Webster Town Board denies Dinks and Links moratorium exemption, 5-0

The Webster Town Board denied a hardship exemption from the town's development moratorium Thursday night. The vote was 5-0.

The exemption would have let the proposed Dinks and Links project keep pursuing approvals while the moratorium runs. The draft resolution posted with the agenda would have granted it. No board member moved that resolution.

Supervisor Alex Scialdone instead moved from the floor to deny, reciting the same findings in the negative. The motion was seconded and carried unanimously.

Dinks and Links is a proposed indoor and outdoor recreation facility of about 39,100 square feet at 912 and 922 Five Mile Line Road. The parcels sit in one of the six commercial and office districts the moratorium covers.

Section 9(B) of Local Law No. 2 of 2026 sets the standard. An applicant must show, by clear and convincing evidence including dollars-and-cents proof, that it is unable to make any reasonable use of the property. It must also show irreparable injury and that denying relief would be unreasonable and unjust.

The case and the questions

Joseph Cattalani appeared for Dinks and Links LLC. He said the project had been before the Planning Board for about a year. The building and the site plan had been moved three separate times to satisfy the town, the state Department of Environmental Conservation and Lowe's. He said the DEC would not issue a permit until the town completed environmental review. "When we came into this a year ago, there was no speak of a moratorium," he said.

The chair reminded the room that the question was not the merits of the project but whether the findings for relief could be made. He asked whether the applicant had sought an extension from his lender or the property owner. Cattalani said he had, and had not been turned down. Asked for an exact dollar amount spent to date, he said he did not have one and put the amount at more than $100,000. No documentation of that figure was given to the board.

Councilman John Cahill asked whether the applicant owned the property. "We do not," Cattalani said. "We are under contract. This is the owner over here."

A member said the board had been given no proof of the spending or of any extension. Cattalani offered to supply documentation. He said he could produce the contract covering the extensions and "an M&T letter saying that they're going to extend us through late October." The chair moved on to the next board member.

Councilman Garrett Wagner pressed on the dollars-and-cents question, and Cattalani answered on the project's timeline rather than its costs. Asked whether the delays had occurred before the moratorium, he said all of them had. Asked whether any had occurred as a result of the moratorium, he said the project's financing, staffing, foundation work and construction trades would all come into play. The motion to deny came shortly after.

What the public said

Four residents spoke during Open to the Floor. Most of the comment concerned the exemption.

A resident who said he owns the adjoining Sunset Valley community urged the board to deny. He said the applicant does not own the land, pays no property tax on it and holds only a purchase contract. An exemption, he said, would set a precedent other developers would come looking for.

A second speaker who also said she owns the adjoining Sunset Valley community spoke for herself and for 70 residents of what she described as an affordable senior housing community bordering the property. She asked what financial proof could exist when the applicant does not own the land. She said items from the Planning Board's review remained outstanding.

Another speaker walked the Planning Board's handling of the application date by date. He said the public record does not show that the project received the preliminary site plan approval or special permit that Section 8 of the law exempts automatically. "The proposed resolution reaches legal conclusions, but it does not identify the evidence supporting them," he said.

A fourth speaker argued in support, saying the project should have been grandfathered. He said the moratorium carries costs of its own, pointing to a lumberyard parcel on Holt Road that he said has been left unmaintained under it. A landowner in that position has no reason to do more, he said: "I've got to pay my taxes, but I'm not going to do anything else." He called that a byproduct of the moratorium.

He also said speeding on Holt Road is out of hand and said the police department should hold a community meeting with the chief about it, putting the police budget at $9.5 million a year against 64 speeding tickets written in 2024. He said the department's 2025 annual report has not been posted, and that he had watched a town budget presentation earlier that day and could not read the police budget on the screen. The Ledger has not verified the ticket count or the status of the report.

The motion and the vote

Scialdone moved to deny, saying the prospect of lost financing alongside available extensions was not clear and convincing evidence with dollars-and-cents proof. Town Attorney Kyle Taylor advised the board to read the criteria into the resolution.

One more speaker was allowed before the vote. He said he had been with the property owner's business for 51 years and that it would be unfair for the applicant not to be able to proceed. "We are here to follow the law in this portion here and we need to follow the guidelines set within the moratorium," Scialdone answered. "We can't let personal beliefs get involved in this."

