Tonight (2020-11-02) was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls Zoning Board.
The meeting was back to being online, due too concerns over expected attendance. As I saw a peak of 79 people in the virtual audience, those concerns seemed valid. It would have been rather crowded in the ambulance base, or Village office. Community center might have been doable, but would have been tight. Shame there wasn’t a way to use the school, any of the gyms or auditoriums would have worked well.
There were also technical issues. Controlling which microphones were muted (and which weren’t), the quality of the audio (and feedback), etc. Nothing new to this medium, but annoying as meetings had recently gone back to being in person. Does highlight again, that as nice as our electronics can be, it isn’t the same as being in the same room. On the plus side, they did share a preliminary site plan.
The meeting itself was a review, Brian (Chair) made it very clear no action was being taken tonight. Presumably, the applicant will take the feedback provided and a decision will be made at the next meeting. Or further out, if more time is needed.
To summarize the plan: They are looking to subdivide the area known as Wolfsberger Park and put in a variety of single family homes, patio homes, and townhouses. I didn’t hear a total stated, but my math says 118. A phased build out was described, which roughly matched the sections on the image above. Although, it being a preliminary plan, details of the phases are likely to change.
The Board raised a number of concerns, water and traffic seemed to be the biggest. Traffic in that there are already concerns about the adjacent stretch of road, without adding more to it. And water because of the size of the land and the existing EPOD‘s. That and the other kind of water, in the buried line for Rochester.
When public comment time came around, a number of those watching chimed in. My sense was they were against the project, for various reasons. To be fair, they could have also been in favor, but wanted to make sure particular issues were addressed. Not that everyone chose to comment. Regardless, it felt like a case of NIMBY to me. As usual, I lean towards letting the owner of the property do as they see fit with what they own. For those that don’t want the property to be developed there is a simple solution: buy the land.
While there was another applicant on the agenda, I heard nothing on that topic mentioned. I suppose something could have been said during one of the times the Board was muted, but it would have had to be a quick comment as opposed to a lengthy discussion. Maybe next time.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the November 2, 2020 meeting of the Honeoye Falls Zoning Board.