Town of Amherst Planning Board
The Planning Board approved a 270-unit development on Wehrle Drive 4–1. The dissent did not come from the neighbours' side: BrittanyLee Penberthy voted against because the plan leaves future residents one way out, with a school bus stop on Wehrle and no road connection to Garfield. The developer and the neighbours both wanted that connection gone.
The Amherst Planning Board has final authority over site plans, and on Thursday it used it. The 270-unit development at 2190–2220 Wehrle Drive — SP-2026-08, petitioned by Young Development LLC — received a negative declaration under environmental review, a set of findings, and site plan approval. The last of those carried 4–1.
The project is a conversion of expectations as much as of land. The 25-acre parcel was zoned OB and previously approved for four office buildings totalling roughly 285,000 square feet. It was rezoned to MFR-5, and what will be built instead is 270 rental units in two-storey, ten-unit buildings, each unit with an attached garage and its own entry, around a 74-foot-wide central green corridor and 11 acres of green space. A clubhouse at the front carries a fitness centre, pool and pickleball courts. Against a site with no trees on it today, the landscape plan puts in roughly 700 trees across 29 species.
Joe Young[*] told the board the project is aiming for 20 percent workforce housing, working with the Amherst Industrial Development Agency, which limits rent by income. Asked to put numbers on it, he did: market rents run $1.90 to $2.30 a square foot — about $2,000 for a two-bedroom, $1,750 to $1,850 for a one-bedroom, up to $2,900 for a three-bedroom — while a workforce one-bedroom would be restricted to around $1,500, “several hundred dollars less than the market rents.”
He had come from the Zoning Board of Appeals the previous night, where four more variances were granted because the site must be split into two parcels for financing. “We went to the ZBA actually last night, and we were granted our setback variances.”
The argument was about a road stub. Garfield Road ends at this site. The planning staff's draft conditions would have required the development to connect to it, giving residents a second way in and out. The developer did not want the connection. Neither did the neighbours.
Member Jonathan O'Rourke[*] moved to strike it, and his reasoning was short: “The developer doesn't want to do it. The neighbors don't want to… There's nobody wanting it on either side. It doesn't serve a purpose to force them to do it.” His motion kept two conditions the staff had asked for — sidewalks on both sides of the Garfield stub, which the petitioner agreed to at the podium having originally offered one side, and an east–west walkway through the site.
BrittanyLee Penberthy was the one vote against, and her objection was about a constituency that cannot attend a public hearing. The development adds hundreds of people who will use the roads, she said, and alternative routes matter “so that persons aren't necessarily trapped in the parcel.” She tied it to a specific finding the board had just adopted: the Williamsville Central School District will not provide transportation on private roads, so the bus stop will sit on the Wehrle frontage. “It will just, when that occurs, probably create a little bit of a backlog and create more of a traffic issue. I understand that the neighboring residents don't want any more additional traffic on their roads, but I don't think that's considering residents that would otherwise be in the future inhabiting this parcel.”
She was recorded: “No, for the reasons previously stated.” The motion passed four to one.
A development reached by one entrance is a cul-de-sac whatever its size. Connectivity standards exist because a second route disperses traffic across the day, gives emergency vehicles an alternative when the first is blocked, and keeps one failure — a crash, a water main, a parked school bus — from sealing in everyone behind it. That is why the staff's conditions reached for Garfield Road: it already abuts the site, so the connection costs almost nothing to make.
The case against is equally real. A connection converts a quiet residential street into a through route, and the people who live on it are the ones who show up to say so. Here, unusually, the developer agreed with them — a through road would also send traffic across his frontage.
What makes the vote worth recording is that the dissent sided with neither party present. Both the petitioner and the neighbourhood wanted the same outcome, and the objection came on behalf of people who have not moved in yet and had nobody in the room. Boards rarely split that way.
The substantive public opposition to the Wehrle Drive project was about water pressure, and it came from a family that has been making the same argument for a very long time.
Anne Sahena[*] of 281 Bellingham Drive told the board her family has been addressing this site for 26 years, through two previous owners. Her objection was partly about expertise itself: the experts are hired by the developer, “sometimes there's a conflict of interest,” and a layperson cannot audit them. “I'm back there and my husband's saying, what did he say? What does that mean? I don't know… And I know enough that data can be tweaked for how we want it to be.” What she asked for was not a denial but an advocate: “Get to the truth and decide, is this really safe?”
