education at a more affordable cost,'' identify means to make the tax relief system more fair to the middle class, and recommend a cap on ''sky-high'' school district property taxes.

Keeping the costs ''of living and doing business'' down also applies to energy, which should be ''reliable, plentiful, and clean,'' the governor said, noting that the state's two-prong demand and supply program aims to reduce statewide electricity use ''by 15 percent from the projected levels by 2015,'' while any ''fast-track'' for energy production must help the state ''confront the challenge of global warming.''

Businesses and jobs ''don't just follow the lowest taxes; they are also drawn to the best infrastructure,'' he continued, proud of redevelopment in Manhattan's Ground Zero area, of a $500 million investment to turn Stewart Airport in the Hudson Valley into the region's economic engine and ''an environmental model for the world,'' and of prospects for reconstruction of the Peace Bridge in Buffalo.

Turning to livable communities, the governor focused on housing, safety and parks.

A 2007 shift in the Housing Finance Agency's funding ''away from luxury projects and toward providing housing for working people'' helped build 3,800 affordable units, or over three times more than the year before, but in too many places ''children cannot afford to come back to the neighborhoods that they grew up in, and their parents cannot afford to stay in the homes where they raised their families,'' he said, promising a $400 million Housing Opportunity Fund, which will build homes for those ''who teach our kids and police our streets,'' and for the disabled and others with special needs.

To help residents in ''the subprime lending crisis,'' the state will continue ''to press banks to agree to mass modification of loans'' and ensure fair treatment of homeowners in courts, with his forthcoming bills amending state foreclosure law to offer homeowners additional protection and enhancing anti-fraud laws to ensure punishment for mortgage scams.

In a stepped-up fight against violent crimes, which escalated in some Upstate cities by 2006 and only last year began to subside, the governor ordered the redeployment of 200 troopers to the most affected communities and promised other law enforcement tools.

Noting that now ''safety also means vigilance against terrorism,'' he also directed state National Guard to help protect subways and Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) systems, with the real-time, web-based ''New York Alert'' service already used by many residents, communities and campuses.

''Open spaces -- clean, safe, attractive parks -- are a third building block for livable communities,'' Governor Spitzer emphasized, proposing $100 million to revitalize the state's aging systems.

As to the first major improvement project, he announced the state's commitment ''to transform the dormant Poughkeepsie Rail Bridge into an awe-inspiring historic park, complete with a walkway and bikeway that will create a unique public space with breathtaking views of the Hudson.''

Built in 1888, unused for the last three decades, and now envisioned as ''a new pedestrian bridge,'' the governor observed, ''it will allow New Yorkers to connect to the history and natural beauty of our state, and draw them to Poughkeepsie, Kingston, and surrounding communities.''   1/9/2008

Resource(s): www.ny.gov/

Smart Growth Cabinet Needs to Address Barriers to Affordable Housing, Says State Builders Association President

Smart Growth Cabinet Neets to Address Barriers to Affordable Housing, Says State Builders Association President Concerned about ''what impact'' the governor's Smart Growth Cabinet will have on work force housing, specifically because some groups use smart growth ''as a guise for 'no growth,''' New York State Builders Association (NYSBA) Executive Vice President Phillip Larocque writes in a letter to the Albany Times Union that the public shouldn't let those groups ''take over the debate and put unfair imitation on housing choice,'' since ''(f)or every $1,000 in increased housing costs, 550 people in the Capital District are priced out of the housing market.''

Noting that in many places ''teachers, police officers, firefighter and other public servants are commuting 50 miles or more to work each day because they can't find affordable housing to rent or buy close to their jobs,'' and that working families ''suffer when we ignore the relationship between jobs and housing,'' he stresses his group's support for ''legislation that uses incentives to help rebuild cities and suburban hamlets'' and for infrastructure investment to cut housing prices and other costs.

''New York state cannot be saying in one breath 'we need to stop sprawl' without making the infrastructure investment necessary to encourage new residential construction and rehabilitation of failing neighborhoods,'' he concludes. ''NYSBA is supportive of smart growth, the key being growth. Our economy and the future of our state depend on it.'' -- Times Union   1/7/2008

Resource(s): www.timesunion.com/

Editorial Addresses Albany's Sprawl; Suggests Focus on Urban Parking Solutions, New Road Policies, and Brownfield Law Clarification

The Capital Region around Albany gained less than 6 percent in population between 1982 and 1997, but its developed acreage expanded by almost 35 percent, a skewed demographic and land use pattern also seen elsewhere in the state and only now under scrutiny by Governor Eliot Spitzer's newly-created Smart Growth Cabinet, observes an Albany Times Union editorial, quoting his Deputy Secretary for the Environment Judith Enck, the cabinet's co-chair, who said, ''Step one is to focus on state spending, to make sure it does not contribute to sprawl problems.''

The state wants ''to help drive development where we have existing infrastructure,'' she stressed. ''Then we look at how we can assist local governments.''

In this context, the editorial suggest three priority issues -- a solution to urban parking, clarification of the state's 2003 brownfield law, and review of road construction policies.

Calling parking problems ''a major obstacle to urban revival,'' the editorial favors a permit system as an obvious solution, especially in Albany, where many state employees park on streets, but with lawmakers not ready to face ''the large state worker unions'' over such a move, they should perhaps ''allot more state funds for cities to build parking garages to ease the crunch.''

Next, they should quickly clarify the brownfield law -- criticized as weak both on jobs and the environment -- ''so that city planners and developers know where they stand,'' the editorial says, noting that uncertainty ''can only hamper smart growth planning'' and drive development to the suburbs.

And the state ''needs to look at its road building policies,'' because residential, retail, and commercial development usually follows new highways or road widening and ''the result is more traffic and more sprawl,'' the editorial concludes, emphasizing, ''There has to be a better, smarter way.'' -- Times Union   12/30/2007

Resource(s): www.timesunion.com/

Waivers for Proposed Lockport Mall Supercenter Project Contested

Wal-Mart and General Growth Properties' Lockport LLC may have persuaded Lockport's planning board last month to give 12 ''extreme difficulty'' waivers for their proposed Supercenter at the vacant Lockport Mall, an action allowing both companies to ignore the town's commercial corridor overlay district code along South Transit Road and inducing another 14 variances from the zoning board of appeals this month, but now Lockport Smart Growth's attorney Daniel A. Spitzer, a land-use lawyer with the high-powered Buffalo law firm Hodgson Russ, reports Lockport Union-Sun & Journal writer Joyce Mills, has asked state Supreme Court Justice Richard Kloch, Sr. to nullify the waivers, with a suit against the variances possible later.

The companies ''are required to follow the standards that were set,'' said attorney Spitzer. ''The question is not whether Wal-Mart will leave town if it doesn't get its way; Wal-Mart's been in Lockport for years and they're not going to leave. It's a question of Lockport being willing to make the most of its premiere commercial property.''

Joined by five plaintiffs who live near the mall and fear the future noise, traffic and other risks, the writer observes, the Smart Growth suit seeks a multi-prong remedy.

It asks the court to invalidate the section of the town zoning code that allows the planning board to grant extreme difficulty waivers, rule that the planning board exceeded its authority by granting the waivers, call its decisions ''capricious'' and not based on hard evidence, and issue a permanent injunction barring Wal-Mart and Lockport LLC from moving forward on the basis of the waivers.

Justice Kloch will hear the arguments from both sides January 10. -- Lockport Union-Sun & Journal   12/22/2007

Resource(s): www.lockportjournal.com/

NYC Teacher Union Pension Fund to Help Finance Bronx Apartment Buildings; Units Will Be Reserved for School System Workers

Unable to afford housing, some 4,600 of New York City's 80,000 teachers, earning between $45,000 and $100,000 a year, left its school system in 2006, while thousands commute 50 and more miles one way often from other states, but municipal employees, paid an average of $30,000 and required to live in the city, face an even harder life, with more than 300 families found recently in homeless shelters -- hardships which unions try to alleviate by ''tapping pension funds, forfeiting pay increases and forming partnerships to create affordable housing for their members.''

Last month, reports USA Today writer Charisse Jones, New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. announced the teacher union pension fund's $28 million investment in New York City Housing Development Corp. bonds to finance two apartment buildings in a large complex in the Bronx, all their 234 rentals reserved for teachers and school system workers who make up to the borough's median income of $70,900.

They will apply for the apartments through a lottery.

''We want a workforce that lives in the city in which it works,'' says United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, noting that the 234 units are just ''a drop in the bucket,'' but stressing, ''What's important about this nationally, as well as locally, is it's a template.''

Among unions taking similar steps is the city's largest, District Council 37, whose assistant associate director Henry Garrido tells the writer that the 2006 Municipal Employees Housing Program helps members obtain everything from grants for closing costs to a preference in the city's lottery for an affordable unit share.

One of the program grantees, Department of Education communications analyst Aquila Haynes, who earns $55,000 a year, lived with her mother and received $17,000 to help buy a $295,000 duplex apartment in Brooklyn, considers this aid invaluable.

''I was able to move in and buy the furniture and necessities I needed,'' she says. ''Without the grant, I would not have been able to do that.'' -- USA Today   11/29/2007

Resource(s): www.usatoday.com/

Mixed-Use Making Its Mark as Walkable Communities Become Focus of Suffolk County Development

''Suburban sprawl is the biggest enemy of our future'' and the nation as a whole is countering the threat with mixed uses, said Prudential Commercial Real Estate Services' Medford-based Property Investment Specialist Jean Larsen after a national conference on the subject in Las Vegas, telling Long Island to make the most of the trend, with Vision Long Island Executive Director Eric Alexander, instrumental in its progress over the past several years, saying, ''Across Long Island there are 50 different smart growth projects; probably eight mega projects which could have those criteria.''

In Huntington, with two mixed-use projects recently completed and another planned, reports Suffolk Life writer George Wallace, Town Supervisor Frank Petrone is exuberant.

''Little restaurants are popping up now on New Street,'' he said. ''We have had to change the code somewhat to permit these, but we think a village should attract young people, and older people, too. The key is to have walkable communities, to have a place where people can walk, shop and don't need vehicles. It becomes a social and cultural experience.''

Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy predicts the smart-growth trend will accelerate.

''Mixed use is the wave of the future,'' he stressed. ''It will mitigate traffic on the roads. People will be able to take a stroll to get a loaf of bread -- you don't have to get in the car every time you want to deal with the most basic parts of life.''

Upbeat about the area's pedestrian-friendly projects, he concluded, ''We're going into a new era for suburbia. And these are the prototypes that, once established, will be sought out.'' -- Suffolk Life   11/28/2007

Resource(s): www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?Brd=1776

Gov. Spitzer Announces $500,000 State Grant for New Windsor Smart Growth Initiative

Now serving 300,000 passengers a year, Steward International Airport in New Windsor, some 50 miles north of Manhattan, can accommodate ten times more travelers with the present infrastructure and turn into an ''enormous'' economic engine for the Hudson Valley, stressed Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer, expecting it to become a regional transportation and economic development hub, hoping for its future rail link, and announcing a $500,000 state grant to launch a related smart growth initiative.

Part of this year's smart growth funding, said the governor, the money will be spent with a focus on Orange, Rockland and Sullivan counties, ''to make sure that what we do when Route 17 becomes I-86, when the Tappan Zee bridge is rebuilt, when Stewart is expanding, when we are adding the jobs and vitality to the Hudson Valley that we desperately want, that we do it properly.''

With the Port Authority and New York and New Jersey buying the airport operation lease, the region's officials, business and community leaders liked what they heard.

Scenic Hudson Senior Vice President Steven Rosenberg called the smart growth initiative ''very significant'' for proper regional development, and Mid-Hudson Pattern for Progress President Jonathan Drapkin said, ''The commitment of the governor to the smart growth effort is very well thought out. Strategic planning is a smart idea.'' -- MidHudson News   11/4/2007

Resource(s): www.midhudsonnews.com/

Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC Includes Programs to Address Rapid Population Growth, Global Warming

For more than two millennia, civic virtue was symbolized in the classic architecture of the great Greek and Roman public buildings, with the world's largest display of Corinthian columns at the Farley building in New York, but now the virtue paradigm has shifted toward ''a concern for nature'' and ''networks of green,'' points out New York's Department of City Planning Chief Urban Designer Alexandros Washburn in the Metropolis magazine, saluting Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his PlaNYC, a series of 127 programs with ''highly practical steps to improve our city in a period of rapid population growth against a backdrop of global warming.''

President Emeritus of the Moynihan Station Redevelopment Corporation and W Architecture and Landscape Architecture principal, he writes, ''Civic virtue is the cultivation of habits important for the success of community. The ideas Mayor Bloomberg laid out are nothing short of a new compact with nature for the urban dweller, an acknowledgement that the success of our city will in large part be determined by our success in managing our environment.''

Paraphrasing the mayor's Earth Day speech, he explains, ''To be a better city, we must build green, use mass transit, and restore purity to our water and air, with park access for all . . . . It's a marriage of building and landscape that is challenging every notion we have ever had about design . . .  City-initiated rezonings center around new public spaces or streetscape improvements and each is crafted in consultation with the community it serves.''

The invention of ''the new urban design language'' may involve a surprisingly low-tech approach or the most advanced science; it may evolve from tradition or take entirely new forms; ''(t)he only certainty is that change is in the air, from planting in our parking lots to rediscovering our waterfronts,'' he concludes. ''We will need every ounce of creative strength to bring our city into a new balance with nature and in so doing, define a new civic measure for architecture.'' -- Metropolis   9/5/2007

Resource(s): www.metropolismag.com/

Chautauqua County Comprehensive Plan Embraces Smart Growth

''Initiating Smart Growth in Chautauqua County will be the first step toward creating communities that are easily accessible, dotted with parks and natural beauty, while keeping with the historic and classic style of our cities and villages,'' announced County Executive Greg Edwards, saying his administration has been working for the past 19 months on a comprehensive plan to ensure the full development potential of the county's two cities, 27 towns, manufacturing industry, agriculture and commerce without urban sprawl.

Glad that municipalities like Clymer, Portland and Sherman have already embraced some smart-growth principles, reports Dunkirk Observer writer Dennis Phillips, the executive stressed the need to integrate these individual efforts with the county's resources in the pursuit of common economic and environmental goals.

''We need to take a look at our local communities and think of what is important for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren,'' he pointed out. ''Smart Growth in Chautauqua County would be an investment for the future.''

For everything about smart growth, the writer directs readers to this Smart Growth Network Web site. -- Observer   8/3/2007

Resource(s): http://observertoday.com/

Editorial Supports Mixed-Use Project in Brookhaven as First Step Toward ''Smarter Growth''

''We can't stop the march of the McMansions unless we can embrace smarter growth patterns: fewer large single-family homes and more walkable, mixed-use village centers,'' says a Mellville (Long Island) Newsday editorial, expecting Brookhaven and the Central Pine Barrens Joint Planning and Policy Commissions to approve a request by developers request to rezone a 320-acre tract in Shoreham for their mixed-use, higher-density Tall Grass project, designed in consultation with the local community and the Vision Long Island smart-growth advocacy group.

Without rezoning, the developers can build 283 large homes, projected to bring in 428 school-age children and result in a $4.5 million annual deficit for the Shoreham-Wading River School District.

In contrast, rezoning would let them build a pedestrian-friendly village center, with retail stores and offices, while the 378 varied-design homes would attract demographic groups likely to bring only 127 students and ensure a positive tax flow, with a more than $400,000 annual surplus for the district.

The developers would also keep the tract's golf course and build a sewage treatment plant to protect groundwater.

''If the town and the commission green-light Tall Grass,'' the editorial concludes, ''it would be a fine first step toward smarter growth.'' -- Newsday   7/3/2007

Resource(s): www.newsday.com/

Land Trusts Helping New York State Preserve Green Space

Under its 2002 ''catalyst'' grant program, whose $1.6 million investment has helped preserve 8,800 acres of green space so far, the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) announced a total of $428,000 million in 2007 grants, plus $50,000 in additional funds, to 37 land trusts, which have raised about $3.3 million on their own, with DEC Commissioner Alexander Grannis saying, ''Land trusts are an invaluable partner to state and local government in implementation of smart-growth principles.''

For next year, Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer and lawmakers have increased the grants to $1 million, with the money coming from the state's $250 million Environmental Protection Fund.

The biggest grant this year -- $50,000 -- went to land trusts in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx, reports Ithaca Journal writer Dan Wiessner, to maintain 64 community gardens, where neighborhoods hold local events and grow fruit and vegetables for the needy.

''Development pressure continues to grow across New York State; there is an urgency for open space preservation,'' stressed Democratic Assemblyman Robert Sweeney, one of the creators of the grant program. ''These organizations (trusts) do it in a professional way, giving it the significance it needs and deserves.''

Land Trust Alliance official Judy Anderson, whose national organization represents more than 1,600 land trusts, said the DEC grant program has become a model for other states and on the national level. -- Ithaca Journal   6/20/2007

Resource(s): www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

Editorial: Hold Industrial Development Agencies Accountable for Poor Decisions

Long critical of the state's Industrial Development Agencies (IDAs), whose tax breaks and subsidies often fail to create jobs and spur local economies, and sometimes even lure away workers and businesses from nearby communities, the Albany Times Union urges the Legislature to ''hold IDAs accountable,'' citing hard data from a scathing report by the New York Jobs with Justice advocacy group, which also ''wants IDAs to subsidize smart growth, not sprawl.''

Having examined the 3,500 IDA projects reported to the state comptroller in 2005, the group found that 21 percent of companies that received a total of $385 million in tax exemptions on promises to create jobs haven't reached their employment goals and 25 percent have actually reduced their workforce.

