ITHACA, N.Y. — Some of these City of Ithaca Planning and Economic Development Committee accomplish a lot at once. At other times, like last night, it’s slow going.
Those hoping for revised regulations for Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) will be waiting a little while, as the specter of short-term rentals looms, and is increasingly seen as a hand-in-hand concern with moving any ADU regulation forward.
Council agrees to hear Rimland apartment tower proposal out
This month, there was only one voting item on which the committee had to decide on whether or not to send to the full Common Council next month for discussion and potential final approval. On the agenda was the contingent purchase agreement by developer Jeff Rimland for the Eastern third of the Green Street Garage. As always, for those who like to read along to the play-by-play, last night’s agenda is here.
This has to do with Rimland’s proposal to build a 13-story, 260-unit apartment building on the Rothschild Building and the eastern third of the Green Streert garage (you can read more on the background of that project here). The contingent purchase agreement has little to do with the actual project itself, and mostly addresses a pair of legal aspects involving the land.
The first has to deal with the hotel next door. When the Marriott was being proposed in the early 2010s, the hotel’s development team, of which Rimland is a minority partner, requested and was given the option to buy the eastern section of the garage if the city ever decommissioned it (this was done to always ensure they’d have ample parking nearby, whether city-maintained or privately-held). It was essentially an insurance policy. The hotel has given permission to remove their purchase option as long as the garage is rebuilt (which it would be under Rimland’s proposal), therefore removing that legal obstacle pending city approval.
The second issue has to deal with air rights. While Rimland owns the ground under the eastern third of the garage, the city owns the garage and the air above it – what are known as “air rights.” Deducting the engineering estimate for what it would cost the city to bulldoze and garage ($2.03 million), and a third-party appraisal of the land’s value ($2.38 million), the suggested purchase price for the air rights is $350,000. The Common Council has to give their okay for the Ithaca Urban Renewal Agency (IURA) to establish a $350,000 air rights purchase price as a stipulation while the rest of the discussion regarding the project is ongoing, and are likely to be ongoing for some time. When ready, that negotiated development deal will pay a visit to PEDC. If the discussions fall through along the way, then the purchase agreement is moot.
IURA Executive Director Nels Bohn was there to speak on the agreement. Bohn noted that the eastern third of the Green Street Garage would be reconstructed by Rimland, the western third by Vecino, and the central section needs no rebuilding because that was done in the late 2000s. He compared the reconstruction of the garages and leasing of the spacing to an alternative to the issuance of a municipal bond with debt payments. According to Bohn, from a financial perspective, they’d work out about the same for the city’s finances. The discussion moved around financing aspects and concerns about the displacement of two Rothschild Building retail tenants, Sunny Days and Home Green Home, and wanted to make sure the displacement issue was a part of the project discussion before committing to the contingent purchase agreement.
“As more design development goes forward, we’ll ask what his plans are to mitigate those (retail displacements) and prevent those, ideally,” said Bohn. The PEDC voted to approve of the contingent purchase agreement 5-0.
Waterfront zoning gets tweaks
There were two items being voted on to circulate last night. Quick reminder, when changing legal codes, a vote for approval to circulate is required before a proposal can come back to PEDC for a vote on whether or not to send to council. The first item up for approval to circulate was for the Waterfront zoning, focusing on some modest modifications to the Waterfront Area zoning code and its stepback requirements.
One modification was to add a legal definition for a row house, and to change the definition of townhouse out for the definition for row house, which can have side-by-side units like townhouses, but also up-and-down two-flats like you see in some cities. It also expands a definition for maximum building/rowhouse string length of 100 feet so as to not obstruct water views, adds a 5-foot front yard setback, sidewalk and tree lawn requirements, and to remove the upper-floor waterfront stepback requirement from the Market District and Newman District, because the upper-level stepback doesn’t really do much when the waterway is really wide and the setbacks are large – to quote the memo, “(A)s development proposals have begun to come in, it has become clear that this requirement will not achieve the aesthetic goals that were intended.”
During the Public Hearing, Waterfront Zoning Committee member Sheryl Swink commented in favor of keeping the stepback. “I do not find that the 20 feet (stepback) that is specified from the Market and Newman Districts to be very generous. A 63-foot building did not look very comfortable. Maybe it should be at Planning Board’s discretion instead of as-of-right.” According to Planning Director JoAnn Cornish, the Planning Board is on board with removing the stepback on at least a case-by-case aspect after seeing attempted applications of it in the City Harbor proposal on Pier Road, and deciding it did not achieve the desired effect.
