GAMALIEL NY
regions working together 

ACTS Syracuse • ARISE Capital Region • LION Long Island

Lockport Area VOICE • VOICE Buffalo

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 19, 2005                                                                       

David Rusk Releases Report Calls on NYS to Change

“Rules of the Game” to Reinvigorate Regional Development

            Albany, NY (May 19, 2005) – Urban consultant David Rusk has released a new study of urban and suburban sprawl in upstate New York that calls on New York State to change the rules of the game to stop the steady erosion of the economy and quality of life.

            “In an age of sprawl, New York State has created the worst possible combination of rules of the game,” says David Rusk. “New York’s 18^th century system of government stands in the way of achieving its 21^st century vision.” 

            Rusk points out that the state is divided into 1,545 cities, villages, and towns with inflexible boundaries that cannot adapt to changing demographic and economic conditions. There are no state standards for regional growth management, and local governments are in an intense and wasteful competition with one another for taxable properties, called “rateables.”

            In recent years, these state “rules of the game” have contributed significantly to minimal net growth in the wealth and real income of whole metropolitan regions. He calls on the state legislature to 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 report calls on the Legislature to empower county governments 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. “The state should require municipal governments to conform municipal plans and zoning maps to the county-wide plan,” he says.

            Other recommendations in the report include a “fair share” plan for balanced housing development that serves all levels of the workforce throughout all municipalities and empowering county governments to take the steps necessary to stop the bleeding of resources. These steps include the following:

• 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,” says Rusk, “it should at the very least 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.”  Such an arrangement, typically called a “regional compact,” has been successfully implemented on Long Island and in the Catskills, and is currently being discussed in Erie County.

            The report and the events surrounding its release was funded in large part by an $11,500 grant from the Central New York Community Foundation to ACTS (Alliance of Communities Transforming Syracuse), the Gamaliel Foundation affiliate in Syracuse, along with a $1,000 grant from Verizon Foundation to ARISE, and additional support from Charter One/Citizens Bank.

            Gamaliel New York is a coalition of regional community organizing projects (ARISE - Capital Region, VOICE Buffalo, Lockport Area VOICE, ACTS Syracuse and LION -  Long Island) which formed a new alliance to combat the continuing decline of urban areas across the state. The alliance was formed following a bipartisan hearing on April 5, 2005, focusing on the economic future of core cities and population centers in New York State.

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