''Worse, only half of the companies provided job creation data to the local IDA that granted them subsidies,'' the daily says. ''The IDAs themselves had an even worse reporting record: sixty percent of them failed to provide data to the state comptroller on more than half of the projects they subsidized.''

Like former Comptroller Alan Hevesi last year, the group calls on lawmakers to pass overdue reforms, which should ensure more IDA transparency and accountability, inclusion of a local stakeholder in their boards, return of company benefits if job-creation targets aren't met, and safeguards against siphoning jobs and business from adjacent communities.

''How much more evidence does the Legislature need,'' the daily asks, ''before it recognizes that the time to act is now?'' -- Times Union   6/10/2007

Resource(s): www.timesunion.com/

Niagara Falls Advised to Pursue ''Walkable Urbanity'' in Plans for Redevelopment

One of the post-industrial cities to begin redevelopment rather late, Niagara Falls can bank on millions of visitors at its famous waterfalls each year as it confronts poor planning, bad aesthetics, economic decline and public ''disenchantment'' due to the government's inability to make changes, said Partners for a Livable Western New York President George R. Grasser, a local developer and retired real estate attorney, at the inauguration of the smart-growth speaker series ''Revitalizing and Romancing the City,'' advising it to pursue ''walkable urbanity.''

Organized by the Niagara Falls Historic Preservation Society and the Main Street Business and Professional Association, with financial aid from the national nonprofit Community Preservation Corporation (CPC), reports Buffalo News writer Gail Franklin, the series raises City Administrator Bill Bradberry's hopes for involving key sectors, including business, tourism and urban planning, in revitalization efforts.

The speaker's ''walkability'' advice, with an initial focus on making downtown streets and storefronts more attractive to bring in pedestrians, was echoed by CPC Buffalo Office Assistant Vice President Fred K. Heinle, who also stressed the importance of mixed uses.

''Make sure the upper floors are filled with apartments,'' he said. ''It's a slow, methodical process but we've got close to 1,000 new units in downtown Buffalo and the (people are) now looking for stores, restaurants, and places to walk their dogs.'' -- Buffalo News   4/12/2007

Resource(s): www.buffalonews.com/

Blueprint Buffalo Strategy Takes Aim at Aging Suburban Strip Plazas

Buffalo has many hard-hit retail outlets, but such ''grayfields'' amid empty parking lots also mar suburbia, with most of some 20 strip plazas along a five-mile Sheridan Drive stretch near Amherst in the east and Tonawanda in the west patently ''outdated or run-down'' and almost half crippled by vacancies, reports Buffalo News writer Sandra Tan, quoting Amherst Planning Director Eric W. Gilbert, who says, ''The problem the city has been dealing with for years has clearly arrived in the suburbs.''

Sheridan Drive ''is a poster child for what can happen as places age,'' observes University at Buffalo Regional Institute Director Kate Foster.

Buffalo, Amherst, Tonawanda and Cheektowaga will jointly fight this land use and business waste under their new ''Blueprint Buffalo'' strategy.

The strategy aims at spurring pedestrian-friendly grayfield redevelopment through policy changes, mixed-use zoning and tax incentives.

''It's still more expensive to rehab a property than to build from scratch,'' points out Amherst Chamber of Commerce President Colleen DiPirro, ''and that's why we are trying to level the playing field.''

Earlier efforts to redevelop area grayfields have had mixed results, the writer reports, mentioning Benchmark Group and Benderson Development as the two most successful companies.

''Municipalities tend to be very cooperative because they want to see that property turned around,'' says Benchmark Executive Vice President Martin Delle Bovi, with Benderson Vice President Eric Recoon noting that redevelopment plans are harder to finalize if they include a Wal-Mart, with each such project inevitably stirring some neighborhood opposition. -- Buffalo News   3/15/2007

Resource(s): www.buffalonews.com/

Smart Growth Planning Part of Gov. Spitzer's Goal for Cleaner, Greener New York

New Yorkers voted for change last November and the legislative stalemate in Albany must end, said newly-elected Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer in his first State of the State speech, ready for multi-prong state and local reforms, property tax relief, revitalization of distressed municipalities and neighborhoods, and investment in needy school districts, affordable housing, transportation and other infrastructure, but also in the environment, clean energy and land protection.

The transportation investments, the governor emphasized, must be ''accompanied by smart-growth planning, which will alleviate environmental degradation, instead of contributing to it, and will make our communities more vibrant places to live, work and raise a family.''

Aware that the new path of ''pragmatic politics instead of partisan politics, results instead of empty press releases, action instead of gridlock'' won't be easy, as many ''entrenched interests'' will try to keep the status quo, Governor Spitzer pledged efforts to transform the state government ''from one that is designed to resist change to one that is designed to embrace it.''

He also promised to appoint a Commission on Local Government Efficiency, which will find ways to consolidate the state's 4,200 taxing jurisdictions ''that cost taxpayers millions each year in duplicative services,'' and to present a budget, with ''the first installment of a three-year, $6 billion property tax cut -- cuts that are focused on those middle class homeowners whose property taxes are rising too fast for their incomes to catch up.''

Stressing the need to ''reverse the decline of our Upstate economy; sustain the economic expansion Downstate; and develop new ways for communities which have been left behind to share in prosperity,'' the governor focused on the knowledge-based economy -- or the Innovation Economy -- as the ''driving force of job creation'' in this century, on urban revitalization, and on targeted investments.

''In New York, we face the twin challenges of high home prices Downstate and deteriorating housing stock Upstate,'' he said. ''On Long Island, our young workforce has little choice but to move away from their older communities. And in many of our Upstate cities and towns, once-vibrant neighborhoods are declining as their housing stock decays.''

To change the situation, he continued, we must use ''every tool at our disposal: land -- by calling for an inventory of our significant public land holdings to determine which parcels can be used for housing; capital -- by exploring ways to partner with business on employer-assisted housing programs; zoning -- by rewarding localities that reform zoning laws to allow for increased construction of affordable homes.''

Turning to energy and the environment, he said the state ''must implement an aggressive conservation strategy'' and expand its ''clean generation capacity,'' with Lieutenant Governor David Paterson leading efforts to make renewable energy production cover 25 percent of state needs and the governor continuing talks with his counterparts in nearby states to follow their regional compact on climate change with other such joint initiatives.

And elaborating on his key themes of cooperation and unity, Governor Spitzer told lawmakers, ''One New York means a state where a child can breathe our air without triggering asthma, and swim and fish in our waters without getting sick. That is why we must expand the Environmental Protection Fund and revive our Department of Environmental Conservation.''

He also said, ''One New York means a state that preserves its land, while allowing for growth. That is why our policy in the Adirondack and Catskills must recognize that these two goals are not mutually exclusive.''   1/3/2007

Resource(s): www.state.ny.us/governor/index.html

Open Space Bond Proposals Could Help Ulster County Towns Pursue Smart Growth, Maintain Quality of Life

With about a third of Ulster County protected by famous Catskill State Park and developers eager to acquire other scenic tracts, three towns near the park -- Gardiner, New Platz and Marbletown -- put 20-year Open Space Bond proposals on their November ballots, which would let them continue ''to pursue smart growth while maintaining the quality of life,'' says a Middletown Times Herald-Record editorial, urging voters to pass bonds totaling $5.5 million.

Gardiner and Marbletown want to raise $1.5 million each and New Platz is seeking $2 million, all three envisioning ''investment funds to purchase farms and wildlife areas and to protect scenic vistas as well as rivers, streams and other water resources from pollution by overdevelopment.''

Inspiring farmers to keep farming and other owners to save their property from development by selling land or easements to the towns, these local funds would also make the communities eligible for participation in state and federal conservation programs.

''By offering a fair price for the land or easements, the bonds encourage responsible development decisions,'' the editorial says, concluding, ''Vote yes on the bonds.'' -- Times Herald-Record   10/31/2006

Resource(s): www.recordonline.com/

Judge Chides Officials for Delaying Rockville Centre Apartment Project

Although Vision Long Island gave it a Smart Growth Award for offering multi-family rentals within walking distance of village transit, Rockville Centre officials held up a permit for a 349-unit apartment complex on a brownfield a block from the Long Island Rail Road station for the past two years, with Nassau County Supreme Court Judge Bruce D. Alpert recently ruling for developer Chase Partners and the group's attorney Michael Faltischek commenting, ''This is a blow for regional development and against NIMBYism.''

Local resident Joseph Thrapp, who rallied neighbors against the project as too big, report Long Island Business News writers Jeremy Harrell and Dawn Wotapka Hardesty, argued that it looks ''like a dormitory style building from the Soviet Union'' of the past decades. ''If you take away the false façade of this Tudor-style building, it's two big boxes,'' he opined. ''If they wanted to be a good partner and they wanted to be a good neighbor, they would come in and come up with like five clusters of townhouses.''

Judge Alpert disagreed. He said the project, named Signature Place, met the village's zoning code, chided its officials for intentionally delaying it to change code requirements, and ordered them to give Chase Partners an unconditional building permit as soon as the company conducts site cleanup, estimated to cost about $10 million.

The company will wait with the cleanup until village officials concede or lose a final legal fight, while pursuing a separate suit in federal court, where it seeks at least $25 million in damages, to cover a 30 percent increase in construction costs since 2004.

Vision Long Island Executive Director Eric Alexander wishes Signature Place was spared the delay. ''It's a good project. It's a shame it got knocked around,'' he said. ''I think there was a lack of communication early on and I think people get hardened in their positions. When people get into battle mode, it's hard to come to a compromise.'' -- Long Island Business News   7/7/2006

Resource(s): www.libn.com/

As Long Island Turns the Corner on Downtown Vacancies, Supporters Seek Safeguards to Keep Recovering Urban Centers Healthy

After rapidly multiplying shopping centers pushed their own and downtown business vacancies to a record high in 1996, center renovations or conversions and store consolidation and expansion helped fill the empty space, while public-private investments let downtown districts diversify, readjust to new consumer needs and bounce back -- the vacancy rates in 803 Suffolk County shopping centers and 72 downtown business districts fell last year to 7.8 and 7.3 percent, respectively, with principal county planner Peter Lambert, saying, ''More than ever, people are recognizing that downtowns are special places,'' and Vision Long Island Executive Director Eric Alexander urging officials to protect them from the threat of big boxes.

New York-Long Island Newsday writer Keiko Morris reports that as one of the experts concerned about the impact of the additional 7 million square feet of shopping center space proposed in Suffolk County, director Alexander singles out a planned Tanger Outlet Center in Babylon, a Wal-Mart in Smithtown, and projects along Route 58 in Riverhead.

''There are definitely enough threats to existing downtowns,'' he observes, stressing that the planning department's report, which recommends bolstering downtown areas with denser housing, more parking and green space, and new commercial zoning limits, should help the county ''use a bully pulpit to say, 'Here's the right type of growth, and here's where we should hold the line on development'.'' -- Newsday   6/20/2006

Resource(s): www.newsday.com/

Vision Long Island Celebrates Good Planning with Annual Smart Growth Awards

Its annual Smart Growth Awards dubbed the ''Oscars of land use,'' the Northport-based Vision Long Island nonprofit group presented them to 11 winners for the area's best 2005 projects and actions, but it also gave a Dumb Growth Award to the town of Smithtown, for approving a string of big-boxes, including a Wal-Mart and a Home Depot in an area already hard to get to, with Vision Executive Director Eric Alexander additionally blaming its officials for tardiness in affordable housing and open space programs, observing, ''They seem joyfully hostile to some of these concepts because they keep creating sprawl development.''

Smithtown planning director Frank DuRubeis, report Long Island Business News writers Jeremy Harrell and Dawn Wotapka Hardesty, called the Dumb Growth Award ''mean-spirited,'' saying the town led efforts to coordinate new projects in the Sagtikos Parkway corridor, but was rebuffed by towns that are now some of its loudest critics.

The Smart Growth Award list, the writers note, includes

• the town of Brookhaven, for a long-term land-use plan to create downtown centers and curb sprawl along Route 25;
• Landing Avenue LLC, for Country View Estates, a senior residence complex in Smithtown, with the town's first affordable housing component;
• Pulte Homes, for Copper Beech Villages, a downtown housing project with 50 percent of units deemed affordable;
• the town of Oyster Bay and the Oyster Bay Main Street Association, for joint efforts to protect the historic downtown area and ensure its economic viability;
• Coalition for a Safe Manhasset, for work to improve the safety of Plandome Road and adjacent streets;
• the village of Port Washington North, the town of North Hempstead and Residents for a More Beautiful Port of Washington, for a waterfront park, a rare public space within a developed area;
• the village of Mineola, for its transit-oriented, mixed-use comprehensive plan;
• the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, for seeking transportation alternatives;
• the town of Southampton, for the Riverside Hamlet Center;
• the Albanese Organization, for Long Island's first environmentally engineered office building, in Garden City; and
• Nassau Council of Chambers of Commerce official Richard Bivone, for efforts to make the county's business community cooperate with governmental, environmental and community groups.

Read more at the resource links below. -- Long Island Business News   6/16/2006

Resource(s): www.libn.com/home.cfm ; www.visionlongisland.org

Emotions Over Big-Box Development Erupt at Ballston Zoning Change Hearing

Mindful of 18 months of tension over a proposed 203,000-square-foot Wal-Mart Supercenter in a rural area about five miles southwest of Saratoga Springs, the Ballston Town Council put the adversaries -- Concerned Citizens for Smart Growth and Citizens for Fair Growth -- on opposite side of the aisle at its latest zoning change hearing, but some outbursts were personal anyway and later two men became physical, with former town supervisor candidate David Stern calling 911 and making a harassment complaint against landowner and Wal-Mart contract holder Frank Rossi.

Their stories differed and the police were investigating, reports Albany Times Union writer Christen Deming, told by David Stern that he was threatened and grabbed by the neck and intends to press charges, and by Frank Rossi that it was he who was grabbed by the arm and thrown against the wall, but doesn't plan a complaint.

All this because a March 2005 construction moratorium expires June 15 and the Town Council prefers to consider large retail and commercial projects on a case-by-case basis instead of imposing the previously discussed 90,000-square-foot building cap. Projects under 90,000 square feet, the writer notes, are to be reviewed by the Planning Board, and larger ones directly by the Town Council, but smart-growth proponents see the lack of a development cap as advantageous for a Supercenter and other big boxes. -- Times Union   5/31/2006

Resource(s): http://timesunion.com/

Ballston Town Board Opts for Case-By-Case Review of Commercial, Retail Projects In Lieu of Size-Based Building Cap

After 18 months of a big-box debate that has polarized the rural Ballston area community north of Albany, the Town Board accepted a Planning Board recommendation for case-by-case review of new retail and commercial projects along routes 50 and 67 south instead of imposing a 90,000-square-foot building cap, a reversal welcomed by friends of a proposed Wal-Mart, but chastised by its opponents, with Concerned Residents for Smart Growth having rallied supporters for another showdown at the board's May 30 hearing.

The time is critical because a building moratorium enacted in March of last year expires June 15, reports Albany Times Union writer Christen Deming, quoting smart-growth activist Paul Simpson. ''Our own town government has been lying to us right along,'' he said, noting that many voters backed the incumbents due to a campaign by the Saratoga County Republican Committee.

Pro-development Citizens for Fair Growth spokeswoman Melissa Cobart maintained that the move against a building-size cap ''doesn't pave the way for Wal-Mart or Target yet,'' simply ''giving big-box development a chance.''

But Republican Councilwoman Mary Beth Hynes, appointed to the board, differs from her party colleagues. ''I don't think that that's what the people asked for,'' she pointed out. ''They really felt that we needed to have a cap to meet the promise that they made to the voters.'' -- Times Union   5/28/2006

Resource(s): www.timesunion.com/

Sen. Clinton Tells Nassau-Suffolk County Conference That SCORE Act Would Help Revitalize Long Island's Older Suburbs

One of New York City's first-ring suburbs, ''Long Island is the victim of its own success,'' said Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton at an Adelphi University conference of Nassau and Suffolk counties in Garden City, noting that the island has attracted thousands with its high quality of life, but hasn't saved itself from the pockets of poverty initially typical of urban areas, and that her Suburban Core Opportunity, Restoration and Enhancement Act (SCORE), introduced jointly with Republican Representative Peter King last year, would set aside $250 million for older suburbs nationwide.

Noting that federal aid reduction will cost Long Island communities millions in Head Start, child-care and other funding, reports Newsday writer Rhoda Amon, Senator Clinton urged area nonprofit labor and business groups to unite and fight for the common good.

''This summit is unusual because both counties come together,'' she said, ''realizing they've got to take stock of their resources.''

Community Advocates president Marge Rogatz, whose group works on affordable housing expansion, told the senator that current revitalization of New Cassel can be a perfect model of a SCORE program. Envisioned by the nonprofit smart growth organization Sustainable Long Island and the Unified New Cassel Community Revitalization Corp., she pointed out, it won support on all levels of government. -- Newsday   1/10/2006

Resource(s): www.newsday.com/

Finding the Suburbs Lacking, These Ex-Urbanites Beat a Hasty Path Back to the City

Although the New York City outer suburbs ''are populated by plenty of satisfied former city dwellers,'' many recent newcomers with young children soon become disenchanted and rush back to city amenities as fast as they can, reports New York Times writer Teri Karush Rogers, quoting Corcoran Group vice president Brian Lover, who lost some money on a move from mid-Manhattan to West Orange, New Jersey, and a return in just three months, but he doesn't mind the loss, saying, ''I wanted my life back.''

Their baby in tow, he and his wife Kristina Rinaldi walked through parks but couldn't find anyone with ''a core'' to talk to, he recalls, remarking, ''The suburbs have some way of sucking the city out of you.'' The feeling of isolation, emptiness, sluggishness and lower quality of life in general, often made worse by the waste of time on long commutes, was common for the several couples the writer interviewed.

