4/17/07 - Committee reviews plan for South End

(As published by Cortland Standard, Evan Geibel reporting)

The South End Strategic Plan advisory committee reviewed goals for the neighborhood outlined in the plan Monday evening, and during the meeting Mayor Tom Gallagher said he believes the 23-acre Noss Industrial Park might be a suitable location for much-needed government facilities.
Committee member and JTS Lumber owner Ken DeMunn suggested that the Noss Industrial Park would be an ideal place to locate facilities that both the city of Cortland and Cortland County need to construct — the city needs new spaces for its fire department and administrative offices, and the county is looking to locate a jail, Department of Motor Vehicles office, and a public health building.
Gallagher said the state Department of Environmental Conservation would begin work on cleaning the industrial park in the late spring or summer.
Gallagher has said building a county jail on the Noss site would be out of the question because as a state-designated, polluted Brownfield area, the site cannot be home to a residential facility like a jail.
The location also is on the wrong side of the railroad tracks and Main Street to be a location for the fire department, he said.
When Ann Hotchkin, project manager for Thoma Development Consultants, pointed out that it’s one of the few open sites in the city for industrial development, Gallagher said he would rather have government buildings placed on that site instead of purchasing residential properties and further diminishing the city’s tax base. This kind of contradicts Tom's support of the original project in December 2006, but is anyone paying attention??
The strategic plan recommends changing zoning in certain parts of the ward, rehabilitating both single and multi-family buildings and encouraging homeownership, bringing in new businesses, increasing green space and more rigorously enforcing code violations.
The zoning changes include redrawing district boundaries so that the R-2 zone in the vicinity of Crawford, Pine, Cannone and Scammell streets becomes R-1, and eliminating the General Industrial zone between south Main and Owego streets and rezoning to allow mixed uses such as residential development, neighborhood services and small business.

Not to toot my own horn, but I suggested the Noss site at the evening Carol Tytler Community meeting in March. However, I also suggested an even better site that was 10 acres and have a few existing structures on them -
www.davidyaman.com/realty/images/property/73/PtWatsonPkBrochure.pdf

This area would suit the county's needs for several departments and take down some older, beat up industrial structures.
Obviously the County doesn't need to take all 23 acres, they could avoid the brownfield areas and stay toward the South Main side of the site.