Her specific evidence was a fire. “We know that the fire couldn't be put out and they had to get… different fire companies to come and put out that large fire because of the water pressure.” Her husband Tom Sahena[*] repeated it: the fire across the street from them needed multiple companies bringing pumping trucks, “so why are they telling us that there's enough water pressure when that occurred?”
The answer came in two parts, and the second is more interesting than the first.
Doug Fahey[*] of Carmina Wood Design, the project's civil engineer, presented the analysis. The development taps the existing 12-inch Erie County Water Authority main on the south side of Wehrle at two points. Domestic demand was calculated from the state DEC wastewater design manual at 110 gallons per day per bedroom, giving 43.5 gallons per minute average day demand. Static pressure on Wehrle is 43 PSI, with available residual pressure of 39 PSI at a flow of 1,620 gallons per minute. The minimum any municipal system may fall to is 20 PSI — below that, groundwater can infiltrate and contaminate the mains.
Because of the low pressure and the neighbours' concerns, the Water Authority ran its own model — current conditions against conditions with this development added, at some 15 points in the system. Fahey highlighted three. At one on Belmont, available flow was 1,154 gallons per minute now and 1,154 with the project added. His professional opinion: the existing main can serve the development without reducing pressure for nearby residents, in a fire flow and at peak demand.
Chairman Michael J. Chmiel did not simply accept it. He pressed, and did so by admitting what he did not know: “My experience with water pressure is when I'm in my house and two other people are taking a shower, it's not going to be a very nice shower for me. I don't know if that's how it applies to much larger macro scales like this… It's a real concern that if we suddenly throw in what was like 260 units on this that could have as many as two, three people per unit, that the water pressure, the indication is not going to change at all. How do we know that?” He also asked whether distance to the nearest water tower was a factor, and was told “I'm not entirely sure about that.”
Then the engineer conceded the residents' premise while denying their conclusion: “Erie County Water knows there's an issue. The town knows there's an issue, but our development will not impact that at all.” The arithmetic behind that is the whole case — 270 units draw 43 gallons per minute from a system that moves several thousand.
The residents and the engineer were not contradicting each other, and the exchange is clearer once that is seen.
Low pressure and a hard fire are a real condition of that neighbourhood. Nobody on either side disputed it; the engineer volunteered that the Authority and the town both know. Fire flow depends on the main's diameter and the system's pressure, not on how many houses are connected, which is why a large fire can outrun a 12-inch main regardless of what is built nearby.
And a 43-gallon-per-minute addition can be genuinely negligible against a system delivering over 1,600 gallons per minute at the test point. The Authority's own model returned identical flows with and without the project.
So the honest reading is that the development will not measurably worsen a problem that already exists and that nobody at the meeting proposed to fix. What the Sahenas were really asking — whether the neighbourhood's water system is adequate at all — is a question for the Water Authority and the town, and a site plan hearing is not the forum with power over it. No one told them that, and no one disputed it either.
Two safeguards remain outstanding: Water Authority approval of the demand calculations is required before construction may commence, and the town engineer's approval is conditional, with comments to be resolved before final site plan approval.
The most uncomfortable exchange of the night happened after the public hearing on Wehrle Drive had been closed, when a woman at the back stood up and the chair had not seen her.
Kathleen Ice[*], whose husband owns an office condominium at 19 Limestone Drive, said she had not known the development would connect north through to Limestone Drive and on to Main Street. “When were we going to be told about that?”
Staff told her the Planning Board had held a public hearing on this project the previous month and had notified every owner in the parcel to the north, her husband's condominium presumably among them. She was firm that no such thing arrived: “We never received any documentation or explanation that it was now going to be connected to Main Street… I read things carefully. My husband's an attorney. I'm a bookkeeper. I read what we get.” She acknowledged receiving notice of a meeting, and said they were away.
The substance of the answer was that the connection is older than the project. A perpetual easement already runs through the condominium association's parking lot, allowing the parcel to the south to traverse it and vice versa; it runs with the land and exists whether or not this development is built. Staff offered to provide the liber and page. She replied that the site plans she had seen showed emergency access only, and that the Main Street connection had been proposed, withdrawn, and proposed again — “this moving target.” Staff noted the site plan has been on the town's pending-projects page for months, with a planner assigned to each project to answer enquiries.
Her last point was physical rather than procedural, and no one disputed it: the entry to that parking lot is “a very curvy… almost a hazard… almost like a roundabout,” not a straight shot between Main and Wehrle. The chair acknowledged the hearing was closed, said the board is familiar with the area and would take it into account, and apologised that the petitioners would not be addressing her. “I would like it discussed again if possible.” The findings were adopted minutes later.
