1. The PC likes to hear from “just plain folks,” the kind who show up in their paint-spattered work clothes, heavy work boots, medical uniforms and office attire. Let’s call them the “JPF” for short.
2. The more of these JPF, the more powerful the message.
3. The PC cannot make decisions based on the popularity, or lack thereof, of a waiver request. So actually, numbers of JPF at the meetings can’t count.
4. The JPF actually don’t understand all the legalities, so while their interest is much appreciated, it doesn’t stand a chance against a legal technicality.
5. How the PC votes on a waiver request is very much affected by what the JPF say.
6. If the JPF haven’t come in with new information for the PC to use in figuring out how to vote, or if their information is ill-informed, then the hours they spend at these meetings is all for naught.

Okay, so at tonight’s Planning Commission meeting where waiver requests for an LED sign are to be considered, we’re going to see some JPF. Some will be quavering at the microphone because they are unaccustomed to public speaking, some will be thrilled to have a few minutes (2 or 7, depending on… nobody knows) to get their point across. Some will be there with their common sense, some with memories and current understanding of a city on the brink of decline (or not). And some will come with appropriate degrees tacked onto their names and legal or learned points to make.

None of these people should be despised – those with or without degrees. The diversity of viewpoints is to be appreciated. The JPF deserve the opportunity to bring up points that the PC might overlook. This is all well and good, for we know that Eastwood, in all its diversity of opinion, is united in its desire for good development that will knit the community back together after being falsely divided over a supposed “deal-breaker.”

But just to make sure that in the future we are not accused of not doing our homework, or not being prepared to inform the PC of the issues it must consider, I append here the final conclusions made by professional urban planner Maureen Harding in her letter to the Planning Commission. Her entire 9-page letter can be read here.

Please, Eastwood, do not despise Maureen for doing her homework, just as you do not despise your doctor, accountant, or attorney who has earned a degree in his or her field and continues to practice in various counties. Be grateful this woman takes the time she does to clarify things with plenty of back-up from acknowledged sources (which sources are included in the downloadable file).

Final Summary

Practical difficulties arise out of an applicant’s inability to utilize the property due to a physical or dimensional condition of a substandard lot that relates to the land or in this case, the locations of a proposed and prohibited additional projecting wall sign.   Practical difficulties arise when the ordinance deprives the applicant of all viable economic use of the land.   Since the applicant is able to make reasonable economic use of the property, practical difficulties do not arise for the applicant with regard to the “size, configuration and depth of the parcel” or the obstructed visibility of the proposed projecting wall sign (fails to satisfy practical difficulty in both economic and functional utilization standards).

Therefore, keep in mind none of the following conditions sustains a warrant for a waiver or exception:

1.  Mere inconvenience does not rise to the level of meeting the requirements of the ordinance for both the economic and functional utilization of the lot.

2. Mere financial loss or insufficient return on investment is not a “practical difficulty.” The applicant must not be able to make reasonable  use of the property in order for a practical difficulty standard to apply.

3.  Size, configuration and depth of an  oversized  (setbacks do not apply to the  sign waiver application) and an atypical parcel do not bear a logical relationship to the applicant’s need for area variances in general nor is it required by statute or the James Street Overlay District standard of review for the waiver of requirements.

4.  The applicant is not automatically entitled to benefits of additional waivers or exceptions as-of-right if he has previously been granted waivers or exceptions on the subject parcel.

The Planning Commission must make a finding based on the fair preponderance of the record on each and every waiver requested.   If the Planning Commission arbitrarily grants wholesale exceptions to this single applicant, the cumulative effect will substantially derogate the underlying intent and purpose (meaning to take away a part so as to impair) of the James Street Overlay District Standards and the Zoning Ordinance.

Thus far, not including the current three requested waivers, the applicant has applied for and has been granted (9) waivers.  The Town of Lockport granted a series of (14) waivers and variances in total to the 185,000 square-foot Walmart supercenter proposal to date (case on appeal cited above).  I would therefore, would like to add the following:

If the ordinance itself is unreasonable or because of changed conditions, it becomes unreasonable, the long recognized remedy is to change the zoning law ( Clark v. Board of Zoning Appeals of the Town of Hempstead, 301 N.Y. 86, 91, 92 N.E.2d 903, cert. denied 340 U.S. 933, 71 S.Ct. 498, 95 L.Ed. 673).

