Webster's moratorium hasn't slowed single-family homebuilding, the town's development director says

Webster's development moratorium has not changed how many single-family homes are likely to be built over the next 12 to 18 months, the town's Director of Community Development told the Town Board at its Aug. 6, 2026, budget workshop. The large approved subdivisions in town either predate the moratorium or are exempt from it, he said.

The law covers six of the town's commercial and office districts and three kinds of development activity, and it carries three exemptions. None of the six is a residential district. The same workshop heard that the Building Department took in $86,000 in permit revenue in July 2026 alone.

Reminder of what the law covers

The moratorium is Local Law No. 2 of 2026. The Town Board adopted it 5-0 on June 4, 2026.

Section 5 applies the moratorium to the subdivision of land resulting in more than four parcels, to large-scale solar projects and to data centers. It also applies to all real property in six of the town's commercial and office districts, as identified on the town zoning map last dated May 2021:

• Office Park North (O-P)
• Medium Intensity Commercial (MC)
• High Intensity Commercial (HC)
• CO Commercial Outdoor Storage (CO)
• Low Intensity Commercial 1 (LC-1)
• Low Intensity Commercial 2 (LC-2)

The law's own sentence names Low Intensity Commercial once and lists both of its map designations, LC-1 and LC-2. They are two districts on the zoning map.

Section 5 is open on one further point. It names the subdivision, solar and data center activities alongside the six districts, and the text alone does not settle whether the four-parcel subdivision threshold applies townwide or only inside those districts. The minutes of the June 4 meeting record the law being announced before the vote in terms that applied it to large-scale solar projects, data centers, large-scale residential developments and projects in commercial zones — the announcement's terms, not the enacted section's, which names subdivision of land resulting in more than four parcels, not large-scale residential developments. The town's moratorium page lists the six districts and, separately, subdivisions creating more than four parcels. No Webster board and no town attorney has stated a position on the question on any record located here.

Section 6 bars the town from acting on a new site plan, subdivision plan or special permit application for those properties and activities while the moratorium runs. The bar reaches every town board, commission, agency, department, officer, employee, consultant and agent. It covers processing, review, hearings, approvals and decisions.

Section 8 exempts three things:

• Development applications that had received preliminary site plan or special permit approval as of the law's effective date
• Development applications for the redevelopment or rehabilitation of existing structures
• Development applications related to ordinary repairs, maintenance or interior renovations

The first exemption turns on the effective date: whether an application already held preliminary site plan or special permit approval as of that date decides whether the moratorium reaches it.

Section 7 expires the moratorium six months after its effective date, and allows the Town Board to extend it by resolution for up to two additional three-month periods. Section 13 sets the effective date as the day the law is filed with the New York State Secretary of State. The Ledger's explainer covers why the Town Board adopted the moratorium, what it exempts and which projects were affected when it took effect. That Secretary of State filing date does not appear on any record reviewed here, so the moratorium's exact expiration date is not established.

What the director told the board

Director of Community Development Josh Artuso presented the Building Department's 2027 budget request at the Aug. 6 workshop. Invited to add anything further, he raised the moratorium himself and named the subdivisions already approved or under construction.

"Prior to the moratorium going into effect, and really exempt from the moratorium, we have Aberdeen phases two and three, they've been approved. They're a significant single-family home project. We still have building that's occurring as part of Westwood. We still have building that's occurring as part of Meadows 2, as well as Bella Terra. Those phases are still in their infancy right now, and we have Sienna Reserve that is anticipated starting construction of that development in the first of the year."

"So because the moratorium has gone into effect, but it has not changed probably the number of potential single-family homes that could get built within the next 12 to 18 months."

Artuso qualified that as he said it, using the word "probably" rather than giving the board a firm projection.

Three of the projects he named came before the Planning Board in 2026. Bella Terra Phase 3, 66 single-family lots, won final site plan and subdivision approval on May 5, a month before the Town Board adopted the law. Sienna Reserve, ten single-family lots on Orchard Road, had its subdivision approval extended by one year on July 7. Aberdeen Estate Phase 3, 36 single-family lots on 52.44 acres off Hazelhead Lane, received final site plan and subdivision approval 4-0 on Aug. 4.

Aberdeen Estate Phase 3 sits in the R-3 Single-Family Residential district and Bella Terra Phase 3 in Low-Medium Residential (LMR). Neither is among the six districts Section 5 lists, so the moratorium's district provision did not reach either one. Two of those three board actions came after the Town Board adopted the law. Aberdeen Estate Phase 3 is also a 36-lot subdivision, which falls under the first activity Section 5 names. Section 8 exempts applications that held preliminary site plan or special permit approval as of the effective date, and it does not name subdivision approval. The public record of the Aug. 4 meeting carries no statement of which basis applied. Artuso's answer placed Aberdeen phases two and three among the projects approved before the moratorium or exempt from it. Lot counts play no part in that test either way: the exemption turns only on whether preliminary approval existed by the effective date, not on how many homes a project covers. And the dates above are approval-vote dates, not the date land was actually subdivided, which this record does not establish.

Permit revenue ran ahead of budget

The Building Department's own numbers were part of the same presentation.

"Just in the month of July alone, we brought in $86,000 in permit revenue in one month. So yeah, the staff has been working their tails off, if you will."

Artuso told the board 2026 permit fee revenue had passed $215,000 in the first seven months, against the $120,000 he had budgeted for the year. He held that line flat at $120,000 in the 2027 request anyway. He said he checked the projection for distortion from unusually large projects before leaving it there. He said that check turned up one project, McAlpin Industries, which he described as fairly large.

He gave the board a second reason the workload was up.

"There was a new code, a New York State Building Code, the 2025 code that took effect in January. There's a lot of additional inspections that are now required. So in an attempt to be able to comply with all of the regulatory requirements, we really would like some additional staff support in this particular division of our operation."

The 2027 request presented Aug. 6 moves part-time employee funding from $35,771 to $91,745 and holds the vacant full-time assistant building inspector line flat at $63,142. Artuso told the board the department could not fill the full-time post and found part-time applicants instead: serving fire investigators who already hold the code enforcement officer certification and wanted the extra hours. He said three of them were funded out of the vacant full-time line. He also told the board Webster has one code enforcement officer covering about 45,000 residents and 19,000 properties.

How relief works, and the Aug. 6 denial

Section 9 lets an applicant ask the Town Board for limited relief. The application goes to the Town Clerk with a $150 fee. The applicant has to show by clear and convincing evidence that the moratorium leaves no reasonable use of the property and causes irreparable injury. The law requires what it calls "dollars and cents proof." The applicant also has to show that it would be unreasonable and unjust not to grant relief.

The Town Board took up one of those requests on Aug. 6, 2026, for the proposed Dinks and Links recreation facility on Five Mile Line Road. Those parcels sit in one of the six districts the moratorium covers. The draft resolution posted with the agenda would have granted the exemption. A board member moved from the floor to deny instead, and the board denied the request, 5-0, after testimony from the applicant's representative and public comment from four residents. The Ledger's full recap of the Aug. 6 meeting covers that testimony and the board's stated reasoning in full.

This reporting speaks to single-family homebuilding. It does not establish what the moratorium did or did not do to large-scale solar or data center applications, which Section 5 also names, and neither Artuso's remarks nor the workshop record reviewed here carries a figure for how many homes the three projects above represent beyond what is stated.

AI tools were used in drafting and research.