770 John James Audubon Parkway — adjourned, hearing left open. Mark Romanowski[*], for 770 JJAP LLC, presented a 160-unit for-sale townhome project on 17 acres, SP-2026-03. The site was previously approved for student housing; the amended SEQR findings — “some 30 different versions of that finding statement over the years” — have since been adopted by the town board. Traffic will be lower than originally anticipated and the required mitigation is already installed. Wetland mitigation is complete for the whole site, and over 100 acres including the wetlands will be dedicated to the town — “it'll forever be wild” — with the developer maintaining them for roughly ten years.
Seven waivers were requested: a single sidewalk rather than dual; swale curbing around the closely spaced driveways; relief from running lot lines to the street centre line, which would put homeowners “in the untenable position of owning a street” on what is a private HOA road; tee turnarounds instead of full ones; reduced street lighting; and a lighter pavement section. Linda Stafford[*] of 95 Sundown Trail was the only speaker, and opposed the project as part of opposing all of it: “I strongly oppose building in Amherst in general… The infrastructure is overrun. We have water problems galore.” She said residents feel the town board “only cater to developers.” Because two or three ZBA variances have not yet even been applied for, the board kept the hearing open and adjourned the item 5–0 to the first available date after the ZBA rules.
1025 Niagara Falls Boulevard — recommended 5–0, no conditions. Jeff Palumbo[*] of Block Longo[*], for Urban Edge, sought a rezoning of 2.06 acres from MS to CTR-5 (Z-2026-05). The site has been Pep Boys for about 20 years, and “that is going to come to an end if this rezoning takes place” — replaced by a single-storey building with perhaps four commercial tenants and about 48 parking spaces. Two traffic studies concluded the effect is marginal: roughly 40,000 vehicles a day already pass the Sheridan Drive intersection, and the project adds about 40 trips in the PM peak and 32 on Saturday midday.
The board's one real challenge was height. CTR-5 permits five storeys and 65 feet, and a single-storey concept does not bind a future owner. Asked whether he would accept a two-storey restriction given nothing nearby approaches five, Palumbo declined — because CTR-5 was the planning department's own recommendation, on the reasoning that the town may one day want height there. A separate question about pedestrian and vehicular connectivity to the adjoining retail parcel, also owned by the client, was deferred: “possible, but something we would deal with at site plan rather than at the zoning stage.”
2545 Millersport Highway — recommended 5–0, with a restrictive covenant. Cory Auerbach[*] of Barclay Damon, with two West Herr representatives, sought NB to MS (Z-2026-06) for 2.43 acres — a former Rite Aid, “one of many vacant Rite Aids across western New York,” to be reused as a fleet sales and service centre, not a retail service bay. Overhead doors face north to keep them away from the residences east and preserve a vegetative buffer.
Member Penberthy pressed two points hard. First, zoning geography: the nearest MS parcel is north of the existing Ford facility, so “why not put this particular build in the MS area?” rather than create what she called a randomly zoned parcel. Auerbach's answer was the comprehensive plan's direction to redevelop vacant sites, and that the surrounding uses are already West Herr's. Second, she tested the claim of community support — “Sorry, did you say support from the community? What specifically are you referring to?” West Herr's facilities director was called up and gave the specifics: every abutting parcel was invited, residential included, though only five or six touch the site; the planning department was asked for the notice list and did not provide one, so they went to directly affected parcels; about 15 people attended; and two neighbours whose properties lack the fence the others have were promised one. He added that the service being moved here already exists behind the Lincoln store — “it's just a relocation.” The recommendation carries a covenant to be filed with the county clerk barring a car wash, drive-through restaurant, ambulance service, used auto sales and any fuelling station, and requiring all service and overhead doors to stay closed when the facility is in use.
North French Road and Campbell Boulevard — recommended with a maintenance condition. Palumbo returned with Fred Samato[*] of SBLC Development for Z-2026-07: just under 51 acres across four parcels beside the 990, rezoning 25.46 acres SA to R3 and 23.39 acres SA to MFR-5. The plan is 88 residential units — 64 detached single-family homes plus 12 two-unit townhomes — with roughly 34 of the 50 acres as permanent open space. Wetlands are delineated and permitted but negotiations with the DEC and Army Corps are unfinished. The comprehensive plan was already amended to medium residential and a negative declaration issued in April 2026.