However, each request of the zoning authority to circumvent the zoning law by issuing ad hoc variances or waivers dilutes the effectiveness of the municipality’s land use authority. Legislative action is preferable to piecemeal exemptions that could ultimately defeat the purpose of the ordinance ( Otto v. Steinhilber, supra, at 77, 24 N.E.2d 851).   Therefore, the Planning Commission is duty bound to protect the district from undesirable changes in a traditional main street character or that are inconsistent with the spirit of the law creating the James Street Overlay District.

Finally, it is with weary resignation that I must repeat that the spirit and intent of the JSOD is pedestrian primacy, not automobile primacy.  The purpose of this sign is to capture the attention of auto-traveling public. This single developer knows not what he does and this particular development is the antithesis of mixed use, pedestrian oriented, traditional main street development that can easily be achieved through simple compliance with the JSOD standards and the enforcement of those standards through the Planning Commission without granting every request for a waiver of the requirements.  Good urban design derives sustainable economic benefits for all (likely into the next century).  However, it is well-recognized within the professional planning community the short-term benefits derived from single-purpose, single-use developments such as Fays, Eckerds, Rite Aid, etc.  I hope that Walgreens will last longer.

I urge the Planning Commission on behalf of the Walkable Eastwood community to deny the application for waivers regarding the projecting wall sign at the Walgreens store at James Street and Grant Blvd.

Respectfully submitted by:
Maureen A. Harding, AICP

See the little words “illegal left turn” in there? Yep – been there since 2005. See the arrows in the street that clearly show this is a one-way? It’s one-way for a good reason: you have to circle around the monument park. It’s the only traffic pattern that makes any sense here.

I have to wonder if New York State, owner of James Street, knows that Walgreens has painted arrows that direct traffic to turn left illegally, directly into a pile of traffic turning right from James onto Grant, which here is a one-way block going the other way – to the right.  See the truck below? It has just turned from James onto Grant. No wiggle room. What if that were a bicycle ridden by a 12-year-old?

Did you see the new traffic signal and directional signs? Keep them in mind – we’ll see them a little later in this post.

Here’s what you see exiting from Eastwood Rd. onto Grant Blvd, right next to the Walgreens. Same little stretch of Grant. Hmm. One way. Does the new Walgreens exit mean the one-way status of this stretch is going to change? Are we going to have Eastwood Rd. traffic turning left here to get to James Street?

Now any traffic coming from Walgreens that wants to get onto James St. could do what everyone’s been doing at Eastwood Rd. all these years: just circle around the little park.  You don’t see this kind of two-way nonsense at Grant and Butternut, do you?

From the intersection of Grant and James on the west end of the park, you have a choice: turn right or left.

But if you’re allowed to turn left out of Walgreens, do you get to turn either right or left onto James? There’s enough of a snarl there right now, dealing with existing traffic coming from Grant on the west side of the park. Do we need the same snarl coming from the intersection at the east side?

And when do pedestrians get to do anything in here? You’ve now got an added layer of wait time. So what does anyone, least of all Walgreens, gain from changing an existing and familiar counter-clockwise movement around the park into a two-way free-for-all?

Here’s the approach coming from downtown, headed east on James St:

How many more distractions – arrows going this way and that, new traffic patterns, new traffic signals – do we need to keep us from seeing the kid on the bike?

Now let’s get back to what should be a simple right turn from James, west-bound, onto Grant:

This shot was not taken from the Walgreens parking lot; it was taken from James Street. But who are those directional signs for? Wait ’til the traffic signals are working. You won’t know who they’re for, either. Actually, you might, but it takes only one person to be confused by them and turn right at the same moment that someone from the parking lot is turning left. Remember: no wiggle room here.

There’s no way I’d want to be a pedestrian in the middle of this. So much for Walkable Eastwood. Folks, keep your kids away from here until it’s done right.

When the community met with Guy Hart, Jr. at the Palace (he’s the developer of the Walgreens), I had one point to make: older drivers are only increasing in number as boomers age. We need to keep our intersections as free of distractions as possible. It’s a safety issue.

Despite the fact that Mr. Hart chose to start and continue a conversation with his cohort as I was speaking to him, most of the audience got it: an aging population does not need yet another distraction at the difficult intersection of James and Grant. Our existing zoning standards (aka “guidelines”) support that notion: ground signs and animation are not allowed. The requested waiver of the guidelines to allow for a ground sign must be denied or we will have a lot more distracting signs to deal with and the danger to drivers and pedestrians will creep all the way down James Street.

