Town of Lancaster — Planning Board
A draft overlay district passed its final Planning Board checkpoint on Wednesday without a single comment being adopted, a motion made or a vote taken. The one substantive question a member raised about its text was set aside as not meant for this board. A separate call for a one-year data-centre moratorium also died without a motion.
The last item of the evening was introduced as “the proposed historic Hamlet overlay.” A member explained why it was before the board at all:[1]
“I just want to make sure that when I was on the… I sit on the moratorium committee. And they were insistent upon me getting input from the planning board before they continued to move forward. So I sent it to you in hopes that you would have a chance to look through it and ask any questions or make any suggestions that you may have prior to them moving forward.”[1]
His opening line was also the outcome: “I know I sent that out to everybody and received no comment.”[1]
Two substantive remarks were made, and both were deflected. A member pointed to marginal comments on the draft by a person identified only as Jennifer and read out the one he could not answer — from page three: “How is the planning board going to determine the economic means available to a property owner?”[1]
The response, from more than one voice, was that the comments were not addressed to this board: “I don't think she was looking for like a one-for-one response, I think those were more to the town board, just more of a general thoughts, opinions, any strong opinions either way,” and “I don't think those were intended for us.”[1]
The second remark was more concrete and also left open: “There were suggestions from Jennifer on there that, like, we will have to address at some point. One of them was, like, increasing the frontage… there are things that we're going to, if it's our place to suggest, we're going to have to kind of give some input on.”[1]
The stated purpose of the exercise was pre-emptive, and it is a reasonable one: “eventually once this thing becomes codified, these things will come before us… from potential projects down the road. So if we had some input on the front end, it would help alleviate some of the potential problems.” And the risk he wanted to avoid: “once it does come in front of us, we don't say, well, what is this? We don't know what this is. We haven't had a chance to review this.”[1]
The conclusion he drew from the silence: “it appears to me that there isn't really anything that's jumping out at anybody right at this point for us to need to discuss.”[1]
And then the disposition, which is the newsworthy part:
“Well, it doesn't sound like we've got anything that we need to go over, so I'll make sure that I report that back to the committee… and then they can move forward with the process, because this was the last step before they can move on a draft.”[1]
No motion. No vote. No referral. No public hearing date. The board's consultative step on a draft overlay district was completed by the absence of comment, and reported back by the same member who brought it — who also sits on the committee that wrote it. Nobody raised that.
In October this publication reported that this board's chair circulated, by email and hard copy, a draft overlay district for Bowmansville, asking members to read it and prepare comments.[3]
The word “Bowmansville” does not appear anywhere in this recording. Nor does “Local Law.” The document discussed here is named only as the “historic Hamlet overlay,” and no hamlet, boundary or law number is identified.
Bowmansville is a hamlet of Lancaster, and the sequence — circulated by email, read by members, reported back to a committee — matches. But the recording does not establish that these are the same document, and this brief does not claim it. What we report is what the board said: an overlay draft, referred from a moratorium committee, cleared its last Planning Board step with no comment.
The committee's own draft, and the marginal comments on it, would settle the question. Neither is published.
