Planning board praises entry redesign for The Citizen at 602 W. Buffalo, presses developers on garage security and supportive-services plan

Developers presented revisions to The Citizen at 602 West Buffalo — a proposed infill residential and retail building — aiming to make the street corner and ground floor uses clearer and more accessible.

At the Jan. 27 Planning and Development Board meeting, project architect Bear said the team had moved a secondary residential entry to the north side of the building and consolidated the retail corner to create a single, more legible primary entrance. He described a canopy, a mural “wrapping the corner” and a widened lobby that will connect ADA parking to the street entry. “We do have the entry for the parking garage portion… and the ground level area, both through the resident entry and the retail space,” Bear said during the presentation.

The developer also told the board the team will replace the previously proposed chain-link screening for the garage with an angled, louvered metal screen designed to block long-range views while maintaining some transparency and light.

Why it matters: board members said those changes improve equity and curb confusion about entrances but raised safety and operations questions. Board member Andy Roman said the entrance changes “absolutely address my concerns about equity,” but added that an open garage raises nighttime security and light‑spill concerns for adjacent residences: “I still feel in this neighborhood that this is not a building that should have an open garage,” he said, asking for additional rooftop and façade screening options and more integration of the garage into the building’s street-facing façade.

Board members also asked the developer to provide a fuller landscape plan, including precise tree counts and tree‑lawn dimensions, mockups of the louvered screen, and lighting photometrics. “We want a lighting plan with Lumen output for the whole site next time,” Chair Emily Petrina said.

Supportive housing and services: the team’s consultant, Chris, said the project will include a supportive-housing component and that the development has secured a conditional award of supportive-service funds. “There are 18 units of supportive housing,” Chris told the board, and the development team is partnering with Catholic Charities of Tompkins and Tioga to offer on-site supportive services and to share management/leasing space with the service provider. Board members repeatedly asked who the supportive units are intended to serve — veterans, survivors of domestic violence and those with substance use disorder were all listed by the consultant — and pressed for details on case management and wraparound services.

Next steps: the board asked the project team to return with material samples, a more developed landscape plan, a lighting plan showing lumen outputs, and further information about the louvered screening and rooftop mechanical screening. Staff and the developers agreed to provide those materials before the project’s next review.

Ending: the board thanked the team for changes that improved accessibility and entrance clarity and asked that visual examples and technical details be supplied at the next meeting so the board could evaluate safety and livability impacts.