Planning and Development Board - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. This is the January 27th, 2026 meeting of the City of Ithaca Planning and Development Board. Welcome to our board members and the public here in person and anyone online. Um, we call this meeting to order at 6:08 p.m. Uh, Andy, can you start us off with introductions? Andy Roman, member of the board. Uh, Max Feffer, member of the board. Jenny Scliffe, member of the board. Peggy Tully, member of the board. Nikki and staff to the board. Emily Patrina, chair of the board. Miss Nicholas, director of planning and development and staff to the board.

All right. Thank you all. Um, there are emergency exits in this room at the north of the building and the south where you entered. Um, in case of an emergency evacuation, we are to take one of the two exits and wait on the trees on the same side of the street on South Kyoga and Green Street. We do not cross Green Street unless absolutely necessary. Um, those with restricted mobility in the event of emergencies, it's best to move to one of the stairwells and first responders will arrive to aid you. In the event of other emergencies, you'll be notified at that time. We want everyone to be aware of their surroundings and offer to help when it is not to your own detriment, as you're your own best advocate. Women's restrooms are located on the first and third floors. Men's restrooms on the second and fourth floors. Uh we have a busy agenda tonight and we want to attend to all of the items on the agenda in a thorough and deliberate manner. And to that end, I urge the public um our volunteer board members and applicants to keep comments and discussion as concise and relevant as possible. We will try to adhere to the proposed time limits on the agenda. Uh Nikki, are there any changes to the agenda? except to add that Sam will be talking about the new city development dashboard in old and new business at the end of the agenda.

Okay, thank you. Uh we do have November 24th minutes to approve tonight. Uh can I have a motion to open discussion? Jenny moves. Can I have a second? Peggy seconds. Okay. Any discussion or changes to the minutes? Seeing none, let's do a show of hand votes to approve the November 24 minutes. And that is unanimous. Thank you. Um, let's move into public comment. This is a time for the public to speak about any item for which there is not a public hearing tonight. Uh, we have public hearings for zero projects tonight. Um, so if you're here to speak about projects, now would be the time. Members of the public will each have three minutes to speak and you'll be given a one-minute warning before your time is up. We do accept and encourage comments in writing. As a reminder, this is not a question and answer session with the board. We're here to listen to your comments and take them under advisement. If you have specific questions, you may direct them to staff via email. Anyone in person wishing to speak? Yes. Okay. Please come forward. Tell us your name and which project you'd like to speak on.

Sit right here. Yes. Have a seat. And when you're ready, you can push the microphone till it's green. Great. Okay. Um, my name is Josh Lowour and I'm speaking about the project that is on the agenda for tonight, 309 College Avenue. Um, I'm going to try to keep it simple. Um, I sent you a letter. Did everybody get it? Yes.

Um, I uh hope you had a chance to read it. Um, so I'm going to keep really brief because I don't need to repeat what's in the letter. Um, as you know, I live in College Town and have for a very long time. I deeply care about the neighborhood and about uh transportation options and especially the pedestrian built environment. Um more than a decade ago um I was here uh working on a project that uh that's adjacent to 309 307 College Avenue. Um there were uh several studies um that uh that the the city and TCAT and other uh governmental entities that identified um really important things that needed to be solved or addressed in college town. And um those things were a grocery store um a a real bus stop. Standing out in the snow doesn't in my mind isn't a real bus stop. Um and uh the um the block that uh these parcels 309 and 307 are located is a very long block. And so um long blocks are great are okay if you're in a car, but if you're walking long blocks are really not so good. So um there was a need or um studies called out for uh creating pedestrian crossings, midblock pedestrian crossings. So um with um there was a lot of people involved. I mean I I believe Lisa who was involved and Joanne who's no longer here and Megan and um TCAT Joe Joe Trukco who is no longer with TCAT um lots of people in Green. So there was a lot of people involved in this project that that we spent a lot of time at 307 College Avenue College crossing developing these I'll call them public amenities. So, the midblock pedestrian crossing, the bus

stop, um Greenar, and uh those are uh those are very important things that that uh I think helped improve the neighborhood and that we spent a lot of time, everybody involved and uh um and so I think this project at this project at 309 uh has a real opportunity to build on these public goods that we've all created. So, I'm asking the board to make sure that the design coordinates with this, especially this existing crossing so the space between the buildings can be safe or continue to be safe, active, inviting, and not just a leftover gap. Um, I'm open to working with the board or andor the applicant to, you know, help um continue with uh fulfilling this idea of this pedestrian crossing and making two complimentary things that end up together becoming something better than they would be separate. And I um I could go on and on, but you have it in the letter. Um so, thank you for your time. Um thank you for leading my reading my letter. If you have any questions, I mean, now I don't know if you have questions or I'm happy to to answer them. Um, you're welcome to reach out to me. Uh, if you want to meet in person, I'm happy to meet with you, the applicant, or anyone involved. And, uh, I really would like to help make this project and these public goods that we've all created uh, something better.

Great. Thank you very much. I do have one question for you. Um, have you had the opportunity to engage with the developers of 307 yet? So, 309. 309. 0 307. Um, we met. I gave him some drawings. Okay. Uh, we met briefly. Uh, but, uh, it it was brief. Yes, we did meet. Okay. So, the lines of communication are open. That's helpful for us to know. Yes. Thank you very much. There's not a Just so I understand, there's not currently a midblock crossing, right? There is. So, it goes and I I drew a a map and I put in some pictures, but it goes all the way through. It's partially covered. It has a lot of cameras. It's really well lit. It's about 10 ft wide. Okay, I understand. So, it goes from College Avenue to Lynen Avenue.

Yeah. Okay. And a a lot of it is glass. I tried to make it as porous and as you know, as Jane Jacobs would say, eyes on the walkway. Um I mean, we really put a lot of thought myself, uh city staff. I mean, there was a lot of really working back and forth and you know, sometimes at the time I maybe didn't like it. Um um but I'm glad. But, you know, looking back, I think it was the right thing. I mean, it's something that a hundred years from now, um, I I'll be proud to say that it's something that I did and and this project, I think, really has the opportunity to work with that that that public good that we've, you know, that we've all created. Great. Thank you very much. I can hand the drawing. She wants to see where

Yeah, I see it in the packet. Thank you. I hit a moment where I wasn't sure if you just meant a crosswalk across the street in the middle of the block, but you literally mean it's a passageway in between one. Yeah, got it. And and there is TCAT seating near that and there's also um a heated TCAT bus stop. I lived in Singapore and they do bus public transportation. Great. So, we put in um you know, it has infrared heater and you can sit so you're not standing in the snow. All right. We are very glad to have that this week. For sure. Yeah. Yes. Okay, thank you very much. I really appreciate everyone's time. Thank you, Mr. Flower. Uh Sam, is there anybody else wishing to speak um online?

No. Okay. Um would the board wish to make a response at all to the public comment we have received? No. Okay. Um I will just say, Mr. flower. I think your building is one that I know when I think of the stretch and it's because of all the amenities you've included. So, I know it was a while ago, but thank you for for working with the city and I think we hope to do the same with the the applicant that we're going to see tonight. Um, thank you. I have to leave. I'm on I'm on a nonprofit board for transportation stuff, so they have their annual meeting tonight. So, I have to leave. But Mike, we'll see you again, I'm sure.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Okay, since there's no one else wishing to speak, um I will close public hearing now and we can move into reviewing projects. Our first item on the agenda is the citizen at 602 West Buffalo and we are concerned with design review tonight. Julia and Bear, are you can you hear me? Yes, I can. Okay, we got you now. Um, would you like to give us a presentation?

Absolutely. Um, we may be having one more join us in a bit. Uh, it will be Chris Durr. Um, so if Sam just keep an eye out for him if he joins us. Alrighty. So, I'm going to go ahead and share your screen. All righty. So, right at the top, I kind of want to acknowledge so we took a lot of the feedback over the last SPR meeting and also PRC meeting to try to come fully embrace the comments that we heard, try to find thoughtful ways to approach each one of those items and address them in uh the best manner that we know how. um to really try to help push this project across the finish line in a meaningful way for the community. Um one thing I will acknowledge is the documents that we're going to go through uh what we have provided you the site uh plans did not unfortunately get updated in that submission. I do have updated plans tonight. Of course I recognize that they can't be considered as part of the record but we will definitely get those over to you guys so you can see that uh for the upcoming PRC meeting. beyond. Um, so with that said, jumping right in. I think the number one item of discussion was the entryway. Um, let me back up a little bit because I know Andy had uh requested a number of times to kind of walk through the site and talk about some of the amenities. So, let's start there. So, as you guys are aware, we are an infill infill site on this pro uh parcel here on the corner stretching all the way in behind the TC action buildings. And there is a section back here that is part of TC Action's property uh that would be an easement for fire truck access and uh those items. So, as a part of that, the building does stretch back. We do also

were part of the flood plane for site amenities. Kind of starting right at the front area, we do have the entry for the parking garage portion. We do have the ground level area both for the resident, the primary residential entry and the retail space. Um, and as a part of that, there was this question of balancing the entry. there felt like there was kind of a push and pull between these two potential residential entries and which one was primary, which one was secondary. So, as a part of that, to help address that item, we took a harder look at the floor plan and determined that there was an opportunity to remove that secondary entry that was at the street and locate it elsewhere onto that first floor. And we can see that shift occur here. So, it was previously tucked in this corner. What we've done is we've pushed that item to the opposite side, the north side of the building where we do have a sidewalk uh alleyway that goes out to Meadow Street. And so, that allows for a good division of the egress points for the first floor. And as a part of this re-shifting, it allowed the retail to shift around the the retail entry to shift around the corner to be the primary host of that covered or recessed entry. and be the p primary anchor there. And then for the residential, we were able to with a part of some of these shifting elements, widen it a touch more to bring it closer, a little closer to the street. And as a part of that, we were able to make the lo the hallway inside shorter, bring the lobby a little wider. We did flip-flop the stair in the elevator for that circulation core to try to make that feel a little bit more open. And it now creates this nice connection between the um ADA parking that is on the other side and the entry at the street. So functionally it now flows very nicely

between those two points. It really serves as a primary and there it removes the potential confusion uh at the corner for that entry of the residential. Of course going on up, you then have all your other ground floor spaces. So, that was one main move that we decided to embrace for that uh front corner. And as you can see for that entry, and we'll explore this in a couple of the other elevations, we have a little canopy element to try to pull some emphasis there. We did uh move one of the fins vertically above the window along with one of the uh uh darker slots that we were using to try to break up the mass to draw emphasis visually along the facade to there and then down to the entry. and also a little bit of signage. Um, we do need to get some documentation over to the city to confirm that we are within zoning, but it is one of the things we are being mindful of to keep it scaled down small enough, especially with a retail entity potentially being there in the future. Um, making sure that there's enough capacity within the zoning compliance to include their signage as well. Um, and then of course there was a question about the mural. So, we took uh Emily's comment about potentially expanding on it and we played around with it and we loved it. So, we decided to bring that right around the corner and so now that wraps the corner. Apologies for zooming out too far. So, that wraps around the corner all the way to the residential entry bringing it into that space. So, you now have this not nice unifying part that kind of ties both the retail and residential. let you know what's happening on Buffalo Street as opposed to Meadow and there's a clear separation of what's residential, what's retail. Going back a little bit, um, keeping the corner open was an important aspect in trying to utilize this and making an

active and engaging space. So now since the residential portion has been removed and it can solely focus on the retail or whatever tenant space is in there, there is this great outdoor opportunity to be embraced here in the corner while leaving the corner where people might be circulating through a little bit more open just to allow that transparency and that free flow between the spaces. Additionally, by moving the entry around the corner, we were able to add in another landscape planter along the uh the front of the building. So, if we go to the site plan, um we can now see that we had the previous one that was there and now we have a secondary uh planting to try to help bring a little bit more green space along that street facade and also maintain those tables that were there previously. Going on to another item, there was a question about screening the garage and how to address that openness or uh and close it a little bit. And so one of the things that we decided to address was previously we were indicating chain length fence. We were thinking about possibly doing some of the um uh the um spacing on the name, but the slats help visually block it. Um and as a part of that, we've decided that we're going to upgrade that fencing material to landscape forms linear um angled louver fence. It has a really nice aesthetic and there's a great opportunity on this site in particular to really block the views um going from west to east, but to open up the views going from east to west by having those angled louvers. And you can see that. So that fence would extend from this back um raised uh platform for the stairs and electrical room would come right down along the side and would return to the second set of columns here with some planting in

front. What that allows is we can see here a little snippet in the uh rendering that visually looking through the garage to the property beyond it leaves it open and visually inviting with any additional green space that's happening on that adjacent property. However, looking from the other direction, it's going to block that view because of the particular angles of those louvers. And of course, as you transition through, you'll start getting that transition from complete uh opaqueness to complete transparency as you make as you walk up or down the street. So, there's kind of this moving element without it physically moving. Um, additionally, uh I know there was a concern about like scale uh with the adjacent building. So, we did pull the rendering back a little bit just to show approximate scale of the building adjacent to the uh or the building adjacent to the neighboring house. And we did um update one of the the context rendering to help provide a little bit more thoughtfulness of what those materials are, what the colors are, and what that experience might be from an elevation standpoint. So again here you can see that we'll have that louver fence. We'll have some of that planting in front. We are indicating a knee wall with a bike rack adjacent to the entry of the parking garage here to try to get some visual screening along there. Then we get into the residential entry. So we're having this slot extend all the way down into the manager uh the leasing office manager's office and then the entry door along here. um didn't get quite in here, but there was a thought about potentially pl providing a little seated area adjacent under the covering there. Of course, the murals wrapping around and then you get the retail uh recessed portion here. Additionally, in this uh elevation we or

