Tag: Cornell

In “The List of Adrian Messenger” – the victim’s last words were a breathless, “Clean sweep. Clean sweep.” — A fitting epitaph for Euclidean zoning’s humanist precepts under the heel of Form Based Code (FBC) regimentation.

This New Urbanism regulatory device has an authoritarian clout that garners approval from all those who aspire to be those authorities.

Our “old fashioned” and “inefficient” Euclidean zoning is ridiculed by Form Based Code proponents; who want to replace “what can we agree on?” with “do this because we say so.”

In the darkening of our enlightenment; experts and professionals increasingly cleave to the Political-Corporate-Institutional Centrality for profit — and survival.

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FORM BASED CODES

What’s really wrong with “Euclidean” zoning?

It’s one area of government where people still have the right to discuss and to decide — as neighbors – and as themselves.

Form Based Code proponents want to change all that.

Form Based Codes ensure only one thing; the overriding regulatory power of authorities to enforce conformity to their wishes — once that power is given; there is no taking it back.

Like the “Nine-Point Plans” that are so beloved by agricultural polluters and their cronies – Form Based Code implementation limits the public to ineffectual commenters; with no meaningful participation or oversight in the decision making process. All the pre-planning sales talk of multi-day “charrettes” and public input is merely window dressing with no legally defined existence. Form Based Codes are designed to promote development, not to protect residents.

Contrary to common ethical standards; the discussion surrounding the adoption of Form Based Codes is limited to praising its beneficence; and never touches on its inherent flaws nor discloses the extent of its authoritarian powers.

The dream of planners: to design communities as efficient interlocking parts; and only afterward “populate” them – and the desire of authorities: to control all within their sphere [without annoying objections and obstacles] – combine in the creation of Form Based Code environments: the biggest threat to human worth and individuality since the Skinner Box.

The inclusion of Form Based Codes into the Town of Lansing’s Comprehensive Plan strategy reveals much about the process and intent of government in Tompkins County:

The “Town of Lansing Comprehensive Plan” could more accurately be called: “Cornell’s Plan for the Town of Lansing.”

The complete marginalization of Lansing’s residents took place in three steps:

1. Cornell’s Survey Research Institute prepared and administered a questionable survey; the results of which were recanted during public outcry, and later quietly reinstated as the underpinning mandate for all the Town’s Comprehensive Plan policy decisions.

2. Cornell’s fraudulent “Rural Sprawl” domino effect scenario was adopted without debate by Lansing Town authorities; a fear provoking concoction designed to suppress rural opposition and legitimize the creation of a “mini-city” with thousands of housing units; thus artificially maintaining Ithaca’s “small-town living” as an attraction for the students and professionals needed by an ever-expanding University and growing business center — and keeping thousands of acres of suitable building land in Ithaca untouched and taxes lower by placing the housing for their workers and families, and the high cost of services, in another municipality.

3. Cornell’s Design Connect Form Based Code planning offered an unopposable regulatory power to block any possibility of resident oversight or revision.

What was the Town of Lansing’s decision process for the inclusion of a Form Based Code future in their Comprehensive Plan?

A simple one:

• Cornell’s Design Connect made a presentation that was attended by 25 residents.
• Those residents were asked for comments.
• A 27 page “sales brochure” promoting the benefits of across-the-board Form Based Code regulatory policies was added to the Comprehensive Plan without any further public involvement or approval. No alternative planning idea was given any space.

This is how things work in Tompkins County Government: authorities “identify a need” – they develop a plan – and they adopt the plan. Form Based Codes streamline the development planning and approval process by removing the public from any planning or approving — that’s one more reason why politicians, planners, and developers everywhere are so enamored with this tool of power.