The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
POCKET NEIGHBORHOOD
Madison County begins legwork for proposed Erie Canal project
After taking first place in the “Reimagine the Canals” competition and securing $1.5 million in funding, Madison County is taking another step to making a canalside pocket neighborhood reality.
“We’re still currently in the negotiations to purchase the property, but it’s moving forward and we have an agreement with the landowner,” Madison County Planning Department Assistant Director Jamie Kowalczk said. “Just like buying a house, the closing takes some time. And there’s some due-diligence involved like title searches and some environmental work. We’re optimistic that we’re going to close on it in early September.”
The property in question, 160 Center Street in Canastota, is a 2.5-acre parcel that is largely vacant and next to the canal, Kowalczk said.
Back in October, the Madison County Planning Department took first place in the Reimagine the Canals competition. The aim of the competition, managed by the Canal Corporation and the New York Power Authority, sought new approaches to both use the canal as an engine for economic development and also to become a hub for tourism and recreation.
Madison County put forth the idea of a canalside neighborhood that has the Erie Ca
nal as the core of their identity.
“Over the last 200 years, the canal has changed use from its commercial and industrial ways that expanded the west and changed the country to a beloved recreational asset,” Kowalczk said. “Our idea is to take that one step further and make it somewhere people live. A lot of our community has built up around the canal but the immediate land hasn’t been used around it.”
Kowalczk said there used to be a building on the 160 Center St. property, but it was taken down and all that remains now is debris.
“It’s a few hundred feet from Peterboro Street and Canastota downtown,” she said. “Theoretically, if we built the neighborhood, residents could walk a block and be at Dunn’s Bakery or The Toast and all the other great things on Peterboro Street.”
The overall plan, Kowalczk said, would be to partner with a developer and get some feedback on the right kind of buildings to put in. “Hopefully, we’ll have a diverse range of buildings there,” she said. “From single-family homes to apartment complexes. It’s still very open but the plan is to have people live there and not do conventional development.”
Pocket neighborhoods aren’t something Madison County came up with, Kowalczk said, and are becoming more and more popular across the nation as a way of grouping smaller residences and creating a greater sense of community and neighborliness.
“We didn’t invent the term,” she said. “It’s a way of thinking to layout a community with more of a neighborhood feel, incorporate green space and provide amenities instead of just one house, one lot.”
There’s still more work to be done and the final purchase still needs to go through; however, Kowalczk said Madison County could be looked at as an example for other communities in the future and start something new.
“Across the canal and state, there are these post-industrial properties that haven’t been re-used yet,” Kowalczk said. “And we think they present a great opportunity to have people live not only along the canal but close proximity to downtown.”