in these elevations, we did indicate the change in materials. So, again, that front block is going to be that gray theme of materials. And then we're getting more into this French gray kind of cream colored uh palette near the back to try to help break up the mass and not not make it feel as uniform as one large long linear thing. Um and again kind of updating some of the materials in there. In terms of some of the other site elements that we had indicated, there was a conversation about trash and recycling. We are intending to keep the same solution that was under the previous approval. The trash room is located right along here. It would come out follow along the sidewalk here and there is an existing curb cut that would be upgraded to be able to have Cassella come pick it up first thing in the morning. it would only be moved out when it needs to be picked up and then immediately re uh placed back into the uh storage area to limit um any visual impacts to the neighborhood for that procedure. Then also there was the conversation about some uh plantings along the street here. We are under the process of trying to uh uh going to replace the existing trees that are along there as a part of the construction process. It's going to be hard to protect some given the site constraints um for this. So the intention is going to be replace all of those and add one additional tree. And again being able to have a little bit of landscaping along the back along the side and then there is the seated area back here. Again, these are intended to be uh gaming tables for the residents. So, have like a chess or checkerboard kind of on top. There is a fence here that will have some uh children uh play

equipment like the fence mounted uh tic-tac-toe or different items like that. Some plantings along the back here and then also another maple tree along the back for some visual screening. residents would be able to get to this from the stair path down or of course they could uh walk through the parking garage if they so choose. Um, just going to give myself a quick reminder of I think um I think that covers a lot of the main items that we were looking to really try to address and enhance based off of the conversations that we had last time. I do want to pass the conversation over to Chris real quick just to talk a little bit high level because I think there was a question about um the program of the project and the affordability aspect of it. So I'm going to pass it over to Chris to speak a little bit to that.

Hi guys, thanks for your time this evening. Um I understand there are some question about the uh um the AMA AMI composition. This is a a mixed proposed as a mixed income development with uh AMI ranging from 30% to 80%. Um there is also a component of supportive housing in the development. Um there are uh 18 units of supportive housing. Um we we have uh proposed that amount um because we want it to balance with the um with the remainder of the uh of the non-supportive housing units in the development um the units that go up to 80% ambi.

Thank you Chris. Um with with that I think we've covered a lot of uh what we were hoping to share this evening. Um, we open up the uh floor for conversations and happy to respond to any questions you might have. Great. Thank you very much, Bear and and Chris and Julia. Um, Andy, can I start with you for reactions and comments?

Sure. Yeah, thanks. Thanks very much um Bear for the presentation and I think you've made uh great headway. I think um I think the entry absolutely addresses my concerns about equity. Now you walk into, you know, the main lobby entrance and whether you're in a wheelchair or a walker or, you know, totally um, you know, able, you um, everybody goes in to the same entry and it it just feels great. Um, I I really appreciate the the setback on the corner. This is such a tight corner and I think having the retail set back there really helps um, that corner of the building. I like what you've done on the facade, the extension of the fin at the entry and potential um opportunity for signage I think um is great. Um so I I still have a couple of con concerns and one is the safety and security of the open garage. I still feel in this neighborhood that this is not a building that should have an open garage. Um, I went to the site and I kind of walked around that courtyard. Um, there's so so many residential buildings that are, you know, facing the back of this building, the what would be the west elevation. And, you know, not only do I think about, you know, during the day, the design guidelines for this um, new west, you know, waterfront neighborhood call for not being able to see cars at all along the street. So, you know, the main facade, you're basically looking into the the garage. Um, but then I think about at nighttime, all of these residential units looking into a garage that will have to be lit for security. And I think that would really be an issue with, you know, so many bedrooms facing this, you know, basically this big light fixture of a

garage. as you know, you haven't talked about lighting, so I don't really know what your approach will be, but to me, there's so many great precedents, including um the next project that we'll see um by, you know, your same development team that screen the garage with perforated metal or could be louvers. I think, you know, you're on to something with this um you know, this this product that's kind of a louver, but to me, it really shouldn't be a fence, but it should be the facade. It should be built in. There should be more wall to the base of the building. There can still be lots of openings to solve your mechanical um issues. But again, I just don't think, you know, given, you know, the location and the use of the building that having this open um is the right approach. Um, so that to me addresses my safety and um security issues for for the landscape bear. Um, I'm wondering why your landscape plans are not showing the area outside of the property line beyond saying you'll replace the trees because on that east side, you know, you do have three trees in a planting bed. It's it's kind of an a very large planting bed and I think there's a great opportunity to actually design that planting bed rather than saying you'll plant three trees which you know in the renderings look like they're kind of going right into concrete. You know that's a great opportunity to expand landscape along that that side of Meadow Street. So, I'm I'm a little um curious as to why you haven't addressed that, you know, in any of your plans. Um I had also had questions about the ballards, you know, will those be replaced? To me, that's a

great opportunity to, you know, create a light fixture maybe or, you know, replace those yellow ballards that are really, you know, beat up looking. Um and then I'd say two other things. one would be, you know, being assured that the rooftop uh mechanical equipment will be screened. And then lastly, um and maybe Chris can talk about it. You know, I think we've all seen affordable housing projects in the city with major, you know, issues with crime. And what I'm not seeing in the plan is any kind of support services. Um, so what can you talk about, you know, this building? What would what will be different about this building that wouldn't have some of the issues that we're seeing in other affordable housing projects? Those are my comments. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Andy. Uh, Max,

thanks, Emily. Um, and thanks, Bear. uh that that you really I think you made some real breakthroughs since we last uh talked about this and I just love kind of the reconceptualization of the quarter and the entryway and and so forth and I think uh that's very appealing to me. Uh I do have a couple of comments and a few questions for you. Um the louvered fence is intriguing. Um, I I it would be helpful if um I could have a visual of that and really, you know, kind of have a a real sense of how that works. I didn't get that from from what you presented and maybe that's something we could you could present to us in the future. Uh it's just because I'm having a hard time getting get visualizing it myself. So maybe that's that's a question and maybe a request. Um, another thing that uh came up in the comments from the city engineer was in light of the the retail space there, um, the possible need for some more u bike racks that w that have public access. I know we have bike racks in internally, but maybe some bike racks with some public access. And uh my question would be for you with with those comments in mind from the city engineer where those would be and they would be on Meadow Street or something or if you've thought about that and maybe we could talk about that. Is that uh Oh, they're on the out on the Buffalo Street side.

Okay. Yes, there's if I can just jump in real quick. There's two locations. Um there's a spot down here on the Buffalo Street side and then there is a small bike rack on the uh northeast corner uh next to the as well.

Okay, thanks Bear. That's that's good. That u answers my question there. Um, another thing that maybe is a request for some additional information is I like, you know, the way you're making the color contrast between the the first part of the building and then the the the u the hidden part of the building in the back. Um, and that color contrast I think is really really good. And um the uh would be helpful to I just can't bring it up in my mind the uh what the color scheme of the existing building there is in on Meadow Street. Um you know that you'll that will be in front of the other and and kind of having a idea of what you're thinking about in terms of the u uh uh external uh aesthetic of your new building in relation to the existing building. And maybe maybe we could speak to that in the future. Uh that would be helpful to me to have be able to give you a little feedback on what you're proposing in terms of color schemes. Um, finally, um, the safety and security issue that Andy raises is one that's come up from the beginning. And I know when you, uh, the narrative that you guys sent, uh, basically said that, you know, there's not a lot that can be done uh, there and didn't have any new solutions. And I I don't have any brilliant ideas to offer as well, but it I I kind of I echo Andy's concern there. just still seems uh tricky to me that space and you know I think where we left it before was that you'd have adequate light lighting and so forth but then of course that might conflict with the residential experience of people in the building and and so forth. So I I think there maybe we need to explore that a little bit more. One thought that came to my mind when Andy was speaking was uh his comment about um support uh services

and how you're thinking about that in terms of management of the building and I know you have some space there for a management office. uh if if we thought about support services, could we think about that in conjunction with uh safety uh considerations there as well and and maybe have some um idea of kind of how to manage uh the safety of of that uh that space in that neighborhood. Um that's a question and something maybe that we could come back to. Um I think that's it Emily for me. That's all I had in one mind. Great. Thank you very much, Jenny.

Thanks so much, Bear. It's been really fun to um see this evolve. Um I think the front looks great. I love the mural. I think the entrance for the residence looks great. I really thank you guys. Um and applaud you for thinking about accessibility in a really thoughtful and nuanced way. Um I had a couple of questions. Um okay, I'm just going to just going to say it. The color green makes me think of Ariana Grande's brat brat girl green and I just don't I don't know if it's going to be and I don't even mean for this to be a pun, but evergreen. Um, so and I I know there was a discussion about the color panel, so I guess I'm curious from the board like if it was I missed the last meeting, so just putting it back on the table for us to talk about. I can't unsee girl green when I look at this building. Um uh I you know a couple of things I you know I think it's really just reflecting on on Andy and Max's comments and you know I think they also appreciate it's wonderful to be bringing affordable housing and I think that's the undercurrent of some of this is that we want this to be successful. So a couple of things that I can ask about that I know we've seen from other projects. It's not just the exterior trash that poses some significant challenges. often individuals who might be moving into housing for the first time um struggle with other things like hoarding issues. Um there are mental health components that go along with this that lead people to really hold on to their belongings. And so I think the interior trash is something that has been a challenge in other new affordable housing developments. Um and so I'd love to hear more about your plan for managing interior trash. Um and and just dealing with what might be a higher trash volume. um than something that you you may have experienced in other um market rate market rate buildings. Um I think that's one. I think another one that is a is um you know a way to think about designing for the population you're trying to

serve is that I've also you know come to understand that a lot of the ebikes can be are often brought inside of other buildings and situations which cause issues especially around their batteries and hazmat involvement. Um and some of that is because there isn't safe and adequate bike parking. Um, so I know we've talked about bike parking quite a bit, but I do think we're seeing that play out in some other in some other um sites around Ithaca where the bikes are ending up inside because there isn't adequate or safe bike storage. Um, and I think you probably don't want to be calling the Ithaca Fire Department to come hazmat your building when lithium battery ions or lithium battery lithium ion batteries explode. Um, and then I was curious just who you're thinking about working with, if you have any thoughts or if you're going to be rfping. I'm not quite sure what the process is to sort of do the case management and wraparound services for the 18 um, supportive housing units. And I did take a look at the AMI indicators for Ithaca and I mean it it is nice like you know at household size of one 80% AMI is 61,000 in the city of Ithaca. So, like I I do think, you know, highlighting that this is mixed use income is really valuable and that that does capture a lot of the population that would be eligible to live in this really beautiful new building. Um, so I just wanted to kind of point that out for us as part of the discussion, too. All right. Sorry, Bear, that was a lot. Thank you.

Thank you, Jenny. Um, Bear and Chris, as you think about answering some of Jenny's questions, I think it would be helpful to know what population the supportive housing is aimed for. Um, because Lisa just pointed out to me it could be a variety. So, as we're framing our thoughts and discussions around, you know, who is that for and what kind of support there is for that community, maybe you can guide us on um, what population you would be looking to uh, occupy that supportive housing. Thank you for the interjection. Um, let me let me move on to Peggy and then maybe you can circle back in to all of these questions. Of course.

