Tonight (2019-12-02) was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls Zoning Board.
Muffy now has approval from the Zoning Board, if reluctantly, for her subdivision on Rittenhouse. Which is effectively on Peer, due to it being a corner lot.
I believe this is the first time I have seen a Board have to reverse their decision due to an Article 78 court order. Reconsider, yes. Make sure all procedural steps are followed, sure. But not outright reversal. Which is what happened tonight.
A short summary of the history of this application was read off (and will likely be part of the future minutes). It’s taken a while to reach this point, from the first meeting, July 2017, to tonight, December 2019. In that summary, it referenced the Monroe County Supreme Court‘s response where they said the previous Zoning Board ruling was based on aesthetics, not logic, and was therefore arbitrary and capricious. While I’m sure some of that language is required for legal reasons, I can’t say I disagree with them.
And after the Zoning Board granted Muffy her approval, a statement from the Village Trustees was read (which will also likely be in the future minutes). I’m inclined to take it mostly as a morale effort. Inform the Zoning Board that, despite the Court saying they did it wrong, the Village still supports them. Nothing wrong with that, morale can be important, especially for what are essentially volunteers. But there was a line about the court not being the proper process, which left me wondering what would be a better process. When we fail to agree to disagree, and government exercises it’s monopoly on force, isn’t a court a better method then the alternative? Which is to say, respond to legal force with physical force.
So I am hoping this is the end of this particular issue. That all involved are, if not happy, at least willing to live with this outcome.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the December 2, 2019 meeting of the Honeoye Falls Zoning Board.
Link to agenda on Village website, for whatever that is worth.