Monday
Our Petition Campaign
At this weekend's Apple Harvest Festival we got our petition campaign off to a resounding start--garnering over 1,000 signatures in three days. A great time was had by all and it was rewarding to inform our neighbors and fellow Ithacans about this large-scale housing development proposed for Sapsucker Woods.
Here is the text of the petition:
We the undersigned oppose the Briarwood II development and urge the Ithaca Town Planning Board to reconsider its preliminary approval and environmental assessment of this development. The Planning Board has not attended closely enough to the following concerns:
The developer’s proposal employs a complex, untested storm water retention design, and the Planning Board ought not to have approved it until they adequately reviewed the negative effects of previous developments on drainage in the area. These negative consequences, especially for residents to the west of the development, are profound and ongoing.
The Environmental Assessment that passed on June 20, 2006 failed to acknowledge the extensive loss of woods and wetland this development entails. The woods that are slated to be destroyed are a part of Sapsucker Woods (though not part of the Lab of Ornithology’s bird sanctuary), and are designated a Unique Natural Area by the county. The Planning Board should recognize that the land is of special significance.
As a manner of procedure, the Town Planning Board has taken too many of the developer’s claims on faith, and has not exercised its duty regarding proper oversight and review of the proposal.
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Look for our petition circulating in the coming days. In northeastern Ithaca, we'll be going door-to-door. We also hope to have tables soon at prominent locations downtown (the Farmer's Market, etc.).
If you would like to help circulate our petition, please send us an email!
Also, look for the guest column written by one of our members appearing in Monday's Ithaca Journal.