Hi there. Um, Chris, I can you hear me? I'm sorry. Um, I really appreciate the clear effort that you put into this to bring the the the entrance to make it legible to really highlight that corner. I appreciate it's a nod to what was there. That is exactly how was for, you know, 50 years. It was a corner bar. That was the entrance was right there to the retail. Um, I think it makes a lot of sense. It really opens it up and it gives you, I believe, an opportunity for a little more um, landscape intervention on the, uh, Meadow Street side. Um, I know that there are seat there's seating there and you added another planter, but um, I wonder often wonder how many people would be sitting there uh, as I've as I've seen this project over the past couple months. Um, it is not the most pleasant place to sit. I know that uh Ithaca Bakery has a lot of seating out there. Um it's I know that that is happening but that's a I guess I'm I'm just thinking uh as in terms of opportunity for softening this a little bit and bringing some more landscape into it that that opportunity uh rather than than you know having a couple little tiny seats there that maybe that's where you could find some more um uh some more planting options and um the this whole block is supportive housing like everything on this block is supportive housing and um you know it's being it's all run in various ways and

so um I think that that's the that's there's lots of there's lots of examples for how you can run a a really well-run supportive housing um uh units um or not. And um but I was some to look at the the the Lake View project at the opposite end of the street. They've done a lot with very small amount of land and created a really um uh urban but genuinely um material materially landscape space. that's enjoyable. There's seating. It's just something to to kind of look at. It's kind of the opposite uh corner like just sort of it it faces the corner the same way. It has the entrance the same. Uh there's no retail, but anyway, I just wanted you to I just wanted to mention that. And um in this particular space, the tree lawn and in the renderings, I feel that the the sidewalk is a little wider in the renderings than it is in real life. Um maybe just it's an illusion, but um the tree lawn in in reality is in terrible condition here. It's bricks and um weeds and the trees are just sort of a mix of trees that um not that I'm for killing trees or anything, but maybe there they're better trees that could go here. Um, so I don't think that talking to the city forester is probably a good step, but um, and I don't know if you've done that yet, but um, but I was hoping as, uh, part of the the site plan requirements for this that the tree area could be looked at or could be brought up to um, a standard like exactly like what

happened at the lake view corner. They had to do they did the same thing. They they re-bricked it. They put in some really beautiful grates and um so there's big big planting beds, a tree grates so it's walkable um things like that. So it becomes you know urban part of an urban design endeavor. Not just this is some trees and some some landscaping, but that this is becomes a um part of how the public engages and experiences this building, right? That's not just we don't we don't experience it from this bird's eye view. We we walk by it and we drive by it. And um so I'd like to in the next time you come by Yeah. just to um get a little closer in and think about that experience and those opportunities there. Um and I would also like to see how this is going to be lit because that's another part of the experience, right? That's another part of safety and walking by here at night. Um, if this is not if this becomes like a daycare, which a lot of, you know, this happens a lot that the the first floor becomes a daycare, right? So, this isn't going to be active at night, is it going to be lit? Is this going to be um a restaurant? I mean, I don't know. But, but um right now it's just there's just a bunch of people inside this room kind of mingling. And I don't I don't know what's happening here. And I know you don't either, but I would just like to see some renderings at night how this will be how we will experience this walking by it, driving by it. If if that can be done um but otherwise I think you've done a really great great um it was a ch very very challenging very challenging

project and um you've elevated the entrance the uh resident entrance. Um, you did. I think it's really it's really good. Um, I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you, Peggy. Um, I'll just say that I think this conversation that we're having is holistic of the whole project and um, thank you to to Bear and your team for sort of getting us past the equity and entrance issue. I think you really did a great job with that. and now we are starting to dig into all the other pieces of it which I think is a great sign. Um the only comments I'll add, we've had a lot of great comments. The only comments I'll add are um we're not usually excited about branding buildings. However, in this case, I think your vertical fin that says the citizen is right on the mark. So, um just putting that out there for a future sign proposal. Um and also I appreciate the gray the dark gray bands were removed and now we have a light gray building above. um which helps to accentuate the the verticality that you're talking about. Um I think materials in person, it's a very gray on gray on cream building. Um it's nuanced. So I think if you can get us materials in hand for the next meeting, that would be materials and real colors would be really helpful. Um so I will turn it back to Bear and Chris and Julia if you want to tackle some of the questions you've heard. Thanks.

Absolutely. Not Chris, how about you go first? Is that okay?

Yeah, of course. We'll try to catch the comments if we miss them and we can be reminded if we've missed something. Um, I'll I'll focus more on the um the non-physical components and then bear you can focus more on uh the physical components like the fencing and things like that. um on the support services. So we did apply for and received uh conditional award of ESHI funds um for the supportive service units. Um the development team partnered with Catholic Charities of Tomkins and Tyogga. Um and the populations there are multiple populations. Um there are veterans um survivors of domestic violence and individuals with substance use disorder. Um those are the three populations which share a lot of similar characteristics um for the development. Um with respect to support services on site, there will be support services on site um offered by uh with Catholic Charities of Hopkins and Tyogga. Um they will uh share the management space. It's labeled as management space or might be labeled as leasing space now. Um but really it's intended that that be both um yes as manager leasing and conference and so um that really would be utilized by both um management for the building as well as the uh supportive service provider. So you know I think that it's realistic that the conference room would actually become the the full-time use of the supportive service team there. Um, so I think that that's a a good point of uh of distinction. Um, safety and security um is a paramount concern um in the building. I think that we've talked about a couple of different

ways um to utilize the entrance with uh fob systems and with um with intercom uh directly to the residents. uh so that the access to the building is controlled. I know that it's a a balancing of objectives when we talk about the parking area. Um because I think that I don't want to tread on bears territory, but I know that one of the things that we've talked about in the group is we're right at the corner and we're concerned about queuing of traffic if we're to inhibit um access into the parking garage. Um, and uh, if somebody had to stop and there are two or three cars there that are waiting to get in, um, if there's a a gate that has to come down, um, then we're concerned about it, uh, um, hindering traffic on West Buffalo Street. Um, and so I think that that is we're we're certainly sensitive to that. I think that we were taking a different approach or an oppos opposite approach of making it well lit and visible um so that um it wouldn't be construed as a place for anybody to hang out because it is well lit and visible by all um from the exterior um and so I think that that was uh something that um we thought and we've seen has been effective. Um, at the same time though, relative to the bikes, the bike storage room is fully enclosed and would be accessed with a a key fob system that the residents would have access to. Um, and that is uh that is enclosed um in the parking area. There is a a public bike parking right at the front that is undercover. Um, but that would be really more for um for visitors of the of the commercial and of the residential um to uh to put their bike storage, their bike racks.

I think that that addresses the question of response to the question raised about supportive services. I think the other thing that's important for us to point out um which I started to point out earlier is that um this is a relatively modest number of support um supportive housing units in the total development of 59 units and we did that purposely um we did that with thought um so that it could uh there a lot of benefits we we have to have enough of the the units that the support services can be provided um but there are a lot of other tangental benefits It's um for both populations, the supportive and the non-supportive populations to have each other in the building um for uh for supports um for mentoring um and just for you know friendship of of residents that are in the building. Um and so we think that uh the the balance has been achieved in the numbers that we're suggesting. Are there other questions before bear gets into addressing the um or any response any feedback or response for my uh for my comments that anybody'd like to share with me?

Thank you. I mean, I think I speak for all of us when we like we are not trying to criminalize affordable housing or supportive housing. I we're super supportive of it. I think it's great. There's a lot, as Peggy said, a lot of really incredible transformative supportive housing that happens in Tomkins County. Um I think just sort of checking in on some of the things that are within our preview around structure that can support then um the work that has to be done by the case managers and mental health folks and stuff like that. So, thank you so much Totally. It's it's received as as such. I mean, I think that we try to learn lessons in every development that we work on and we try to integrate those lessons into um into the next into the next iteration of project and and hopefully we're uh we're hitting a good balance here.

I'll I'll just add from obviously an architectural kind of component in particular with screening or not screening the parking garage and how to handle that. It is it is a balancing act because if we were to kind of take a step back and think about buildings that have parking lots in front versus parking lots behind them, there's always a preference from an aesthetic standpoint to put it in behind, but when you don't have eyes on and you don't have that clear visibility, there's a higher risk or higher opportunity for things to be missed or not seen. And so that's kind of internally one of the conversations we've had as a group of the more we start screening the space, the potential higher risk we're putting of things not being seen, things not being caught. And so between security cameras, between lighting, but also having a certain level of transparency into the space does create a higher level of security, but it does go counterproductive to what an aesthetic might want to be for the new trailer. So that's one of the reasons why we were looking at the louvered fence as opposed to uh chain link to try to start bringing the conversation a little bit closer to there to find a balance instead of the conversation going all one way or another. I don't think that's what the board is trying to indicate, but it is it is kind of this tricky line to walk between security and aesthetic for this particular item. Um, regarding some of the other items, uh, I'm not going to go through all of them tonight, but, uh, it is well heard that there is a question about potential more landscaping or how we might be able to address that. And so, um, while I think we made some positive moves towards uh, trying to address those items this evening, it sounds like a little bit more is desired. So, we'll go back and uh, um, discuss that internally on how we might be able to achieve that. And regarding rooftop mechanical real quick, um we will show a little bit more

in terms of like how that's going to be screened. I will just kind of make a quick note. Um sorry, apologies. We do what's different from this project compared to maybe some other projects that you may or may not have seen recently is the unit mechanical systems are within the unit themselves. And that's why you're seeing the vents on the exterior wall. So that does open up the rooftop where you don't have that farm of uh uh heat pumps and condensers that are up on the roof, leaving it much more open to potentially have future solar up there, which was one of the items that we were really being thoughtful about as we pursued uh HCR uh the HCR application for the affordable um funds there. So there may be some uh in close proximity to the stair tower that we have going up there, but we'll we'll make sure to address that in further detail at the next meeting. Um and I think that's all the items I think are worth mentioning at this time. We'll definitely take all these comments into consideration for for the next PRC meeting.

Great. Thank you very much to your whole team. This was a I think a really fruitful discussion. Um, I just want to also make sure you bring a uh lighting plan with lumen output for the whole site next time since that was one of the key things we talked about. Um, and I think we can leave it there. Staff, is there anything from either of you?

Um, I would just reiterate and thanks Bear. This looks it's exciting to see each time you guys come here really and how you listen to the board. So, thank you very much for that. Um, but I would really like to reiterate Peggy's um, not just like more landscape, but deliberate urban design. Like landscape's really a part of the building and how you can create that experience. Um, and I think that's that's where it is there and Andy pointed that out as well. But thank you very much for this presentation. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. Um, we will see you in February. All right. On with the lighting. As as Emily had said, materials just to remind you. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yep.

Perfect. Don't worry. Yeah. Yep. No worries. Uh thank you so much and we look forward to chatting again. Thank you, Bear. I guess we stay on, right? Yes, we'll do 132 Cherry Street next. Okay. You and Christa will staying with us as well. Great. Thank you. Sure. While Sam lets in your architect, um I'll just mention we are looking at project updates um and an amended seeker tonight.

So, thank you everyone for having us again. I'm sorry I interrupted someone. No, I was going to say, do you see Miriam and Craig with you? Yeah. Great. Okay, so go ahead. Thank you, Julia. Of course. Now, I'll um Craig and Miriam will be making the presentation, so I'll just pass it on to them. Thank you guys. Great. Thank you, Julia. Um yeah, Craig Jensen with CJS Architects. Miriam also with our firm. Miriam, do you want to share your screen? Yes. Are you guys seeing my screen? We are. Perfect.

Okay. So, yeah, you can go to the next slide. So, um, this is the hive at 132 Cherry Street, a project that was previously approved back in 2022 and then the approval was extended uh, more recently. Um, but now, as you know, we're back because of changes that are necessitated by the modifications to the flood maps by FEMA. And we've also switched, as you know, to a an HCR affordable project as opposed to a market rate project. But with both of those uh impacts uh changed to affordable and the FEMA flood maps, we're trying to modify the project as little as possible uh because we felt like it was a good project and it was previously approved. So, you know, the more we can stick to that, the better. Uh from from our point of view, this um that you can see is an updated uh rendering of the project as now proposed um with its revised setbacks to address the movement away from the uh channel the inlet because of the flood wave getting getting wider. And you can see in the foreground our south building and then toward the background the north building which is just an end of the building that's projecting out towards Cherry Street which is in the foreground here. And then Art House is down uh to the right and then the pedestrian path that leads to the pedestrian bridge on the Black Diamond Trail is on the left of the of the image. Um there you know is there's commercial space right in the on the corner as you can see and then there's some screened parking to the right which we will show

you more information about as we proceed. You you can go to the next one Miriam. So I think you know the last time we talked there were questions about you know bike storage and uh the bus stop. So, we're just pointing these things out now. You know, the we feel like the best places for the the bike racks are along the trail, the Black Diamond Trail. Obviously, one near the wateride on the left or west and one near the corner of uh Cherry Street and Cecil Malone on the on the east. And then also, as discussed, there's a a bus stop at that corner of Cherry Street and Cecil Malone. You can go to the next. One of the thing that we talked about at the last meeting was parking along the street. And you know, as we moved the buildings to the east to get out of the floodway, uh we removed the on street parking that had been previously proposed along Cherry Street so we could maintain the uh tree lawn along Cherry Street. actually, you know, we ended up getting a couple extra feet of of green space along Cherry Street as a result, you know, because we traded um you know, the 8oot parking lane for a little less movement to the east. But because of concerns about the amount of parking for the commercial and for visitors, you know, we did look at some other options. Um, so we could, you know, on the left stay with a contiguous tree lawn all along Cherry Street or the middle image, you know, we could provide, you know, a single bump bump out or I guess bump in uh for deliveries

uh vehicles within that tree lawn just, you know, out outboard of the sidewalk. Or we could do a series of of um parking recesses along Cherry Street and then you know basically share the tree lawn between trees and these parking recesses. Each one of those that's shown there is just two parking spaces. So you know you have six parking spaces along the front of of Cherry Street. Now there is also a parking recess in front of our house. And as you move down the street, parking is allowed on the west side of Cherry Street north of Art House. And if you go on the other side of Ce Cecil Malone to the south, vehicles seem to park on the east side of that dead end portion of Cherry Street there. Although from what I can tell, there is no uh parking signage along the south dead end portion of Cherry Street. It doesn't seem like there's any restrictions to parking there, but they seems like when you look at where people are parking, they're parking on the east side of of that portion, but on the west side of the northern portion and and that portion is has signage. It says, I think, no 24-hour parking or something to that effect. And then then there's no parking on on Cecil Malone. There's a lot of curb cuts there and it's also not really designated but clearly doesn't really lend itself to parking. So th that's uh you know some of the solutions I think that we'd like to talk with you about in terms of how to treat the frontage on on our building uh with any of these these options. Miriam, you can go to the next slide which I think is the sections right. So, you know, again, as previously approved on the left, you know, with the additional uh parking lane and then on