Apparently AARP feels the same way about the importance of design guidelines to prepare our streets for older drivers (bolding mine):

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE           Contact: Nancy Thompson
May 14, 2009                                      202-434-2560
nthompson@aarp.org

Road Planners Display Blind Spot for Oncoming Generation of Older Drivers

Update Design Guidelines and Complete Streets Will Accommodate Everyone, AARP Report Challenges

WASHINGTON, DC–Two-thirds of transportation planners and engineers have yet to begin addressing older people in their street planning; yet by 2025, 64 million people will be over age 65 according to census projections and by 2030 a quarter of all U.S. drivers will be 65+. This is the alarm raised by “Planning Complete Streets for the Aging of America” a major new report on roadway safety and the aging of the American population from AARP’s Public Policy Institute.  The full report can be found here: http://www.aarp.org/research/housing-mobility/transportation/2009_02_streets.html.

Streets, sidewalks and roadways designed to achieve “Complete Streets” can make getting around safer for everyone, the report suggests.  Yet in a poll of adults age 50+ also conducted for the report, two in five said their neighborhood sidewalks were inadequate (although, by 2030, 20% of those age 65+ will not be drivers).  Nearly half said they could not cross main roads close to their home safely, preventing many from walking, bicycling or taking the bus. But safer, more accessible streets won’t happen until federal, state and local authorities and planners wake up to the need for roads that address the challenges of the coming age wave, the report charges.

“Improvements can reduce older driver crashes and pedestrian injuries without adversely affecting traffic; in many instances, local travel flow and accessibility are improved,” said Nancy LeaMond, AARP Executive Vice President for Social Impact. “But while a growing number of states and localities have Complete Streets policies, too few have been built.  Furthermore, an outdated bias in engineering practices competes with current local desire for user-friendly “Complete Streets” design.

The report recommends that federal, state, and local highway and street design guidelines serve older people by 1) reducing vehicle travel speeds at intersections where older drivers and pedestrians need more time to make decisions and execute changes, 2) making the physical layout of roads, crosswalks and sidewalks easier to navigate, and 3) making it easier for older drivers and pedestrians to notice, read, understand and respond to visual cues and information.

I’m going to interject here: the visual cues and information being referred to here are not advertisements for consumer goods nor community events. They are cues for safe passage through streets and intersections. Distractions from those visual cues will create unnecessary hazards. The report states this clearly in the section titled “Enjoy the View”:

“Planners and policy makers can improve roadway visibility by adopting corridor design standards that reduce visual “clutter,” such as oversized store signs and landscaping that make it hard for drivers to see important elements such as directional signs and pedestrians entering the roadway.”

The press release continues:

Because of time required to plan and make these improvements, communities need to begin now in order to be ready for the age wave, the report states.  “It takes time to plan, design, fund and build capital projects,” said LeaMond. “Federal officials, planners and traffic engineers need to focus now on adjusting roads to become safer and more user-friendly for everyone.”

Men outlive their driving years on average by 7 years and women by 10, the AARP report reiterates. “’Complete Streets’ make walking more appealing and crossing streets safer for everyone,” said AARP’s LeaMond.  Complete Streets legislation was recently introduced in both the Senate and House of Representatives.  AARP is a member of the Complete Streets Coalition (http://www.completestreets.org).

The research process for “Planning Complete Streets for an Aging America” included an online survey of 1,134 state and local transportation planners and engineers conducted from August 4 to September 3, 2008.  A public opinion telephone survey of 1,006people age 50 and older was conducted from July 9-15, 2008 with a margin of error of +/-3.09% at the 95% confidence level.  An interdisciplinary team of planners, engineers and policy advocates reviewed safety research and offered policy and design recommendations as part of the development of the report and the report includes an inventory and evaluation of 80 existing “Complete Streets” policies.

Older drivers are often the last people to recognize that their ability to react to visual cues is not what it used to be. If you hear an older person say, “I’m old and I can get through that intersection just fine!” … beware! “It ain’t necessarily so!” And in the meantime, do what needs to be done to keep Eastwood safe. Write a letter to the Planning Commission and mail it today or tomorrow, or attend the meeting on Monday, May 18 at 6:00 pm in City Hall. Send letters to:

Ms. Heather Lamendola
City Zoning
201 E. Washington St, Rm 211
Syracuse, NY 13202