Financial service professional Gerry McConnell, his wife Anna Hillen and their baby son stayed a year in a newly built McMansion on three acres in semirural Pound Ridge, New York, before returning to their lower Manhattan loft. ''It was just a giant, echoing space,'' used only by the extended family during holidays,'' remembers Anna. ''You're a lonely, desperate housewife with nothing to do.''

As if compelled by the old dictum ''when you get the baby, you leave the city,'' 5W Public Relations president and CEO Ronn Torossian, his wife Zhana and a baby daughter lasted only six months in a 3,500-square-foot split-level house in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, before renting a three-bedroom unit in mid-Manhattan.

''It's like death out there,'' Ronn says, no longer having to ''wait 15 minutes in a bagel store to get two bagels,'' making lawn mowing the centerpiece of his leisure time, and suffering one-way commutes of up to two hours in evenings and bad weather.

''They seem like normal people but they spend, like, hours working on their lawns,'' he adds, happy to have less stress now and more time for his daughter.

And that's how it goes for many others, the writer observes, quoting Upper East Side registered nurse Mary A. Sweeney, who took her husband Azeddine Yachkouri -- a Manhattan hotel banquet manager -- and their two children twice to Poughkeepsie, New York, the second time, she says, when a third pregnancy must have deprived her brain of oxygen, and only for three months.

It was the same wherever they looked. ''It was beautiful houses on these beautiful streets and as soon as the children were in school you could hear a pin drop on the streets. The only life was the birds chirping,'' she recollects. ''I prefer to interact with my doorman or the guy on the corner of the street where you get your paper or your coffee.'' -- New York Times   1/8/2006

Resource(s): www.nytimes.com/

Gov. Pataki Tells New Yorkers That Empire State's Mass Transit Is Most Efficient in Nation; Seeks Plan to Shift Transit to Renewable Fuels

''(O)ur reliance on foreign oil is hampering the financial freedom of our working families and their employees; it is hurting our economy, damaging our environment and enriching regimes that support, harbor and encourage terrorists who threaten our national security,'' said Republican Governor George Pataki in his State of the State address, stressing that New York can become ''the leader in reducing dependence on imported energy'' and that investment in mass transit already make its transportation the most efficient nationwide, but that the state can and should do much more.

Proud that since 1995 the state emerged as a leader in environmental protection, by preserving almost one million acres of open space, cleaning up rivers, revitalizing waterfronts, enacting the nation's toughest acid rain regulations and the first green building tax credit, and leading other six Northeast states in creating ''the first regional market-based program to reduce greenhouse gas emission,'' the governor pointed out that its transportation system ''is still over 90 percent dependent on petroleum projects.''

Thus, he promised lawmakers a comprehensive plan ''to jumpstart a new era of statewide availability and use of renewable fuels.'' The plan will make renewable fuels tax-free and available across the state, beginning with stations along the New York State Thruway; establish refineries for ethanol from state agricultural and forestry products; create sites for and help finance clean coal power plants; and ''spur the development of efficient hybrid vehicles that can actually be plugged in at home or alternatively run on renewable bio-fuels.''

Convinced that ''(t)he time to prepare for a future powered by clean energy sources is now -- not just here in New York, but across our entire nation,'' the governor said, ''Let's act this year to make New York State the energy independence capital of America, and set the stage for a cleaner environment and an even stronger, more prosperous New York for the next generation.''   1/5/2006

Resource(s): www.ny.gov/governor/

Team Brewster Revitalization Drive Aims to Keep Sprawl in Check with Infrastructure and Transit Improvements

Nested among southeastern New York lakes and reservoirs, the village of Brewster -- the former ''Hub of the Harlem Valley,'' turned Putnam County's densest and lowest-median-income community -- is ''inspiring'' for its Team Brewster revitalization drive, said Democratic Senator Charles Schumer during his visit, telling state, county and village officials that things ''move in generations and cycles,'' that his parents' generation lived in small cities or on farms, but wanted suburban-type living, while its children ''are now seeking something different that combines the best of each,'' and adding, ''Smart growth consists of more than becoming a big suburban sprawl.''

Concerned about the push of malls into the area, Deputy County Executive Frank DelCampo was equally confident of the village's future.

''Downtown revitalization is key,'' he stressed, citing the Mahopac and Carmel successes. ''People want to visit the downtowns for dinner and culture. Team Brewster is a winner.''

The public-private team, reports Putnam County Courier writer Eric Gross, focuses on ways to improve infrastructure, and to expand housing, commerce and transportation, including the successful Wheels for Work assistance program.

Among the priorities, noted Mayor John Degnan, are new sewers and a wastewater treatment plant, artificial wetlands that would improve reservoir water quality, and a parking garage near the Metro North rail station.

According to Metro North official Randy Fleischer, the $2.5 million station upgrade project slated for next spring will add 55 parking spaces, with a new plaza in front of the terminal ensuring better intersection signals, and improving pedestrian and bus access.

''These are exciting times in Brewster and I pledge my help any way I can,'' concluded Senator Schumer. ''With Sue (Kelly) and Hilary (Clinton) and me on your team, this will be a win-win.'' -- Putnam County Courier   12/29/2005

Resource(s): www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?brd=1708

Huntington Would Draft Land Protection Strategy During Proposed 6-Month Project Moratorium

A town of 10 golf courses, Huntington, in the middle of Long Island's northern shore, has become acutely aware that the eight private ones, totaling almost 900 acres, may one day be on sale for subdivisions -- a troublesome eventuality local leaders and smart growth activists want to control through land conservation and development rules, which should be worked out during a proposed six-month project moratorium.

''Besides public tracts of land and public parks, golf courses constitute the largest category of open space in our town,'' said Councilman Mark Cuthbertson. ''And for many years, we have taken for granted that they would always be golf courses.''

Prompted by a move by the Cold Spring Country Club, which put its 169-acre course on the market in October, reports New York Newsday write Cynthia Daniels, Councilman Cuthbertson proposed a moratorium resolution for the council's public hearing on January 10.

Calling the course ''an integral part'' of the 300-home Cold Spring Hills neighborhood, its Civic Association chairwoman Gayle Snyder said, ''We have an opportunity to protect this land and we have the opportunity now -- we may not in 10 years.''

The eight private golf courses at stake are zoned mostly residential and contain wetlands, steep slopes and other environmentally fragile areas, the writer notes, quoting Supervisor Frank Petrone, who pointed out that the moratorium would not only give the town time to determine whether the proposed Cold Spring development plan fits the neighborhood, but also to conduct a public survey and ''try to tailor any plans necessary for each of the courses with those given communities.''

Vision Long Island Executive Director Eric Alexander expects the community to approve the moratorium. ''Usually, towns act when there's a crisis,'' he observed. ''And sometimes good planning decisions can arise -- there's that hope here.'' -- Newsday   12/19/2005

Resource(s): www.newsday.com/

Brunswick Residents Wary of Subdivision Plan; Local School Burden, Added Community Infrastructure Costs Cited at Town Hearing

One of five residential projects under consideration in rural Brunswick, northeast of Troy, the 190-home Highland Creek subdivision on 210 acres in the middle of a former farm got a cold reception at an overcrowded town hearing, where developer Lee Rosen drew laughter for promising residents that traffic delays wouldn't exceed four seconds, and skepticism for assuring them that his ''empty-nester'' homes wouldn't place any burden on local schools.

He and his partner Bob Marini Jr., reports Troy Record writer Shawn Chamiga, thought their project would bring the town some $1.1 million in annual tax revenue, but School Board member James Meehan cautioned that it may force the 1,400-student district to seek money for a new school even before the other four projects move through the approval process.

''This $1.1 million would not go very far toward paying the debt service for this new (school) building,'' he said, also noting the prospective cost of additional teachers, buses and other services, including police, fire protection and public utilities.

Brunswick Smart Growth member Susan Haynes pointed out that state guidelines require documentation of public needs and benefits for project approval, noting that the Environmental Impact Statement presented by the developers shows only benefits for them and their future buyers. ''What does the town gain with these developments?'' she asked. ''I really don't see that addressed in this statement at all.'' -- Record   11/29/2005

Resource(s): www.troyrecord.com/

Brunswick Group Says Proposed Supercenter Clashes with Town's Rural Character

Looking to vacate its current store, Wal-Mart hasn't yet submitted plans and an environmental impact statement for a proposed Supercenter on roadside wetlands in Brunswick, some 10 miles northeast of Albany, but the grassroots Brunswick Smart Growth group is already giving the company a taste of what lies ahead -- one of the banners at its recent protest rally reading, ''Save the ducks, Wal-Mart sucks!''

The supercenter would almost abut a large apartment complex projected farther from the road and expected to accommodate 1,200 people, reports Troy Record writer Danielle Sanzone, quoting Brunswick Smart Growth activist Becky Kaiser, who said longtime residents want to preserve the town's rural character and they are ''not willing to sacrifice that character to outlandish and out-of-scale commercial and residential development.''

Town Supervisor Phil Herrington also was apprehensive of the combined impact of the supercenter and the apartment complex. ''There is much concern about increases in traffic and what would happen to the remaining wetlands if a supercenter is built,'' he noted, additionally worried about the fate of the present Wal-Mart store. ''The corporation said it would lease it to another business, but what if another one is not found,'' he observed. ''I do not want an empty building of that size in my town.'' -- Troy Record   11/20/2005

Resource(s): www.capitalcentral.com/site/index.asp?brd=1170

Empire State Voters Approve $2.9 Billion Transit and Road Improvement Bond

After strong bi-partisan support by top politicians and lawmakers, and a $1.8 million information campaign by a coalition of business, labor, environmental and public advocacy groups, some 55 percent of state voters passed a $2.9 billion bond act for transit and road improvements -- half of the money going to the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA); the other half to the state Department of Transportation -- with MTA Chairman Peter S. Kalikow saying, ''The voters want the best transit in the world, and they are willing to do whatever needs to be done to make it happen.''

The state's previous attempt to get public approval for a similar measure, a $3.9 billion bond in 2000, recalls New York Times writer Sewell Chan, won 73 percent of votes in New York City but only 40 percent upstate, which caused its 52 percent defeat.

The newly approved bond will let the MTA jump-start the Second Avenue subway construction, link the Long Island Rail Road and the Grand Central station, and repair or upgrade other transit system components.

At the same time, the state Department of Transportation will launch numerous road, bridge and other projects statewide, including work in New York City on the Van Wyck Expressway in Queens, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive and Henry Hudson Parkway in Manhattan, and the West Shore Expressway in Staten Island. -- New York Times   11/9/2005

Resource(s): www.nytimes.com/

Aging in Place: Rochester Downtown Community Forum Highlights Benefits of Smart Growth for Seniors

''Smart growth is really about designing communities the way we used to,'' said EPA Development, Community and Environment Division analyst Carlton Eley -- one of three experts discussing sprawl and car-dependency impact on seniors at a Downtown Community Forum in Rochester -- telling the audience that each acre redeveloped in urban centers can save 4.5 acres of open space on their rural fringes, a land-use change that also translates into less driving and a better quality of life for all no longer ready or able to drive.

The other two experts, Washington-based Partners for Livable Communities president Robert McNulty and Portland State University (Oregon) urban studies professor Deborah Howe, reports Rochester Democrat and Chronicle writer Misty Edgecomb, elaborated further on the possibility of transforming the national ''car culture'' through the 80 million ''baby boomers'' who will become elderly in the next 25 years.

This self-described ''wealthiest, healthiest generation'' on the globe will have the power to focus society on the need to build neighborhoods where people can walk, bike and use transit, the experts agreed, seeing it as ''a practical necessity'' as the population ages.

One of about 20 cities that have already launched efforts to attract seniors back to urban cores, the writes notes, Rochester made its move by redeveloping an abandoned car dealership site into the mixed-use Chevy Place complex, often cited as a model of smart growth.

''Ninety-eight percent of communities in America aren't even thinking about this. You're ahead of just about everyone else,'' said Robert McNulty, complementing the city for paying attention to seniors' needs and quality of life.

''For years, the car has dominated every aspect of the communities that we live in,'' commented professor Howe on the general situation. ''We have the expectation that everyone is going to drive, and it's only when you reach the point where you shouldn't be driving any more that it gets to be a problem.'' -- Democrat and Chronicle   11/4/2005

Resource(s): www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

Town of Warwick Honored by New York REALTORS With First-Ever Award for Smart Growth Excellence

Formed in 1905 as the Real Estate Association, the New York State Association of REALTORS (NYSAR) marked its centennial anniversary with the first-ever Award for Smart Growth Excellence, sought by dozens of public entities that implemented at least one of the 10 EPA Smart Growth principles within the past five years, and given to the town of Warwick -- population about 30,000, Orange County, 55 miles northwest of New York City -- for implementing their widest and most effective combination.

''New York's REALTORS recognize the many benefits of utilizing smart growth approach to community development and the positive impact it has on our communities,'' said NYSAR President Gary P. Kenline, expecting the award to increase awareness of smart growth benefits and ''encourage more communities to embrace this approach.''

Accepting the award, Town Supervisor Michael P. Sweeton credited the community for its comprehensive plan, calling it ''a win for everyone'' and stressing, ''It allows us to preserve what Warwick residents love about their community -- its rural character and our agricultural heritage -- while allowing development now and in the future.''

According to a NYSAR press release, the town's plan directs growth toward its three villages and nearby hamlets and saves productive farmland with incentives for transfer of development rights, while the new zoning ordinance ''encourages cluster developments, walkable neighborhoods, affordable homes and open space preservation,'' with developers required to set aside at least 10 percent of any new subdivision for affordable housing.

The ordinance also allows private, narrow and less curbed roads to calm traffic and reduce runoff, and its detailed design criteria ensure architectural building harmony with area neighborhoods. Since its adoption, the press release notes, ''all proposed subdivisions have been clustered, preserving an average of 60 percent of the site as open space, and lot values have since increased by as much as 50 to 75 percent.''

Audubon New York conservation and government relations director Albert E. Caccese commended the association for its award program, saying, ''It recognizes that smart growth isn't just a quality of life amenity that is good for the environment, but is also a boon to business and the economy.'' -- New York State Association of REALTORS   10/13/2005

Resource(s): www.nysar.com/

East Aurora Uses Zoning to Guard Small-Town Charm, Keep Business District Healthy

The pride of local residents and the envy of some ''cookie-cutter'' communities around Buffalo, reports Buffalo News writer Karen Robinson, East Aurora is vigorously guarding its ''atmosphere of a bygone era ... small-town charm and a vibrant business district,'' having recently followed last year's 55,000-square-foot cap on retail and commercial buildings in the town with a more controversial ban on new restaurant drive-throughs along Main Street -- both inspired by Aurora Citizens for Smart Growth and their successful 2000 fight against a $12 million Wal-Mart Supercenter project.

''Old-time Main Street is what people are striving for. It's the new way,'' says Village Trustee Libby Weberg. ''It's coming back around. A lot of communities have to reverse what they've done -- suburban-style, auto-driven development.''

The drive-through ban's chief proponent, Trustee Elizabeth Cheteny, a University at Buffalo planner, thinks the village can be a model for others.

''All too often, developers want to impose faceless, nameless architecture everywhere,'' she notes. ''They hit a wall here. We don't want to be anywhere; we want to be East Aurora.''

And so the village remains what most residents want it to be, the writer observes, partly due to its location, ''far enough from retail giants and suburban malls'' to keep customers for local shops and thrive as the ''big city'' for five nearby rural communities, but mostly thanks to farsighted leadership and grassroots activism.

Although some caution against becoming too rigid, others want clear development rules and standards. ''Drive-throughs bring additional traffic and break up foot traffic,'' stresses KidBiz boutique owner Lisa Hoffman. ''We need to keep a walkable community. Once we start to lose that, it would kill all these businesses. People would not park their cars and walk through small shops.''

ToyLoft manager Linda Coletti hopes there will always be ''the mom-and-pop stores and little shops;'' East Aurora's Citizens Coalition member Ellen Moomaw says ''(k)eeping everything small and slower-moving keeps all of us villagers together more -- feeling like a family;'' and president of a seven-decades-old five-and-dime family store, Ed Vidler, 77, sums it all up succinctly. ''Had Wal-Mart come in, East Aurora wouldn't be what it is today,'' he points out. ''I think the concern now is urban sprawl and keeping business right in the core.'' -- Buffalo News   9/26/2005

Resource(s): www.buffalonews.com/default.asp

Rotterdam Town Board Opts to Rezone Tract for Mid-size Companies Instead of Big Box Stores; Stresses Need for Smart Growth

Disappointing a landowner and some Rotterdam residents, its Town Board closed a hot months-long public debate over best land use by voting against rezoning a tract for big-box businesses like Wal-Mart and deciding instead to zone it for midsize companies, offices and restaurants, with board members stressing the decision reached far beyond the Wal-Mart issue and focused on the need for sound planning to allow smart growth.

Resident Carole Ramundo expressed satisfaction, calling the tract unsuited for big boxes because of its proximity to a school, a church, a police station and the railroad terminal, with ''no room to widen the roads.''

Like many others, resident Kathy Curtis, who initially helped draft the rejected plan, notes Capital News 9 TV reporter Jola Szubielski, was ecstatic. ''It's a win-win all around,'' she said. ''The agriculture gets preserved, the land conservation zone gets created, Rotterdam has really come together and had some intelligent conversations that are really long overdue.''