the right, as we, you know, have moved the building east out of the floodway and maintained, you know, the tree lawn, the parking lane goes away. But then if you go to the next slide, you know, I think this is going to be fairly obvious. Um, that, you know, now on the right there, you can see the shared tree lawn, you know, where you've got both a tree and ghosted in there a car that would be, you know, in the parking recess that's behind the the tree or in front of the tree depending on where you cut the section. So, those are the kind of options we are talking about for that that streetscape. I mean, you can see, you know, the the property line is um you know, the sidewalk is on the on the property and then this uh this shared tree lawn/parking is is just beyond the property line. Next slide. So, you know, the other thing that I think was talked about is, you know, the locations of the commercial space and how these commercial space would would um operate. And, you know, we do have the one on the southwest corner that's takes advantage of both the trail and the waterfront. So, we think you know that even though it's not as visible from the street, it has, you know, a desirable location. So, that's the one commercial space. It was previously labeled as a art gallery, but that was purely speculative. So, we've kind of just reabelled it to call it generically a commercial space. It is at street or sidewalk level u because it's not required to be above the flood plane. And then the commercial space at the corner of the Black Diamond Trail and Cherry Street, um you know, obviously has a prominent location and benefits from both, you know, the trail and high visibility. And then there's a small commercial space to the north in

the north building also along Cherry Street. All these are, you know, at at the sidewalk elevation. The transformer I know was talked about before. We have gone back to our civil engineer and talked with him and reviewed how this transformer was placed. There are requirements from uh the utility uh with regard to the distance the transformer has to be away from both uh vehicular drives and openings in the walls of the building. So this is the placement that meets the requirements that I guess NISC has for uh transformer distance away from these potential issues and that is why it is where it is and our understanding is that we don't have a better option. If we can screen it, we will screen it. There will be ballards obviously protecting it. Um there's the potential to screen the front of it although I'm not sure we have room to do that. So that's a question we still need to answer. Ma'am, you can go out. You can go on. Um there was also discussion about how to treat the the space that exists between our proposed north building and the artthouse building. And we've our our landscape architect is no longer in business since 2022. So, uh, Visom's retained, uh, someone else to take on that role, and they're working on updated landscape plans, but at this point, you know, what we've talked about for this, and I think it's a good solution, is, you know, doing river rock and some ornamental grasses along here so that we would discourage people from walking through here because the river rock will really, I think, discourage them from doing that, but it'll still look good and will be relatively easy to maintain. And then because the first floor is in part parking and then in

part, you know, a solid wall for the commercial space facing the uh property line, we would have some down lights along upper portion of that first floor illuminating this area just to keep it safe and protected. You can go to the next. There were also some questions about uh on our elevations. it may have been a little hard to discern where our perforated metal screen was and where our glazing was. So, we've uh improved our presentation a little bit. So, now you can I think more clearly see you know where we're proposing the perforated screen obviously at the parking and and where we have glazing and other materials. Um and we have used a perforated screen like this before with success. Uh so this is a project that we did in Buffalo a few years ago. It's a quart steel sided uh apartment building in kind of a industrial district with grain elevators and things along the Buffalo River. And the first floor is a perforated metal screen uh similar to what we're proposing here. when it's illuminated on the inside at night for security reasons, you know, it is more transparent because obviously it's it's lit up and so it allows for more view in. And during the day when you're close to it, you know, there's still a fair amount of transparency you can see in and uh even though things are somewhat ghosted, the further away you go, the the less you're able to actually get a sense of what's behind that screen. So the lower image shows a a daytime view that I think gives you a pretty good sense of how that would be. Uh you can go to the next. We've updated our renderings in addition to the one that we started with. We've updated renderings uh for other views, you know, within the development. So

this is this the green space in between the two buildings. You are behind the south building and you're looking north through the courtyard towards the opening between the two buildings on Cherry Street. So, the little sliver of sky that passes between the two buildings, that's essentially your path to to Cherry Street. Um, there's a little patio off of the common space on the south building to your right. And then there's landscape area, you know, at at the the center between these these two buildings. This area would be protected by fencing. You can see a fence in the in the distance there that would, you know, separate this from the driveways that lead into the parking areas below the two buildings. So it secures it for the residents. And if you go to the next Oh, yeah. You can see that you can see the perforated screen there. Yeah, that that was another good view. But I guess that's obviously some parking behind that perforated screen and behind there. So if you go to the next view, this is looking south. The uh inlet is to our right. The fencing that you see there is between, you know, the inlet and the embankment of the inlet. and our private outdoor space. Um, this again, green space. You're seeing, you know, just yoga mats with some, you know, outdoor activities here. We're still developing the landscaping a little bit. There was a, in our prior market rate proposal, there was a pool here, as you may remember. So, that's been removed. And now we're developing something with some recreational activities, but pretty understated recreational activities. We're not going to do based on um comments uh from Chris who's our HCR consultant. We're not going to do a uh because the the composition of the units, we're not

going to do a little kids playground or something like that. It'll be more for uh either adults or or more passive types of recreation. Um you can see other than that you can see uh you know the various materials on the building as we've talked about before that different unit types uh have different kind of facade strategies to break the building down into smaller pieces and give it a little bit more of a texture and a little bit more of a streetscape kind of look rather than you know a monolithic structure. Uh and that's the same on both of these buildings. Obviously you can go to the next miriam. So, uh, again, you know, updated view from, uh, the inlet and, uh, art house on the far left and these two buildings kind of, you know, nesting, uh, together, you know, with the courtyard in between. I think that's the last slide in our presentation. You know, I can go into greater levels of detail on whatever you'd like. I just don't want to reiterate things and maybe be better served to answer specific questions and go into more detail on areas that you want us to talk about than to go on to areas that you feel like you don't need more information on.

Okay, great. Thank you very much. Um before I hand it over to the board members, um I wanted to ask Chris if he could sort of give us the same unit breakdown for this project similar to what he did last time. number of units that are supportive housing, number that are a certain target AMI.

Sure. So, this is a little different. Um, the the citizen that we spoke about was is a uh a 9% uh 59 unit deal. Um, this would be funded with 4% tax bonds, um, a tax exempt bonds. And um one of the things that's appealing about the development to us and to uh HFA or HCR is that it is next to Art House. Art House is kind of an island there right now um with with nothing really close to it. So this would um enhance that by building out upon that. Um there is a relatively I don't have the exact number but there's a relatively high number of supportive housing units at our house. So we're proposing that this wouldn't have any or very modest if HFA comes back and asks us. But um our real drive is to make this more a workforce development with no supportive housing units in it. Um to complement our house um and to help achieve maybe a better balance um than there is there right now. Um so the AMI thresholds would be still would be between 30% and 120% of AMI. Um we haven't gotten clear direction just because it's early in the process from um HFA how many units would be above 80%. Um there probably would be less than 10% of the units would be above 80%. Majority of the units would be between 30 and uh and 80% AMI.

Thank you. I'll just add that you know there's 64 units in the south build or the in the north building and 84 units in the south building. So 148 total. Uh just to put it in perspective. Great. Thank you very much for that context. Um Peggy, could I ask you to kick us off with questions and comments, please?

Hi. Um I actually just wanted to really just talk about the um tree lawn and the parking at the treeon. Um, my my real concern with that was that the streets really busy and there was no parking for delivery or med taxis, things like that that come and Ubers that come to the buildings constantly. Um, a building this size would have multiple deliveries an hour from, you know, Uber Eats or or whatever. Um, so I think you know somewhere for each lobby uh I think you need a drop off spot. So somewhere in between um you know uh B and C seems like the right mix. And in terms of people parking their own cars here as long term I don't think that's what's needed here. have quite a bit of parking for residents. Um I don't they're visitors. I I guess I'm visitor parking. You have some visitor parking, right? I'm sorry I I can't see it right now. But um my my main concern as from the a public point of view was that this was people were going to be double parking here at the tree lawn, which is beautiful to have all that tree and to have all of that absorbent uh material, especially in this environment this close to the to the the water. Um, but I think there's somewhere in between that uh you can get to to keep it safe, keep keep traffic moving on the street and um yeah, and uh and and have this beautiful interface with between the street, the sidewalk and the building.

Thanks, Peggy. Uh Jenny,

thanks. Yeah, I agree. drop off especially because um there's other other plans or developments on this building and I think there are a fair amount of pedestrian folks who just access this space and this street by by walking. Um I would be curious to hear about visitor parking especially with three retail spaces. You know I think the hope is that you're you're bringing people who aren't just residents to this space and so understanding where they are going to be parking. Um, even though I just said a lot of people walk here, there's We also increasingly live in a driving city. Um, I um, you know, I think this is a really be I think this is a really beautiful building. I worry a little bit about the retail space and and what sort of three three different, you know, how to sustain three different retailers. I thought something that was interesting in a different project that we've seen that's also on the waterfront is that they sort of move forward with like one larger space combined which kind of opens the door for um you know a variety of visions for retail as opposed to kind of in this other building where you have the commercial space kind of broken out into two different blocks. Um so that's something I was sort of thinking about. Um, something that I occurred to me on the the previous project, so I'm going to put this comment here, but also there is dog relief areas. I think that is something we are really lacking particularly in the downtown area and that when we think about constructing spaces for people and contributing to livability, um, accounting for dog relief areas is an important thing to factor into plans. And I hope that maybe this can also uh be conveyed for the building on Meadow Street. Um and then um great to hear about the workforce. Uh you know it does strike me that this really beautiful area where you have sort of yoga renderings will feel gated from people who might live in art house

which is right next door. Um and so I guess I'd want us just I'm curious what other folks think about that too. Like you sort of mentioned like this being like a complimentary space to art house which is sort of more of affordable housing and supportive housing. And so like what is that look and feel if you're like walking on the waterfront and you're trying to recreate in that green space and then there's like a gated area that's like not available to you or to the public. Um it's a beautiful space. I think it maybe warrants a little bit more accessibility. Um that was what came to mind for me. Thank you so much. I think I missed it. Where did you fall on their um parking options?

Oh, I think that there should be a drop off. Um yeah, I like something in the middle. Like there should be a way to drop to drop drop product because drop off. Yeah, sorry. It has been a very long day for me. I started my workday very early this morning. I think that there should be some drop off options. Uh that would be great. Thank you, Max.

Yeah, thanks Emily. Um thank you very much. I think uh you've uh made some real progress and advancements in some of this. I I think the parking thing is what we're talking about and visitor parking on the street and uh uh Peggy makes some really good points about access. I I liked um your number three um your example C. Um, and I I like it because of what you were talking about in terms of the general parking situation uh in that area, which is kind of um free-for-all kind of feel that I always have about this. I I think this type of a arrangement that you have and maybe it is a uh some kind of a hybrid between B and C. But if you just say about C for a minute, it is cal kind of a calming of that uh corridor there because people shoot through there pretty fast and it's not it's not very nice. And once once you have this all these residences there, it will be nice to have a calming place that's also practical. And the reason I like that is it's practical because there will be lots of drop offs and deliveries and there will also be visitors who need some short-term uh parking. And so I I'm partial to that. And I I one of the reasons I like it is maybe it'll set an example for that general neighborhood in that area which could be really improved with a with a kind of a pattern like this that uh being established. Um I had a a question similar moving on that is similar to Jeanie's about the uh Jenny's about the um access to the courtyard and so um can just a quick question for you is now is there public access to that courtyard from over on the um trail side?

So I can take I can take Yeah, Chris go ahead. I think you should take the management side of this. That's ple. Yeah, please do.

Yeah, that's fine. Um, so the it's interesting, you know, we really want to there's a great open space right next to the inlet. Um, we did anticipate integrating a dog walk into that. That was a question that was raised. Um, and that that space as it's reflected in one of the renderings, it's fairly wide and it's as long as the site is. Um, we thought that that would be a nice open space, uh, accessible to the public. We thought that the, um, space between the buildings in the courtyard, as we're calling it, would be, uh, gated and really available to the residents. Um, that's where they're going to be some, uh, grills for grilling and residents will be doing food, making meals, and things like that. Uh so we thought that by providing the publicly accessible space along the inlet um with the um more courtyard private space for the residents was a was a good way to um to balance out multiple uses.

Yeah, I I think that's uh makes sense and I like the thinking behind that. I it's not clear to me how you distinguish between the two spaces and if there would be some kind of confusion there about who has access to what and how that would be regulated.

What we were going to do is we were going to have or what we proposed to do is we're going to have a a gate uh two gates. one at the uh um like where you can see there's a a trash um just before that there'd be a gate um yeah there in that area and then on the inlet side there'd be another gate and those gates would both be controlled with key fobs um similar to an entry door um into the buildings and all residents would have access to those to that key fob.

Interesting. Very interesting. And the only other thing I'd add, I guess, is that, you know, we've only recently recognized that the space that Chris was mentioning that could be, you know, along the inlet for additional recreational space is a newfound kind of bonus as the building has been forced to move to the east. You know, we've got this additional green space there which could be pretty valuable not only for like a dog walk, but also just for people to, you know, recreate along the inlet. So, we will come back with some more information about that because in addition to the courtyard, I think that space could be well used.

Yeah, I I like that. I think that's got a lot of promise. I think it's worth a little more discussion, right, in terms of uh defining the different spaces and and access to the different spaces for different people. Um, I guess it also raises the question that Jenny raised is kind of the green space access over from the art house side and and so forth, but I mean we don't have to go into that now. Maybe you can come back to us with with a little bit more about that. That's I think ripe with opportunities. Yeah, we're happy to do that.

