The Lansing Star Online, Lansing, NY - Lansing Builders Favor High End, But No Drastic Changes

Jul 04 2008

Lansing Builders Favor High End, But No Drastic Changes

Dan Veaner
Friday, 04 July 2008
There is a lot of talk about the future of Lansing, how development will change the town, about whether the rural character of the community will remain. But the fact is that the face of Lansing has changed markedly from the original farming community to a bedroom community for Ithaca and Cornell. And despite panicked cries about development gone wild, actual development in the town has not been rising. "We average a couple of hundred building permits per year, pretty close to two hundred, says Code Enforcement Officer Richard Platt. "But housing is 35, 40, somewhere in that range. It hasn't changed too much." In fact the number of single and two-family homes has been down in the past few years. "Around 2001, 2002 we were in the high 40s in permits," says the town building inspector Lynn Day. "Now we're down. Last year we did 33 and we're down in the low 30s. I believe it will be about the same this year. We're up to 13 so far this year." Despite pressure from Tompkins County to rezone and encourage affordable housing, most new houses in Lansing are mid to high end homes. Platt says that new building in the Hillcrest, Tiger Lily, area tend to sell for between half a million and a million dollars. He says that most new homes are built in that area, which is zoned for residential building. Developments like the Lake Forest subdivision off of Myers Road and other more northern areas go for less. "We get a pretty good range of the high end houses, say $500,000 to close to a million," Platt says. "Of the more normal houses that range from say $150,000 to $300,000." Lansing Code Enforcement Officer Richard Platt Day says that there is some construction in the North Lansing and Lansingville. A family is doing the work themselves on a 4,000 square foot house on Holden Road. Day says they will save a lot of money on construction, but a house that size will probably be appraised at $500,000 once it is completed. He says that there is also some building on the Lansingville side. "We've had quite a few houses over the last few years over on the Emmons Road area," he says. "I believe there is going to be one built this summer on Lansingville Road. They haven't come in for a permit yet. Up in that area the range is probably $175,000 to $250,000." While the number and mix of building permits has remained about the same over the past six or seven years, there are some potential projects that could drastically change the character of parts of the town. One project in the initial planning stages would bring 138 condominium townhouses to what is now a Triphammer Road field between Michaeleen's Florist and Asbury Road. The developers have told the planning office that sewer would have to be part of the project in order to build to the level of density that would make the project cost effective. At the moment the project is projected for 2014, and Platt says it would be built in phases. The new Wheaton Sheet Metal building on Peruville Road Another is the 500+ acre Kingdom Farm, owned by the Jehovah's Witness Watchtower Society. Last year they approached the town planning board to discuss rezoning the farm to accommodate potentially more than 500 new residences, in what would amount to a village within the town that could include a small retail business center and other businesses, as well as a mix of different housing solutions. Both of these projects seem ambitious in a town that typically builds thirty to forty new residences per year. But with over 14,000 people commuting to Tompkins County from more than ten other counties every day to work here, the Tompkins County legislature sees Lansing as a prime spot for affordable housing. They asked the town to adjust its zoning to accommodate that and have been encouraging town officials to do what it can to get affordable housing built here. To do that the town will have to convince builders that it is worth their while to build affordable (defined at approximately $150,000) housing here. But builders say that may be hard to bring to reality with the prices of building materials and everything else so high. "To build affordable housing now is almost impossible because the land is so expensive," said local developer Ivar Jonson in an interview last May. "The County and everybody makes it so expensive." There is some new business building in Lansing, but not a lot. This year Wheaton Sheet Metal began work on their new Peruville Road building, and last year Global Phoenix built in Lansing. Day says that some businesses have built additions to existing buildings, and that others have converted buildings for business use, such as the Sincredible Pasteries kitchen that was converted from an auto repair garage. He notes that IMR has built two additions since they originally constructed their building in the business park just south of the town ballfields. And Transonics Systems plans to double the size of their plant if the Warren Road sewer project passes this summer. New homes are going up on Tiger Lily Lane The Warren Road sewer is likely to pave the way for new apartment building in the Lucente and Springbrook complexes. But Day says that there havn't been new multi-residences (three or more family structures) in years. He says some two-family homes have been converted to three, but otherwise apartment building has been stagnant. Platt says that the current Lansing building trend probably won't change any time soon. "I can't see it," he says. "With the way the economy is right now we're glad that we have as much as we do this year. I think people obviously like Lansing. People want to be here for the schools and the proximity to Ithaca is nice. But it's still nice country, too. You can get away. I can't really see it changing unless somebody invests a lot of money." Day agrees that the challenging economy is holding back any acceleration in building here. He notes that a lot of homes in town are for sale now, an upward trend over the past year and a half. And that affects both current and future building. "I just went down to a house where a gentleman had a building permit for two or three years," he notes. "He said because their taxes had gone up so high in the last couple of years they decided not to finish the project. So they want to close out their permit." He says that the mix of houses being built isn't changing. But he notes that the high-end houses in the R-1 zones sell well. "I think it's about the same mix," he says. We've had houses come up in every part of the town, but when you're in the R1 area you're always up into the high end, at least the $500,000 range. Right now we have one on Bolton Point Road off of Eastlake that is almost $1,000,000. A lot of these builders are always around the six or seven hundred thousand range. They seem to sell well." ---- v4i26