City of Buffalo — Zoning Board of Appeals
Buffalo's Commissioner of Permits and Inspection Services told the Zoning Board that its July approval of an electrified fence rested on information “erroneous and in one point demonstrably false,” and asked that it not become precedent. Half an hour later the board approved a second electrified fence from the same company — without ever asking what the false statement was.
The last item of the night was an application by Skyway Auto Parts to install a ten-foot electrified security fence behind the existing chain-link at the front of its Tifft Street scrap yard. Buffalo's zoning code forbids both elements on their face: “No fence may be constructed of charged wire,” and the height exceeds what the front side yard permits.[2]
The company's case was concrete and, on the recording, unchallenged. The yard's operator described nightly theft:
“Security reasons are, we have theft every night. I've lost about $10,000 in vehicles that people either cut the locks, jump over the fence… They're stealing parts every night, aluminum wheels, they hop over the fence. They hop back over the fence. You can watch them throwing the stuff over. I have 15, 20 police reports open up.”[1]
He said he keeps 2,300 cars on the site and is telephoned by police at two or three in the morning to identify a single stolen wheel he cannot possibly identify. The company's environmental health and safety manager framed it as liability rather than loss: “If they get injured, if they fall, they break an arm… I don't want our employees finding someone in the morning.” Asked by a board member whether she just wanted to “shock them a little,” she answered: “I grew up on a horse farm. I've touched an electric fence many a time. I'd rather do that than break a leg.”[1]
The applicant's representative described the system as “battery charged, low voltage… powered by a 12 volt battery,” delivering “a brief three 10,000th of a second pulse, AKA shock,” which she likened to touching a doorknob in winter in stocking feet — “Ours is actually less voltage than that” — with warning signs every thirty feet.[1]
Then a man at the back of the room identified himself.
“I'm Lou Petrucci, Commissioner of Permits and Inspection Services.”[*] He opened by conceding the merits: “I appreciate security concerns, because we all want people to invest in the city of Buffalo. We want to make sure that their businesses are safe.”[1]
His objection was not to this application. It was to a different one:
“The reason I'm here today, though, is that the board approved an earlier system at the July 15th meeting. My concern was that it was approved on information that was erroneous and in one point demonstrably false. What I don't want is that prior approval to be precedent for any future approvals.”[1]
He was explicit that the decision was the board's to make — “If the board is going to consider both of these separate actions and items, that's your power. That's wonderful” — and said he intended to come before the board as an aggrieved party to seek reconsideration of the earlier approval.[*] He closed: “Putting my former hat on, trying to do things properly.”[1]
What the board did not do is ask him what the false information was. The recording contains no such question. The discussion that followed established only that the July matter concerned a different property — “That was school buses. This is the scrap yard” — the same company and, as a board member put it, the “same product.” One member noted, “I wasn't at that meeting.”[1]
The applicant's representative rejected the premise outright: “All the facts that were presented last time were actually true facts. And they are facts.” Nobody tested either claim.[1]
The board granted both variances. A fence of charged wire, ten feet tall, at the front of the property.[1]
The tally on this item is the single most consequential gap in the recording. What the audio contains, in order, is the chair calling for the vote, one “Aye,” then an audible “No.”, then “Uh-oh.” — and then the roll is cut off and the meeting adjourns. The file terminates mid-sentence.
This publication therefore does not state that the approval was unanimous, and does not state that there was a recorded dissent. One of those is true. The recording cannot tell us which, the board's minutes for October 21 are not yet published, and we will correct this entry when they are.
Buffalo is a city, so its Zoning Board works under General City Law §81-b — cited on the record by an applicant's attorney as §81-b(4)(b). Two different tests apply, and which one governs explains most of this night's outcomes:
An area variance — dimensional relief: height, width, setback, fence, sign, parking placement — requires the board to balance the benefit to the applicant against detriment to the neighbourhood, weighing five factors. Self-created difficulty is one relevant factor but does not bar relief.
A use variance — permission for a use the zone forbids outright — is far harder. The applicant must prove unnecessary hardship, including, in practice, financial evidence that the property cannot yield a reasonable return as zoned.
Sixteen of the eighteen items were area variances. The one the board denied outright on the merits was a use variance.