Yeah. Um, I think that the the last thing I want to mention and it's building on Jenny's question again is the and I always have this concern about the viability of retail spaces, right? And and because unviable retail spaces are not very nice spaces. And so, um, the the back corner one by the inlet is the one that I would have the concern about just because it's a little hidden as you mentioned in your presentation. Um, one of the things uh we talked about before on another project is having uh some kind of flexible space that might, you know, might be commercial, but it might also be a kind of a community space uh of some kind that would be for uh different kinds of functions and so forth. uh where you'd uh draw people in both from the trail maybe in the summertime and in the winter maybe draw people in for um for events of some kind uh that would make it a more um lively uh area back in that back corner. And uh you know and it relates to this issue of accessibility of uh from to the general public versus uh a space that's useful to the uh community of residents there as well. Um, so maybe that's something maybe we could talk about a little bit more that I think is related to the to the open space discussion as well.

Yeah, sure. Yeah, that's uh it's looking really interesting and I'm I really uh uh looking forward to continuing to talk about this. That's all I had for right now. Thank you, Max. Andy.

Yeah, thank you uh Craig and Miriam. Um I think the building is uh very rich looking. I really like the forms, the urban design of the massing and I just think the materials are really rich. So I I really like the buildings. I I would echo all of my fellow board members comments about the landscape. Um you you mentioned, you know, a new designer um coming on board and I think both the private and the public space um you know could use I think some more development. I think even in the the public space something more than just lawn because I do think that would be a great place to walk and you know between winters and you know muddy seasons in Ithaca I think you need a surface to walk on. I don't think you know we can just rely on grass as um you know the material there. So I think there's a great opportunity for the public space to link into that you know bridge and walkway coming in. I love uh Max's idea about, you know, rethinking the retail space. You're you're really close to the Cherry Theater and, you know, that this could be a great rehearsal space for them. I think they're always looking for, you know, other spaces and I don't think they have a rehearsal space. So, I think I loved, you know, previously when the vision for this neighborhood was all about the arts. So, you know, I think getting more art spaces, whether they're galleries or performance art, could be really interesting. Um, Craig, one question I have. I I noticed that most of the amenities for the buildings are in the south tower. What What is your vision for people in the north tower getting to those amenities? um because it was kind of unclear and maybe that's part of the landscape development, but I I'm unclear of how you would get there if you lived in the north building.

Yeah, I think that's a good point. I mean, we haven't really thought I mean, there is this exit stair, you know, in the north building that gets you to that sidewalk that crosses through the courtyard. So, there is the potential to go from that exit stair and then back in to the north side of the south building. We haven't talked about the security issues around that or if there are any. Um, but that would be potential. Otherwise, you're walking down the public sidewalk, but I think, you know, if you took an elevator down to the ground floor, you're kind of at the far reaches of the north building. So, then you're kind of traversing, I think, the sidewalk. If you chose to take that staircase that's in the center of the plan, you know, you're a little more approximate to the community spaces and fitness areas and things in the south building. We can look at that. I mean, maybe there's more we can do uh to create that connection, but it's it's a reasonable point.

Yeah. And then I I I think the more paracity I'm Yeah. I hear what you're saying about the north side and and not wanting people to walk there, but I think the more you can connect to to Art House and make it feel like a neighborhood and not one project and and a separate project. Um,

and and you know, as other board members have said, you know, like how can the public take advantage of the building and and you know, yes, there is that great walkway to the bridge, but you know, are there other ways you could move through the site for the public? My last comment is back to the parking. And I guess this is a question for Julia and Chris. Why in this project do you feel like it's okay to screen the parking? because I really I love that project in um Buffalo. Um I don't know if that's built and you could you know maybe at the next meeting show a photo of that but No, it's built. Yeah, those are photos. Yeah, we can Oh, those are photos. Oh, wow. Yeah, those are photos. Yeah, those are both

Wow, I thought that was a rendering. They're Yeah, it's incredible. And this to me this this is what I was thinking for um the citizen and and I guess you know Julia and Chris why in this project are you not worried about the same security issues that you have at the citizen in

Yeah. So I can respond to that. Um and it's a great building. I know the building well. Um there is a large a fairly large parking area um surface parking area in front of that building. And so one of the concerns at Citizen, as I mentioned before, is the queueing of traffic coming off of the street. Um, you don't have that same issue um at at the Hive. You don't have that same issue on this uh at this building that the the p the photo is of as well. Um, and so I think that that's one uh distinction between the two. Um, I'm just concerned about the the queueing of traffic there. Um it's a there's a lot of tra there's a lot happening at that intersection,

right? Is there a compromise where you know the the entrance could be open and the rest of the garage screened? Yeah, something to think about.

That is Yeah, sure. I think that if we moved in that direction, my guidance to folks would be to to um enclose the whole thing then um because I I would be concerned about um um about about visi visibility into the parking space into the parking garage. Um, if it's not uh fully enclosed, then I if it's not fully enclosed, I want it to be fully open so people can see it when they're going in. Uh, they can see what's happening there as opposed to um going into something and not really knowing what's what's in there. Um, so that's that's my sensitivity just from a security and a safety um perspective. One difference maybe between this building and well the cherry building

and this Oh, go ahead Chris. Sorry. Oh, I'm so I'm sorry Craig. Go ahead. No, I was just going to say one difference there might be between the citizens building and the Cherry Street or the Hive is that you know you pull off this Cherry Street and our entrances to our parking are a second turn. You know what I'm saying? They don't they're not directly on the street. So you pull into this little kind of courtyard and then you make another turn into these two buildings which allows us to screen the street side and not have to deal with how that screen necessarily interacts with the the entrance to the parking. I I don't know if that's a difference. I'm not as familiar with the citizen building, but I I did see a little bit of the presentation there. Yeah.

Thank you. Um I I have I have one question. Is there um is there any kind of walking path behind Art House along the inlet side? Currently, I don't I don't think there's an improved path. It it may be like just a goat path that people have created to some limited degree, but there's not any improvement back there as far as I'm aware. Is that everybody agree with that? I think that's right. But I mean, this has made me think like like I don't know people that like we've talked about kayak docks at the other street, but where does everybody actually kayak? It's in this part of the inlet. Yeah.

Has made me like I mean maybe this isn't what you want to hear, but it has made me rethink like what does public access look like for this really nice water firm property. I don't know. It's a I did a project in Pittsburgh that's along a a river and uh and and we did install a a nice um ashalt walk um but it connected to another walk. And so my concern with putting a walk on the inlet side is that it's a walk to nowhere right now. And so I'm just I'm trying I'm just trying to get my arms around that. Uh but someone has to put in the first walk

and then it doesn't go to nowhere after that. Can I can I just hold the conversation a minute? Lisa, you had a comment about the inlet.

Um, so it's very limited what you can do because it's a DC easement for flood control for maintaining the flood control channel which we forget is for flood control. Um, I don't know about a walk. Maybe that could be done. You'd have to get permission from DC to do it. Yeah, because we've moved the buildings to address the wider uh you know floodway, we do have space on within our property now to do something because before you know a lot of that green space didn't exist. The building was further west. So I'm not sure exactly what the potential is, but we'll work through that and see what we can offer.

So we are pretty significantly overtime. Um, I appreciate maybe we can look at the what you just said like the the inlet facing side next time if you have further design ideas. I do want to just ask you Andy if you had weigh in on the parking options ABC. Oh yeah. I think um I agree with other board members. I think you know option C or um you know something close to that you know for all of the points that everyone made. Yeah.

Okay. Um and I'll just chime in. I agree with that. something between B and C leaning towards C because I really want the retail to work down here. Um so I think that was fairly unanimous from everybody. Um okay, thank you so much for this presentation. I want to pause and just talk to the board members about the FEF. We'll review it and um give you hopefully some guidance on how to complete that for next time. Um if everyone has it in front of them, there are Thank you to Nikki, Lisa, and Sam. are um three highlighted sections that I will jump right to. So the first one is under impact on surface water on page two and we have a strikeout where there's no more buyer retention swale. Um and so I think we just want confirmation from your team that that is the case and then how storm water is otherwise being managed or if it's no longer an issue due to the reorganization of the site. Uh, the next area is under impact on plants and animals on page four. And board members, chime in if you see any other um items that I'm skipping. Um, the landscape plan on L100, I think we just need a new count of trees, just revised numbers there. I know that landscape is evolving, so we don't need that next time, but just by the time that this document will be voted on and completed. And then the last section which is highlighted for more information is under impact on transportation on page seven. Um again this is sort of the the streetscape design as it's evolving. We just need updated numbers on uh the sidewalk dimension the um the landscape dimension um treeons everything that's listed there just for updated numbers. Am I missing anything?

No, that's correct Emily. Um and I think I do believe too Craig and team that um the city engineers have already built a sidewalk there. So if they have to just let us know Yeah. the and where it is and and how it it make sure it's still fitting in with the plan. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And if you see anything else. Sorry, Emily. I was just gonna say and if the applicants see anything else that needs to be changed that we might have missed. Thanks. Okay. Board members, any other areas on this thief that we want to look at today? We'll have another opportunity. Seeing none. Okay. So, I think that will do it for today. Thank you to the team. Um, we'll see you next month.

Thank you very much. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Next up, we have a new project, uh, 309 College of Apartments. Uh, today we're looking at declaring lead agency, and we'll get a presentation from the team. Nice to see you again. Did you miss us? Microphones. Oh, yes, please. Give us some new faces. So, our design team is Yes, all three. Okay. Would you introduce everybody when they get on?

Yeah, we would absolutely. Please. Yeah, I think we'll say hello to for Peggy. It's new on the board. Welcome, Charlie Oconor, Modern Living Rentals. Nick Robinson. All right. So, as she as Aerin's pulling us up, so we we uh we love our friends at BKV, but we felt like given some of the stuff we have going on that we wanted fresh perspective and some new faces and to, you know, take a a different approach to this project. And so, we retain QPK Design out of Syracuse, New York. Um, and so we have Vince, Aaron, and Chris who are on. I think Aaron's going to be doing some of the presenting with us. Um, and then maybe Chris and Vince, I think, is in the background. But, um, we're really excited about their team and some of the work they've done for us thus far. And so, I think for the purposes of this presentation, we really just introducing the project. We'll do a quick presentation, walk you through some of the programming and talk about, you know, maybe some of the stuff we're still tweaking and receive your feedback and and start the process. That sounds good.

Great.

Okay. Erin, could you flip to the next slide? Thank you. So this is just our our site plan. Um obviously this is in our MU2 district where um unlike some of our other project this is going to be completely as of right and so we're not seeking any variances. Um you know we're zero lot lines on the north south um but we've cited the building in a way that we feel is compliant with zoning and so we're excited for hopefully the simplicity in this approach. Um, but there's there's some nuances and I'm gonna kind of gloss past this slide. I mean, it's eight stories, 50 thou 55,000 feet. We're doing 77 units and 112 beds in this project. And I'll just touch on mix and some of the ground floor programming on a different slide. Um, one of the things with this particular site, um, our property to the south is on a mat slab. It's fairly shallow foundation. um the building to the north, the nines, which kind of has an old deteriorating foundation. So, our approach obviously we'll have protective excavation measures, but we are minimizing our foundation. Um we're going to have as minimal a basement as we can. We're trying to center the basement, keep it away from the property lines, and kind of give us the ability to kind of manage the earthwork um phase of this job. try try to not to get in too much rock removal and just make it a little bit simpler than some of our other projects have been. So that's the approach on the basement. Aaron, thank you. So this is kind of our our first floor ground floor plan. It is still under development, but we wanted to give you kind of where we're at. And I'll just kind of talk through this quickly. Um, you know, we kind of have our entry vestibial lobby, elevator. You know, we focused a lot on this project on zones, really trying to create

different zones for our tenants and and visitors. So, you know, we're still figuring out exactly how to isolate the lobby. You can see some sort of architectural element. Um, we're still developing that. And then you migrate into kind of this coffee loungey zone um with kind of a community table type setup. We've got our mail room um which is continuing to be an increased focus on all our projects. Um as you migrate back into the back left, we've got this big fireplace feature wall and kind of what feels like more of a kind of formal lounge. um which is we're excited about and we'll get into um renderings in future meetings so you can kind of get a sense of this. Um you know one of the big changes so from from a programming perspective we hear over and over again kids really like study spaces, private spaces, larger spaces. Um fitness is always kind of a box that you have to check on these projects. Wellness, we've we've gotten a lot of positive feedback on focusing on wellness. We've done that in some of our other projects with saunas and tanning and different things. We haven't defined what the wellness programming is going to be exactly. Um but the other the other big one is kind of the game room space u which is at the south in the middle of the building that is uh kind of TBD right now because we are talking to a potential retailer and right now we have 1500 square feet programmed but they are seeking a little bit more and so we're still trying to figure out if they need closer to 2,000 feet um you know where do we go to get that space to make it work. Um, but we are excited enough and similar to our previous uh conversations until we get it done, we're going to hold those cards close to our chest, but we do think we've got a really great operator that's very interested in being in this

building, somebody that's proven success in college town. So, we're excited about it and based on that, I think we're willing to, as long as we work out the details, kind of give them some more space. Um, so here's a rendered view. And I think one of the things that this slide does is really kind of give you a sense of the alley to the south. Um, kind of gives you a sense of what the pedestrian flow kind of looks like, how it interacts with the two buildings. Um, so we thought this image was was really helpful to illustrate that point. So this is our our typical floor plate. As we noted, um, you know, we have 77 units, 112 beds. Um, those are all on the stories two to two through eight. So, this is just a repeating floor plan. Um, we have a stack of a four bedroomedroom unit there on your west, couple twos, and then um studios and ones, which is, you know, we are seeing kind of a resurgent on four beds. You know, everything was going towards smaller units. Charlie's got some four beds at the summit that have leased incredibly well and we're starting to hear that feedback that, you know, some kids are looking to live in that larger setting and access cheaper beds because the four beds do rent cheaper. Um, so we wanted to make that part of our unit mix on this project. And then just a quick roof plan. We are uh using u heat pumps, electric heat pumps, and so we do have condensing units. So we'll have condensing units and roof screen on the roof, but otherwise we don't have any other programming on the roof on this project. And with that said, I am going to turn it over to Aaron and team to talk a little bit about the kind of facade design and some of the kind of thinking behind where they went with this project.