The motion, as restated, found that "the applicant has not demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence including dollars and cents proof that the moratorium prevents reasonable use of the property." It found no demonstration of irreparable injury, and none that denying relief would be unreasonable and unjust.

Scialdone, Councilman Nick Hunter, Cahill, Councilwoman Jennifer Wright and Wagner each voted aye.

"If you get the extensions, it's only a six-month moratorium," the chair told the applicant afterward. Local Law No. 2 says the moratorium expires six months after its effective date without further action, with up to two three-month extensions available. The town says the moratorium is active.

A resolution finished on the floor

The board adopted a video and audio recording policy for town boards the same night, after writing part of it aloud.

In the posted draft of Item 6, the list of bodies the policy covers sat inside highlighted angle brackets. It appeared that way twice, in the first recital and in the operative clause. Those are drafting markers for language that has not been settled. The brackets held four names: the Town Board, the Planning Board, the Zoning Board and the Conservation Board. Rather than hold the vote, the board settled the language in the room.

Hunter introduced the item and said it had not originated with him. He said the Conservation Board meets monthly and is not currently recorded. The four specific boards were named in discussion, matching a suggestion from the town clerk. A fifth body was then added: the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee.

Director of Community Development Josh Artuso, who oversees that committee, said its meetings are already recorded and that it did not need to be named in a resolution. "The committee is a temporary thing, it's not a governing body like the other boards are," he said. The board included it anyway, with a member saying there was no harm in doing so and that naming a committee already being recorded closed the loop and would end when the committee did.

The Conservation Board has never been recorded. A member said the town's communications director wanted an August meeting to prepare it first, and recommended starting Sept. 1. An annual review was added on the town clerk's suggestion.

"Yes, we're doing some live workshopping people here, so stay with us," the chair told the room.

The adopted motion covers the four bracketed boards plus the steering committee. It takes effect Sept. 1, 2026, and is to be reviewed annually at the town organizational meeting. It passed 5-0.

An item that was not on the agenda

The board also approved something the posted agenda did not carry: an amendment to Monroe County's cooperation agreement for the Community Development Block Grant and HOME Investment Partnerships programs.

The federally funded program runs through the county in three-year cycles, and the town has taken part since 2002. The amendment bars the town from selling, trading or transferring HUD funds provided by the county. The town sent a notarized signature and then learned a board resolution was also required. The deadline is next week, the chair said.

A board member asked whether a drafted agreement existed, noting it was not in the town's SharePoint. "I did review it minutes before this meeting here," Taylor said. "It's a one-page amendment." Scialdone said he could not move a resolution authorizing himself to sign. Hunter moved it. It passed 5-0.

The rest of the agenda

Nobody spoke at the public hearing on Local Law #3, the town's vehicle and traffic regulations. A member recommended waiting until the Aug. 20 meeting to vote and the chair agreed.

Three items concerned the townwide reassessment planned for 2027. The board accepted a resignation from the Board of Assessment Review and engaged GAR Appraisal LLC to appraise the Fairlife plant at a cost not to exceed $7,000. Both were 5-0. It also moved and seconded a resolution creating a temporary Board of Assessment Review member position.

The board voted 5-0 to authorize up to $256,476 in contingency and client savings spending at the wastewater treatment plant. Two other sewer items did not come up: a heating and cooling contract for the plant, and a contract amendment shifting asphalt paving from the town's scope of work to a contractor's. Neither drew a motion or any discussion, and no explanation was given.

Item 12 also departed from the posted resolution. At Cahill's request the board added the Chief Wastewater Treatment Plant Operator title to the handbook's commuter use vehicle chart rather than replacing the Deputy Commissioner of Public Works title, as the resolution proposed.

The board also declared its intent to be designated lead agency for environmental review of the Webster Transportation Infrastructure Project. It appointed a school tax collector for the Wayne Central School District portion of Webster. It approved six surplus Parks Department assets for recycling. Minutes, bills, warrants and purchase orders passed in separate votes. All were 5-0.

The board took 15 recorded roll call votes in all. It meets next on Aug. 20.

AI tools were used in drafting and research.