Twice on October 21 the board considered the same violation of the same code section — §496-8.3.3.A.2, “parking not allowed forward of a house” — on two residential streets. It granted one and denied the other. The reasons it gave each time are on the record, and they are consistent.[1][2]
The pivot in both rationales is the same fact: whether the street itself offers parking. Pooley Place is narrow with little on-street capacity; Manchester Place has some. That is a defensible, repeatable test, and the board articulated it both times rather than deciding by instinct.
One other difference is worth naming, because it is visible in the record and readers can weigh it themselves: 74 Manchester was the only one of the three where a neighbour appeared to object. A resident of 85 Manchester Place spoke:[1]
“So my greatest concern is pedestrian safety, because more cars driving over the sidewalk create more vehicle that children running around on the street have to look for.” And then the argument that reaches past her own street: “I do feel that this would set a precedent where people can replace their front yards with parking pads, and that increases vehicle crossings along the sidewalks.”[1]
The applicant's representative answered that such concerns are “all valid concerns on every neighborhood in the city of Buffalo,” and that the homeowner had weighed them. The homeowners' own case was that they have four children, no driveway, and did not buy the house intending to build one.[1]
A caution about the denial motion as recorded. The motion to deny 74 Manchester, as transcribed, recites the approval formula — that the benefit to the applicant outweighs the detriment to the neighbourhood — before giving denial reasons. Either the member misspoke or the transcription dropped a negation. The outcome is not in doubt (the vote that follows is explicitly “for denial”), but the stated findings in the official minutes should be read rather than ours.[1]
A recurring feature of the evening was applications for work that had already been done. The board noticed it out loud.[1]
At 92 Pooley Place, members could not initially establish whether the parking pad existed. The exchange runs: “So the pad's not in?” “No, it isn't.” “No, it isn't, okay.” “It is.” “The pad is already installed, sir.” The applicant's account was that he had twice asked the city — once through 311 — whether laying a pad over existing grass without excavation or curb alteration needed a permit, and was told it did not.[1]
At 187 Leslie Street, where a homeowner sought relief for a driveway sixteen feet wide against a twelve-foot limit, the chair observed: “So it's another one of these works already completed.” Asked who the contractor had been, the owner answered, “No, is I do is myself.” The reply from the board: “You do yourself. Okay, we won't go after you.” The variance was granted, on the stated ground that the house sits in isolation among vacant lots.[1]
At 1505 Broadway, where a building had been refaced in EIFS — a material the code bars on front and corner facades — the questioning was sharper: “You have a permit for that?” “No.” “So who did it?” “We did the work.” “So they did it illegally.” A board member later characterised the position bluntly: “Or it's announcing, well, I got it done on the weekend while no one was looking. By the time they told me to stop, it was already done. That's tough.”[1]
The owner's reason was maintenance and theft: “it's gonna make the building look nice and fresh, and if we put the aluminum sidings, they keep ripping them, stealing them.” The man who did the work said he was “retired right now, and this family friend, I'm just helping them do the work” — prompting a board member's “So you're a jack of all trades? … Master of nothing?”[1]
This is the one approval of the night that carried a condition: compliance with the code requirement for first-floor transparency, bringing the front facade into line. A board member had signalled it in advance — “If we were to approve this, I would condition it” — and also floated requiring signs be taken down.[1]
None of this means the board treats unpermitted work lightly as a matter of law: under §81-b a self-created difficulty is a factor to weigh, not a disqualification, and the board is entitled to grant relief for work already built. But the asymmetry is worth recording — the applicant who built first was told “we won't go after you,” while the applicant whose lot had sat vacant for seventeen years was refused.