Hi, good evening everybody. Can you hear me? Okay. Yes, we can.

Okay, great. Um so this rendered uh view is just to really illustrate um how this is coinciding with the adjacent properties. Um how we tried to be sensitive to alignments of certain datoms at entry points and at heights also with some sensitivity to the coloration of material selected and uh much of these materials were also selected to be sort of in a timeless vein as well. Uh this next two slides are the development of our elevations on all four sides. So they start to depict our fenestration patterns and our um uh just paneling patterns breaking up that facade mass. And here's the uh two side elevations of the buildings. Uh this is a rendered view of the daytime. Um and you know what we really want to do this illustration is at street level. It's it depicts the design uh with the rendered materials. The concept is for you know a contemporary upscale apartment building with its own unique identity. Um, this bold yet simple move of treating the facade with a dimensional asymmetric scope uh defines the sort of dynamic design and allows for interesting fenestration patterns and material differentiation and it's sort of meant to feel a little bit kinetic and forward thinking. Uh the tenant entry um to the lower left side um is an illuminated portal and it's meant to be a welcoming sort of beacon to the tenants. Uh these are some close-up images of the materials selected. So the facade components are representative of uh

panelized uh limestone and a quarten steel but executed with u modern materials suited to current day construction technologies. The panels on the left side of the facade are a fatal core construction designed to uh resist damage um impact and graffiti. Um the residential porter uh port hole which you see down at the bottom is a 1 in thick acrylic material that is back lit. And then on the right side of the elevation of the building. Um we sort of have this u graduating play of scale with full height windows and metal panels with the emphasis also at that side for this retail space. very transparent at the corner with large glazed panels. Um, and here is just uh a view of that in the nighttime. And we've included here um a reflected ceiling plan which really is meant to illustrate what we're thinking about for illumination um for the exterior. Um, so we mentioned this illuminated um, portal at the entry and then we have some recess down lights that will be um, on the exterior side of the glass around the front of the um, retail portion of the building. And then as we go through back to the alley that's adjacent to um and complementing uh College Town Crossing, we've got several down lights and we also have some uh wall fixtures that are all um dark sky compliant as well. Um our our intention is to very much illuminate and animate this space. Um and then of

course we have a good illumination at the bike storage in the back. Um, and we we've included some renderings so you could see a little bit more detail of what some of these areas look like. So to the left obviously is that sort of front entry and to the right as we enter around the corner. Um, we've also included some planters again for some detail and greenscaping to the front. Um and you sort of get a view as you're entering into um this expanded walkway that conjoins um the college town crossing and our pathway. Um and then views as you go down through there potentially how um depending on the tenant working out how that could look or game room. And then this view is sort of from the back of the building looking back towards the bike storage. Um, and again just to illustrate how well we want to keep the space illuminated so it does feel active. And that's really the end of our presentation as far as the slides. That's it. Okay. Thank you very much. Great presentation. Um, I think before we get to comments, let's declare ourselves lead agency. Um, that is this blue proposed resolution. Um, can I have a motion to open to move it? Jenny move. Second. Max seconds. Um, let's do a roll call vote for this. Andy,

yes. Max, yes. Jenny, yes. Peggy, yes. And I am also Yes. So, we are your lead agency. Be a shame after that nice presentation if we were not. Um, okay. Andy, can I ask you to start with um questions and comments, please?

Sure. Welcome back and thanks for the presentation, Erin. I think um looks like a really exciting new project. Um and I liked the word that you used, dynamic. It absolutely has a dynamic feel. I love this angle slicing through with the two um you know, sort of different types of window articulation. Um so I think overall it's it looks like a great addition. to College Town in this block. I love the the entry that illuminated entry is going to be really really cool and the interior looks beautiful and at the same time, you know, I hope the retailer works out. So, I'm sure you're going to balance that um square footage to make the the retail work because, you know, getting more retail or replacement of retail, you know, is is really going to enhance um College Town. So, I just had a couple of questions as as you know, you begin to present over the next couple months. Um, on the on the north and south elevations, Aaron, what is the dark block under the windows?

So, these gray areas, no, the black under the windows. Oh, the black is very tight line weight that is appearing very black, but it's um potentially meant to be a grill um that we we still have much coordination to do with our MEP, but we're looking for areas where we can um panelize the exhaust and intake. Okay. And you're going to prioritize that for the north and south and not have that on the west elevation. We are going to try our best to integrate our ventilation so it is sort of beautiful and seamless. Okay. So, we'll see more development on that.

Yes. While we're on the west elevation, you know, and um as you're developing the landscape and the grading plan, um what's shown here is this kind of steep midblock slope between the main entry and the retail. Will that be more graduated or are you really thinking that is kind of a slope in the sidewalk? I think we're going to keep that as graduated as possible. But what what this um sort of angled piece allows us to do is if we have to do something um we can treat that at that point where we can create the separation.

Okay. So we'll be interested to see the grading plan. I mean, maybe there's a way to warp the sidewalk so that's not happening all the way, you know, across the width. Correct. The lower the retail portion um the floor level is set lower than it is at the uh entry to the apartments. Right. But what we really appreciate is that both entrances are at grade and you know, you can come right in for

equity and accessibility. Um, and then the the only last question I have is, um, as you're developing the landscape plan, are there any opportunities to add more trees or greenery? I I see, you know, the idea of planters, which is great. Um, but is there anything, you know, additionally you could do at the sidewalk to um, you know, just relieve the concrete there? Yes, I think as as we go forward, we'll definitely get more into detail with how that can really become a beautiful space. Um because we do recognize that it is a sort of an important cross way through there. Um you know, we sort of h we've started to insinuate at the back where we will have um you know, a green wall to what I'm calling the backyard of the building, the template setback. Um, but it would be nice and we will look forward to integrating um more design and detail and those sort of interesting elements through this walkway.

Right. Thank you. Thank you, Andy Max. Yeah, this looks like it's going to be a cool really cool project and it's going to be a nice addition to the neighborhood instead of the concrete driveway that we've had for there for so long. I to your point Andy about the landscaping possibilities there in the front. Maybe that's something that'll be really interesting to explore. Um and I'll look forward to hearing more about that. Um one thing I saw I thought I saw in the background materials was something about a courtyard. Did I get that right? Courtyard or some kind of space or was I am I mistaken? It's on the plans. I saw that too.

Yeah, I thought I saw something. I was a little confused by that. He's referring to the light wells. Okay. It says courtyard. Maybe courtyard below. Yeah, we we changed the nomenclature to light wells. I think that makes more sense. Yes, absolutely. Okay. Could you speak to that a little bit?

Um, so what we've done is put setbacks in the buildings. I'm just going to get to this plan here, which I'm not quite sure if it shows it. Um this is our site plan here. So I think what best illustrates it is this plan. You can see the dashed line of the adjacent building. So we have setbacks um so that our upper floors and the adjacent buildings windows will always have those light wells um from above so that the windows are getting some the units are getting some sunlight daylight into their um bedrooms. So it's it's these uh sort of indents into the south side of the building. So, one of the strategic things we did on this project when we programmed is the building to the south has the same kind of geometry, right? They have basically they it's a zero lot line. So, they have part of their facade that goes right to the lot line and then they step back and that's where they create their windowing.

We've tried to basically mirror that on the other side because it it a protects their lighting versus us building right up against the lot line. And so, it's good for both of us. And so, you know, we've kind of created these larger wells that both buil buildings benefit from rather than being ignorant to their wells and just doing what we want. Yeah, that's helpful. That the term wells makes sense to me now in that context. Yeah, that's good. Um, thank you. Uh, that was good. Um, I have um just one more thing. Um, you saw the public comment. Did you get did you see that that came in? We did. Yeah. And so maybe next time can speak to that a little bit. Sure. Yeah. Thank you.

Thanks, Max. Jenny, I don't really have very much. I was also just kind of going to ask um sort of your feedback and response to some of the public comment. To me, they they make good sense and are and things we should sort of discuss and think about. Um otherwise, yeah, I really don't have much on this. It looks like a pretty run-of-the-mill but beautiful um you know, apartment building without too many of you. the challenges that we've had in other ones dealing with kind of space and grade. Thank you, Peggy.

Yeah. Um I will also agree the the facade is is I think it's beautiful. It's really interesting how it takes advantage of the the grade going up college a uh is very interesting. Um, it's kind of simple and elegant, which is hard to to make something simple and elegant and also interesting, I guess. I don't know. But yeah, I mean, it's very I like it. And I I really like the uh resident entrance and the light um sort of warm light that it's going to exude onto the sidewalk and, you know, have that um be part of the experience of college. have um in addition the same with whatever is going to happen in the retail space. Um I did have a couple of concerns when I saw the the site plan. Um and another thing I want to say about the the sidewalk and the curb cut, but um the door swing for the retail space seems to be going into the public right away. And um I'm not sure how that's going to work. So something to to look at. I don't think that you're allowed to do that. Um, and um, I'm I know this isn't settled yet, but I'd like to in the future see how the trash is going to work, how the pickup for the trash, cuz the trash room's back here and this is this alley. I'm just not I don't understand how it's going to work. Um and um so the front of this building, so this was the the fire department and there's enormous curb cut at the at the street. Um which has which cuts into the sidewalk. The sidewalk is only really like 5t wide here. Um and sidewalk on college a um can go between 5 and 10 feet or whatever uh with the tree lawn.

There's no tree lawn in front of this building. So, um I'm what I'd like to see is that that that curb cut be removed, brought up to grade as the sidewalk, um with a cur with a regular curb, uh and um some tree pits put here with tree grates so that the line continues along college. That's that's something I'd like to see. Um, I think it will improve the pedestrian flow here and um, there's no reason to keep the curb cut as far as I can tell. It's for, you know, it's for fire fire trucks. So, um, the other thing I was going to ask about, so there are three huge projects. This will be the third project going on in about 500 600 linear feet. Two of them I think are yours or all three of them are yours. And so, um, the sidewalk closure is pretty rough right now. It's pretty tough to get down the street. So, I'm just wondering how that's going to work. I want to I'd like to see that and um to see that plan and um I am also interested in the reaction to the public comment and how you see this building because it seems like you're definitely working with the other building in mind which I appreciate but how this um through from college a to lynen this connection will work for both places. Is that all I had? Oh, I was I mean I I am I'm going to say something about the planters. Um I don't I don't know about these. I'm sorry, but planters on college a seem like you're you're um you're courting

disaster and um if uh I don't know I I feel like they're just kind of just there and something that if you're you're looking at um plantings um there's there's it's very challenging. I know you were already working there, but like plants and trees on college a in college town are very challenging to keep alive because of the sort of activities that happen in college town and the way that trees are treated in college. Um so I don't know it just these just seem like they're just kind of good luck the planters. This is Thank you.

Thanks Peggy. Um, it's a great building. I think it's another uh it will be another positive outcome on this stretch. So, it's really nice to see the attention to the facade. Um, I won't repeat what everyone said. I think they've been great comments. Um, but I would encourage you to start a dialogue with Mr. Lowour. It sounds like you already have met with him. Um, I'll I think his quote where there's an opportunity to be had between the two buildings was really great and I think you alluded to that, Nick. Um, as much as you can show us as that develops what it feels like to be inside this Loia or crossing, what are you calling it for now? Um, we'll take your queue on that. I think I keep wanting to call it a Loia, but um, two different ceiling heights might make it tricky. So, I think understanding how that feels and looks will be important. um also for some continuity on the street facing side. It feels a little disconnected right now um with the two different heights. So, um I'll be interested to see how that develops. Um you mentioned the light wells. I think seeing a clear I don't know if it needs to be a rendering, but just a three-dimensional something about how those work is important. And then also views from Lynden. This is going to be a much taller building. So, how does it impact sort of the streetscape from that side? Um, we'll be curious as well. Um, Lisa and Nikki, any other questions? Okay, I think that's it. Thank you so much for the presentation and we'll see you again shortly.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Fingerlakes Reuse Site Improvements at 214 Elmyra Road. I am heavy. Do we have Diane and Andy in the room with us? are online. Hi, Andy. I hear you now. I can't see can't see you yet. There you are. Hello. Hello.

Hello. Um, okay. So, do you have a presentation you'd like to share with us? Sure. I think uh there's a third person, Andrew, uh, who may want to be on the call. Yes, just promoted them. Great. I will share my screen and then Okay. Is everybody seeing my screen? Yes, we are. Okay. Diane's going to give a little intro first and then uh I'll go through the site plan.

