Tonight (2018-08-06) was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls Planning Board.
On a mostly unrelated topic, the bridge is out for the week while maintenance is done on it. Brought up here because the construction site is right outside the Village office, where the meeting was held. Was able to admire the work before going inside for the meeting.
It was Brian’s first meeting in his new role as Board Chair. He has been on the Board for a while, but is new to this role. While he didn’t quiet get the meeting under half an hour, he was very close. Still, good showing for a first performance.
First applicant was for a pet grooming on North Main, next to the ‘iPad Rehab‘. Request itself was straightforward: the location was used to groom peoples hair, now they want to groom animal hair. Seems absurd the request even has to be made, as it is already on the list of allowed uses (27.1), but bureaucracies love their red tape. To such an extent, this is the second person to make this request. The previous ‘backed out it took so long’, as we were told tonight. While it would have been nice if the previous applicant would have gotten approval before they gave up, at least tonight’s received that approval. Leaves me wondering, how many of those that make and/or enforce these rules have ever run businesses.
Second applicant was for an addition to a house on Ontario street. As the Board Chair said, was a pretty straightforward request. I agree, and would be done here, except it was brought to my attention the house is in the Village’s ‘Historical District‘. Which is a good example of rule 4: The Board can either serve the public, or it can follow it’s rules and procedures. It cannot do both. When and how any particular Board chooses which of those approaches to take can be interesting, especially when it is inconsistent. Here they opted to serve the public, which I believe is for the best. Other times…
Which brings us back to Muffy again. Tonight the Board acted to move her saga along, with filing paperwork with the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and setting a public hearing for September 19 at 7:30PM. By pattern that meeting should have been on the 3rd, but they opted to reschedule. Wednesday instead of Monday, Third week instead of First. While I have every reason to believe this change was done in an attempt to get a decision to the applicant sooner (which is commendable), it feels a bit ‘penny wise and pound foolish‘. Not the first meeting on this topic that is off schedule, yet it’s been over a year since Muffy started this adventure. At the rate this is going, she’ll get her answer in 5 years instead of 6.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the August 6, 2018 meeting of the Honeoye Falls Planning Board.
Link to agenda on Village website, for whatever that is worth.