The board's question was about a lake nobody owns. Asked who has been maintaining the Lake Forest pond, Palumbo answered: “It's actually been maintaining itself… There was no homeowners association ever created for Lake Forest.” Samato explained its origin — it was excavated to supply roughly a million yards of fill for the 990, sparing the town “dump truck after dump truck.” The 990 then severed the pond from the 999 Campbell parcel, and what happens to it must still be worked out with the planning department and town attorney. The recommendation is conditioned on the petitioner establishing, to the town attorney's satisfaction, legally enforceable perpetual maintenance arrangements that never become an obligation of the town.
The chair set this out before the first item, and it governs how to read every vote below. The Planning Board has final decision-making authority on site plans and subdivisions. On rezonings and comprehensive plan amendments it is advisory only — the elected town board decides those.
So Thursday's one binding act was the Wehrle Drive site plan. The three rezonings travel onward as recommendations, and the town board will be lead agency for their environmental review. A reader who sees “passed 5–0” on 1025 Niagara Falls Boulevard should understand that as advice given, not a rezoning granted.
The board's procedure is also worth noting because it is unusually formal for a volunteer body: the first member of the public to speak on an item is deemed the resident spokesperson and gets the same 15 minutes as the petitioner, with three minutes for every other speaker. “If you are the resident spokesperson, make sure you get in line first.”
Five of the board's seven members sat, and the clerk called the roll on every action: Chairperson Michael J. Chmiel, Mike Hogan, Carrie Kahn, Jonathan O'Rourke and BrittanyLee Penberthy. Joseph P. Raffaele, Jr. and Harbinder Singh Gill were not called and are recorded here as absent. This board takes roll-call votes on everything, which is why individual positions are reportable here and are not in most briefs in this publication. One dissent was recorded all evening. Agenda item numbers and petitioner names are the official agenda's.
Three separate votes. SEQR negative declaration: 5–0. Findings A–D: carried, expressly incorporating all testimony from this and every previous hearing on the matter plus all information gathered by the Planning Department — a point the board's counsel prompted the chair to state on the record. The findings note internal walkways connecting to public sidewalks on Wehrle and Garfield; a pool, pickleball courts, dog park and clubhouse; that no open space for public ownership is proposed; that the Williamsville Central School District will serve the site and has indicated it will not provide transportation on private roads, so a bus stop is proposed on the Wehrle frontage; and that the Garfield Road terminus abuts the site and could be connected, affording additional routes, dispersion and enhanced public safety. Site plan approval, 4–1, on a motion by O'Rourke with three particulars: no vehicular connection to Garfield Road; sidewalks on both sides of the Garfield stub connected into the development; and an east–west walkway through the site, plus all other listed conditions. Penberthy voted no.
The board declined to act because the petitioner has not yet applied for two or three ZBA variances it concedes it needs, expected “within the next couple of days.” The public hearing was kept open and the item adjourned to the first available date after the ZBA decides — a sequencing choice that preserves the public's right to speak again rather than closing the record now. Seven waivers remain on the table with it.
A recommendation to the town board, which will be lead agency for environmental review; the Planning Board made no SEQR determination. No conditions were attached — the only such item of the night. The site is a Pep Boys of roughly 20 years' standing, proposed for a single-storey four-tenant commercial building with about 48 spaces. The board's unease about CTR-5 permitting five storeys and 65 feet was aired and not acted on; the petitioner declined a height restriction on the grounds that CTR-5 was the planning department's recommendation.
Recommended with a restrictive covenant to run with the land and be filed in the county clerk's office, barring a car wash, a restaurant with drive-through, ambulance service, used auto sales and fossil-fuel fuelling facilities, and requiring that all service and overhead doors remain closed when the facility is in use. The chair initially began the roll call without the conditions and restarted it — “let's start over with that, I apologise” — which is how the covenant came to be read into the record in full. A former Rite Aid to be reused for West Herr fleet sales and service.
25.46 acres from SA to R3 and 23.39 acres from SA to MFR-5 across four parcels beside the 990, for 88 units — 64 detached houses and 12 two-unit townhomes — with roughly 34 of 50 acres as permanent open space. Recommended on the condition that the petitioner establish, to the satisfaction of the town attorney, legally enforceable arrangements for perpetual maintenance and repair, with all maintenance, repair and liability obligations remaining with the owner or a designated entity and never becoming an obligation of the town — a condition aimed squarely at the Lake Forest pond, which has no homeowners association and which nobody has been maintaining. The roll call is partially audible on the recording; the motion carried and no dissent is heard.