Sure. Okay. Well, thank you. I'm Diane Cohen. I'm the CEO of Fingerlakes Reuse, which is a nonprofit organization um founded in 2007 with a mission to enhance community, economy, and environment through reuse. Now in our 18th year of operations and 10 years ago in December 2015, we opened the ITHA Reuse Center at 214 Elmmyra Road, which is this property. Uh we received funding from New York State Assembly member Anna Kellis for capacity building which includes renovations and repairs for this property. The the funding supported a full roof replacement which we completed in 2025. And now we are turning to a redesign, repaving, and restriping of the parking lot with an eye toward making the shopping and donating experience more inviting and uh safer for our workers, our donors, and our customers. And so I'll turn it over to Andy to review the the site plan.

Okay. Thank you, Dan. Um yeah, so folks are familiar with the reuse property here. So we have the the one-story building. We have parking that surrounds the southern portion of the site. In the western portion, there's the lumber yard. Uh over on the west property line, uh number of storage containers, uh dumpster in the north area. Uh on the east side, that is the drop off area. So cars enter from a meer road, they loop in, drop off at a small uh temporary awning, and then a lot of people actually continue and they park and then they go in and they continue to shop. So, the real big goals of this project are to a kind of green the site up a bit because as we all know from the site, it's it's pretty much majority of paved surfaces and impervious surfaces with the exception of the lawn area and the pavilion area here in the southwest corner. Uh there's various conditions. The paving isn't in great shape in some spots. uh drainage could use some improvement and we'd like to actually increase parking as part of this project, formalize it and formalize the circulation throughout the site. So the areas that are hatched here, the asphalt in this area is in really poor shape. Uh the other boxes are have asphalt that are in poor shape mostly in the eastern and southern portion of the site. Um the asphalt in the western parking lot is in is bad shape. They've done some improvements over the years. Um but as you can see in areas here part of the plan to remove the asphalt in these shaded areas on the west side. We're going to permanently remove some of the asphalt, trim that back in these areas. We'll remove the asphalt and you'll see on the site plan we proposing uh some landscaped islands uh to

differentiate and to define the parking areas. So, here's the site plan. Um, as presented in your packet, we have kind of three areas. Kind of the west lot, the south lot, and the eastern lot. So, on the west lot, what we're doing is relocating all of the storage containers that are currently in this area here to the rear. We're trying to get back a house to be back a house in both uh the areas of the property. So, one storage container will be um will be removed entirely. Three will remain. We'll tuck that in the northwest corner with a screening fence. The lumber yard that's here will go away in its entirety. And that really frees up a lot of parking in this area. Um we're proposing a a 10-ft by 60 ft awning here, which will be a a condensed uh version of the lumber yard, continue with some exterior sales. Uh but this will be the main parking area on the west. We will formalize uh handicap accessible parking. Improve current the current ADA access to the main uh door because that is not ADA compliant. The lighting that is nonfunctional that's in the parking lot will be removed and we'll add uh lights on the edge of the parking lot. We have shown um tree islands in accordance with the southwest guidelines. I saw a comment from Jean Grace, the city forester, that her preference is to to move the trees outside of the paving. They have a better chance of of getting established. So, that's the green circles that I've added to the drawing here. The orange line is kind of the existing edge of pavement that will get peeled back and removed. On the south lot, we're adding a very large landscape area here with trees and plantings.

We will have three um three rows, one entry and two exit uh lanes to try to improve because as we all know it is kind of difficult to get on and off of Elmyra Road. So having the two lanes exiting hopefully will help with turning movements. We'll have some parking on the west side, some additional parking south of the building. And then on the east side, we're really looking to formalize a drop off area. uh take out a lot of the asphalt and create another landscaped island. Have a light a parking lot light in the center. You will still enter and exit for some parking uh off of Elmar Road here, but then as you continue through the drop off zone to the second 10x 60 foot awning, there will be a drop off lane, a a bypass lane, some parking. This is all envisioned as employee parking on the east side so that we're not having uh you know shoppers uh coming in and and trying to back into the drop off zone. After dropping off, uh vehicles will continue to the south of the building and then exit um or go go again and park on the west side of the building or in this area and then shop and then exit through that that opening. So, that's the improvements that we're proposing. Uh, we did not get into heavy detail as far as the plantings, the trees at this point. We understand we'll need to provide that information to you, but we wanted to get initial input from the board first.

Great. Thank you so much. Um, Andy, do you want to start off with some comments for us? Sure. Yeah. Um, thank you um for the presentation. And I think um these improvements will be great. I'm there all the time and these are very much needed. Um I guess a couple questions. Um the the edge between the lawn and the paving, will there be a curb there in these areas? Um there and at the drop off. Uh that's currently there's there's currently lawn area between the sidewalk and the paving. So, this is just going to be a continuation of the street lawn,

right? But where it meets where it meets the paving, will there be a curb? No, it'll just be flush. Huh. Yeah. I don't understand how you'll be able to create such a defined shape if if you're really just talking about lawn dying into is it asphalt?

It'll be Yeah, it'll be asphalt. So, we'll taper the asphalt edges and the the lawn will just butt up to the asphalt. Huh. Yeah, that's a little disappointing. I mean, maybe and maybe you could talk about, you know, the if the how budget driven the project is, but it would seem like it would be much safer and nicer to actually have a concrete curb there. Um, the the city comment about the trees not being, you know, so much in the paving and along the road. I thought the comment was really more directed along Elmyra Road and I thought that would be an opportunity. There aren't many trees along, you know, on the city side of the property line. I there those sort of um flat rocks and a couple of trees, but having more trees along that edge. Um I'm wondering if if that's what the city um was talking about um rather than, you know, just on that west side. Yeah,

she meant on the west side. She said on the west side. Oh, just the west side. But I'll also say Andy, we do want them in the island, too. She said sometimes they don't survive, but we still want them there. That's why it's involving them. It's addition. Yeah. Yeah. So, I guess I was wondering if if there could be more trees on Elmyra Road as well. Um, what what is an 18inch stop bar? So, what what's the idea as you're coming into those two lanes to drop off items? What is a drop a drop bar? Yeah, that's just a like a stop a white painted uh stripe on the on the asphalt.

So, instead of people just continuing into the drop off lane, they want to have a bit more control and in cars stopping before they pull into this lane. So, we're going to have signage on each side, a stop sign. So, it's like a stop. It's a stop bar. It's an area for cars to stop and then when the intake folks are ready for the next vehicle to pull up or get in the queue, they'll wave them forward. I see. So, one lane will be for drop off and one will be for through traffic, correct? Y.

Okay. Um, and then I guess my last question is the appropriateness of a a fabric canopy on this building. you know, you have this great canopy along, you know, the south edge. You know, I don't know what the former use of this building was. Maybe it was a grocery store, but it's very um, you know, industrial. It's cool looking. This is a reuse building. You know, to me, that canopy should be something more substantial. And I guess that goes back to, and I don't even know if that's something that we're to consider, but is the fabric driven by cost? because again that doesn't feel to me like a permanent solution.

Yeah. And I think to your to your comments about curbing and permanent structures, all of these improvements, we're really trying to get as much out of the grant funding as possible. Uh and there are limitations on the funding for for both the site work and the and the awnings. Uh so there was consideration of more of a structural awning, but it was very cost prohibitive. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Ma. Andy Max,

I don't have too too much to add um to uh Andy's comments. I think that uh although I want to really encourage this project, this is just great. It's going to be such a super improvement to that neighborhood. And so I'm I'm grateful that you're uh engaging in this. I I think that I appreciate the budget concerns about the curb. uh the the um that I I'm with Andy. It's kind of disappointing not to have an improvement there. And I think it's also a safety consideration because there is, you know, that is a uh you do have kind of pedestrian traffic in that area as well. But it's just something to put in the back of our minds and and think about as you go forward. And I guess the comments of the city forester you've got in mind and you're going to present us with some more additional details next time. So I'll leave it at that.

Thank you, Jenny. Um, I love everything about this project. I love the reuse center uh when I discovered the kids toys. It changed my life. Um, I go there all the time. And I also sat behind someone for like seven minutes the other day who was trying to take a left. So, I think it is great to have the three um entry and exits. I'm curious about the pavilion. Um, I know that there has been um various sort of restaurants and popups and things like that and CDMX Tacos kind of had their start there and I didn't I never really understood who owned that. Um, so I'm curious like if that is part of the reuse center like what's the plan to like integrate that more um because it seems like an amazing feature that we we offer in Ithaca or the ability for a restaurant person to have that without having to have a full-scale commitment to a restaurant. Well, so we own that um that that used to all be paved and we decided instead of people taking a shortcut through our parking lot and going through the trip uh the whatever that is, the north side shopping plaza, that we would put um we would put grass in there. And uh the city actually helped us with that um because they were doing a Elmyra road improvement while we were moving in um the pavilion. um uh and the CDMX taco stand um were a couple different projects, but we're now uh working with shared kitchen Ithaca and they're going to be populating that with different vendors and that I think that space will continue to evolve, but we're looking at that as a a fairly separate project from this one.

Okay, got it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks, Peggy.

Hi. Um, yeah, I I have spent most of my life dropping things off, getting them out of my house. Um, so I'm very familiar with this drop off area and it's very it seems very dangerous right now for your for your staff um particularly and it's it's not very legible. And so I appreciate this um particularly this part this uh uh the eat this is the uh whatever this this other this other lot this uh delivery and receiving lot the receiving of uh stock lot. So, but I have a couple of of comments. Um, particularly to start with that that area. Um, I'm wondering the um the gated recycling metal and um other scrap recycissman will go in there and take that out every now and then. Is that is that the idea that these will be taken out by a truck and that be accessed? Yeah. Up there in the

Yeah, that's why we kind of have the two-way traffic in here. We have the sliding gate. So, this can get uh this gate will slide open and then there'll be access for these metal and uh and recycling uh rolloffs to be picked up. Is there really enough space there for uh a truck to pull in, turn around and hook up to these and then get get out? Or will they have to back in? Well, more than likely they'll back in. They'll pull forward and back down and then pull them off and then then leave.

All right. That seems kind of like I don't know that that's that's a that that stuck out to me as an issue for for this space. And I know that this happens at different times of the day and not usually during peak business hours, but as in terms of backing in to off of Elmyra Road and things like this, something I was concerned about in the circulation and um um and as you enter there, so you can't you'll no longer be able to just drop things off and leave the same through there. You have to go through the entire retail parking lot.

Um Yeah, I'm I wonder if there's another if there is a possibility to change this so that you so that people could just continue to do that cycle because it does seem like that would be another it's it's a delivery or this is where you get your stock from like Target doesn't make their trucks go through the parking lot. Do you know what I Like I'm just saying that as in terms of sort of how you're how this circulation works, uh it seems a little heavy um for pushing people through constantly through this parking lot where people will be walking to to the store to get into the store. Um okay, so that brings me to the next part. Um, so this this first set uh the seven uh spots um that's only 22 feet wide. So that is that going to be just one way because that's not really wide enough for two ways. I mean it's very tight, right?

Well, no. A a two-way aisle is usually 22 to 24 feet wide. So it's it's two-way up until you get to this point and then it's one way traffic that way. Okay. Yep. So it's so that so that those seven there and then you come out and there's three is that three e charging spots. Two electric two Espots. Three Espots total. Total. Okay.

Yeah. So, I'm I'm I'm concerned about that location for those just because of the way that people access an echarging spot. Um, and that they back into them sometimes and you know, they'll be there for a long time and it's right there at the entrance. So, I'm wondering if you can't turn it into so where the seven the seven is just flip it into there because if that's going to be two ways, right? You can go in and go back, right? So it's not just that cycle through. Um maybe look at it that way. Um so that there isn't that that kind of like jam up right there. Yep.

Um and then did I have one other thing I wanted to say about this?

Oh um there's a crosswalk. You see that? But there doesn't seem like there's any pedestrian access. um like uh specific pedestrian access from Elmmyra Road and a lot of people do walk over here from Elmyra Road and I'm wondering if so you take if you can sort of do something about those three spots kind of turn them and then I'm not to design this for you but if there's some way to create a pedestrian aisle here from Elmyra Road to get to the front door um and then use that crosswalk talk is the connection somehow.

Yeah, we can look at that certainly.

I think that's it. But yeah, it's exciting and I do I mean for the the curbing if if there's a way to find to to to to delineate these planting areas with some sort of protective curbing something. um to preserve them because your investment will be um at risk. People will drive over these things and it's and it will be it. So, I don't know if there's some way to to do it, even an asphalt curb, something some way to make it more to make it clear and and and delineated. I think that would really serve you very well. But it's very exciting to see these changes and it will be very um uh very welcome. Thank you.

Thanks Peggy. Um I will just piggyback on Peggy's comments. I was going to ask either now or next time for um circulation diagram maybe of exactly what she said pedestrian access and vehicular access. I think I I understand it after your explanation how the cars work. Um, and I do think signage will be pretty critical for this um to work well. So maybe you can give us um also a preview of of what kind of signage, whether it's um polemounted or ground painted to help circulation and make it clear to cars. Um I also wondered if there's any site lighting changes, um which we can talk about next time as well if there are. Um, and that that is that is really all I I am also super excited about this project. Right now it's it's a hodge podge and this really will bring it up a notch and I think formalize all the great work um that the center does. So thank you for bringing it to us. Um I forgot to declare lead agency. So let's do that now. Um can I have a motion to open this gray resolution? Um Max moves. Andy seconds. Let's do a roll call vote. Uh Andy. Yes.