Still, the board's decision, the reporter observes, doesn't precludes a Wal-Mart elsewhere in this town some 15 miles northwest of Albany, since its new comprehensive plan includes business zones generally open to big-box stores. -– Capital News 9   9/15/2005

Resource(s): www.capitalnews9.com/

Queens Construction Firm Drops Big-Box Plan, Helps Bring Smart Growth to Long Island

Attentive to local anti-sprawl efforts since the beginning of the 2002 visioning process for redevelopment along a four-mile stretch of Long Island's Montauk Highway in Suffolk County, the Queens-based M. Parisi & Son Construction firm dropped a big-box plan for Shirley, won the Vision Long Island group's 2004 Smart Growth Award for the consequent mixed-use Floyd Harbor Shopping Centre project, and just broke ground at the 7.5-acre site, which will offer office and retail space, including a bank, a pet supply store and a family restaurant, all accessible on foot.

''The Floyd Harbor Shopping Centre is a huge step forward in terms of both Montauk Highway Redevelopment and Smart Growth on Long Island,'' said Vision Long Island Executive Director Eric Alexander. ''Parisi & Son and local residents really pulled together and turned what could have been just another big-box project into a new cornerstone for the local community.''

Brookhaven Town Supervisor John Jay Lavale also thanked the developer ''for his efforts in what truly can be considered smart growth,'' with William Floyd Community Summit President Beth Wahl and William Floyd School District Superintendent Dr. Richard Hawkins echoing the praise. The project ''will be a boon to the economic development of the Mastic and Shirley communities as well as being a center that is a part of the Smart Growth revitalization of our community,'' said the former, while the latter added, ''it will light the way for additional projects that reflect our desire for safe, attractive, walkable redevelopment that encourages our community to support local commerce.''   8/19/2005

Resource(s): www.visionlongisland.org ; www.newsday.com/

Local Smart Growth Efforts Boost Chances of Success for Congressional Initiatives

While on a swift, wide-ranging speaking tour of Long Island communities Democratic Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton was drawing applause for her focus on consensus, urban reinvestment and greater federal aid for suburban communities, all this underscored by her speech to a closed meeting on Smart Growth and regional development, some 60 miles northwest in Orange County's town of Newburgh, where several neighborhood activists and Democrats moved to form the Smart Growth Party, whose candidates will run in November against the Republicans who dominate local government.

Former Golden Park Homeowners Association president Chris Tighe, who didn't get enough signatures in time for a spot on the Republican ballot last month, reports Middletown Times Herald-Record writer Tim Logan, will run on the Smart Growth platform against Republican Supervisor Wayne Booth, with three Democrats -- Ellenjane Gonyea, Vanessa Tirado and Keltie McCormick -- challenging two town board members and a county legislator.

The increasingly assertive local constituencies and their political involvement for Smart Growth bode well for related congressional initiatives. New York Newsday writer Jennifer Smith reports that Senator Clinton recently introduced legislation that would complement federal outlays for urban revival by creating a $250 million reinvestment fund for mature suburbs like those on Long Island to help them curb sprawl, improve transit and save remaining open space.

''This is a way of bringing federal attention to the suburbs,'' Senator Clinton said about her legislation. ''Most people in America live in the suburbs, and we just haven't gotten the tools to help us deal with these problems.'' -- Times Herald-Record   8/3/2005

Resource(s): www.newsday.com/ ; www.recordonline.com/

East Aurora Hopes Ban on New Restaurant Drive-Throughs Will Help Older Businesses and Limit Sprawl

Having made Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks Coffee eliminate drive-throughs from their proposed Main Street projects in East Aurora, and asked by residents for further steps to help its older businesses and limit sprawl, the Village Board voted 5-1 to ban all new restaurant drive-throughs, with the law's prime mover, Trustee Elizabeth Cheteny, saying, ''We considered (including) banks and pharmacies, but we didn't want to create hardship for the elderly and parents with children.''

Opposing the ban, reports Buffalo News writer Karen Robinson, Trustee Patrick McDonnell pointed to a recent review by Erie County's Environment and Planning Department, which cautioned that the ban may result in more drive-through restaurants along outside roads. East Aurora Area Chamber of Commerce executive director Gary Grote also called the law too broad, urging the board to make such decisions on a case-by-case basis.

But resident Marilyn Cornelius expressed the public view that cars idling in the drive-through lanes affect both the environment and local quality of life. And non-voting Mayor David DiPietro pointed out that many communities ''are looking at banning drive-throughs'' and stressed, ''If a business wants to come here without a drive-through, fantastic. The character and quality of life here are very important.'' -- Buffalo News   7/21/2005

Resource(s): www.buffalonews.com/

Vision Long Island Presents Fourth Annual Smart Growth Awards

''Smart Growth is important for all the right reasons,'' said Vision Long Island Board President Ron Stein, announcing the nonprofit's fourth annual Smart Growth Awards for individuals, organizations and projects that embrace smart growth principles and put them in practice on the island.

''If we don't contain and reverse the course of development, we will be strangled by it,'' he pointed out. ''This is about the long term survival of this region, and the fight is on.''

This year's winners include:

• Rauch Foundation President Nancy Douzinas for Regional Leadership;
• New Gerrard, Huntington and Heatherwood communities for Creating a Mix of Uses;
• Avalon at Glen Cove, Avalon Bay, for Taking Advantage of Compact Building Design;
• Suffolk County legislator Vivian Viloria Fisher for Encouraging Citizen and Stakeholder Participation in Development Decisions in the community planning process for Portion Lake;
• Suffolk County legislator Vivian Viloria Fisher for Providing Opportunities & Choices for a Range of Household Types, Family Sizes & Incomes;
• Traffic Calming Program, Village of Great Neck Plaza, for Creating Walkable Neighborhoods;
• Village of Greenport Mayor David Kapell for Fostering Distinctive, Attractive Communities with a Sense of Place;
• Waterfront Revitalization Program, NYS Department of State, for Preserving Open Space, Farmland, Natural Beauty, Historic & Critical Environmental Areas;
• New Cassel Revitalization -- Town of North Hempstead, Sustainable Long Island and Unified New Cassel Corporation, for Reinvesting in and Strengthening Existing Communities;
• Smart Growth Revitalization Initiative, Village of Westbury, Bristal at Westbury and Engel Burman, for Providing a Variety of Transportation Choices;
• Riverhead Master Plan, Town of Riverhead, for Making Development Decisions Predictable, Fair and Cost Effective;
• Lake Ronkonkoma Civic Organization for Encouraging Citizen and Stakeholder Participation in Development Decisions; and
• architect Peter Caradonna for Fostering Clean Energy and Green Building Development.

Read more about Vision Long Island at www.visionlongisland.org, or view photos and details of the awards event at the resource link below.   6/16/2005

Resource(s): www.visionlongisland.org/

Gov. Pataki Introduces Anti-Sprawl Plan With Community Preservation Act

Upsetting the New York State Association of Realtors, Republican Governor George Pataki sent lawmakers his proposed anti-sprawl Community Preservation Act, which would let communities run referenda to impose a real-estate transfer tax for open space programs, a measure modeled after 1998 legislation that has enabled five Long Island towns to raise more than $165 million so far.

The act, reports Oneonta Daily Star Albany Bureau writer Paul Ertelt, would allow an up-to 2-percent transfer tax on the portion of a sale price in excess of the local median home value. For example, the writer notes, if a county median home price is $200,000 and a house sells for $300,000, the open space tax would apply to $100,000.

Going farther than similar bills sponsored earlier in the session by Republican Senator Carl Marcellino and Democratic Assemblyman Tom DiNapoli, which target only towns and lands with public access, the act includes cities and villages, and permits acquisition of conservation easements on farms and timberland closed to the public.

Both lawmakers welcomed the governor's involvement. Expecting it to help bring all sides together, Senator Marcellino announced, ''I have said it before, and I say it again: They aren't making any more land.'' Assemblyman DiNapoli added, ''We're happy when he (the governor) is on the same page as we are.'' -- Oneonta Daily Star   5/25/2005

Resource(s): www.thedailystar.com/

Wal-Mart Submits Revised Proposal for Lockport Supercenter

Six months after local outcry forced it to withdraw a plan for a 203,000-square-foot, 24-hour Supercenter at an old mall site in Lockport, Wal-Mart presented officials with a reworked proposal, initially seen as much better by Town Supervisor John B. Austin and Planning Board Chairman Lester G. Robinson Jr., yet still not good enough by Lockport Citizens for Smart Growth activist Margaret Magno.

Wal-Mart planners, reports Buffalo News writer Thomas J. Prohaska, reduced the proposed Supercenter to 185,600 square feet, increased the back buffer for a 10-foot wall that would protect adjacent residential backyards from 50 to 100 feet, extended the wall northward to shield homes on another road, included a long 40-foot-wide rainwater ''detention pond'' between the back of the store and the protective wall, and added other minor enhancements.

The old mall would be redeveloped, with the exception of the 81,000-square-foot Bon-Ton store, which would share Wal-Mart's 1,452-space parking lot.

Town officials, the writer notes, were especially pleased that the plan no longer calls for gas pumps on the site. But smart-growth advocate and area resident Magno wants Wal-Mart closer to the street, which would provide an even larger rear setback. ''I guess I'm going to have to make them do that,'' she said. ''If they'd move the store forward so they'd have parking on the sides and more green space in back, less noise, I think the neighbors would be less freaked by it.'' -- Buffalo News   4/5/2005

Resource(s): www.buffalonews.com/default.asp

Report: Hudson Valley Communities Need to Embrace Smart Growth to Preserve Quality of Life

With its 13-percent population growth but 60-percent land consumption increase in the last 30 years, the New York City metro area feels the environmental, economic and social impacts of sprawl more and more, says Riverkeeper in the just released first volume of the ''Pave It ... or Save It?'' report, pointing out that the quality of life is at greatest risk in the Hudson Valley and East-of-Hudson watershed, where ''(u)nder the false guise of economic growth, careless development is consuming precious resources, disrupting local economies, undermining civic life, and threatening public health.''

Written in ''a fact-sheet style,'' with numerous legal and scientific citations, the report addresses sprawl's impact on wetlands, air quality, taxes, race and transportation, offering officials and activists ample ammunition to ''fight sprawl projects in their communities.''

The region's communities ''need to preserve more open space and are ripe for smarter development,'' the report states, noting that their broad citizen support for better planning and open space preservation has been evidenced by the nearly $35 million they have raised for land acquisition since 2000.   3/29/2005

Resource(s): www.riverkeeper.org/

Public Forums Helping to Shape Master Plan for Port Washington Peninsula

Under way for a year, the Shared Vision master planning process pursued by communities on the Port Washington Peninsula, at Long Island's northern shore, is nearing completion of the public input phase, with formal forums on the environment and recreation, traffic and public safety, and land-use, housing and downtown issues held in the past several weeks and a Design Event Weekend scheduled for April 14-18, to review forum ideas and visualize them during a walking tour through Port Washington's six villages.

''We want to know: What's really on people's minds?'' North Hempstead Town Supervisor Jon Kaiman told New York Daily News writer Carrie Melago. ''What do they see their community looking like in 10 years, 20 years?''

Residents for a More Beautiful Port Washington executive director Jennifer Rimmer made the same point, saying, ''We have a problem with overdevelopment, and we want to sustain the quality of the community for the future.''

Greater Port Washington Business Improvement District official Roy Smitheimer agreed. ''You're tailoring government to the needs of community,'' he said, ''and people are telling you what they want and will accept.''

With many calls for more mixed-use downtown zoning, affordable housing and open space preservation, the writer observes, Shared Vision leaders believe the peninsula's master plan, expected next year, will become a model for others throughout Long Island. -- New York Daily News   3/27/2005

Resource(s): www.nydailynews.com/

Buffalo's Downtown Assets Bode Well for Future Growth, Says Former Milwaukee Mayor Norquist at Smart Growth Forum

''The old way to make a city was to have buildings with a common setback, with windows facing the street, buildings interacting with each other and adding value,'' said Congress for New Urbanism President and former Milwaukee Mayor John O. Norquist at the inaugural forum of Buffalo's ''Smart Growth is Smart Business'' revitalization series, advising the almost 300 listeners against barring big-box stores, because they also ''want to be part of the urban scene.''

Wal-Mart, Home Depot and similar companies, he observed, have entered busy streets, locating near other businesses and opening two-level stores with multiple entrances for pedestrians, in a trend ''called 'in-filling' -- instead of building out in a field.''

Confident that Buffalo ''will prove to be one of the best real estate markets'' in the next 20 years, the speaker pointed to its ''good architectural heritage with mixed-use buildings'' and higher value per acre downtown than in other neighborhoods. Its only downtown flaw is the Niagara Thruway cutting the core off from Lake Erie, he said, and encouraged the city to follow the example of Milwaukee and other cities by replacing the highway with redevelopment sites and parks.

Next in the eight-part ''Smart Growth is Smart Business'' series, notes Buffalo News reporter Anthony Cardinale, will be a presentation by architect and planner Neal Payton on April 19. -- Buffalo News   3/16/2005

Resource(s): www.buffalonews.com/default.asp

Livability Conference Focuses on Using Smart Growth Principles to Rebuild Long Island's Downtowns

Buoyed by Democratic Senator Hilary Clinton's planned push for federal grants to rebuild Long Island's distressed downtown areas, Suffolk County Democratic Executive Steve Levy told hundreds of activists, politicians and business leaders at a Long Island Housing Partnership (LIHP) livability conference in Uniondale, ''We believe that the smart growth principles we are employing will help make our creation of more affordable housing compatible with our quest to preserve the environment.''

Calling the conference ''an opportunity to think outside whatever box we find ourselves in,'' Senator Clinton and her grant legislation's prospective co-sponsor, area Democratic Representative Peter King, led a series of panel discussions on transportation, environment, economic development, downtown revitalization and related topics.

Several participants, reports East Hampton Independent writer Kitty Merrill, focused on the need to inspire new thinking and broad cooperation among local governments. This, noted Southampton Business Alliance member Anne LaWall, is especially important for housing and transportation options.

Southold Town Supervisor Josh Horton complained that county health department requirements impede proposals for apartments over stores in downtown business districts and for other urban housing initiatives. Former Suffolk County Executive Bob Gaffney wished the conference had attracted more town and village officials, who are predominantly responsible for local zoning that could solve Long Island's housing and transportation problems.

In response, Senator Clinton said, ''It takes villages, towns, hamlets, cities, school districts, and everybody working together.'' She hopes to convene a similar conference for area mayors and supervisors. -- Independent   2/8/2005

Resource(s): www.indyeastend.com/cgi-bin/indep/news.cgi?

Hudson Valley Feels Development Pressure as Growth Races North From New York City

As ''trophy homes, townhouses and strip malls'' continue their rapid spread north along the Hudson River to 100 miles from Manhattan, putting Orange, Ulster and Dutchess counties among the fastest-growing in the state, conservationists are moving to expand land purchases and smart-growth efforts, with Environmental Advocates spokesman Jeff Jones saying, ''It's almost a race now between 'Will we be able to preserve what makes the Hudson Valley special?' versus 'Will the Hudson Valley become one vast bedroom community for New York City?'''

Most of the valley's residential growth has been taking place outside its towns and villages, reports Associated Press writer Michel Hill in New York Newsday, quoting Highlands Coalition executive director Thomas Gilbert, who warns, ''What is not protected in the next couple of decades is going to be developed.''

Among groups buying valley land and conservation easements are local trusts, government agencies and ''larger players like the Open Space Institute and Scenic Hudson.'' Open Space Institute president Joseph Martens tells the writer the ever-hotter real estate market made land protection even more costly than it was several years ago. Scenic Hudson president Ned Sullivan, whose group works with towns like Red Hook -- a former rural haven about 90 miles north of New York City -- says neither side can afford the land that residents want to save from development.

Scenic Hudson bought conservation easements for nine Red Hook farms and the town issued a $3.5 million land protection bond, but all involved agree that smart growth is necessary to complement such efforts since ''there is not enough money to go around to protect everything.'' -- Newsday   12/26/2004

Resource(s): www.newsday.com/

Long Island's New Cassel Community Celebrates Redevelopment of ''Suburban Downtown''

For decades at the mercy of a decayed commercial strip and substandard services unheard of in richer parts of Westbury, Long Island, the mostly black middle-class New Cassel community has finally been heard, with state and Nassau County officials just breaking ground for young-worker and senior housing construction, new businesses, parks and other projects.

At the same time, Democratic Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton, instrumental in the change, has chosen the community as a model of broad cooperation on redevelopment for her ''suburban evolution'' conference in February.

Applauding residents' resilience, a New York Newsday editorial says the Sustainable Long Island nonprofit helped them form the Unified New Cassel Community Revitalization Group, which worked with former North Hempstead Supervisor May Newburger and later Supervisor Jon Kaiman, to make redevelopment of this ''suburban downtown'' a priority. Their successful partnership with government, developers and the private sector, the editorial stresses, reflects ''an extraordinary effort any suburban community should want to emulate.'' -- Newsday   12/15/2004

Resource(s): www.newsday.com/

Experts Urge Inclusionary Zoning to Ensure Affordable Housing for NYC

As New York Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg gathers support for his proposed neighborhood-wide zoning changes, which would spur mixed-use and high-density redevelopment in all five boroughs, national economic and social equity experts from the California-based nonprofit PolicyLink and the Brooklyn-based Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development -- Kalima Rose, Brad Lander and Karoleen Feng -- advise him to use both mandatory and voluntary inclusionary zoning (IZ) to guarantee affordable housing construction proportional to long-term population growth.

Such construction, they write in their ''Increasing Housing Opportunity in New York City: The Case for Inclusionary Zoning'' report, has lagged far behind increased demand, which pushed housing prices up especially high in ''hot'' areas of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, while the average income in renter households grew just 3 percent between 1975 and 1999, in contrast to a 33-percent rent jump.

