Today at the Rose Cafe, Lisa Nicholas, a senior planner for the city of Ithaca gave us an overview of Ithaca’s new comprehensive plan for Ithaca. She provided some background for us about where we live and I learned some very interesting facts, such as that the city of Ithaca is the location of 13,000 jobs, but only 1/6th of those job holders actually live within the city. Since the amount of housing hasn’t changed and the population of Tompkins county is increasing, the percentage of the population that lives in Ithaca City is decreasing.

To address this issue, Mrs. Nicholas spoke of building “dense, compact housing”, which sounds like an a nice way of saying apartment buildings with small rooms. As someone from a very large city, apartment complexes seem like a logical development for an area where there is a high demand for housing and very limited space for housing. However, I was surprised that she mentioned that there is little to no focus on developing Collegetown. Although these few blocks are already filled with residential and commercial sites, there are vacant lots as well. Providing an incentive to build housing complexes in these areas would likely help lower the extremely high rent rates by increasing supply. Moreover, this would certainly have a positive effect on the lives of Cornell students, who would be less stressed about finding a place to live during the junior and senior years of their undergraduate career.

In terms of new commercial construction projects, we heard about and discussed a few new hotel developments that will be part of the downtown landscape within a few years. These new additions will definitely alleviate the strain that visitors (such as parents) face when searching for a place to stay overnight during high seasons, such as graduation and move-in days. However, it is important to consider the externalities of new development, such as the limitations they will create on available parking. I hope that Mariott and Hilton have included plans for underground and/or roof parking lots so that visitors or locals who choose to drive down to the Commons for an evening of entertaining or dining will have a place to leave their car.

There are exciting things in store for Ithaca and it seems very clear that change is in the air. It is great that we have planners such as Lisa Nicholas working to make the city the best it can be!