City of Buffalo — City Planning Board
The Planning Board sent four permits and a zoning map amendment to the Common Council with recommendations to approve, including a cannabis establishment on Jefferson Avenue and a tobacco and vaping shop on Virgil — six days after the Council denied a vape licence on Delaware Avenue. Four members voted; every recommendation was unanimous.
The board recommended approval of a special use permit at 299 Jefferson for a cannabis establishment, in an N-3E zone in the Ellicott district, and of a special use permit at 6 Virgil for tobacco, hookah and vaping, in an N-3C zone in the Delaware district. Both carried 4–0. Both are set for Common Council public hearings on December 1.[1]
The timing of the second one is what makes it news. On October 27 — six days before this meeting — the full Council moved to deny a tobacco, hookah and vape licence at 2531 Delaware, an application its own Legislation Committee had forwarded without recommendation. That denial and this recommendation concern different addresses in the same council district.[3]
They are also different instruments, and the distinction matters before anyone reads a contradiction into it:
So the Planning Board has not overruled anything and the Council has not reversed itself. But a reader in the Delaware district is entitled to notice that one vaping application was refused and another was advanced within a week, and to ask the Council on December 1 what distinguishes them. Neither body's reasons are on the public record: the Council's denial was a motion without stated findings, and the Planning Board's published record gives a recommendation without a rationale.
The cannabis permit on Jefferson is the first of its kind this publication has recorded before this board. New York licenses cannabis retail at the state level; a municipality's role is the land-use question of where such an establishment may sit. This one now goes to a Council hearing with a favourable recommendation and no published reasoning attached.
Four members are recorded on every tally: Cynthia Schwartz, Martha Lamparelli, Leonard Sciolino and Scott Billman. No absences and no abstentions appear in the voting record.
Four is a thin board for six consequential land-use recommendations. The published record does not state the board's full membership, so this brief cannot say whether four is a full house or a bare quorum — but every item of the night was decided by the same four people.
As with the Preservation Board, this body's record names every vote — a documentary standard the Common Council's own committees did not meet anywhere in this edition.
The board recommended approval with conditions of a special use permit at 462 Niagara for an open-air market and live entertainment, in an N-2C zone.
This publication has followed that file. On October 20 the Legislation Committee tabled it after the hearing date printed on its own file — October 6 — had already passed. On November 4 the committee tabled it again, now pending a December 1 hearing.[3]
The conditions are not stated in the published record. For an open-air market with live entertainment in a mixed residential-commercial zone, the conditions are the whole question — hours, amplification, closing time. Those terms are what neighbours will live with, and they are not public.
A zoning map amendment at 21 Parkridge, from N-3R to N-3E in the Masten district, recommended for approval 4–0 and set for a December 1 hearing. A map amendment is a rezoning — it changes what may be built on a parcel permanently, not just what one applicant may do — and it is the most durable act on this agenda.[4]
An extension at 443 West Avenue, approved 4–0. The file includes a site plan extension request letter dated mid-October and design update material going back a year, which is the documentary signature of a project that has been slow to start.
A site plan modification at 680 Amherst Street, approved on a motion recorded as “Modifications Approved”, 4–0. The file is the largest on the agenda by a distance — nineteen attachments including a statement of intent, survey, civil plans, architectural elevations, owner authorisation, an environmental assessment form, context and neighbourhood maps, a transportation demand management study and commitment statement, a stormwater pollution prevention plan, a 2024 SEQR approval, planned-unit-development approval minutes, and a subdivision letter of intent and plat.
One anomaly in the record belongs on the page. On that item, and only that item, the published result field is blank — a question mark where the other five items read “PASSED”. The named tally is complete and unanimous, and the motion is recorded as approved, so this brief reports the item as approved. But the largest file on the agenda is the one whose result the record does not confirm, and the minutes are the authority.
The board also approved the minutes of its October 19 meeting, 4–0.
All six substantive items carried 4–0 on the same four members: Schwartz, Lamparelli, Sciolino and Billman. The four permit and rezoning items are recommendations to the Common Council, not final approvals; each is set for a Council public hearing on December 1, 2026. The board met in Room 912 and by Microsoft Teams videoconference.
Moved Lamparelli, seconded Billman. No conditions recorded and no rationale published. Proceeds to a Common Council public hearing on December 1.
Moved Lamparelli, seconded Sciolino. No conditions recorded and no rationale published.
Six days earlier the full Council moved to deny a tobacco, hookah and vape licence at a different Delaware district address. A licence and a special use permit are distinct determinations, and the Council will hold its own hearing on this one.[3]
Moved Lamparelli, seconded Billman. The conditions are not stated in the published record. The same tally appears twice in the source record, which this brief treats as a duplicated entry rather than two votes.
This permit was tabled by the Legislation Committee on October 20 after its original October 6 hearing date had passed, and tabled again on November 4 pending the December 1 hearing.[3]
Moved Lamparelli, seconded Sciolino. A rezoning rather than a permit: it changes what may be built on the parcel permanently. No rationale published.
Moved Billman, seconded Sciolino. The file includes a statement of intent, survey, civil plans, architectural elevations, owner authorisation, an environmental assessment form, context and neighbourhood maps, a transportation demand management study and commitment statement, a stormwater pollution prevention plan, a 2024 SEQR approval, planned-unit-development approval minutes, and a subdivision letter of intent and plat.
Alone among the six items, the published result field is not completed. The named tally is unanimous and the motion is recorded as approved; the minutes are the authority.
Minutes moved Sciolino, seconded Lamparelli. The 443 West Avenue site plan extension moved Lamparelli, seconded Billman; the file carries an October 15 extension request letter and design update material dating back roughly a year.
Why this is a documents-only brief. This pipeline holds no recording of the City Planning Board; the meeting ran in Room 912 and by Teams, and no audio is published. The board's own agenda and the structured item record from the city's portal are the entire basis for this brief, and nothing here describes anything said at the meeting.
What that costs the reader. Six unanimous recommendations, and not one published reason. For the cannabis establishment, the vaping shop and the rezoning this is the whole substance: a land-use recommendation is a judgement about compatibility with a neighbourhood, and the judgement is not in the record. Nor are the conditions attached to the 462 Niagara permit, which is the item where conditions matter most. The December 1 Council hearings are where any of it becomes public.
On the vaping sequence. This brief deliberately separates the Council's October 27 licence denial from this board's November 2 permit recommendation, because they are different instruments at different addresses decided by different bodies. We have not characterised the two as inconsistent, and readers should not. What we have done is put them side by side and named the question, because nobody has published findings for either.
What the record does not establish. The board's full membership, so whether four voting members is a quorum or a full board; the conditions on 462 Niagara; and the reason the result field on 680 Amherst Street is blank. The board's minutes answer the last two.