The evening's other notable moment came from the floor, under new business, and it went nowhere in a way worth recording.[1]
A member raised what a neighbouring town had done: “Hamburg, I saw, adopted a one-year moratorium on data centers. Did anyone see that?” Then the questions: “Do we have anything in place? Does Lancaster ever discuss that? Would it be the responsibility of this board to start that discussion or recommend something along those lines?”[1]
And then an explicit request: “If so, I would like to recommend that. I don't know what the process would be. I've never done anything like that.”[1]
No motion followed. Another voice noted the legal requirement — “The moratorium has to have a reason. So you're going to hold for a year so that we can do that” — and the shape of what it might cover was sketched: “A moratorium to investigate for a year potential zoning code updates, or a data center overlay or whatever, or a special district for data center, deciding where they could go.” A reply: “Only in industrial zones.”[1]
Then the question that showed why it matters, put to the town's Building and Zoning Inspector:[1]
“if someone comes in with an application for a data center, how do we review that? Site plan review? Under what code?”[1]
His answer: “Well, it's what it is. You have to identify the use and occupancy. What do they do? Are they manufacturing? Are they retail? Are they surface? Are they what? We have to analyze all of that.”[1]
That is a town with no classification for the use. An applicant arriving tomorrow would be fitted into whichever existing category the inspector judged closest, item by item. The board also identified the siting problem it would face: asked where one would go, a voice answered “it would need to be near water more than likely, most of them are” — and to the suggestion “and not near any residents,” the reply was “Well, they're not really. That's the issue.”[1]
Energy and water load, a member noted, would be caught by environmental review rather than zoning: “Yeah, energy use. That would be the power on the grid. The water, the noise… That would come under” SEQR.[*][1]
The outcome was a webinar. Staff offered to circulate an invitation to a zoning seminar on data centres and to look into how Hamburg had proceeded; a member concluded “I think it's worth educating ourselves for sure.” A stated intention to recommend a moratorium therefore ended the meeting as an undertaking to read about one.[1]
The board's one project was a site plan review for project number 5446, White Maple Dental at 460 Ransom Road. The applicant's engineer presented; the owner was absent.[1]
The substance is modest: an existing dental practice expanding to accommodate three dentists, which at eight spaces per dentist under the town code means 29 parking spaces against the nine that exist, two of them accessible. A 50-foot oil-line right-of-way crosses the property and is being avoided, with the pipeline operator aware. An existing septic system sits in a raised area that cannot be touched. Total disturbance is about 0.25 acres — “very, very small” — and under an acre, so no stormwater pollution prevention plan is required. A culvert goes under the driveway with an Erie County curb-cut permit to follow.[1]
What makes it reportable is the procedural posture, which several members objected to out loud. The town had not yet been declared lead agency — that was set for the Town Board on November 16, with coordination to begin the 17th. One member: “I wasn't sure what… why we're looking at this at this stage if we're not — we don't have lead agency status or anything yet.” Another put it more bluntly: “if we're putting a horse in a cart backwards — we are, yeah, we definitely are.”[1]
The chairing member's explanation was a queue, not a process: “it's just that this has been sitting on my card for a while. I'm happy you're finally here.”[1]
A stormwater disagreement went unresolved, and a variance was floated. The town's standard was stated as the 100-year post-development flow having to be less than the pre-development 10-year. The engineer asked whether the town could accept his design or whether relief was available; the answer was firm — “I don't have the ability to waive the requirements… I just can't waive the requirements” — and the hardship test was read back to him: “the hardship can't be self-inflicted, and it can't be economic. So I'm guessing, what is your hardship?” His answer: “Well, we don't know, I guess, without diving into everything quite yet.”[1]
Public comment on the project was opened and drew nobody. No vote was taken, no SEQR action was recorded, and the applicant was sent back to confer with the Building and Zoning Inspector and the engineering consultant. The next realistic date discussed was January, there being no second December meeting.[1]
One detail for the file: the engineering consultant's written comments had gone out on the Monday, and at the meeting neither the applicant's engineer nor at least one other person in the room had seen them. The presentation went ahead anyway.[1]
The board is Chair Carlo DiRienzo, Rebecca Anderson, John Copas, Anthony Gorski, Joseph Keefe, Lawrence Korzeniewski and Michael Reinhold, with Secretary Cynthia Maciejewski, engineering consultant Ed Schiller, Building and Zoning Inspector Matthew Fischione and Deputy Town Attorney Brad Davidzik. Attendance cannot be stated: the roll call occupies four seconds of audio and yields a single word, “Here.” No member names were captured, the chair is never named, and no vote in this recording carries a tally — three voice votes, each recorded only as a collective “Aye.”
Circulated to members in advance by a member who sits on the moratorium committee, at that committee's insistence that it obtain Planning Board input “before they continued to move forward.” Described on the record as “the last step before they can move on a draft.”
Two substantive points surfaced and neither was adopted: a page-three question about how the board would determine a property owner's economic means, and a suggestion about increasing frontage. Both were characterised as addressed to the town board rather than this one.
No comments adopted, no changes, no motion, no vote, no hearing date. The member will report the absence of comment back to the committee.
A member cited Hamburg's adoption of a one-year data-centre moratorium, asked whether Lancaster had anything in place, and said “I would like to recommend that.” No motion was made.
