Upstate New York: A House Divided

Why NYS Must Change its “Rules of the Game”

to Reinvigorate Regional Development

Executive Summary by David Rusk

“What gets built where for whose benefit?”   That is always the key question for our nation’s metropolitan areas.

New York State puts everyone locally in charge.   Hence, no one is in charge.

In an Age of Sprawl, New York State’s has created the worst possible combination of the “rules of the game.”

First, the legislature has divided the entire state into 1,545 cities, villages, and towns with inflexible boundaries that cannot adapt to changing demographic and economic conditions.

Second, the legislature has delegated land use planning and zoning authority to each municipality without any semblance of state standards for regional growth management.

Third, by making locally governments highly dependent on local property taxes, the legislature has pitted municipalities against each other in a constant battle for tax “rateables.” 

For Upstate New York, these state “rules of the game” have contributed significantly to:

·                    minimal net growth in the wealth and real income of whole metropolitan regions in recent years;

·                    “progress” in outer ring towns achieved at the expense of central cities, many villages, and some inner-ring towns; and

·                    inability of the many “little boxes” governments to mobilize the full resources of the region to compete effectively with “Big Box” regions elsewhere.

Unless the New York state legislature changes the “rules of the game,” Upstate New York will continue to be “no-growth growth” regions.

Though it probably still has the constitutional authority, the legislature lacks the political will to reinstitute annexation by cities or to merge local “little boxes” governments into more viable “Big Box” cities.

Therefore, the legislature must institute wide-ranging reforms to end inter-municipal conflict, eliminate wasteful duplication of infrastructure expenditures, accelerate regional economic growth, and share benefits of such growth more equitably among municipalities.

The legislature must do so by assigning more responsibility and authority to a region’s only local government – county government – that can accomplish for its citizens as a “Big Box” what the many “little boxes” cannot do individually.

Specifically, the legislature must

·                    empower county government to develop comprehensive, county-wide land use and transportation plans that will curb urban sprawl and redirect investment back towards core cities, villages, and inner-ring towns;

·                    require municipal governments to conform municipal plans and zoning maps to the county-wide plan;

·                    direct such comprehensive plans to incorporate a “fair share” plan for balanced housing development serving all levels of the workforce throughout all municipalities;

·                    empower county government to issue bonds against the county-wide tax base for all growth-supporting infrastructure investments of regional significance;

·                    empower county government to issue bonds against the county-wide tax base for purchase-of-development rights to preserve valuable farmland and to secure open space;

·                    authorize county government as the only local government that can approve tax abatement and other financial incentives for economic development; and

·                    institute a county-administered system of tax-base sharing so that all municipalities will share in the revenues generated by regional economic growth.

If the legislature is unwilling to mandate such a system, it should provide clear statutory authority and state financial incentives by which a county’s citizens can elect to institute such a system by county-wide referendum without the exercise of veto by “little box” constituencies.

We believe that a majority of citizens would agree with these measures goals for accelerated economic development and improved quality of life for Upstate New York.   Its 18^th century system of government stands in the way of achieving its 21^st century vision.

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