The night's largest request took more than forty minutes. A four-storey, 27-unit stacked-unit building with 27 parking spaces on roughly 0.578 acres at 303 Lafayette Avenue and 144, 148 and 150 Hoyt Street — the site of a church demolished about three years ago. It needed five variances: residential density, building height, fence height in the corner side yard, address-sign area, and interior side yard parking.[1][2]
The board had already approved a version of this project. In October 2025 it granted three variances for a three-storey, 20-unit building with a gable roof, 41 feet 10 inches overall. Those approvals have lapsed. The new design is four storeys with a mansard roof, 27 units, 49 feet 1 inch overall — “four feet over the maximum permitted” on the code's measure, and seven units over the permitted density of 20.[1]
The applicant's attorney was unusually direct about why:
“The economic reality in this project is what was previously approved. 20 units, three story gable roof simply didn't work. It's not the fault of the applicant. It's not the fault of this board. It's not the fault of the neighborhood. It's just because of increased construction costs or difficulty in terms of lending.” Without the relief, he said, the site “would remain vacant.”[1]
He also conceded, unprompted, the factor most applicants resist: “is whether or not the alleged difficulty was self-created. Obviously, as a sophisticated applicant with a project team that's very familiar with the green code as well, we're not gonna take exception to the fact that this is a self-created difficulty.” Under the balancing test that concession is survivable, and he plainly knew it.[1]
Later, pressed, the position was put more starkly still: “Economic model is not your issue, but we're being completely candid. We need this for this project to go forward.”[1]
Four neighbours spoke against it in person and one online. Nobody spoke for it. Residents of 301 Lafayette and 299 Lafayette were among the objectors. One put the objection as a matter of principle:[1]
“I'm asking you to deny these variances. If we have a green code for a reason, if the only reason to ignore it is that somebody can make more money than we're against it.”[*] Another: “And now we're back again simply because of increased costs anticipated by the developer. And I don't think that we should be negatively impacted by their increased costs.”[1]
One exchange did more damage than any argument. Asked whether the shadow study had been shown at the community meetings, the answer was: “It was not.” The applicant also acknowledged the response at his most recent community meeting had been “overwhelmingly, you know, negative.”[1]
The board accepted a negative declaration under SEQR — completing environmental review — and then tabled the variances, with a single instruction: that the development team return with a full sun and shadow study. It did not rule on the merits.[1]
The board is Chairman James Lewis, Thomas Dearing, James Hornung Jr., Janice McKinnie and Sandra White, per the posted agenda. No statement or vote in this brief is attributed to a named member, and no attendance is stated: see the Editor's Note on why. Dispositions below are as audible on the recording; the official minutes are not yet published.
Skyway Auto Parts. Both variances granted after the Commissioner of Permits and Inspection Services appeared to warn that the board's July 15 approval of a comparable system, at a different property for the same company, rested on information that was “erroneous and in one point demonstrably false,” and asked that it not be treated as precedent. No condition was attached. A brightness or operating condition was not discussed; the warning-sign interval of thirty feet came from the applicant, not the motion.
The recording contains an “Aye,” then a “No.,” then “Uh-oh.” before the roll is cut off and the file ends mid-sentence. We report the outcome and decline to report the tally.
The only outright denial on the merits of a use. A 24-car parking lot serving 937 Broadway, which is zoned for a used-car dealership; the applicant said he had held the lot seventeen years with “one or two tenants maybe for a couple of months.”
The denial motion, as recorded, rests on the use-variance standard: that the applicant “has not demonstrated that the zoning code has caused the applicant unnecessary hardship, primarily because of the condition of the lot and the surrounding areas, as well as the lack of financial evidence, and the fact that this situation is largely self-created.”
A landscaping condition was floated and abandoned. One member's view, on the record: “I'm not sure you can get any worse if you let the owner do what he wants to do.” The board accepted a negative declaration before denying.
Density (27 units against 20 permitted), building height (four storeys and 44 feet 2 inches against three storeys and 40 feet), corner-side-yard fence height, address-sign area, and interior side yard parking. A three-storey 20-unit version was approved in October 2025 and has lapsed.
Five objectors, no supporters. Tabled with a direction to return with a full sun and shadow study — which the architect confirmed had not been presented at the community meetings. Site plan approval from the Planning Board would still be required.
92 Pooley Place: granted, on the narrowness of the street and the absence of on-street parking. The pad was already installed; the applicant said the city twice told him no permit was required.
74 Manchester Place: denied, on the impact of front-yard parking on residential character and the availability of on-street parking. The only parking item with a neighbour objecting. Note the transcription defect in the denial motion, described above.
903 Amherst Street: three variances sought; the two relating to the parking pad and stall depth were denied because the owners said they did not intend to park there — “So those variances were not needed” — while the driveway-width variance was granted on the tight conditions and unusual grade changes at the front. A member recorded open scepticism: “it seemed too coincidental to me.”
The night's only conditioned approval: compliance with the code requirement for first-floor transparency on the front facade, and alignment with previous comparable installations. Work had already been carried out without a permit by an unlicensed family friend.
Applied for by a sign manufacturer on behalf of the owner; the property was identified on the recording as Gerard Place. All three variances granted on the property's unusually long frontage and its need to notify passers-by of varied activities.
