The Town of Lansing Agriculture and Farmland Protection Plan will be one step closer to acceptance next Wednesday when a public hearing is held to gather comments on environmental documents.  The plan was developed by a committee largely made up of Lansing farmers and agriculture stakeholders.  The Lansing Planning Board recommended that the Town Board accept the plan in a June meeting.  Officials say the plan is a guide for the Town as it takes actions in the future to protect the 16,261 acres of farmland in Lansing, most of it in the northern portion of the Town.

Many residents, including farmers, spoke in favor of accepting the plan at a Town Board meeting last month, with only one farmer, Former Lansing Supervisor Jenine Kirby, speaking against it.  The plan calls for a Town Agriculture Committee to be formed that would make recommendations to the Town Board based on the plan. 

Last week an anonymous letter was circulated to some Lansing residents, encouraging them to attend the public hearing to oppose the plan.  Supervisor Kathy Miller said yesterday that the letter was not sent to her, but she obtained a copy from people who did receive it.  She said she will make comments about it, noting that there are many inaccuracies in it.

"It's not signed," she said.  "When someone doesn't sign something you have no idea where it came from.  I will say something about it at the beginning of the public hearing, but I don't want to give it too much credibility.  This letter was not sent by the Town.  A lot of the information in it is not true.  Then we will let people comment."

The most sweeping recommendation is to change what is largely a Rural Agriculture zone into an Ag Zone to more comprehensively protect the 1/3 of Lansing that is used for agriculture.

"Farming is alive and well in the Town of Lansing. Lansing enjoys a long history of continuous farming and can boast having the highest quality soils in the county that support 40 farm businesses, their owners, families and employees that generate a total of $20 million in agricultural product sales, nearly one third of total agriculture sales for the entire county," the plan says.  "Farmers utilize 16,261 acres of land or about one-third of the town’s land area. Of the total land in farming, 8,834 acres are owned by 40 farmers and 7,427 farmed acres are rented from about 80 rural landowners. According to the Tompkins County Land Use Land Cover survey (2012), 1,017 acres of inactive agriculture land in the town has come back into production (some for organic farming) in the last 5 years. The increase in farmed land demonstrates the demand for farmland and the viability of farming in the area."

The public hearing is set for 6:05pm at the Lansing Town Hall on Wednesday, September 16th.

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