What's more, the routine concentration of market-rate housing in higher-income Manhattan and Staten Island neighborhoods and affordable housing in lower-income Harlem, Bronx and Brooklyn neighborhoods ''has amplified race and income segregation.''

The authors note that the mayor's four main ideas, focused on (1) rezoning industrial areas to allow residential and office use, (2) upzoning business districts to encourage mixed uses, (3) balanced neighborhood rezoning to keep local character while allowing growth, and (4) downzoning to prevent large-scale projects, are likely to result in 40,000 housing units, bringing the total to 80,000 within 10 years, but still leaving fever than 8 percent of it affordable to most New Yorkers.

They point out that benefits of inclusionary zoning include (1) producing affordable housing for a diverse labor force, (2) fostering mixed-income communities, (3) ensuring affordability in tight housing markets, and (4) stretching scarce public dollars by leveraging market-housing construction.

Consequently, they offer the mayor seven broad recommendations. The top two advise him to ''apply mandatory inclusionary zoning to all future neighborhood-wide zoning changes,'' because many of them ''create substantial density and land value increases for property owners;'' and to ''maximize affordable housing production by offering inclusionary zoning incentives in high-density residential neighborhoods,'' as a combination of public subsidies and a voluntary inclusionary program ''will increase the viability of building on small sites.''

They also urge the mayor to make affordable housing permanent, stressing, ''Because the benefit of greater density is permanent, the program can require long-term affordability for inclusionary units.'' -- PolicyLink; Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development   12/3/2004

Resource(s): www.policylink.org ; www.picced.org

Lockport Struggles to Find New Developer for Aging Mall

With not much retail in Lockport, some 20 miles northeast of Buffalo, many residents have hoped for renovation of the 25-year-old Lockport Mall, which has just nine stores left, yet few would want it replaced by a Wal-Mart supercenter, touted by Chicago-based General Growth Properties asset management vice president Ed Pilarz as its ''best chance to improve the community.''

The Chicago company, writes Buffalo News business reporter Lisa Haarlander, wanted to sell the mall to Wal-Mart, which sought to move from a smaller store nearby and build a supercenter, but the deal stalled after the town adopted new commercial zoning law that makes such construction more difficult.

''The mall (owner) is trying to convince us that it's Wal-Mart or nothing,'' says Citizens for Smart Growth spokeswoman Margaret Magno. ''That's just not true. That's one of the best corners in town. Someone will do a development there.''

And even if the mall's demolition and replacement by a big-box store were the only practical option, she stresses, her group still doesn't want a Wal-Mart supercenter. Such sentiments are on the rise across the Buffalo region, the reporter observes, noting public protests against a Wal-Mart supercenter in Niagara Falls and against a regular Wal-Mart store in Lancaster. -- Buffalo News   11/26/2004

Resource(s): www.buffalonews.com/default.asp

Lockport Gets Advice on Enhancing Its $3 Million Main Street Improvement Program

Eager to reverse the long downtown Lockport decline, officials did well to launch a $3 million Main Street and streetscape improvement program, agreed land-use and urban experts on a walking tour with Mayor Michael Tucker, City Attorney John J. Ottaviano and some residents, now advising efforts to encourage downtown mixed uses and higher density, make storefronts more attractive for shoppers and strollers, and ''showcase the city's jewel, its share of the Erie Canal.''

The experts offered several specific recommendations, reports Lockport Union-Sun & Journal writer Joyce M. Miles. Partners for a Livable Western New York (PFALWNY) president George Grasser and Lockport-born commercial real estate agent Kristin Badger-Bach liked the well-maintained architecture at one corner of the West Main Street-Transit Street intersection, but regretted the cookie-cutter suburban style Walgreen pharmacy block on another corner.

The PFALWNY president pointed out that to be pedestrian-friendly, a downtown area needs buildings near sidewalks, with parking behind and facades matching instead of contradicting its historic character. Since the city can't move the block to the street, said the real estate agent, it could prod Walgreen to ''screen'' the parking lot with trees, planters or wrought-iron fences, a remedy that other Main Street parking lots also need.

Commenting on the ongoing restoration of four Richmond Avenue buildings, the president envisioned senior-targeted lofts atop street-level retail, stressing, ''Seniors want to live in places where they can walk to everything ... Get them to locate here instead of buying a patio home in the suburbs.'' University at Buffalo residential facilities director Don L. Erb put an equal stress on the need to have young residents stay in the city rather than watch as they take their dollars elsewhere.

In a wider discussion about the historic role of civic buildings as crucial for local identity and pride, they both saw bland Lockport City Hall, in the writer's paraphrase, as ''a product of planners and architects 'run amok' in the 1960s,'' with director Erb wishing it could be moved to the Historic Post Office nearby.

As to Erie Canal showcasing, the writer adds, the experts identified its several largely hidden street entrances, suggesting enhancements and covers for lock mechanisms. Amazed by the view of the old and new canals and their lush banks from a long neglected overlook, they all told officials to make public access a priority.

Greenman-Pedersen Engineering and Construction Services project manager William W. Tuyn said that in Pittsburgh, PA, the Duquesne Heights neighborhood on a redeveloped stretch of the Ohio River waterfront has become an urban success story, its promenade full of retail and entertainment facilities. -- Lockport Union-Sun & Journal   10/10/2004

Resource(s): www.lockportjournal.com/default.asp

Poughkeepsie Set to Transform Riverside Brownfield into Waterfront Mecca

''Everyone talks about smart growth. Let me tell you what smart growth is -- it's revitalizing places like Poughkeepsie,'' said New York Republican Governor George Pataki at the city's post-industrial DeLaval site along the Hudson River, signing a bill that changes its status as prospective parkland and allows a long-awaited transformation into real waterfront, with a marina, a park, restaurants, offices and other facilities -- such a mix of uses considered vital for the city's future.

Under the bill, reports Poughkeepsie Journal writer Dan Shapley, once officials address contamination problems, the Bonura family's Poughkeepsie Waterfront Development LLC will launch a $43.9 million redevelopment project on 7.8 acres of the 11.4-acre DeLaval site. At the same time, the city will construct a walkway through the remaining 3.6 acres and designate or improve other parkland to compensate with equal public benefit.

Poughkeepsie Mayor Nancy Cozean called the bill signing ''an historic moment,'' while the governor noted that the deal balances economic development and environmental protection by drawing private investors to reclaim old industrial land. -- Poughkeepsie Journal   9/21/2004

Resource(s): www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/

City Streetscapes at Risk: Suburban Retail Meets the Big Apple

Suburban-style retail is entering New York City and, to some critics, threatening the ''fragile ecosystem'' of the urban streetscape and pedestrian life. As large retailers move into urban buildings, they often cover street-facing windows and present a bland facade to the sidewalk.

The commentary by Justin Davidson praises some national chain stores for attempting to fit into the urban landscape by creating lively windows and sidewalk cafes. He urges retailers that were born in ''cheap real estate, vast tracts of parking and highway interchanges,'' such as the Home Depot, which is currently renovating one building in Manhattan and planning a second to open a few months later, to consider how they can add to the city's ''self-reinforcing quality of liveliness that causes people to want to walk.'' -- New York Newsday   8/5/2004

Resource(s): www.nynewsday.com/

Long Beach Considers Smart Growth Vision Plan to Reign in Jumbled Growth

''Over the last 20 years, growth and development exploded across the City [of Long Beach] without any clear plan or vision,'' said Dr. Glen L. Spiritis, who serves both as city manager and director of planning and development for Long Beach. ''The result is a jumble of projects that, for the most part, have led to over-development and a host of problems associated with unintended urbanization.''

To address the need for long-term planning in Long Beach, the Long Beach City Council announced a triple initiative. In addition to reconvening the city's Planning Advisory Board, finding developers who care about the community, and securing the necessary funding, the plan suggests issuing a Request for Proposals to hire planning consultants to complete a Smart Growth Vision Plan for the city.

Municipalities typically update master plans, or vision plans, every ten years to accommodate growth while balancing quality of life issues, but Long Beach has lacked one since 1983. ''It is unconscionable that a city of this size, serving the primary metropolitan area in the nation, has been permitting -- and even encouraging growth by chance, and not by choice,'' said new Long Beach City Council President James P. Hennessy. -- RIS Media   7/16/2004

Resource(s): www.rismedia.com/

Editorial: Smart Growth Comes Up Short on Long Island

''We like smart growth. It perfectly fits our editorial creed, which is never support anything stupid,'' states The New York Times, obviously encouraged by the progress of smart growth and New Urbanism around the country, but troubled by their struggle ''to gain a beachhead on Long Island, the fortress of Old Suburbanism.''

An old 370-acre psychiatric center site in Kings Park, Suffolk County, ''full of crumbling buildings tainted with asbestos and lead paint,'' the daily says, could have been transformed into ''a New Urbanist settlement of townhouses, apartments, cottages, shops, offices and a college campus,'' a project financed by LAMB Acquisitions and designed by ''one of the country's most prominent New Urbanist firms, Duany Plater-Zyberk.''

But local ''doubters,'' who suspect that developers invoke smart growth when they want to mask their greed, ''leapt to the barricades,'' cited threats of traffic, noise, congestion and overcrowded schools, and made proponents abandon the project.

''The Old Suburbanists are celebrating victory, but how sweet is it?'' the daily asks, noting Andres Duany's arguments that the $40 million site-cleanup cost makes its high-density development necessary, that the project would provide ample affordable housing urgently needed for young and elderly people, and that growth is unavoidable, with the only choice being ''whether to have it smart or dumb.''

Hoping that ''the New Urbanists won't strike their tents after the Battle of Kings Park,'' the daily says, ''If a critical mass of smart-growth projects, sensitively designed, can win over Long Islanders to a new, sensible vision, that would be a good thing. ''Consequently, its editors are optimistic about other projects, ''like one in Brentwood on the site of the Pilgrim State Psychiatric Center, and Old Plainview, recently unveiled in Nassau by the software mogul Charles Wang.'' -- The New York Times   6/20/2004

Resource(s): www.nytimes.com/

200 Affordable Housing Units Planned for Nassau County's ''Old Plainview'' Mixed-Use Village

Preparing his 166 acres in Plainview, Nassau County, for a mixed-use village with a central green, offices, stores, a 300-room hotel and some 1,000 residences, including 200 rental and affordable housing units for seniors and young workers, Northern Bay Management Group principal Charles Wang told area residents, ''This is what we call smart growth.''

Named Old Plainview, reports Newsday columnist Alan Wax, the project was designed by Manhattan-based Perkins Eastman Architects, whose principal Roland Baer said it is all ''about creating a traditional walking community, adding, ''The whole idea of smart growth is to preserve open space.''

But local opponents think some developers ''merely use the smart-growth label to make their proposed high-density developments more palatable to residents,'' the columnist writes. Long Island Regional Planning Board Executive Director and Stony Brook University professor Lee Koppelman agrees that ''(u)sually that's a euphemism for the greed on the part of developers,'' but notes that the Old Plainview plan includes elements of smart growth.

The president of the Manhattan-based nonprofit Regional Plan Association, Robert Yaro, points to the proposed reuse of three large Long Island sites for smart-growth projects, stressing that they ''represent the need for a new kind of housing,'' and expecting their popular acceptance once residents realize the advantages.

A Newsweek editorial on the Old Plainview proposal says smart growth ''demands community input,'' and urges the developer and the community to work together, advising him to remain ''open to suggestions and closed to NIMBY objections to rental housing'' and other such solutions. -- Newsday   6/7/2004

Resource(s): www.newsday.com/

Study Examines Reasons for Housing Vacancy Jump in Erie, Niagara Counties

Despite the nation's highest disparity rate (3.89) between new construction and new households over the past decade in the Buffalo area of Erie and Niagara counties, accompanied by the city's 10 percent household loss and 50 percent housing vacancy jump -- all documented in a new Brookings Institution study of 74 cities -- a local builder, Marrano/Marc Equity Corp. vice president Victor Martucci insists, ''We don't have sprawl in Erie County.''

He says researchers overlooked a significant increase in builders' prime demographic target of those between 35 and 55 years. ''We're just keeping pace with demand,'' he tells Buffalo News reporter Phil Fairbanks, noting that officials issued only 1,409 building permits last year countywide, in contrast to Atlanta, Georgia, where the number was nearly 65,000.

But smart growth and housing advocates point out that while in the Atlanta area sprawl is caused by population growth, in the Buffalo area the culprit is an exodus from the central city and the inner-ring suburbs. They also cite earlier Brookings study findings that as upstate cities were losing residents, business and revenue between 1982 and 1997, sprawl took over 425,000 acres in outer areas. That study, the reporter notes, was cited by upstate mayors in their lobby campaign for statewide ''anti-sprawl'' programs, but to no avail.

Experts and activists agree that cities need help to recover, gain residents and contain sprawl. ''There's no way for Buffalo to cope with this on its own,'' says one of the new Brookings study's authors, Cleveland State University's Levine College of Urban Affairs researcher Thomas Bier. ''The state needs to be part of the solution,'' stresses 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania president Janet Milkman, noting, ''After all, cities didn't create these problems on their own.'' And the Local Initiatives Support Corporation's Buffalo office director Michael Clarke adds, ''You can't constrain people's preferences, but we have to come up with a balance.'' -- Buffalo News   5/30/2004

Resource(s): www.buffalonews.com/default.asp

New York City's Core Counties Reverse Outward Trend

As the New York City region's development accelerated over the past decade, its core 31 counties, including three across the Hudson River in New Jersey, have been catching up with the 23 in the outer suburbs for the first time since the mid-1940s, with the Rutgers University's Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy Dean James W. Hughes believing there is ''a fundamental shift going on, and the patterns of the last 50 years really are history.''

His and Professor Joseph J. Seneca's demographic-economic study found, reports New York Times writer Laura Mansnerus, that the region gained just 306,000 residents between 1969 and 1990, but 1.8 million in the next ten years, its core counties matching the outer ones in population growth in 1990 and in job growth in the late 1990s, and boosting their share of housing permits from 15.7 percent in 1994 to 39 percent in 2002.

The professors attributed the shift toward urban areas in part to suburban road gridlock, land shortage, and open-space preservation programs. They also expect the concurrent move away from single-family suburban housing to continue. ''We get empty nesters who were rattling around in their McMansions,'' said Professor Hughes, noting that neither they nor ''children of the baby boomers'' look for single-family homes.

He added that the third group in favor of urban housing are immigrants, who contributed to unexpectedly high growth in northeastern New Jersey over the past decade. -- New York Times   5/19/2004

Resource(s): www.nytimes.com/

Proposed Real Estate Transfer Tax Would Help Upstate New York Communities Fund Land Purchases for Preservation

With the Brookings Institution and Cornell University finding that the upstate New York population increased by 2.6 percent but land urbanization by 30 percent between 1982 and 1997, the chairmen of the environmental conservation committees in both state chambers, Republican Senator Carl Marcellino and Democratic Assemblyman Tom DiNapoli, proposed legislation that would let communities tax a portion of real-estate sales -- currently at a state transfer rate of 0.4 percent -- up to two percent for land preservation if approved by their voters.

''We're looking to preserve open space. It's going quickly,'' said Senator Marcellino, while Assemblyman DiNapoli cited as a model the successful Peconic Bay Community Preservation Fund, under which five eastern Long Island towns raised more than $100 million within three years to save land.

Their proposed Community Preservation Act, reports Rochester Democrat & Chronicle writer Joseph Manez, would give communities means to buy land or conservation easements, create parks, and protect historic sites, watersheds, and farms, especially in densely populated areas. Conservationists embraced the proposal, with Scenic Hudson President Ed Sullivan, saying, ''The Community Preservation Act will give New York's towns and counties an effective tool to protect open space and promote smart growth.'' -- Democrat & Chronicle   5/5/2004

Resource(s): www.democratandchronicle.com/

Critics Seek Empire Zone Reforms to Keep Program from Promoting Sprawl

Advanced by Republican Governor George Pataki to boost depressed communities, the Empire Zone program of business tax breaks for creating jobs in poor urban and rural areas has been deformed by local economic-development officials through an ''amendment'' process, which lets them extend the zones into the suburbs where companies don't need public aid, with Sierra Club's Atlantic chapter representative Sarah Kogel-Smucker saying, ''The amendments have turned the program into a promotion of sprawl development.''

Up for legislative renewal this year, the program benefits more than 4,000 companies in 72 zones throughout the state, but Democratic State Comptroller Alan Hevesi, who studied eight upstate zones, found that more than 70 percent of the companies awarded tax breaks have failed to create promised jobs, reports Rochester Democrat & Chronicle writer Erika Rosenberg.

In some areas, including quite affluent Saratoga County, the writer notes, developers seek Empire Zone tax breaks to build on rural and suburban land with no water or sewer lines. The Sierra Club and other anti-sprawl groups want lawmakers to reform the program, especially to ensure that its tax breaks really produce jobs and that the amendment process isn't misused.

Republican Assemblyman George Winner wouldn't want to bar wealthier areas from the program, because it shouldn't matter where tax breaks create jobs, but a gubernatorial spokesman said the governor has suggested similar reforms, including proposals to make the zones more compact and require better tax-break reports. -- Democrat & Chronicle   4/23/2004

Resource(s): www.democratandchronicle.com/

Walkability a Central Theme in Long Island Smart Growth Projects

Smart growth is attracting a lot of attention on Long Island as officials and developers move to renovate ''the idea of suburbia,'' writes Newsday Real Estate editor Ronald E. Roel, mentioning an ambitious $300,000-$500,000 million project to turn polluted waterfront in Glen Cove into a destination spot, and a $4 billion project to build a mini-city around a medical center in Brentwood.