“I probably attended every Waterfront Zoning Committee with Sheryl. The stepbacks were really focused on Inlet island, and the narrow inlet…I think it’s valid there. Whether it’s valid through the whole waterfront? Maybe not,” said non-committee Alderperson George McGonigal (D-1st Ward). “My suggestion would be to keep the stepback along Inlet Island, but if you wanted to tweak it, you could reduce it with a four-story maximum (building height on Inlet Island).” Inlet Island is a different zoning district (Waterfront/West End District), where the mandatory stepback is intended to remain in place because the inlet is narrower there.
Councilor Cynthia Brock (D-1st Ward) pointed out an error in the definition of maximum building length that allowed a loophole if there were multiple buildings on the same property, so the language was refined to close that loophole. Brock also wanted to retain the stepback in the Newman District and only get rid of the Market District’s stepback, but other members of the PEDC were neutral or inclined towards the Department’s suggestion of removal for both Newman and Market Districts. That discussion will likely come up again next month; the proposal to circulate passed unanimously 5-0.
Special Permits for Multiple Primary Structures
The PEDC also voted on for approval to circulate a proposal to revise the legal review of Special Permits. The Special Permit discussions ties into the ongoing Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) discussion. Multiple primary structures would be allowed by Special Permit with additional language to minimize negative impacts and the loss of significant green space (the word “significant” was later removed, though planners thought it offered more flexibility to the Planning Board in their review of Special Permits). The goal is to give an extra layer of review and scrutiny for any proposal with multiple primary structures in less-dense residential neighborhoods.
Councilor Donna Fleming (D-3rd Ward), who’s previously expressed reluctance in allowing multiple primary structures, wanted something more similar to a PUD where some kind of language that specifies some kind of public benefit must be a part of the project. She also noted some dissatisfaction with the proposal, saying it offered two different sets of rules for multiple primaries and for ADUs.
“I see them as very different types of development,” said PEDC Chair Seph Murtagh (D-2nd Ward). “A multiple primary is a new one-family house or a duplex on a larger lot. An ADU is converting a smaller space in a house, or a garage, into an apartment that could house a tenant. They’re two different types of development.”
As planned, the ADUs would be less expensive and less difficult to get approvals to build. Multiple primaries would be more expensive and more difficult. While there was some concern that this wasn’t ready for a trip to the full Common Council, the board did vote unanimously to circulate the Special Permits multiple primary unit regulation proposal so that it’d come back before them at March’s meeting.
ADU legislation stalled due to short-term rental concerns
Up for non-voting discussion this evening was more of that old-time favorite of ADUs, and a review of the 2020 Planning Department Work Program, of which the Voice covered already here.
At the Common Council meeting, the council suggested leaving the South Hill Overlay District in place until a neighborhood comprehensive plan and zoning update can be completed, an option to limit the size of attached accessory dwelling units, like basement units and in-law apartments, to 40% the size of the main unit (current limit is 800 SF or one-third the size of the house’s primary unit, whichever is smaller), and council asked for options to try and create some sort of incentive to encourage owner-occupancy.
“I’m not in favor of legislation of encouraging owner-occupancy by waiving certain requirements. That just seems to make it more complicated than it already is,” said Fleming. “I don’t know how to change this before sending back, other than the size, the 40% of the primary structure.”
Councilors had quick consensus on the 40% size limit for all ADUs, detached and attached. Murtagh suggested limiting ADUs in R-2a zones to single-family only and not allowing them for two-family properties in those areas, but there wasn’t enough support to move forward with the idea.
The meat of the discussion Wednesday night dealt with short-term rentals. Murtagh expressed caution on the short-term rentals objective, noting it would be a long and likely contentious process to design and implement regulations and enforcement/compliance. Cornish agreed. “Short-term rentals is not going to be an easy lift. Highly controversial.”
The initial gut check among councilors seemed to suggest that AirBnBs and similar short-term rentals would have to have an owner-occupancy requirement in the less-dense R-1 and R-2 zones. Planner Alex Phillips said that, based on their initial analysis, they did not foresee a large number of ADUs being used for short-term rentals, though councilor Brock noted that it’s not just an ADU-related concern, whole houses are often used for short-term rentals. In fact, units that are primarily used for AirBnB and short-term rentals aren’t permitted in all R-1 and R-2 zones, it’s just that the city doesn’t really enforce it right now.
So the ADU discussion is hand-in-hand with short-term rentals, and there was hesitance to move the ADU rules forward without some progress on short-term rentals. Cornish acknowledged that it won’t be easy but that they could “definitely start the conversation”. With that, Murtagh noted now much more progress was likely at this meeting, and the discussion was placed on pause, to pick up again at a later date, after some consideration as to how to handle the short-term rental issue in both the short term and the long term.
With that quagmire ongoing, let’s end this on a positive note. apparently people really want to be a Director of Sustainability in the Planning Department. Cornish stated they had twenty applications, which is unusually high for municipal government. Lots of civic-minded people care about a cleaner, greener future, it seems.