Letters to the editor: To Tweak and to what extent? That is the question!

At last Saturday’s ‘State of the Village’ meeting, Trustee Rordan Hart repeatedly described the Village’s 2012 Zoning Ordinance as in need of just minor ‘tweaking’ to adjust ‘small stuff’. Whilst repeatedly using the word ‘tweak’, Trustee Hart underscored his confidence the ordinance shouldn’t be a concern to residents who might be feeling uneasy about how it might impact them. He also publicly admonished those of us who’ve been arguing the contrary and drawing attention to the weaknesses and threats the ordinance poses. As he went on to describe, the basis of Hart’s confidence is Section 812 known as Site Plan Review. It gives the planning board, argues Hart, significant and ample power to ensure new large-scale development fully reflects Trumansburg’s rural character and distinctiveness. That character, he also emphasized, was put in place long before zoning ever appeared on the scene.

YES, I agree, Trumansburg’s zoning ordinance needs tweaking, but not in the minor manner Trustee Hart proposes. What it needs is major tweaking with intent, resolve and conviction to make it work and function effectively. Without major tweaking, the entire geography of Trumansburg’s 1 square mile R-1 residential district, is under immediate and ongoing threat.

In zoning nationwide, R-1 typically means a district dominated by single family, freestanding homes on lots of varying sizes. Trumansburg’s neighborhoods, as Trustee Hart aptly notes, took their form long before local zoning, enacted in 1971, designated them as R-1. For 41 years, the ‘71 zoning law actually worked well to preserve neighborhood patterns. It allowed one principal building per lot, and each building could contain 1 or 2 families. Because they were an exception, not the norm, homes for 3 or more families, were only allowed on the condition of a special permit if it could be shown there’d be no undesirable change in the neighborhood.

With the 2012 Ordinance Trustee Hart helped craft and put into law, traditional neighborhood development in R-1 is out of favor and entirely uncharacteristic forms of development are promoted. The ordinance removes special permit restrictions and allows not just 1 and 2-family but multi-family homes and rental apartment complexes with no cap on the number of units they contain. More than one principal building can rise from a single lot while sparing a property owner the need to subdivide or cluster. Instead of being limited to strategic sites and locations, high-density development is allowable everywhere in R-1.

Trustee Hart is wrong to assume the planning board’s site plan review powers will sustain 225 years of evolving development patterns. A zoning ordinance mandates exactly what is lawfully allowable in a particular district. It dictates the standards guiding the planning board’s site plan review. Site plan review never involves determination of whether a particular use is appropriate in a specific location or area, since the zoning ordinance has already resolved that as a matter of village law.
There is so much more than modest tweaking needed to remove the immediate threat Trumansburg’s zoning ordinance poses. If indeed Trustee Hart is fully committed to honoring Trumansburg’s past by setting and steering the right course for its future, then the zoning can’t be just tweaked- it’s gotta be right!

Sincerely,
Paula Horrigan
355 Pennsylvania Avenue
Trumansburg, NY 14886