The electronic message centre itself is not a zoning question the board could resolve. As a board or staff voice put it, the use “is not allowed by the rights law with a special use permit. So they're currently going through the council for a special use permit” — and indeed the Common Council's Legislation Committee tabled that special use permit the previous afternoon, with a public hearing set for 17 November. So the sign has its dimensional relief before it has permission to exist.[3]
A brightness condition was raised and explicitly dropped. The brightness figures spoken on the recording are self-contradictory as transcribed and are not reported here.
893 East Eagle: an extension covering all three previously granted variances, sought because the design team ran late — “our design team just continued to be later and later and proved to be inefficient… we don't have enough time to get through before reaching the extension requirement.” Granted.
194 Windsor Avenue sought to permit an accessory dwelling unit against two findings — use not permitted in the zone, and an ancillary dwelling exceeding 1,000 square feet of gross floor area. 80 Midway Avenue sought to permit a parking lot where off-site accessory parking is not allowed as a principal use. Both carried over.
149 Vandalia Street, a fence encroaching on the public right-of-way. 48 and 58 Linden Park, lot merger in excess of maximum lot width. 187 Leslie Street, driveway width (work already completed). 329 Connecticut Street, insufficient ground-storey height. 624 Clinton Street — listed on the agenda as rear yard depth, but the hearing concerned placing a permanent storage container at the Adams Street side of a former pizza business. 195 and 199 East Street, lot merger, corner-side-yard parking and driveway width, all three granted.
The rationale recorded for the Vandalia fence is too garbled to report.
Attendance and quorum are not reported, because nothing available establishes them. This is the most significant limitation on this brief. The posted agenda lists five members — Lewis, Dearing, Hornung, McKinnie and White — with attendance columns recorded by checkbox, which does not survive text extraction. On the recording the roll call is partly unintelligible: three voices answer “Here” to names rendered as “Dr. Duren,” “Dr. McKinney” and “Dr. Warren,” the chair is never called by name, and the word “quorum” does not appear anywhere in 141 minutes. No member is stated to be absent in intelligible words, and no recusal occurs. Later roll votes audibly name only two members. We therefore report dispositions without tallies or attendance, and the official minutes — not yet published — should be read for both.
Names. Whisper mangled this board's surnames comprehensively: the same member appears as “Tom During,” “Tom Derrick,” “Tom DeHorne” and “Mr. Daring”; the chair as “Robert Lewis,” “Reverend Lewis” and “Ruben Lose”; another as “Dr. McKinney” and “Jasper Kenney.” Not one roster spelling appears in the file. No statement in this brief is attributed to an individual board member, and the board's composition is taken from the agenda. Applicants, objectors and the Commissioner are named where the recording states a name clearly; those names carry [*] and should be verified against the minutes. Several surnames rendered two different ways within minutes — one business owner as both “Merdola” and “Renola” — and in those cases we have used the role rather than the name.
What we did not quote. The brightness figures for the Bailey Avenue sign are internally contradictory as transcribed and the units are plainly wrong; the rationale for the Vandalia Street fence, the dimensions at 903 Amherst, and the rationale attached to the Tifft Street motion are all too corrupted to reproduce. The Commissioner's statement of his own intended procedural step is reported in substance rather than as a clean quotation, because the key phrase comes through as “agreed party” where he almost certainly said aggrieved party. Where this brief paraphrases rather than quotes, that is why.
On the fence itself. This publication takes no position on whether an electrified perimeter fence is appropriate at a scrap yard. What it records is that the code prohibits charged wire outright, that the board set that prohibition aside without attaching any operating condition, and that it did so immediately after a city commissioner told it that a comparable approval had rested on false information — a claim the board neither examined nor dismissed. The company's description of the system's voltage is the company's, and no independent verification of it was before the board.
Capture. 141.3 minutes, faster-whisper “medium,” 3,314 segments of which 2,891 are distinct, longest identical consecutive run 3, most frequent segment 1.54% (“Aye.”), coverage 93.5%, language confidence p=0.999 — within this pipeline's degeneracy thresholds. The audio is nonetheless of poor intelligibility in long stretches, and the file terminates mid-sentence during the final item's vote. Two applicants appeared for items not on this agenda — 180 Crawley Avenue and 620 East North Street — and were told their matters had moved to 18 November.