The most prominent feature of the ''lifestyle shift'' advanced by both projects is ''walkability.'' The Glen Cove waterfront project, conceived during former Mayor Tom Suozzi's tenure, and now pursued by Mayor Mary Ann Holzkamp and developers Michael Posillico and Donald Monti of Glen Isle Development Co. LLC, the editor writes, was selected by the Environmental Protection Agency as a ''Brownfields Showcase Community,'' which brings in millions of dollars in federal toxic-waste cleanup money.

The Glen Cove project will feature almost 700 varied-style housing units, including some for the workforce, dispersed among stores, restaurants, parks and trails, a botanical garden, an arts district, and restored ferry service across Long Island Sound to Manhattan. The developers envision a one-mile walking strip from downtown to the waterfront tip, with points of interest every 1,200 feet, to ''take you, invite you along the walk.''

In Brentwood some 20 miles southeast, the mini-city Heartland project, proposed by developer Jerry Wolfoff, would put 9,000 housing units on some 450 acres, along with retail and commercial space.

''The thing that struck me in listening to those involved in both projects is that we seem to have reached a watershed in our suburban sensibility,'' the editor stresses. ''That is, it's finally OK -- even desirable -- to take the 'sub' out of parts of suburbia.'' -- Newsday   4/23/2004

Resource(s): www.newsday.com/

Bethlehem Officials Eye Building Moratorium to Plan for the Future

Having narrowly passed a $93 million school expansion bond last December, residents in Albany's fast-growing suburb of Bethlehem are now thinking about a proposed year-long moratorium on projects of more than four homes, which would give consultants time to craft a land-use plan and update zoning, with newly elected Democratic Town Supervisor Theresa Egan stressing, ''We have to have the moratorium in order for the comprehensive plan to work,'' and school Superintendent Leslie Loomis saying the town and the school district need ''a little bit of time out'' to ease school overcrowding and plan together for the future.

Supervisor Egan, who made the moratorium proposal central in her campaign against Republican rival Joe Catalano, reports Albany Times-Union writer Rhea Davis, points out that the 31,000-resident town, with more than 100 homes built each year, must prevent residential growth from straining services and pushing up taxes. Scheduled for public hearing on March 31, the moratorium would exempt builders whose initial plans and environmental impact studies are already approved by the Planning Board, with an appeals process open for all claiming economic hardship.

Builders like Michaels Group vice president Heidi Harkins and Hanifin Home Builders president Tim Hanifin think the moratorium is bad for the hot market and may hike up housing costs, but local Realty USA office manager Bill Alston points out that more people will likely purchase older homes and that ''(t)he town needs to have a clearer idea where to build all these new homes.'' -- Times-Union   3/13/2004

Resource(s): www.timesunion.com/

Suffolk County Leader Looking at Smart Growth Solutions for Housing Needs and Environmental Preservation

''Thanks to smart growth concepts, addressing our affordable housing needs does not have to be mutually exclusive to continuing our efforts to preserve our environment,'' said Suffolk County Democratic Executive Steve Levy in his first State of the County speech, asking the Republican-controlled county legislature to help him provide necessary housing for Long Island's workforce, acquire as much open land as possible to win the race against overdevelopment, and expand downtown revitalization while reclaiming brownfields.

Although affordable housing has usually depended on municipalities, its shortage is so severe that the county government must act, the executive stressed, ready to set up the Suffolk County Commission on Workforce Housing -- comprised of local officials, community leaders, environmentalists and builders -- which will identify land for preservation and land for housing, including potential redevelopment sites.

''We will bring the towns in on the front end to obtain needed zoning changes, get commitments from builders who will have proper incentives, and buy or even condemn dilapidated structures, guided by 'Smart Growth' principles,'' the executive continued, promising to entice affordable-unit builders with sewer permit fee waivers, expedited health permit review, and bank assistance for down payments and low-interest loans.

The executive will also seek incentives for two-family housing -- since such owner-occupied homes ''can provide young applicants with the rental income that will finally allow them to obtain higher mortgages, which are necessary for even the simplest starter homes'' -- and funds for housing the homeless, because the county needs ''a better way to provide shelter than paying $6,000 a month to house a single family in run-down motels.''

Calling environmental preservation another key factor for the future ''that our grandchildren will see,'' the executive pointed out that the county -- 64 percent of its area already developed, 75 percent of its farmland gone, and developer pressures on farmers increased -- still have ''a small window, a golden opportunity'' to preserve its suburban and residually rural character. Consequently, he urged legislative cooperation to revamp the Real Estate Division and put it under his Director of Environmental Affairs Michael Deering, and to consolidate all environmental and energy programs in ''a single Department of Environment,'' which will ensure that all issues of open space, recycling, energy planning, groundwater protection and pollution-related cancer ''will be under the auspices of our dedicated environmental expert.''

The executive also stated that the county must protect the economic value of some thousand miles of its saltwater coastline and manage the beaches intelligently, that ''(t)he federal government can't walk away from its responsibilities in this area,'' and that downtown revitalization is an equally ''essential element of a sound economic plan,'' increasing both adjacent property values and community sense of pride.

Crediting an early county corridor beautification program, local officials and chambers of commerce for a downtown renaissance in many communities, the executive pledged further investment ''to rebuilding our downtown areas'' and ''redeveloping our brownfield sites.''   2/10/2004

Resource(s): www.newsday.com/

Senator Clinton Urges Government Funding for Brownfield Redevelopment

''The federal government has walked away from its responsibility for affordable housing,'' said New York Democratic Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton in an extensive interview with the Poughkeepsie Journal Editorial Board, expanding on her remarks at an earlier Poughkeepsie Area Chamber of Commerce breakfast and Mayor Nancy Cozean's urban riverfront forum, where she pointed out that the government should fund brownfield redevelopment and alternative energy expansion, protect jobs, agriculture and the environment, and start encouraging smart growth through incentives in affordable housing and transportation.

The senator told the more than 1,000 people at both events that the future of Hudson River cities depends mostly on local work, in which she is willing to help, reports Poughkeepsie Journal writer Dan Shapley, quoting her as also saying, ''The federal government helped create some of these (urban deterioration) problems, and it should have a role (in) setting a new tone.''

During her session with Journal editors, the senator stressed the need for a multi-level public-private partnership to spur affordable housing through direct financial incentives and tax credits, and through subsidies for renters or owners, to make them pull together the resources. She said she has worked with Fannie Mae on some programs ''to help people make a down payment, to help rehabilitate housing,'' and to encourage home ownership.

Mentioning brownfield sites as one of the best locations for housing, the senator said the Mid-Hudson region has some 250 brownfields and New York State several thousands more, and added, ''There are examples all over the country of brownfield sites being turned into multi-income housing.'' -- Poughkeepsie Journal   2/10/2004

Resource(s): www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/

Gov. Pataki Wants New York to be Nation's Leader in Renewable Energy, Open Space Preservation

''Together, we've led the nation in our commitment to clean air and water. Let's be the nation's leader in clean and renewable energy technologies, and preserving open space,'' New York Republican Governor George Pataki told state lawmakers in his State of the State speech, advancing ''a new environmental agenda to achieve both of these goals.'' The governor also outlined ''a detailed economic plan'' to create one million private-sector jobs by 2010 by strengthening the successful Empire Zones program for attracting ''new facilities and investment'' and by starting Phase II of his urban Centers of Excellence program for putting the state on ''the forefront of high technology.''

Noting both the earlier-launched state policy of relocating government employees to city centers -- which helped reinvigorate downtown Troy, Schenectady, Albany and others -- and the prospects of reducing the nation's ''dependence on foreign energy sources'' by taking the lead to develop ''clean energy technologies, from wind and solar power to geothermal and fuel cells,'' the governor expanded ''the core mission of the Center of Excellence in Environmental Systems in Syracuse to include research and development in renewable and clean energy resources.''

Besides becoming the hub of clean energy research, the Syracuse Center ''will also be a model for future urban development,'' the governor said, announcing an agreement with Cornell University and local officials to ''locate this new facility downtown, on a brownfield, at the site of the old Smith-Corona building.'' Replacing blight with a ''green building'' will spark new ideas and ''bolster our efforts to bring new life to downtown Syracuse,'' the governor added, restating his similar commitment to the environment.

Quoting Republican President Theodore Roosevelt's century-old credo that ''The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, not impaired, in value,'' the governor pointed out that in the past nine years the state greatly enhanced its Environmental Protection Fund, put a record number of clean fuel buses on streets, enacted the nation's toughest acid rain regulations, passed historic Superfund Brownfield legislation last year, and crossed half of the way to his 2002 goal of protecting one million acres by 2012. With a new purchase of development rights to 6,000 acres of farmland, ''we have now protected more than 500,000 acres,'' the governor said. And stressing that all children, regardless of where they live deserve ''clean air, clean water, and pristine open space,'' he announced ''a new urban forestry initiative ... to plant thousands of trees throughout our urban neighborhoods and parks to save energy, create habitat, raise property values, and improve the quality of life for urban residents.''

He also asked for legislation to make each new public school bus in the state run on clean fuel; promised five new state parks in two years, and the opening or expansion of 20 more within five years; and urged lawmakers to ensure that ''the Hudson River will be swimmable from its source high in the Adirondack Mountains all the way to New York City'' by 2009, the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's first voyage up the river. But since ''the health of a river cannot be measured by water quality alone,'' the state ''must also ensure that the communities along the river have riverfront access and are healthy and vibrant,'' the governor observed, certain that by 2009, the whole Hudson River waterfront can be transformed ''into a series of world class destinations for business, culture, tourism, and research.''

In the final part of his 75-minute speech, the governor urged lawmakers to continue the ''successful efforts to revitalize Niagara Falls and its parkland'' by creation of Niagara River Greenway, modeled after the Hudson River Valley Greenway program -- its benefits expanded from eight to 201 communities over the past nine years -- and pledged further joint efforts with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to advance the AirTrain project, create a job hub at Jamaica station, redevelop waterfronts in each borough, and keep the timeline for restoration of the 2001 ''ground zero,'' with its planned Freedom Tower the tallest in the world and the future World Trade Center Transportation Hub as ''a new grand civic space for Lower Manhattan.''   1/7/2004

Resource(s): www.state.ny.us/

Study Shows Sprawl Spreading Across Upstate New York

Even though Republican Governor George Pataki's 2001 Quality Community Interagency Task Force recommended ways to spur planning and stem sprawl, the subsequent bill sponsored by Democratic Assemblyman Sam Hoyt stalled in committees and nothing has changed, regrets Ithaca Journal writer Yancey Roy, highlighting a joint Cornell University and Brookings Institution study that shows sprawl ''spreading across Upstate New York, rapidly outpacing population growth.'' Written by Cornell professor Rolf Pendall, the study found the region's population up by only 2.6 percent but rural land conversion by 30 percent, totaling more than 425,000 acres taken for development in 1982-97. Most Upstate residents now live in suburbs, which gained 2,800 businesses in those 15 years, while cities lost 2,200, facing ''dead'' malls, empty offices and vacant housing. Attributing sprawl in part to farming decline and general social changes such as lower marriage and higher divorce rates -- more responsible than population growth for an increased number of households -- professor Pendall blamed the other part on public policy. He mentioned property-tax rates higher in cities than in villages and towns -- $22.15, $20.79 and $17.47 per $1,000 assessed value, respectively; local government fragmentation that inhibits cooperative planning, the region's 52 counties, 511 school districts, 862 special districts and 1,366 municipalities constituting twice the number of jurisdictions in states like Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts; and subsidies in favor of infrastructure investments in outer areas, combined with high cost of urban reinvestment. The professor noted, the writer reports, that people want more space, fewer crowds, lower taxes and cleaner air, while attaching ''strong cultural values'' to freedom of movement and property rights, but pointed to such sprawl costs as environmental degradation, farmland development pressure and the loss of the region's traditional village character, stressing, ''Sprawl has many harmful effects.'' -- Ithaca Journal   10/20/2003

Resource(s): www.theithacajournal.com/index.html

Affordable Housing Programs Get Funding Boost in New York Metro Area

Expanding its affordable housing programs to the New York metropolitan area, Bank of America provided $20 million in financing to the Community Preservation Corp. (CPC) and promised another $80 million within months to nonprofit and other organizations to spur construction and renovation, with Bank of America New York market president Carter McClelland saying its Community Development Banking group will help finance more than 800 apartments in Brooklyn, 200 in Yonkers and 375 apartment homes in Newburg. The group, reports Commercial Real Estate News and property Resource GlobeSt.com writer Barbara Jarvie, has helped finance the construction of more than 100,000 affordable housing units. The Community Preservation Corp., a private mortgage lender for low-to-middle-income housing throughout New York and New Jersey, has financed more than 92,000 affordable units since 1974, which represents an investment of more than $3.2 billion. -- GlobeSt.com   9/4/2003

Resource(s): www.globest.com/

Builder Urges Buffalo Officials to Refurbish Old Homes, Build Small-Lot Housing

In their search for urban revival, Buffalo officials, activists and business leaders should avoid tearing down old homes for oversized structures with big parking lots and focus on rehabilitation and new small-lot dense housing, advised former Mississippi State University professor-turned builder Dan Camp, who has helped transform entire neighborhoods in his state ''by refurbishing old homes and practicing good urban design principles,'' writes Buffalo News reporter Stephen Watson. A guest at the ''Architectural Revival Buffalo'' lecture series held by the Campaign for Buffalo's History, Architecture and Culture, the builder spotlighted his work in Starkville's historic district, near an old cotton mill and the state university, where he buys, renovates and rents homes mostly to students. Influenced by home designs he admired in Alexandria, Virginia, but also in Great Britain, Italy, Russia and other countries, he put together a model for home, cottage and even garage rehabilitation, including new roofs, balconies, columns, windows, doors, fences and other features. His homes are small, attractive and as close to the street as possible, with cars hidden from view. -- Buffalo News   8/30/2003

Resource(s): www.buffalonews.com/default.asp

Buffalo Urged to Create Detailed Parking Blueprint Before Allowing More Demolition for Garages

With more than 200 parking lots and ramps or underground garages already shading almost half of their downtown Buffalo map, young professionals from the lobbying New Millennium Group, accompanied by Councilmen David A. Franczyk and Joseph Golombek Jr., held a news conference on one of the ramp expansion sites, to be the first to congratulate managers on their apparent goal of turning the whole downtown area into one big parking lot. Millennium member Patrick McNichol drove the point deeper, saying, ''If our master plan is to demolish all of downtown, then we're only halfway there. If you look very closely, there are still some buildings that are standing in the way of parking progress.'' Irony aside, writes Buffalo News reporter Brian Meyer, the New Millennium Group wants officials to impose a demolition moratorium until they draw a detailed parking blueprint; tie any new parking construction to new ''large scale'' downtown investment; require all new parking structures to allow commercial or residential use, including ''street-front'' retail; and expand other transportation options, including park-and-ride programs. City Parking Board consultant Thomas A. Gallagher acknowledged an overall downtown parking surplus, but noted its shortage in two of the city's busiest business corridors and pointed out that to compete with suburban office space, downtown Buffalo needs accessible and inexpensive parking. Planners also defended the current ramp expansion, saying a worker waiting list for downtown parking contains about 1,000 names. Speaking for their nonprofit Buffalo Place corporation that manages the downtown business district, Chairman Keith M. Belanger and Executive Director Michael T. Schmand stressed that planners work hard to ensure more parking without new lots or ramps, that 1,400 downtown workers joined a park-and-ride program, and that efforts to expand on-street parking and public transit use are under way. -- Buffalo News   7/10/2003

Resource(s): www.buffalonews.com/

University of Buffalo Grad Students Awarded Regional APA Outstanding Student Project Award

The American Planning Association, Western New York Section (APAWNY), granted its 2003 Award for Outstanding Student Project to 13 graduate students and assistant professor Ute Lehrer in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the School of Architecture and Planning, University of Buffalo (UB), for their 2002 fall semester work detailed in ''Towards a Smart Growth Master Plan: Assessments and Recommendations for the Town of Porter'' and presented during the ''Smart Growth and Choices for Change'' exhibition at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo State College. Announcing the winners, writes UB Reporter contributing editor Patricia Donovan, the APAWNY Awards Committee cited the students' ''high work ethic and their desire to put special emphasis on maximizing public participation in the planning process,'' along with their thorough data analysis and high-quality textual and visual presentation for this Niagra County town of 6,900 residents, most of them worried about its shrunken tax base and business loss, but also about the intentions of a multinational corporation that bought its several rural and lakefront properties. With residents understanding the economic development necessity for their town's social and fiscal vitality, but united in their wish to save local character, professor Lehrer said her team selected the ''smart growth paradigm ... because it aims to accommodate a community's growth, while preserving its character and open spaces.'' She added, ''By addressing issues such as housing, public services, the environment and economic vitality, the smart growth principles are intended to promote stability and progress without sacrificing the quality of life within a community.'' -- Reporter   6/26/2003

Resource(s): www.buffalo.edu/reporter/index.html

Ithaca Coalition Hopes ''Curb Your Car Day'' Will Break the Auto Routine

In a series of transit-oriented workshops, bike tours and other events culminating in ''Curb You Car Day'' on May 21, the recently formed Curb Your Car Coalition is familiarizing Ithaca residents with the audacious idea that ''it's possible to curb your car sometimes,'' says coalition member David Kay, hoping to make people break their daily car routine and realize they have other and likely more pleasant choices. Inspired by similar efforts elsewhere, reports Ithaca Journal writer Lauren Bishop, the coalition brings together more than a dozen groups, institutions and agencies, including the Tompkins County Public Library, Cornell University's Community and Rural Development Institute, the Ithaca- Tompkins County Transportation Council, The City of Ithaca Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Council, Recycle Ithaca's Bicycles, Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit, and the Tompkins County Smart Growth Society. At the opening event in the county library, city police officers registered bikes to help locate them if lost and signed residents up for 200 free bike helmets bought with federal money, the writer notes, adding that the coalition invites all participants in Curb Your Car Day to list their alternatives on its web feedback form and offers prizes to randomly chosen respondents. -- Ithaca Journal   5/12/2003

