The evening of 2022-12-05 was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls Zoning Board.
Action of the evening was site plan approval for addition/renovation at 140 East St. Approval was granted, with some conditions related to the Building Permit. Which likely are non-issues, but as the applicant wasn’t there to confirm some things, best to have the option if needed.
And that was the most interesting part of the meeting: The applicant was not there.
While I can recall a few times applicants haven’t show up, that tended to lead to skipping their application. This is the first time I can recall the Board proceeding to grant approval despite no representative. Which is in no way a criticism of the Board. They grant or deny based on the information presented to them. If the documentation was sufficient, then the applicants personal presence should be irrelevant. If I was to apply, I would want to be there for the back and forth, ability to answer questions, and, if needed, amend the plan to reach a compromise. All of that is lost when the applicant isn’t there. But in this case, it didn’t matter.
There was also a concept discussion with Ryan (Mathstone) about potentially developing an odd piece of land between West Main and Nortons Race. Was an interesting idea, and I think the Board liked it. Personally, I like the land as it is, but one of the benefits of ownership is being able to make these sort of decisions. In any case, it was a concept discussion so no decisions were made by the Board. Perhaps Ryan will be back again on this, perhaps not.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the December 5, 2022 meeting of the Honeoye Falls Zoning Board.