MAPLEWOOD REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT Reenvisioning Graduate and Professional Student Housing for Cornell University
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MAPLEWOOD REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT Reenvisioning Graduate and Professional Student Housing for Cornell University Prepared for: Prepared by: City Planning Board City of Ithaca Preliminary Site Plan Submission Project Narrative March 29, 2016 Project Overview The proposed redevelopment of Cornell University’s Maplewood Graduate and Professional Student Housing Project seeks to create a sustainable, walkable, and affordable community with more density than currently exists, using a mix of building and housing types, as well as neighborhood-serving retail and community space, within the +/- 17-acre property. The project will preserve and create a diversity of open spaces, which preserve natural areas of significance, such as a knoll and other topographically sensitive areas along the eastern edge of the property, and connect to the East Ithaca Recreation Way. This conservation will also provide an amenity to the Town and City of Ithaca, by creating a trail connection for greater access to and from the larger community. The pursuit of a Planned Development Zone (PDZ) would give the redevelopment of Maplewood a degree of flexibility within the conventional land use and design regulations of the property’s current zoning restrictions, and would use Form-Based Zoning Code methodologies rather than conventional Euclidean zoning codes, a direction the Town has indicated that we pursue. Cornell University has set an opening date for the redevelopment of Maplewood as July 2018. The project will take approximately 1 year to construct. With these parameters and a fast-moving timetable, the Project Team hopes to complete the rezoning, SEQR, and Site Plan Approval process by Fall 2016. The Project Team will work diligently to respond to feedback from the Town and City boards, the neighboring community, and students through out the process, aiming to develop a project that meets the needs of all parties involved and affected by the project. To meet the goals of the Comprehensive Plan, the layout, scale, form, and character of the proposal will be compatible with the established character of the surrounding neighborhoods. The density of development would allow for fewer disturbances on and surrounding the site, and more areas of conservation. To accommodate a demographic of graduate and professional students that are international or domestic, single or are moving to Ithaca with their families, units are no larger than four-bedrooms in a semi-urban location. This would create a diverse community consisting of a mixed age group. Structures The project consists of 850 to 975 beds in 500 to 600 units of a mix of townhome, stacked flat, and multi-family apartment buildings, creating a dynamic mix of unit types and building configurations with the overall proposed development. The current rental project serves graduate students and the professional population of Cornell University for singles, couples, and families. The buildings will be designed to echo the surrounding neighborhood with the use of contemporary features. The residential units will be distributed in a mix of 3 to 4 story, corridor loaded, elevator served, apartment buildings, 2 and 3 story individual entry stacked flats, and 2 to 3 story townhouses. Studio units, 1 Bedroom, 2 Bedroom, 3 Bedroom, and 4 Bedroom units will be provided. Small-scale retail is anticipated in the ground floor of one of the gateway apartment buildings on Maple Avenue on the City portion of the property. This commercial use is anticipated to be approximately 5,000 square feet. Maplewood Redevelopment Project 1 March 29, 2016 The community center will be an additional approximate 5,000 sf, and includes a combination of common meeting space, management, leasing, and office space, exercise, and recreational spaces. The building will serve as a focal point and edge to one of the internal park spaces as part of the open space network. All of the units and buildings will be designed to meet and exceed NYS Energy Code, and will use a nationally recognized sustainability metric, such as LEED, as a guideline for best practices. Emphasis will be placed on exceeding the NYS Energy Code requirements for thermal envelop and incorporating high efficiency heating and cooling systems along with the exploration of renewable energy systems where practical. Utilities Existing infrastructure around and within the site is adequate to support the development. The project will connect to public and private utilities such as water, sewer, electricity, gas, and telecommunications and provide stormwater management in accordance with current regulations. The project site lies within the Town of Ithaca Water District, with water being supplied by the Southern Cayuga Lake Intermunicipal Water Commission (Bolton Point). Water service is currently fed from the Town’s distribution system off of Mitchell Street and runs through a large below-ground vault housing a meter and backflow prevention devices. The system is looped throughout the site and connects to a Cornell University (CU) main on Maple Avenue. This CU main distributes water from the Cornell University Ground Tank off of Rte 366 but lacks adequate pressure to serve the site. A normally closed valve separates the two systems at Maple Avenue. Water service to the project will be fed from the existing water main in Mitchell Street and it is expected that the new water main loop within the site will be privately operated and maintained. The project parcel is also within the Town of Ithaca Sewer District with treatment ultimately provided at the Ithaca Area Wastewater Treatment Facility. Sewer flows west via gravity to a collection system running along the East Hill Recreation Way, through the Belle Sherman Cottages development then connects to the Mitchell Street interceptor. Although the site collection system will be modified, the project will connect to the same manhole east of Belle Sherman Cottages. Once the project is further defined, proposed water and sewer demands will be provided to the Town for their use in confirming capacity exists in both the water and sewer systems. The site electric and gas services are maintained by New York State Electric and Gas (NYSEG) and installation/modification of these utilities will be performed in coordination with NYSEG. Site telecommunications are supplied by Cornell University for data, Verizon for phones and Time Warner Cable for cable. Cornell fiber and Verizon copper facilities will be relocated to serve the new buildings. The project will be designed and constructed to meet Town, City and State stormwater management regulations in order to promote groundwater recharge, provide water quality treatment of stormwater runoff and to attenuate peak flood events to pre-developed runoff rates. Under current NYSDEC stormwater regulations the project will be considered a “redevelopment” project. The redevelopment regulations allow for exemptions from Stormwater Quantity controls provided that development activities result in no change to hydrology that increase the discharge rate from the project site. The project will strive to minimize impervious cover to below existing conditions in order to obtain an exemption Maplewood Redevelopment Project 2 March 29, 2016 from installing Runoff Reduction and Stormwater Quantity controls. A redevelopment project that reduces impervious cover by 25% or more is not required to install water quality or quantity controls. However, it is unlikely that the project will meet the 25% impervious cover reduction and accordingly the project design will consider the implementation of all potential Green Infrastructure techniques such as tree planting, rain barrels, rain gardens, bioretention areas, and disconnection of impervious areas. Through in situ soils testing, the project team will identify areas that are appropriate for stormwater recharge and determine the potential for infiltration facilities. The storm sewer conveyance system will be designed to safely convey flows to all stormwater facilities as well as discharge locations offsite. Zoning The current High Density Residential zoning code places restrictions on providing an efficient and sustainable mix of housing types to include apartments which would accommodate a wide demographic of graduate students within the property. In order to create a dynamic redevelopment of Maplewood, the developer is requesting to create a PDZ for this site. Rezoning the site for a PDZ would allow for the Maplewood redevelopment project to respond to the planning and land-use concepts set forth in the Town of Ithaca’s Comprehensive Plan: 1. Sprawl would be avoided by providing denser clusters of housing with significantly smaller footprints than High Density Residential would allow for. 2. Environmentally valuable areas would be preserved and protected as an amenity for the neighborhood and surrounding community. 3. The project will promote human-scaled development and social connectivity within the site and around the community by providing access to and a connection for the trail network. 4. The new development will take on a cluster form and/or conservation subdivisions in environmentally and visually sensitive areas. 5. Zoned as a TND High Density Area in the 2014 Comprehensive Plan’s Future Land Use and Character map, rezoning the Maplewood site as a PDZ would help realize the vision for the property set forth in the Comprehensive Plan. Rezoning the +/- 17-acre property as a PDZ will allow for the redevelopment of Maplewood to make the values and guidelines of the