The evening of 2026-06-22 was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls Zoning Board.
Venue was the High School Auditorium, so as to have plenty of room for the public. And I would say it was warranted. I tried to count heads, but between everyone moving and my poor counting skill, I’m just going to say ‘about a hundred’. But wouldn’t surprise me if it was double that. Either way, Brian (ZBA Chair) thanked everyone for taking the interest to show up.
I had two big take aways from the meeting.
First, if this wasn’t next to the library, most of the concerns would vanish. The library has benefited from the undeveloped grassy area and that the parking lot is flat (and mostly unused). While they have a clear interest in what happens, they do not have ownership. So even if this project falls through, the next one will cause the exact same issues for the library.
And second, if the property wasn’t currently owned by a governmental entity, the public would feel alot less entitled to have a say. If John Doe was selling his property for this, people might be interested, but they wouldn’t be looking to their elected officials in the same way. But since it is owned by the Village, people seemed to expect more and earlier input then they received. When, from what I can tell, the Village just wants to offload the property, as it’s planned usage didn’t pan out.
As for that planned usage, the Village originally bought the property for a potential fire hall expansion. Fine, nothing new there. But one of the slides in the presentation included a plan for that fire hall. Which I think is the first plan I have seen of that project. Nice to see, even if it won’t be built.
As an aside, the entire Village Board was in attendance. As well as the majority of the Town Board (possibly all, I didn’t see Tanner).
Back to the project, it is for a combined urgent care and primary care. Both medical, but different services. That it’s both was the offered explanation for the footprint. Ideally, they are hoping to open September of 2027. A setback variance is being requested. They could comply, and build to the sidewalk like the area is zoned, but that would mean a solid wall on Main street. Instead they want the building to be ~27 feet back from the road, and raised up through landscaping. They claimed there will be ~30 feet of green space in front of the library, under the proposed development.
One big plus is the project would clean up the property. The parking lot and old Critics building are not in the best of shape. This would demolish the one and rebuild the other. Say what you will about everything else, I view that as a positive.
Many of the commenters were highly emotional, both in tone and presentation. Which is fair enough, if you care enough to show up odds are emotion is driving you. And sometimes we just want to be heard. On that note, I think the Board did a good job with leniency to their stated time keeping. They had an official comment length, and most people exceeded it. But the Board gave them the extra few seconds to wrap up the thought. Not everyone though, there were a few people that had to be asked to finish up, as they just kept going.
I did hear some interesting ideas. One was to have renderings created from a person on the streets point of view. Which makes sense. Birds eye view is great for many things, but we walk at street level.
And a suggestion was made to build as two stories, instead of one. Which I think has real potential. Leave the proposed parking more or less as is. Pull the building up to the sidewalk, removing the need for a variance. Build a basement (since it’s below the main floor, even if it’s level with the sidewalk), even if there is no sidewalk access. Could pretty it up with windows or whatever, so it’s not a brick wall, but that’s cosmetic. Push this basement back as far as is practical. Probably can’t go the whole footprint, but a good chunk of land is already dug out (see existing parking lot). Then have the first floor on top of that, which would be more or less level with the planned parking lot.
Having a basement like that might be able to reduce the total footprint, while increasing usable floor space, without having an appreciable visual impact. Even with some floor space lost to stairs/elevator/etc. And if the total footprint can be reduced enough, it opens up other possibilities. The parking could wrap around the back of the building, maybe pulling the dumpster away from the library. Which in turn could free up some of the grassy area to remain grassy. While it’s still not the library’s land, that would make them much happier.
Of course, I’m sure there are architectural/engineering/whatnot reasons why this couldn’t work. But it’s an idea that could address some of the concerns. Or at least address them besides NIMBY.
The multiple green space comments had me thinking about crowdfunding. Is there a dollar amount where the Village would preserve the park area? Whether that means subdividing it and making it an official park, or keeping the whole lot as a Village parking area. With the Fire Department plan a no go, the Village wanting to sell makes sense. Get back their money, to use on other projects (because there are always other projects). But if we gathered enough money, would the Village not care about that? If so, then the question becomes is that hypothetical dollar amount attainable? It’s easy to show up at a meeting and say silly things, I do it all the time. But putting money down to resolve the issue? That’s harder. Either way, I’m tossing the idea into the ether.
As Brian pointed out, the Public Hearing remains open, at least until the next meeting. So if you have comments, you can send them to the Village, show up at the next meeting, etc. He also expects future meetings on this topic will be at the High School as well. But double check the official notice from the Village, just in case things change.
To comment on process, the Village appears to have put some thought into how to use the different location. Things like having the next commenter walk over while the first is talking, and having sign up at the door. Neither of which work the same way in their normal meeting space. Sure they could use more polish. But they aren’t here often, and polish will come with time and practice. I thought the forethought was good.
It looked like they were using Zoom to stream. So there might be a recording, if you couldn’t make it.
The meeting started at ~7:10PM and ended at ~8:56PM. Which I could tell due to the clocks the school installed everywhere as part of the ongoing capital project.
Having gotten to the end, I’ll share my bias here. I’m of the opinion the property owner should be able to do more or less whatever they want with their property. So long as the usage isn’t completely absurd, such is the benefit of ownership. As I do not think this project reaches that threshold of absurdity, I’m fine with the project overall. I may have further opinions, but as I’m not the owner, they aren’t relevant.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the June 22, 2026 meeting of the Honeoye Falls Zoning Board.