Resource(s): www.theithacajournal.com/news/ ; www.co.tompkins.ny.us/itctc/cyc/index.html

Real Estate Transfer Surcharge Would Fund Open Space Purchases in New York's Orange County

As a ''smart growth vs. no growth debate'' heats up in fast-growing and ''sprawl-fearing'' Orange County, state Republican Senators William J. Larkin Jr. and Thomas P. Morahan promise legislative consideration of a request by Crawford, Goshen, Montgomery and Warwick supervisors to let their towns impose a two-percent tax surcharge on all real estate transfers and use the money for open space purchases. The supervisors and the growing number of local residents, reports Middletown Times Herald-Record writer Brendan Scott, point out that much of such land preservation money would come from buyers of ''those new homes on old farmland,'' while influential builders, real estate agents and business leaders see the proposed surcharge as an ''elitist'' attempt to bar newcomers. The two Republican senators are taking the proposal to the legislature -- so the towns can put it up to voters -- without really endorsing the tax surcharge. Its approval in the Republican- led Senate, the writer notes, would help a similar bill in the Assembly, although experts consider the task difficult in the current ''tax-sensitive budget atmosphere.'' He quotes political scientist Gerald Benjamin, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at SUNY New Paltz, who says ''It's a tougher lift in a year like this. If the senators just wave it in and they don't want it that badly, it might not happen.'' -- Times Herald- Record   5/5/2003

Resource(s): www.recordonline.com/

Conservationists Alarmed at N.Y. Move to Divert Environmental Protection Funds

Although Governor George Pataki's conservation efforts earned him a reputation as a ''green'' governor, his move to divert $36.6 million from the $125 million Environmental Protection Fund to the depleted general fund alarmed several conservation groups, which backed his sweep of the fund last year as a one-time post-September 11 one-time fiscal emergency, but now stress that the fund ''has suffered enough.'' Albany Times Union writer Erin Duggan quotes Audubon New York executive director David Miller, who reminded lawmakers that the 1993 Environmental Protection Fund ''was created as a dedicated fund so that it would provide a reliable source of income in good, as well as in bad, times.'' But Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Erin Crotty assured lawmakers that the fund, sustained by real estate transfer taxes, state property sales and leases, conservation license plates and account interest, has enough money to help the state without shortchanging previously selected projects. Separately, Times Union writer Michael Gormley reports that the state will be considering the purchase of a 93,000-acre northwestern Adirondack property, just put on the market by the Maine-based Hancock Timber Resource Group, for at least partial inclusion in the 6-million acre Adirondack State Park. -- Times Union   3/6/2003

Resource(s): www.timesunion.com/

Award-Winning Town of Milton Shares Anti-Sprawl Visioning Experience

Recognized last fall by the American Planning Association for outstanding smart growth planning, Ulster County's town of Milton, next to the Hudson River, earned the opportunity to present its recently adopted Town Center District plan at a statewide conference of hundreds of towns in New York City, with Town Supervisor Louis Gnip glad to share the town's three-year anti-sprawl visioning experience ''with other interested municipalities wishing to do something similar'' and Town Center Committee Chairman Bruce Boghosian adding, ''Basically, we're applying Main Street principles to a suburban area.'' Milton has made its smart-growth plan special, reports Saratogian writer Duncan Crary, by adopting ''standards instead of guidelines.'' Any new structure in the Town Center District, he observes, must meet design standards for everything ''from lightning to the position and appearance of buildings.'' The standards may seem strict, said Supervisor Gnip, but they can help speed up the permit process by making developers know what the town expects. ''Our original master plan called for this to start happening in 30 or 40 years.'' he added. ''Now we find ourselves moving ahead in two.'' -- Saratogian   2/21/2003

Resource(s): www.saratogian.com/

Gov. Pataki Outlines Growth and Environmental Goals in State of State Speech

Setting a job-focused, pro-growth economic agenda to speed up the New York State recovery from the trauma of the national recession and the September 11th terrorist attack, Republican Governor George E. Pataki dedicated a major part of his State of the State speech to a vision of a future where Americans and those ''from around the globe seeking the promise of freedom in America will find a good job, affordable housing and a good education'' in the state, where its ''air and water are even cleaner than at the turn of century and where millions of acres of open space and wildlife habitat are preserved forever,'' and where people from everywhere ''come to visit, work and live in a reborn Lower Manhattan -- in numbers greater than ever before.'' Proud of his 2001 Centers of Excellence initiative to team universities with industry -- which created an Empire State High Tech Corridor from Buffalo to Brookhaven and has already attracted almost $1 billion in federal, private and industry investment -- the governor named its new partners, urged further efforts ''to reclaim our waterfronts and provide new recreational opportunities'' across the state, and announced the creation of a new state park, at Gallagher Beach near Buffalo. ''Let's reform and refinance the Superfund,'' the governor appealed, ''and let's work to reduce greenhouse gases by adopting the carbon dioxide emission standards for motor vehicles which were recently proposed by the State of California.'' Confident that the state can also become ''a national leader in renewable energy usage,'' he directed the Public Service Commission to implement a program ''which will guarantee that within the next 10 years at least 25 percent of electricity bought in New York will come from renewable energy resources like solar power, wind power or fuel cells.'' The governor closed his speech with a promise that the site of the terrorist attack will become a memorial for the victims, '' a dignified, final resting place'' for many still unidentified. In the weeks ahead, the state, the city and all their partners will outline a plan for the site and its surroundings. ''The plan,'' he said, ''will be refined over time but it will enable an international memorial competition to proceed this spring, allow for a 21st century transportation network, and set Lower Manhattan on the path to fully reclaim its place as the financial capital of the world.''   1/8/2003

Resource(s): www.state.ny.us/03sosaddress/sos2003text.html

500 Attend ''Impressive'' New York Smart Growth Summit

It was one ''impressive'' Smart Growth Summit, with its audience of more than 500 planners, architects, developers, real estate lawyers and local leaders emanating ''audacious optimism,'' writes Newsday business columnist Ronald E. Roel about a Huntington gathering hosted by the nonprofit Vision Long Island group, whose president, Ron Stein, called the smart-growth approach a ''triple win'' -- for homeowners, developers and communities. The summit's keynote speaker, president of the Michigan-based Gibbs Planning Group, Rober Gibbs -- who has ''never seen so many elected officials in one room'' and who considers Long Island one of the most ready areas in the country for smart growth -- told attendees ''all the moons are aligned'' for retailers' return to small downtown areas, stressing that any new town centers should include housing, businesses, retail stores and civic places. Brookhaven town board member Edward Hennessey confirmed that many Long Island communities find redevelopment ''the most attractive option, because we're running out of land.'' His community, he added, is envisioning three ''nodes of development,'' to create town centers, parking and pedestrian-friendly streets, with officials hoping to devise and implement new zoning codes within a few years ''instead of waiting for 20 years.'' But one real estate professional handed the columnist his business card with a note, ''Smart growth is frightening!'' He later questioned over the phone whether the region's need for affordable housing can be reconciled with an ''insatiable desire'' for open space. -- Newsday   9/27/2002

Resource(s): www.newsday.com/

Despite Offer of Cash Grants, Large Firms Avoiding Downtown NYC Office Space

''No amount of money will keep some businesses downtown,'' reports New York Times writer Charles V. Bagli, finding that one-half to two-thirds of large firms shun city and state grants to stay downtown for at least seven years, with the Aeon insurance company, which lost 200 employees in the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center, declining $5 million in cash and instead leasing a midtown tower for $6 million more than its current annual rent, and Wall Street's Pillsbury Winthrop refusing $1.8 million and willing to pay a $5 million higher rent in a new tower at Times Square. Such relocations, the writer notes, ''raise questions about the effectiveness of government grants,'' money that could fund transportation or electrical power projects with wider benefits. Noting that the city and the state had earmarked $294 million for retention grants, of which $32.9 million were given to 13 financial, investment and other companies not really planning to relocate, the writer quotes a prominent though unnamed real estate broker who says, ''Incentives don't retain people. What retains people is quality of life and transportation.'' Regional Plan Association president Robert D. Yaro concurs, saying: ''Programs built around incentives don't deal with the fundamentals. The strategy downtown has to focus on making it accessible and nice. We've got to expand the residential population, create attractive public spaces and open new cultural institutions.'' -- The New York Times   7/24/2002

Resource(s): www.nytimes.com/

Pataki Outlines Cleanup, Preservation Measures for New York

In the wake of the September 11 disaster that hit Lower Manhattan and shook the metropolitan and upstate economies, ''we must redouble our efforts and pass bold new initiatives,'' and ''recommit ourselves to the priorities'' of the past seven years,'' said Governor George Pataki in his State of the State speech, promising a new Empire Opportunity Fund to ''create jobs and spark growth in Upstate New York and on Long Island'' and setting ''a goal of preserving over 1 million new acres of open space over the next decade,'' in addition to the more than 300,000 acres already preserved since 1995. The first part of ''an ambitious plan to attract new private and public investments across the state,'' the governor said, the Empire Opportunity Fund will help finance inner harbor development, downtown commercial revitalization and crucial infrastructure improvements, along with fast ferry and waterfront projects. He stressed that small businesses create the majority of new jobs in the state and promised another $100 million this year for the highly successful Excelsior Linked Deposit Program, which provides low cost loans to small and start-up businesses. Pointing out that during his tenure the state has committed almost $10 billion to clean up lakes, rivers and toxic sites, reduce air pollution and save open space, the governor called Lt. Gov Mary Donohue's Quality Communities Task Force and the state's Open Space Plan ''the perfect framework'' for cooperation with local governments to achieve his goal of preserving another million acres of open space. Next, he urged legislative cooperation ''to reform and refinance the State Superfund to revitalize our communities by cleaning up toxic waste sites and redeveloping brownfield areas, especially along our urban waterfronts'' and promised to introduce a program to improve the environment and reduce dependence on foreign oil ''by leading the nation in the development and deployment of renewable energy sources like geothermal, biomass, solar and wind power.'' And noting the state has committed nearly $6 billion over the past six years to housing and provided more than 75,000 homes for low and moderate income families, the governor said, ''Let's do more to make sure that the high cost of housing doesn't force working people in our state to leave the neighborhoods where they grew up. By creating a program modeled after the existing Build Now Initiative, we will work with local communities, labor unions and community developers to identify and pre-permit sites for the construction of affordable housing.''   1/10/2002

Resource(s): www.nga.org/governors/1,1169,C_SPEECH^D_3044,00

Pataki Withholding Funds for Parkland Purchases, Environmental Projects

With Governor George Pataki seeking means to contain the state's budget shortages, leaders of seven environmental groups and Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee Chairman Richard Brodsky warned against shortchanging the 1993 Environmental Protection Fund, which still awaits this fiscal year's allocation from its $288.7 million reserve. They are strongly advocating several bills that would release $150 million for parkland purchases, solid waste programs and recycling projects. In the context of the governor's remark that the environmental millions are still ''state funds and that he has to deal with the looming revenue shortfall,'' director of the Adirondack Mountain Club, Neil Woodruff, said further allocation delay could make the state miss one-time opportunities to save thousands of Adirondack lakeside acres from residential development and other thousands of Catskills ridge acres sought by developers for casinos.   12/20/2001

Resource(s): www.timesunion.com/aspstories/

New York's Mayor-Elect Taps Experienced Execs for Top Positions

In a move boding well for New York City, Mayor-elect Michael Bloomberg selected as his deputies three seasoned professionals -- the area's top transit executive, Marc Shaw, the city's Urban League leader, Dennis Walcott, and a long-time aide to former mayor Ed Koch, Patricia Harris. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's executive director and CEO, Marc Shaw, will be deputy mayor for operations; the New York Urban League's chief executive, Dennis Walcott, will be deputy mayor for policy; and the Bloomberg LP's corporate communications head, former mayoral assistant for federal affairs, Patricia Harris, will be deputy mayor for administration. According to the Associated Press, the mayor-elect, ''a political novice,'' will likely depend heavily ''on Shaw's relations with Gov. George Pataki and state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.''   12/8/2001

Resource(s): www.bergen.com/

EPA tells GE to Fund Hudson River Cleanup

Against strong pressure by General Electric leaders and area politicians, EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman reaffirmed her August decision to make the company pay almost $500 million for the dredging of a 40-mile stretch of the Hudson River north of Troy, New York, and for the removal of 150,000 pounds of toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), embedded in the mud by discharges from the company's two electrical equipment plants prior to the 1977 ban on those chemicals. The administrator pledged to conduct ''this important cleanup ... with a continuing open process that will involve all parties.'' The dredging plan, write Eric Pianin and Michael Powell of The Washington Post, sets the ''stringent air quality and noise standards'' sought by all parties, while the assurance of public hearings to help hammer out the details of the multiyear, two-phase cleanup further assuages their varied concerns over its efficiency and potential impact on local economy. Both the Sierra Club's Hudson River campaign director, Chris Ballantyne, and Natural Resources Defense Council spokeswoman Katherine Kennedy are ''pleased'' with the administrator's decision. Fort Edward town supervisor Merrilyn Pulver, who led the upper Hudson area's fight against the dredging, thought detrimental to its economic recovery, will now seek, the Post writers report, ''the tightest possible regulations'' and the termination of the work should it ''resuspend'' toxic particles in the water. New York Times writer Kirk Johnson quotes the president of the Scenic Hudson conservation group, Ned Sullivan, who called the decision ''everything we were hoping for'' and upstate U.S. Republican Representative John Sweeney, who repeated his doubts about the dredging, but also expressed satisfaction that his constituents' concerns were addressed and that broad public involvement in the cleanup process could preclude a ''big-dig mess.''   12/5/2001

Resource(s): www.washingtonpost.com/; www.nytimes.com/

Incentives, Tax Breaks Offered to Help Rebuild NY Financial District

"Ever since the Erie Canal opened in the early 1800s, Wall Street has been the money capital of America," surviving the Civil War, a 1920 street bombing, the Great Depression, the 1987 stock market crash and a 1993 truck bomb, but the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center robbed the area of about 45 percent of its best office space, "revealed the vulnerabilities of concentration" and sped up the slow outflow of big firms, turning Midtown -- between 30th and 59th Streets -- "into the nation's new financial district," write Noelle Knox and Martha T. Moore in a comprehensive USA Today story on Lower Manhattan's prospects. They note that New York officials, who have long fought to stop financial firms from leaving the city for cheaper suburbs, now are trying to secure their return from temporary offices in New Jersey and Connecticut with promises of $2 billion in incentives, tax breaks and employee retention grants to a "Liberty Zone" around the destruction site, slated for redevelopment under a $54 billion federal aid bill pending in Congress. City officials also plan to issue $15 billion in tax exempt bonds, to offer developers attractive reconstruction loans. Still, the writers points out, big brokerage firms like newer Midtown office buildings for their huge trading floors, miles of telecommunication wires and location next to the suburban commuter rail links and all the theaters and restaurants important for entertaining clients. They add that Lower Manhattan community groups want a redevelopment plan that would prevent the district from resembling "a ghost town after the stock market closes at 4 p.m." and that the owner of the 99-year lease on the World Trade Center site, Larry Silverman, plans "to erect four 50-story office towers."   11/2/2001

Resource(s): www.usatoday.com

Support of politicians and corporate leaders who want to rebuild the district hit by terrorists as soon as possible

Concerned that many companies that lost their World Trade Center offices are planning to leave Lower Manhattan, which would trigger more sprawl in the congested urban corridor of northern New Jersey, Long Island and southern Connecticut, several environmentalists voiced support of politicians and corporate leaders who want to rebuild the district hit by terrorists as soon as possible -- "even if it means sidestepping or streamlining some environmental protection rules." According to New York Times writer Kirk Johnson, most agree that rebuilding the site "will require finding a new balance between the old black-or-white advocacy for the environment and the broader needs of a city and region." The writer cites two environmentalists. A senior lawyer a the Manhattan-based Natural Resources Defense Council, Eric A. Goldstein, says, "If the question is spreading out or retaining a central core for the region, the environmental community can be expected to come down in favor of a strong central city." The communications director for the Environmental Advocates group of Albany, New York, Jeff Jones, says, "Our greatest fear is that people will use this (site destruction) as an excuse to pave over more of the natural world." The writer also notes that the Manhattan-based Transportation Alternatives group, lauded Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's temporary restrictions on single-occupant cars entering Manhattan during rush hours and called for East River bridge tolls and a new 20-cent a gallon gasoline tax, with proceeds used to improve mass transit.   10/18/2001

Resource(s): www.nytimes.com

Are a city's assets -- density, concentration, monumental ...

