This afternoon (2017-11-02) was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls Planning Board.
While the meeting was publicized as a Workshop, it didn’t feel much different then a regular meeting. Just a regular meeting on a different day, at a different time, where there was only one applicant.
The topic of the meeting of the meeting was Muffy’s one (1) lot subdivision. While it was stated that the focus was the scope of a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), there seemed to be a fair sized amount of discussion about how that wasn’t necessary.
In fact, Muffy’s lawyer spent the first third (or so) of the meeting trying to convince the board that they could not “rationally come to the conclusion” that State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) applied here. And that, in his opinion, this subdivision “doesn’t fit the process” of a DEIS. As he was speaking on behalf of his client, his stance was to be expected. As he pointed out, if this is a positive SEQR, then so is all other development in the village. Which would be a nightmare from an implementation standpoint.
That led to someone pointing out how the Planning board had a different opinion. A halfhearted attempt to identify next steps inevitably led to some detail which brought us right back to how this subdivision was too small to be worth a SEQR. Which brought us back to differing opinions, at which point it all became rather circular.
The more this whole process goes on, the more I agree with what Muffy said today: you can’t mitigate hurt feelings. A member of the board pretty clearly has a personal emotional investment in preventing all change on/near Rittenhouse Drive. And since it is personal and emotional, logic has no bearing on the discussion.
All in all, rather sad. I do wonder if part of why this was held at a different date/time was to minimize the visibility of this travesty. After all, there is a regularly scheduled Planning board meeting on Monday.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the November 2, 2017 meeting of the Honeoye Falls Planning Board.