Minutes of September 24, 2026 approved by roll call as the first business. The 2027 Planning Board meeting calendar (agenda item 7) was approved without discussion; the board noted it will adjust individual dates “on an as-needed basis” as it has previously. The next regular meeting is November 19, 2026.
Reported, not voted, and consequential. A comprehensive plan advisory committee is being assembled and this entire board will be members of it, pending the town board's formation of it. The consulting team visits November 2 to 4 and will hold stakeholder meetings — and the detail worth recording is that staff will not participate in them: “so you can be as upfront and frank with them as you care to be.” The consultants are also expected to meet town board members, possibly the ZBA, developers, and recreation and transportation stakeholders, with a likely return in December once the committee is formally constituted.
The agenda governed the project identifiers, and this board's roll calls governed the votes. The official agenda and a 792-kilobyte agenda packet were retrieved from the Town's CivicClerk portal and are the source for every file number (SP-2026-08, SP-2026-03, Z-2026-05, Z-2026-06, Z-2026-07), every petitioner entity, the acreages, and the project titles — the recording renders “Wehrle” as “Rurley”, “Worley” and “Rooley” across three different speakers, and “Millersport” as “Miller's Port”. One figure differs between two town documents: this agenda reads 2190–2220 Wehrle Drive while the Zoning Board's agenda the previous night reads 2190–2200 for the same project. Each brief reports its own board's agenda.
The transcript was screened before it was trusted, and it passed. Of 1,446 segments, 1,229 are distinct; the most-common segment accounts for 3.53 percent of the file against a roughly 10 percent failure threshold; the longest run of identical consecutive segments is five, all of them strings of “Yes” in roll calls; and coverage is 89.8 of the recording's 90.1 minutes.
This is the rare board whose members can be named in their votes. The Amherst Planning Board takes a roll call on every action, so individual positions are on the record — which is why Penberthy's dissent is attributed here while most briefs in this publication can only report that a motion carried. The roster is verified against the Town's official Planning Board page: seven members on seven-year terms. The recording's “Shamil”, “Schmiel” and “Chameleon” are Chairperson Michael J. Chmiel; “Logan” is Mike Hogan; “Con” and “Tom” are Carrie Kahn; “And Berthe” and the chair's “Randy” are BrittanyLee Penberthy. One ambiguity is left alone: a “Harry” seconds the minutes, which is either Harbinder Singh Gill arriving unrecorded or a mis-rendering of Carrie; because every subsequent roll call names the same five members, this brief reports five of seven and does not resolve it.
One allegation is deliberately not repeated. The speaker opposing the Audubon Parkway project ended with a conflict-of-interest claim about a named individual's affiliation with the building trade. The name is garbled beyond safe rendering, the allegation is unsubstantiated, nobody responded to it, and it has no bearing on the item before the board. This brief reports her general charge that the town “only cater to developers” — which is argument, fairly summarised — and omits the name and the specific claim.
Names carried from audio alone, and flagged. The agenda lists petitioner entities but no individuals, so every person here is audio-only: Joe Young and Tom Lewis of Young Development; Doug Fahey and Anthony Pandolfi of Carmina Wood Design; Mark Romanowski, whose firm is unrenderable and is therefore not named; Jeff Palumbo of Block Longo; Sam McCassem of Urban Edge; Cory Auerbach of Barclay Damon with the two West Herr representatives, whose names render inconsistently and who are described by role; Fred Samato of SBLC Development; and the three members of the public — Anne and Tom Sahena of 281 Bellingham Drive, Linda Stafford of 95 Sundown Trail, and Kathleen Ice of 19 Limestone Drive. Staff addressed only by first name — “Dan” on the easement, “Craig” on the slides, “Kim” on scheduling — are referred to by role.
What this brief does not claim. The fire the Sahenas described is reported as their account of it; this publication has not identified the incident or verified that water pressure was the limiting factor. Their characterisation of developer-retained experts is reported as argument. The engineer's analysis is reported as what he presented and attributed to Erie County Water Authority modelling, which this brief has not independently reviewed. And the notice dispute at 19 Limestone Drive is reported as two accounts that do not agree: staff say owners to the north were notified of last month's hearing, and Mrs. Ice says no documentation about a Main Street connection was received. Nothing on this recording resolves that, and this brief does not.
Other checks. The interests-watchlist screen was run broadly against the full transcript: 37 terms, zero matches. The Planning Board roster required no review gate. Street-name validation was run against the town's street index. No scanner address cross-reference was performed: these are development applications, not incident addresses. The 6:00 p.m. public work session that preceded this meeting is noted on the agenda and was not separately captured.