Max, yes. Jenny, yes. Uh, Peggy, yes. And I am also a yes. So, we are in fact your lead agency. Um, Nikki, any other comments or questions? I don't think so. I just Yes. Circulation diagram would be great. Um, because I see what you're trying to do for sure to clean it up. But I I do worry a little bit about that p pinch point coming from the drop off like you know and around by the sidewalk um the the east of the corn southeast corner of the building other one.

Yep. Um and especially since you said it's two-way into that seven because again signage really important because if they try to keep on going into that pinch point and then exactly the like when you do circulation diagram you know include the pedestrian as well.

Yeah I didn't realize that that wasn't another exit like I think it is true that there are people who come through and then park and go in but there's also a lot of people who just come through drop and go. Um so I think to the extent that there's able to be two you know egresses would be ingress egresses would be really good. Yeah. And I'm sorry can I add one thing the the maybe you could do an an elevation or you know somehow um indicate the design of the canopy. I guess you know unlike purity the edges of the canopy are not supported right. this is purely supported off of the building and at a height that would clear, you know, trucks. You guys have huge vehicles coming in to the drop off. Um, so just sort of an idea of of, you know, how that would actually be designed and safe, you know, and and something that would last a long time.

Okay, great points. Yeah, if I can speak to that one. Um we are uh we're talking with the fabricator to get drawings and we can share that with the planning the with the board here. Um they will also be supported. Um they're not just pure canal levered off the building. There will be posts that support them. Good. That'll be helpful. Thank you for those. Yeah. And then we won't have vehicles underneath the awning. It'll be um outside of that. So the awning is only 10 feet in these concrete areas. So we're not driving underneath the awnings. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I thought the dashed or the um Yeah, the the hatched area was the awning. So, it's really just the kind of the sidewalk width. Sure. Yep. Y

got it. Thank you. And to address the, you know, exiting again, if one thing we did to try to look at if you came in, dropped off and try to exit through here again and doing that circulation, it ends up being kind of what it is now just the a pure sea of asphalt. We're going to lose the entire ability to have any sort of a landscaped island. So, the parking in the island really gets decimated if you try to take cars and then get them back out of this this entry here. Um, so we we can take another look at it, but the reason that we did not include that was we're trying to really green things up um and just, you know, uh try to not make such a tight exit uh trying to swing back out of the east side of the of the area.

I do love that treeon. I think it's a real improvement to this stretch. Yeah. So, okay, great. Thank you so much, um, Diane, Andy, and Andrew, and we'll see you again next month. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Have a good evening. Okay, we lost our director. She told me we do not have a director support tonight. Um, so let's move on to old new business and Sam's dashboard. Intro, please. This is really exciting. paired with my tea. Tea and I got

Bear with me. One second. Got to switch over from YouTube to this. Um well, it sounds like um most people have had a chance to to take a look at it. um which makes me very excited. Um this was uh originally started by me kind of quarterly updating the city manager's office and the mayor's office with um these numbers and um and then it was their wish to to make it as public public and accessible as before. I think like in past years staff have updated planning boards on on development numbers um but that's not something we've done in a little bit of time. So hopefully this can be a tool for us to communicate back to you as well um and and what's going on. Um so the idea of the dashboard if you haven't had a chance to look at it is that it's an interactive um data portal. So um it's data that we keep kind of just in pure Excel sheets here in at staff and then trying to communicate that in a in a really accessible way. Um so the whole point is that you play with it and you and you click on things and you really really um dive into it. It's designed so it doesn't break. Um, just I was going to start really quickly. U just showing the how-to guide because this seems to get missed quite a bit. Um, so uh all the terms that that I thought might need defining um are defined here. So if you find yourself confused about um what affordable housing means because it could mean so many different things um it's really it's really broken down down into here. Um also I wanted to highlight that there is a feedback form. Um so and it goes right to me. So, anybody who wishes to give me some feedback about it, um I'm open to anything and I would really like to know what's missing um in particular. Um great. So, what we started with um was obviously this welcome page, but then um was just an overall kind of view of of the housing inventory in Ithaca. Um we're really lucky. Uh there's a a database of pretty much every um housing unit in the city has um on file and so

um this is an estimate of that. So um obviously um there's going to be some room for error there especially with as things become vacant um or as things become um demolished but um this the idea of this is that it includes vacant vacancies as well. So there are vacant units captured inside this um and but uh how I thought it might be best to represent the information is by kind of unit count. So that's what we get into on the right. So this is actually the least interactive page. Um I I kind of debated on adding the refresh button. There's really nothing you can do on this page that that shows more information. Um, this is really just a um, that's how it is. Um, but, uh, what might be interesting is just kind of seeing how many units are kept in how many buildings. Um, this is how this page is supposed to be designed. If there's any questions you have on any page, just let me know and happy to to go through it. Um, next the top of mind always seems to be the the affordable housing inventory. Um, so uh, again, unit makeup. What size are those units? where are they? Um what might be interesting is that you can kind of sort through and um autopop populate the map here. And that also kind of shows you your your totals of what of what you might be looking at. So um it might be interesting in the buildings um that have 100 plus units. None of them are condoized, right? So um there's zero affordable ownership units in those buildings. Um just something I thought I should highlight. But as you go to uh units that are one and two about 60 are uh ownerships and 12 here are rentals. So kind of uh highlighting that difference. Uh this is specific so you can really get in. Um so for example if you wanted to look at you know Sears Street projects that we just looked at you can do that. There they are. And so um yeah, you can make multiple selections and really kind of present that information however you want. Do you want to just look at in the city

for example building a middle missing middle or some people call it could highlight that information. Um, also included is if you wanted like to get specifically about uh information about each project, you can highlight click on or just hover over each project and it should show you this information. I'd love to expand this in the future and and what this this page includes. So if you have thoughts about that and what what we see planning board that you think could be easily tracked um as it's coming through. Um we'd really love to expand that. So this um this page really sets us up for the rest of the dashboard um because it's uh gets a little bit more complicated per page. Um this is the the housing pipeline page. So um what are the the units that we're a little bit more confident about that are coming online. So um we've switched over from looking at inventories to now looking into the future. Um which means different data sets. So um like for the housing inventory and the affordable housing inventory is one data set and then the upcoming and reviewing uh and what we're reviewing is like a second a second data set. Um so here's what we currently have under construction. This is still accurate to my knowledge. Um uh and here we go. So if you wanted just to see what's under construction, it should populate. Big one here is the State Street project. And then so what pending instruction means is that it's received planning board approvals um and is ready to pull their building permit. Um but it could be for a number of reasons that they haven't pulled their building permit yet. Could be on their side or u maybe there's some external permitting processes that are going on outside of the city um that need that need to happen. Maybe there's some grant funding um uh especially for affordable housing projects like that might be a reason why they're in the the pending construction stage here. again um you can select any project you

want. So I'm also searchable. And then finally um this is the page I felt like I was most comfortable um visualizing. Um this is kind of my wheelhouse of of keeping data is um is what you guys do and improving improving these projects. So um we we date back to 2020 because we kind of had to pick a date. um in 2020 seemed like a good one and we felt really confident about the data here. Um what I really like is you can look at each year on this page and kind of see the the status of all these projects. Um the idea is that um it's going to be updated quarterly. Um, and there's I've gotten some feedback that it'd be nice to know like what stage these projects are on or or are in um in the dashboard, but that can be hard to uh uh accurately reflect in a quarterly update um because some of most of the projects are are are significantly through um in a quarter. Although there's some obviously some bigger projects um that might take might take a long time. Um, for instance,

the the no market rate ownership really pops when you look at it like this. Yeah. Yeah. So um particularly with review

one one thing that I had talked to Sam about earlier before everybody got here was um for the projects under review. Wouldn't it be cool to be able to have a link to you know our page or something that shows you what the project is? So that to me, you know, this is something that city officials and other people right now, you know, what's coming and they can, you know, quickly click on, well, here's a project. Here's what it looks like and it's all right there. Yeah, I think that's really information we already have. It's like on our side. It's nothing we have to ask anybody else for, right? Um it's information the city has um already. That could be

Yeah. It could be a link to the folder, you know, the project folder or something. Yeah. Just like you have on your agendas, right? Yeah. um would be a really really accessible way to to view the information. This is really incredible. I mean, we are always talking about it's amazing. You know, we need more affordable housing. We and we don't really know what we need. At least I don't. So, to see this is really powerful. Thank you for putting it together. Yeah. Um I I just Yeah, it's really um I all the staff time in the years before I ever started um gathering the data that did was all the hard work. Um it's just visualizing it took a little bit like a little bit of time but everybody who managed the data before this which was hard work. Yeah. Visualize. So

I mean I've seen I haven't used PowerBI but PowerBI is like not the most userfriendly tool. So this is like really impressive. I appreciate that. Thank you. Is there are there any highlevel conclusions that you've made based on this? You know what I've been staying myself away from the conclusions. I've wanted to build this as a tool for if people had a conclusion from it. that's great. Um, but in terms of like my role, I found it just to be presenting. It's very diplomatic of you. The accept. But if people do have a takeaway or or an impression that they didn't have before, then I find that the that the the tool uh worked.

One thing that um came up I mentioned to you earlier that I think is is something you can draw from this and is that uh when we went to that Bingmpington conference, we heard about, you know, the development of affordable housing. uh because there's subsidies available for it and you know market rate housing is really difficult to u to develop now and so in the last few years you know it's flipped from a predominance of market rate to affordable housing that comes out in this data really clearly and so I thought that was really useful because it was kind of like oh okay well this is what we're seeing and here we are right here and it's doc it's true yeah

I guess Andy not to completely deflect your answer but um there are some things I have observed um or at least some misconceptions I had myself um before before I visualized the data this way which is like the number of large buildings with 100 plus units. Um I always imagine there was more than than there are and um and then yeah Max and I were discussing um the the the change in the fact like in 2020 you were seeing a lot more market rate rentals come through the planning board um whereas now we're seeing a lot more affordable housing and there could be a number of reasons for that but um one hypothesis could be the um the cost of construction and the fact that um maybe the more viable projects are the ones being subsidized

it I don't know oh go ahead I don't know um what the use case for this information would be but it would also be interesting to look at this maybe by developer to understand like really like if there are only I don't know seven major developers here here in Tomkins County. I think that helps us think about the types of routine guidance or opportunities to be like this is the direction the planning board wants to see you go when we really know we're just dealing with like a couple of people versus like 50 developers. I don't know. I haven't Yeah, I haven't totally thought the use case out for that, but I think that could be interesting. Or for people who want to understand like, oh, this property developer manages really exceptional properties. What else do they own? I think that could be really actionable on the affordable housing side because there's only a set number of people within the city who are who are doing that. Um the the greater approvals may be harder especially to keep track of who's owning what. But

yeah, and I always think following on what you're saying, Jenny, I always think about, you know, as we get to know developers, you know, how can we incentivize what's needed? And, you know, to me, this this would tell us something about what is needed. We keep talking about the missing middle, but this would kind of prove a case. And then is there a way to incentivize through our new zoning rewrite the things that we think are missing instead of, you know, I mean, this this could prove that and help us, you know, guide the zoning toward what's specifically by neighborhood, too. You can really dive into it.

Yeah. By neighborhood. How can we get the word out about this? Um, well, I've actually been very thrilled with the amount of media coverage it's been getting. But, um, uh, in your professional environments, if you find ways to to use it as a tool, I think that's like the most um, I want people to continue to return to it, not just, oh, this was a nice snapshot of of of what's happening, but rather a tool that people go go back to. Are you open to giving presentations? Yeah, I think so. assuming that would be above me. Um, would deem it fine? Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, I'd be into that. Sam, I wanted you to know that there was a very hearty, fiery discussion about it on the Fall Creek neighborhood list, sir.

We would expect nothing less. I did I did I did take a peek at the Fall Creek list serve. Um, unfortunately, I found most of the It was I think it it brought in a lot of really interesting points and I'm and talking about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I think u Andy's point of drawing conclusions too that I really liked is that um as more people do it'll tell you what's missing and what's what's already here and what people are Yeah, I think that's a great point. Are they using the feedback option? Um so unfortunately I have not been uh getting much feedback. Uh so I I guess they please give feedback through the website.

Please. Yeah. Um there there's a planning info at city of ethica.org if uh if you prefer sending an email, but um the feedback form uh goes right to me. Great. Um and uh I if you're trying to spread the word, um I encourage people to use that, especially what's missing. Um I think I think it could be improved upon in a lot of ways, but understanding what the decision makers and public are going to be using it for will help um guide what what's going to be in there.

Yeah. And you know again to Jenny's point about lunch and learns and presentations I mean with the univer local universities to me this would seem like a great tool for students um in you know various colleges to you know use this information or see this as a model to to build on or draw conclusions from. I really hope so. Yeah. In conclusion I hope Mr. will include a link to this excellent website in his planning board write up. Um, and Mr. Rodell who's doing also great article articles now. Excellent. Yeah. Thank you, Sam. Thank you.

Thank you everybody. Yeah, really appreciate it. Anything else members would like to discuss tonight? Okay, let's adjourn. May I have a motion? Jenny moves. Any second?