By David Kay

Why would a town supervisor, code enforcement officer, planning board member, college professor, farm manager, land developer, economic development director, real estate agent, community activist, and grape grower all decide to spend four days’ worth of their precious time together?

The answer is that each shares a deep passion for Keuka Lake and its watershed and wants to understand what’s involved in planning for sustainable land use on a watershed-wide basis. These people represent just a handful of the nearly 30 participants in the first graduating class of the Keuka Lake Watershed Land Use Leadership Alliance (LULA) training program. And, in response to additional demand, the training will be repeated later this year.

Keuka Lake Watershed Land Use Leadership Alliance (LULA) training program

LULA was initially designed by the Pace University Land Use Law Center in 1995 to build capacity for change among land-use leaders at the local level of government and to promote land-use innovation. Each class of invited leaders is carefully nominated and then selected to broadly represent communities that are grappling with land-use issues. Over thirty LULA programs have now been conducted, funded by more than a dozen different public and private organizations. The approximately 1,000 graduates are supported in a network encompassing part of New York (mostly Hudson River Valley), New Jersey, and Connecticut. 

Cornell’s Community and Rural Development Institute (CaRDI) has recently partnered with the Pace law center to make tailored versions of LULA more readily available outside of the Hudson River Valley region.

The highly interactive course covers land-use strategies and law, consensus-building skills, and regional stewardship. The primary purpose of the LULA program is to use law and negotiation theory to help local leaders understand that solutions to complex and persistent problems are more likely to be reached through authentic collaborative initiatives than through the adversarial processes that are more typical to the land-use system. It is intended to be a “high-end” intensive training course, most suitable for a diverse group of individuals who are seen as current and emerging leaders in their communities.

As part of the first day, participants identified a spectrum of issues that concerned them individually and collectively. At the top of the list were a) protecting steep slopes and forests from inappropriate development, b) finding the right balance between agricultural and development opportunities, and c) discovering ways to work together efficiently on a regional basis.

In the Keuka Lake Watershed this innovative pilot program was funded with a grant from the New York State Quality Communities Program and involves partnerships between the Keuka Lake Association (KLA), the Keuka Watershed Improvement Cooperative, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Yates County, CaRDI, the Genesee Finger Lakes Regional Planning Council, Pace University’s Land Use Law Center, and Yates and Steuben Counties. The KLA helped secure the grant an initial $5,000 cash match.

So how did the first Keuka Watershed LULA go? Typical evaluations by participants included comments such as, “Time well spent. Good mix of ‘teaching’ time and group interaction,” and “Great – the discussion helped clarify the roles of local boards in an educational environment where you could ask questions.”   

David Kay is a senior extension associate in Development Sociology. For more information about CaRDI, contact him at dlk2@cornell.edu.