The Building and Zoning Inspector confirmed the town has no classification for the use: an application would be assessed by identifying use and occupancy from existing categories. The board noted data centres need water and that keeping them away from residents is not practical in Lancaster, and that energy, water and noise load would be caught by environmental review rather than zoning.
Staff undertook to circulate a seminar invitation and to look into Hamburg's process.
An existing dental office expanding to three dentists: 29 parking spaces proposed against nine existing, two accessible; a 50-foot oil-line right-of-way avoided; an untouchable raised septic area; about 0.25 acres of disturbance, under an acre so no SWPPP required; a culvert under the driveway with a county curb-cut permit to follow.
The town had not been declared lead agency — set for the Town Board on November 16, coordination from the 17th — and members said so, one calling it putting the cart before the horse. A stormwater design disagreement was unresolved and the Deputy Town Attorney declined to waive the requirement, reading the hardship test back to the applicant. Public comment drew nobody. Next realistic date discussed: January, there being no second December meeting.
The engineering consultant reported a coordinated review request from the Town of Amherst for an auto dealership on Transit Road west of the Freeman Road intersection, with comment due December 9. The state Department of Transportation had declared restrictions limiting access to the signalised intersection and sought traffic impact studies.
His ask: that this board recommend the Town Board respond and cite Lancaster's own access management overlay district — “we're working hard to limit the amount of driveways onto a state highway… to not restrict the access but to guide the access to that signalized intersection.” A member was careful to add “I'm not recommending either way, I just think it's something that should be.”
Moved, seconded and carried. Note the timetable: comment is due December 9 and this board has no second December meeting.
The previous meeting's minutes were approved with no changes offered; the date of the minutes approved is not stated in the recording. The communications list was placed at members' desks and its contents were not read into the record.
The chairing member's standing opening was given as usual: the board is “an advisory and recommending board and not a final decision-making body.”
Three things this publication expected to find here are absent. Our October brief on this board reported a draft overlay district for Bowmansville circulated to members; the Cozy Meadows subdivision, classified at a meeting where it never appeared on the posted agenda; and Project #0812, the Culver's restaurant whose SEQR review was left with two questions open pending a traffic study. None of the three is mentioned in this recording — not Bowmansville, not Cozy Meadows, not Culver's, not cross-access, not the traffic study. A 40-minute meeting handled one applicant. We have asked the Planning Board Secretary for the posted agenda for November 4 and whether items were pulled.[3]
Why we have not called the overlay the Bowmansville overlay. It is very likely the same document, and saying so would make a sharper brief. But the recording names no hamlet, and the difference between “a draft overlay cleared its last checkpoint” and “the Bowmansville overlay cleared its last checkpoint” matters to anyone who owns property inside whichever boundary it draws. We report what was said and name the gap.
Attendance is not reported, and that is a real limitation. The roll call runs four seconds and yields one word. No member is confirmed present or absent, the chair is never named on the record, and the three voice votes carry no counts. This brief therefore attributes no statement to any named member — every quotation is given to “a member,” the Inspector or the Deputy Town Attorney, identified by what they were addressed as. The roster above comes from OCR'd official minutes, not from this audio.
Capture quality. 40.3 minutes, faster-whisper “large-v3,” 656 segments, 635 distinct, longest identical run 1, effective coverage 83.4%, language confidence p=0.835 — the lowest of this edition's audio briefs. The file also shifts between punctuated and unpunctuated rendering mid-meeting, a marker of degraded audio. Quotations here are kept short for that reason, and SEQR — which the transcriber renders variously as “seeker,” “secret” and once “sheikah” — is expanded and marked.
Pre-gavel and post-adjournment audio. The recording captures roughly four minutes of personal conversation before the meeting, during which a voice remarks “we're live streaming,” and continues past adjournment. Neither is treated as record and nothing from either is reported.
What we could not verify. The identity and role of “Jennifer,” whose marginal comments on the draft were forwarded to members; the correct spellings of the quarry-adjacent road names in the applicant discussion; and whether the project's setbacks front Ransom Road or Broadway, which the recording states inconsistently. The site plan and the committee's draft would answer these.