Webster Planning Board extends a 47-apartment approval with a day to spare

The Webster Planning Board voted Tuesday night to extend the site plan approval for Cobblestone Place Phase 2 by one year, to Aug. 4, 2027. The approval was set to expire the next day.

The Ledger reported Tuesday morning that the approval ran out Aug. 5. The board's next meeting is Sept. 1, after the lapse. Under Section 269-17A, an applicant whose final site plan approval has expired "shall be required to reapply for preliminary and final approval." Had the board not acted Tuesday, the review of a 47-apartment building would have started over.

The public hearing opened and closed with no speakers. The board granted the extension on a voice vote.

The applicant's engineer explained the delay. Monroe County's health department has finished its plan review with no further comments. It is waiting on a utility easement for a private water main the project is installing. A meeting with the adjacent owner, identified on the record as U-Haul, was set for the next day to finalize it. "We just had to file for the extension due to the easement request," the engineer said.

The engineer said the Monroe County Water Authority has signed the mylar set and the state stormwater filing is complete. A contractor is engaged for the site work. All of that is the applicant's own account.

The chair returned to a concern from the original review. The site is tight, and there is nowhere obvious to put snow. The engineer pointed to 10 garage spaces under the building and a corner of the property for piling.

An offer nobody took

Four of the board's seven members were present: chair Anthony Casciani, Mark Giardina, Sven Vetter and Peggy Maltman. Four is a quorum. Before the first item, the chair offered every applicant the chance to wait for a fuller board.

There's nothing really too big, but we only have four members of the board out of seven. We do have a quorum, but I will offer the chance if anybody that has an application does not want to work with just the four, rather have a full board, you're more than welcome to. We'll set it up for another meeting.

Nobody took it. All five applications were heard. The board acted on four. The fifth was a sketch plan review, which calls for no vote.

Aberdeen's next 36 lots

Aberdeen Estate Phase 3 won final site plan and subdivision approval 4-0. It was the only roll-call vote of the night. The approval covers 36 single-family lots on 52.44 acres off Hazelhead Lane, for Forest Creek Equity Corp. The item had been tabled since March.

The discussion took about four minutes. The chair recalled earlier concerns about a berm and a conservation easement. Both were treated as resolved. The revised plan set marks the easement area, and a copy has gone to the town.

The approval carries a long list of conditions. Stormwater facilities go in first. Downspouts connect to the storm sewer. The project engineer must certify the work before any certificate of occupancy issues. The board set its own deadline too: significant construction within one year, which the motion put at Aug. 4, 2027. The approved drawings are dated Jan. 13, 2026.

The board could not make out the drawing number in its own file and used that date instead.

Why the sign company's addition went back a step

Vital Sign Building Addition at 764 Ridge Road came in for sketch plan review. No vote was taken. The code calls for none at that stage.

The preview left a question open. The paperwork asked for preliminary and final review in July, but the project turned up a month later at the earlier step. Thomas Fitzgerald, the representing agent, answered it. The application had been headed for preliminary and final review, he told the board, and was postponed over development issues involving cargo boxes at the rear of the site.

Town engineering had one open item. The oil-water separator has to tie into the sanitary sewer. The plans show it tying into the storm sewer. The chair closed on that point: "The only thing would be that your drains, your floor drains, tie into the sanitary and not the storm."

Two other notes came up. The town asked for an as-built drawing of the original building and got the approved site plan instead, which lacked what the sewer department needed. The board was also told Webster sets a lower land-disturbance threshold than the state for requiring a stormwater pollution prevention plan. This project falls just under the 25,000-square-foot mark. Total site disturbance is about half an acre, on the applicant's figure.

The rear setback measures 103 feet against a 100-foot requirement. The applicant returns for preliminary and final review, with no date set.

Two sign packages, one code question

The board approved the 7 Brew sign package at 935 Hard Road on a voice vote. A separate resolution first classified it a Type II action under the state's environmental review rules. The agenda lists five signs totaling 107.11 square feet. That closes the signage the board held out of its July 7 final approval. Ryan Kiely, the applicant of record, did not appear. A colleague presented in Kiely's place, citing a family conflict.

The package is one internally illuminated round sign on the front elevation facing Hard Road. The drawings show nothing on the rear. Both side elevations carry the logo, plus non-illuminated directional arrows and the words "drive-through coffee." No member raised a question.

The board also approved four internally illuminated wall signs for Canandaigua National Bank at 1155 Ridge Road. Again on a voice vote, again after a Type II resolution. The applicant is Melissa Driskell of Sign and Lighting Services LLC. The bank has rebranded and is replacing signs at branches across the county.

The four wall signs are channel letters and a channel logo. The plans include night renderings showing the lettering and logo lit against a dark wall. That is the arrangement the town's sign code asks for.

The longest exchange was about a different sign. The monument sign out at the road is shared with three other businesses. The bank is not building it. It is swapping two panel faces on a structure that already exists.

A member asked how the "National Bank" wording at its lower left is lit. "It's a white acrylic that's lit from the inside," the bank's representative said. A member replied that the code calls for only the lettering to be lit, not the lit white background behind it.

The code writes that point as a guideline, not a requirement. Section 265-4A(3) says signs with interior illumination "should" have only letters and logos lighted, not backgrounds. Three other requirements in the same subsection say "shall." The plans show the member had found the one piece of the application that departs from the guideline. The monument panel is a white face with the graphics on its surface, so the background glows and the lettering does not.

The representative said the replacement matches the panel beside it, belonging to a children's day care, which is also white acrylic lit from inside. The board asked whether that panel is lit at night. Nobody was certain. It heard no objection and approved the four wall signs.

Earlier in the item, a member asked whether it matters that the monument sign carries no street number. Section 265-4B says the property address "shall" be displayed on the top center of all monument signs. The representative said the sign advertises businesses at several different addresses. The plans bear that out: four businesses share it. The board approved the signs without resolving the question. Nothing in the chapter creates an exception for shared signs. Nothing in it says whether swapping a panel on an existing sign triggers the rule at all.

Adjourned in 32 minutes

The board approved the minutes of its July 7 meeting. The whole thing ran 32 minutes. The next meeting is Sept. 1.

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