Are a city's assets -- density, concentration, monumental structures -- still alluring? asks acting dean of the Cooper Union School of Architecture Anthony Vidler in The New York Times after the aerial attack on the World Trade Center, responding that despite renewed focus on dispersal as "the viable pattern of life and work," the global experience indicates "that terrorism alone will not decrease the importance of city centers for the public life of societies." He illustrates city resilience and vitality with three facts. First, dispersal of the "metropolis" into the "megalopolis" since the 1920s, has spawned "an uneasy compromise between clusters of skyscrapers in downtown redevelopments and suburban sprawl," but cities like New York have retained their strong social, cultural and business pull and restored livability, services and whole neighborhoods. Second, many European cities have endured prolonged dangers -- London defying World War II bombardment and IRA car bombing; Paris never losing its public and cultural vibrancy in face of the post-Algerian War terrorism. Third, "real community," as shown by New York since September 11, "is bred in cities more strongly" than in suburbs. Stressing that now "the idea of public space, and its relations to urban community" is even more important, the author urges planners to "explore new urban designs that learn from the difficulties of past utopias as well as avoid the nostalgia of anti-city programs." He concludes: "We should search for design alternatives that retain the dense and vital mix of uses critical to urban life, rethinking the exclusions stemming from outdated zoning, real estate values and private ownership, to provide vital incentives for building public spaces equal to our present needs for community."   9/25/2001

Resource(s): www.nytimes.com

In a move regretted by General Electric ...

In a move regretted by General Electric, but lauded by top New York State politicians and national environmental leaders, EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman backed the previous administration's $460-million plan to dredge 2.65 million cubic yards of PCB-laced sediment from a 40-mile stretch of the Hudson River north of Albany, while opting for dredging in stages to assess work effectiveness. The Associated Press reports that the revised plan may remain unofficial until late September to give state leaders time to study its details. The General Electric Co, which contaminated the northern Hudson River with 1.3 million pounds of PCBs from its two power plants before Congress banned the chemicals in 1977, would have to pay most of the cleanup costs. In a statement, the company stressed that it has already spent $200 million on cleanup research and restoration projects in the past 20 years, blamed the agency for disregarding "sound science" and local voices, and urged it to make the decision available for broad public review. New York Republican Representative John Sweeney, in whose district PCB waste may be stored, expressed similar sentiments. In contrast, Republican Governor George Pataki, who had personally promoted a major dredging, called the decision "an important victory for a clean and healthy Hudson River." Environmental groups issued similar statements. Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope said EPA "took a monumental step toward protecting New Yorkers from cancer-causing PCBs." Natural Resources Defense Council Executive Director Frances Beinecke applauded "Administrator Whitman for standing by science and her staff in holding General Electric accountable, even if the "stepped approach may move slower than we had wished." Audubon Society New York Executive Director David J. Miller emphasized Governor Pataki's "critical role in the final outcome," while commending the Administrator both for her "courageous decision" and "improvements to the proposed EPA action," whose phasing-in will allow "performance monitoring of the clean-up effort, and minimize disruption to the navigational channel."   8/6/2001

Resource(s): www.sierraclub.org

With a New York farmland development rate ...

With a New York farmland development rate averaging 12,000 acres a year from 1982 to 1992 and exceeding 26,400 acres annually since then, activists from more than 30 farm, agribusiness and conservation groups organized in the area's Keep Farms Growing! alliance held a rally in Albany, urging state lawmakers to increase funds for agriculture and farmland protection. Recognizing their common interests, the activists acknowledged the state's efforts to link "viable farm business and good land stewardship," but pointed out that although last year's requests for funds from the innovative Grow New York economic development program and the Agricultural and Farmland Protection Program topped $7.3 million and $63 million, the new budget offers them only $1.3 million and $12 million, respectively. "The governor and the legislature have done a good job of off-setting some of farmers' costs of doing business by passing sales and property tax reform," said a director for the New York Farm Bureau, Patrick Hooker, but a "smart strategy for the state includes adopting the Agricultural Initiative" and increasing outlays for already successful programs. "We're seeing this beautiful, historic landscape chopped into bits for development," said Scenic Hudson executive director Ned Sullivan, and under sprawl pressures "we're losing the very qualities that give the Hudson Valley its unique sense of place and its great local food." And beside growing food, emphasized Open Space Institute president Joe Martens, farms " produce green open space, cleaner air and water, a tremendous boost to tourism," and ensure "a higher quality of life" in the state. Finally, citing the aphorism that "asphalt is always the last crop," the American Farmland Trust director for the Northeast, Jeremiah Cosgrove, warned, "If we lose our farmers and their land, they are gone forever."   2/16/2001

Resource(s): www.isnewswire.com

Describing last year's session of the legislature ...

Describing last year's session of the legislature as the most productive in a generation, "because old divisions gave way to a new spirit of shared purpose," Governor George E. Pataki counts on the same bipartisanship for his economic, social and environmental agenda in 2001. Outlined in his seventh State of the State speech, the agenda includes proposals to boost the economy in Empire Zones, reclaim brownfields, help farmers stay in business, spur scientific research, reauthorize and reform the state's Superfund program and increase land conservation efforts. The governor will seek $300 million to create more jobs, clean up brownfields and double the size of 22 tax-free upstate Empire Zones; $230 million to reduce county taxes for income-eligible senior homeowners and farmers; and $250 million to leverage three times as much in private and federal funds for new university-based "Centers of Excellence" in high-tech and bio-tech research. He will propose record spending for the Environmental Protection Fund, a tax credit for conservation easements on private lands and a third Heritage Trail to teach youngsters about the significance of the Revolutionary War. The governor also announced a deal between the state, the International Paper Company and the Nature Conservancy to protect another 26,000 acres in the Adirondacks, which will help conserve natural resources, allow public access to nature and ensure the economic health of the region. "This agreement," the governor said, "exemplifies our belief that sound environmental policy and economic development go hand in hand."   1/9/2001

Resource(s): www.state.ny.us

Broome County's urban core, like many others ...

Broome County's urban core, like many others throughout the state, is a wasteland of brownfields and "nobody can seem to do much about it," writes Tom Wilber in the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, noting that developers who fault state cleanup programs for "too little incentives and too much red tape" can build more cheaply and easily on greenfields. The writer reports that county officials hope to break the impasse with their new Environmental Management Council, a citizen advisory board that includes developers, conservationists, lawyers, activists and others willing to seek mutually-beneficial ways of reusing brownfields and curbing suburban sprawl. The most divisive issue they all face may well be summed up by a Binghamton lawyer, former city corporation counsel Robert Murphy. He says many businesses are willing to come in and spend $200,000 "to make the site safe and workable," but not $1.2 million "to make it pristine when they are going to cover it with a factory anyway." Adding that much of "the environmental cry is for smart growth," he ends: "I agree with smart growth -- you want to build where the infrastructure is. But environmentalists are encouraging bad growth" by demanding too much and "chasing" developers to greenfields.   1/2/2001

Resource(s): www.binghamtonpress.com

Having placed San Francisco and New York ...

Having placed San Francisco and New York City atop its 1999 list of the best places to live, Money magazine editors focused this year on economically vibrant cities that are also successfully managing their growth and providing the highest quality of life around, selecting Portland, Oregon as the best overall and Sarasota, Florida as the best small city. Their regional 2000 awards went to Providence, Rhode Island in the Northeast; Chicago, Illinois in the Midwest; the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area, North Carolina in the South; and Salt Lake City, Utah in the West. All these cities have solid schools, healthy growth and low crime; all control urban sprawl, avoid overcrowding and put a premium on green space, culture and having an accessible city center. In contrast to San Francisco and New York City, which have became too expensive and more congested, this year's best cities keep their average home prices between $126,000 and $170,000 and their average commute time between 18 and 28 minutes. Happy to lead the best city, Portland Mayor Vera Katz says We're growing gracefully.   11/30/2000

Resource(s): www.money.com

After an extensive examination of statistical data ...

After an extensive examination of statistical data and views of top-level executives worldwide, Fortune magazine editors and Arthur Andersen researchers ranked New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, the Washington, D. C. area and San Jose as best for business this year. The winners excelled in four collective categories: the overall condition of business, including its growth and diversity; the cost of doing business, including taxes and commercial real estate prices; the caliber of the work force, including education level, retention rate and management experience; and quality of life, including housing, schools and commutes. Characterizing the winners as a solid group of business capitals that have distinguished themselves by adapting to an environment where radical change is not only inevitable but the source of growth and reinvention, the editors say the 2000 list is a good indicator of not only where business is thriving today but also where it will be tomorrow. They also selected as the best for business in other parts of the world - London in Europe, Buenos Aires in Latin America and Hong Kong in the Asia/Pacific region. The researchers note that executives worldwide, and especially in Europe, have begun to recognize the need to search for talent abroad. They add that in California's Silicon Valley almost half of the technology professionals are foreign-born.   11/30/2000

Resource(s): www.fortune.com

The 2000 National Planning Conference of the ...

The 2000 National Planning Conference of the National Planning Association (APA), April 15-19 in New York City, gathered 5,000 urban, rural and regional planners, officials and civic leaders to discus economic and community development, transportation planning, urban design, environmental protection and sprawl solutions. The program includes more than 200 sessions, almost 100 mobile workshops throughout the city, and a National Planning Awards Ceremony. The top recipients are New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, honored with the Distinguished Leadership Award for an Elected Official, and Oregon Democratic Representative Earl Blumenauer, selected as Legislator of the Year. APA's Awards Jury Chairman Dennis Andrew Gordon said that under Governor Whitman's six-year leadership New Jersey has distinguished itself as one of a handful states whose smart growth, open space protection and related efforts merit national acknowledgment. Information about the conference, awards and results is available at their website.   4/17/2000

Stressing that at the onset of the ...

Stressing that at the onset of the last century, "the Main Streets of New York were the heart of our communities," Governor George E. Pataki pledged "smart investments and targeted economic policies" to recapture that spirit and make Main Streets bustle again. "Some call it Smart Growth. We call it smart. Period," said the governor. His Main Street program will move state offices from remote campuses to downtown locations, provide tax incentives for creating full-time jobs in designated downtown areas, add tax incentives for voluntary brownfields clean-up and redevelopment, and create new technology enterprise zones in central business districts. The governor also renewed his commitment to the environment and clean air. Proud of the 1000 projects funded by the Clean Water/Clean Air Bond Act and of the protection of a quarter million acres of open space, the governor wants to equip all state non-emergency fleets only with clean-fuel vehicles and to link the region's trails, preserves and greenbelts into "an Empire State Greenway." Stretching from Montauk to New York City, from the Battery to Buffalo, from Niagra Falls to the North County, the Empire State Greenway, the governor said, "will serve as a foundation for environmental protection, historic preservation and compatible economic development in the 21st century."   1/10/2000

Why Smart Growth is Smart" was the ...

"Why Smart Growth is Smart" was the subject of a presentation by its well-known advocate, Rochester Mayor William Johnson, at a campaign event for a Democratic mayoral candidate in Ithaca, Dan Hoffman. Mayor Johnson's special concern is the direct relation between suburban sprawl and urban disinvestment, and their disproportionate impact on low-income and minority residents in the center cities and older suburbs. Mayoral candidate Hoffman stresses similar smart growth issues, including the need for regional planning.   10/12/1999

On a visit to economically struggling upstate ...

On a visit to economically struggling upstate New York, Vice President Al Gore promised working families and civic leaders in a hard-hit part of Amsterdam all efforts "to ensure that no community is left behind." Accompanied by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo, Vice President Gore also went to a regional issues forum at nearby Fulton-Montgomery Community College. The visit has coincided with the release of a glowing Cornell University report on the Administration's Canal Corridor Initiative for the region. According to the report, the initiative will boost upstate tourism by five percent a year, creating 17,000 jobs, adding $447 million annually to state and local tax revenues, and sparking economic growth in the Erie Canal zone. The report is available at http://www.hud.gov/news.html   10/6/1999

The director of the U.S. Small Business ...

The director of the U.S. Small Business Administration office in Syracuse, Bernard Paprocki, is traveling across 34 upstate counties under his oversight, promoting a recently started and little-known federal program to help businesses in so-called "historically underutilized business zones," or HUBZones. The businesses, with up to 500 employees, may be eligible for sole-source contracts, restricted competition awards and price breaks. Designating more than 7,000 urban census tracts as HUBZones, with 22 in the state's Capital Region, the SBA is setting aside three percent of federal contracts for them, or $6 billion annually in the next four years.   10/6/1999

Cornell University in Ithaca has launched its ...

Cornell University in Ithaca has launched its journal, Environment, Development and Sustainability with the dire prediction that without "a democratically determined population policy," sound resource use, energy enhancements and environmental protection, most of world's 12 billion people will live miserably, suffering poverty and malnutrition by 2100. In a study entitled "Will Limits of Earth's Resources Control Human Numbers?", David Pimentel and seven other Cornell students set the optimal world population at about two billion, with a standard of living about 50 percent lower than enjoyed today by Americans. Details available at http:// www:wkap.nl/journalho me.htm/1387-587X.   9/22/1999

According to HSH Associates' survey of mortgage ...

According to HSH Associates' survey of mortgage lenders, the average lending rate in early August exceeded eight percent for the first time in two years. The rise reflects a similar upsurge in the interest rates of ten-year U.S. Treasury bonds. Some experts expect the rise to deter at least low-income families from home buying, thus slowing the construction rate, with ripple effects in the retail and manufacturing sectors. Others see the eight-percent mortgage rate as "more of a psychological benchmark than an economic one" because home buyers got used to falling interest rates in the past several years. Still others say that should higher mortgage rates decrease demand for new homes, their prices could drop, which would go "hand in hand with Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's goal of slowing the economy."   8/10/1999

In a New York Times article on ...

In a New York Times article on managing metropolitan growth, Timothy Egan writes that Salt Lake City and Milwaukee, both with 1.5 million metro residents and both fighting sprawl, show in different ways "how Federal transportation subsidies are still one of the biggest forces shaping urban areas." In Salt Lake City, a 1.6 million expansion of I-15, partly funded with money from federal TEA-21, aims "to speed people into and out of the city." In Milwaukee, "the nation's largest highway deconstruction project," helped with $20 million in federal funds, aims "to restore a neighborhood and revive city life." The writer notes that despite Governor Michael Leavitt's promise that Utah "will no longer subsidize urban sprawl," it "seems to be doing just that." He also quotes three-term Milwaukee Mayor John Nordquists as saying: "The urban superhighway should be relegated to the scrap heap of history."   7/21/1999

In the latest legislative effort to control ...

In the latest legislative effort to control sprawl, Democratic Assemblymen Richard Brodsky, Thomas DiNapoli and Sam Hoyt have introduced separate bills that would offer municipalities financial incentives for "smart growth" planning and efficient land use. Their common goal is to help coordinate future growth, preserve open space and discourage "leapfrog development that has led to costly duplication of infrastructure and municipal services around upstate cities." The Assembly's Local Governments Committee will vote on the bills this month.   6/18/1999

After New York State Supreme Court Justice ...

After New York State Supreme Court Justice Richard Huttner barred New York City from auctioning 115 neighborhood gardens to developers, the city agreed to sell them to the Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit conservation group. The gardens, totaling 11 acres, have changed the aesthetic and social character of many poor minority neighborhoods. The trust will save them at the cost of $4.2 million, including $1.2 million raised by singer Bette Midler.   5/19/1999

Saratoga Springs: The City Council approved a ...

Saratoga Springs: The City Council approved a new comprehensive master plan, which creates eight economic development areas and promotes mixed-use projects, with housing near jobs and businesses. Each area will be developed according to its special needs, and each project will be scrutinized for its impact on the environment, traffic, quality of life and the economy.   5/14/1999

Praising New Jersey's 1992 development plan and ...

Praising New Jersey's 1992 development plan and its 1998 approval of a $100 million open space protection program, the president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Richard Moe, urged New York State and Connecticut to enact similar comprehensive growth management laws. Addressing a Regional Plan Association session in New York City, Moe said that the three states' land consumption rates have exceeded almost five times their population growth over the last generation, with sprawl hurting the region's landscape, economic viability and quality of life. Stressing a special need to reverse the deterioration of inner cities, he ended: "The choice is ours and the time to make that choice is now."   4/30/1999

In an Earth Day announcement, governor George ...

In an Earth Day announcement, governor George E. Pataki committed $3.4 million to buy 127 acres of mostly tidal and freshwater wetlands at Benton Bay, in the ecologically fragile Great South Bay estuary, to preserve its fish and wildlife habitats. The money will come from the Environmental Fund and Clean Water/Clean Air Bond Act funds. The state will open the area for recreational use.   4/27/1999

Southampton: This Long Island town faces a ...

Southampton: This Long Island town faces a secession drive by one of its 11 unincorporated hamlets, Sagaponack, which is trying to save its unique character from the threat posed by a planned $100 million, 66,000-square-feet financier's mansion. A newly-formed residents' group, The Sagaponack Association for Village Incorporation, wants home rule because the town is ignoring the hamlet's needs to preserve farmland and solve summer parking problems.   4/23/1999

Wilton: Through its new Wilton Land Conservancy ...

Wilton: Through its new Wilton Land Conservancy, this fast-growing city in Saratoga County is offering tax brakes to donors of wild land for a permanent nature preserve. City Supervisor Roy McDonald says the time for saving land is now, during economic prosperity, to improve quality of life and attract new residents and businesses. The conservancy hopes for donations of 3,000 acres, or about ten percent of the city's land, in the next two years.   3/1/1999

In a bipartisan legislative push for smart ...

In a bipartisan legislative push for smart growth, state Senator, Republican Mary Lou Rath and Assemblyman, Democrat Sam Hoyt, introduced bills to create a state task force that would determine how to discourage "leapfrog development," maximize infrastructure use, ease the sprawl-related property tax and preserve green space. Another smart growth advocate, Rochester Mayor William Johnson, said that upstate leaders are alarmed by the area's 80 percent land use increase since 1960, despite its only four percent population growth.   3/1/1999

Advocates of regionalism in the western part ...

Advocates of regionalism in the western part of the state, together with the Network of Religious Communities, have created the Region-Wide Conversation, a program of inter-church visits and congregational discussions. They will work "to restore a sense of shared community among urban and suburban residents." They also hope to recruit and prepare younger civic and business leaders for the challenges of "our new culture of collaboration."   12/1/1998

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