Tonight (2018-07-23) was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls Zoning Board.
The only application of the night, was a Special Exception Use request for 12 N Main, the old Oppedisano Bootery, to have apartments upstairs. After much discussion, the request was tabled for next month.
I was actually surprised this came before the Zoning Board, as I thought this was already an approved use. Looking at the Village Business district, which is the downtown portion of the village, most of the buildings have apartments upstairs. I was sure I had heard at previous meetings (perhaps of other boards?) where it was stated the intent of the Village Business district was business downstairs (on street) and housing (either of business owner or rental apartments) upstairs. So I decided to look it up before the meeting. Apart from a bit on signs, and that the district exists, I could not find any code covering Village Business.
I did find a section on Special Exception Uses, Article XIII (190-132 to 190-135), which appears to be the applicable section for tonight’s meeting. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything in there allowing upstairs apartments. 190-132 covers the boards authority (in a general sense), and 190-133 the process to go through. 190-134 gives a general outline for what criteria should be used to approve (or deny) a request, and ends pointing to 190-135, which is where it gets interesting. 190-135 lists the allowed Special Exceptions, and any details applying to each. A through O is a list of options, but none of them sounded even close to apartments. I think I’ll ask Dave (Code Enforcement Officer) what section of the code allows the Board to even hear this request. Hopefully he can explain to me how I am clearly wrong.
The core issues of the meeting were parking (and how 190-85B, Access drives fit in) and a deed amendment for a sidewalk. Other details were discussed, but those two items were what drove the meeting. To summarize: As discussed at the Planning Board meeting, the easement with Critics needs to be tweaked to allow a sidewalk. For the number of apartments, 6 parking spaces are needed, and the access to them needs to be at least 20 feet wide, but it is only 16 feet (or 14, 18, depends on who is measuring).
I would have considered the easement a non-issue. The applicant knew he needed it, as it came up at the Planning Board, so he was ready for it. Yet there was a decent amount of back and forth about it. Even after listening through the whole thing, I’m not really sure why.
The parking got a bit crazy. The underlying issue seemed to be how many parking spaces were required, how the access to them could work, and what other variances could help the situation. Unfortunately, the debate devolved into an argument. Not sure if I would call it yelling, but don’t know what else to call it. Whatever it was, first time I can recall seeing it at any public meeting. Things can get tense and emotional often enough, but they stay civil. This was a step beyond that. To be fair, from where I was sitting I didn’t have a sense of hostility or impending violence. More a sense of raises voices saying ‘your wrong, stop talking’.
And because I can’t end on such a sad note, I have to give Dave (CEO) credit. He stepped in and asked the important question: ‘From here, where do we go next’? Got people to step back a little and focus on what was needed to get the job done. We’ll see how this turns out next month.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the July 23, 2018 meeting of the Honeoye Falls Zoning Board.