Williamsville Historic Preservation Commission·May 27, 2026
A Contested Landmark Advances · Demo Watch on Stanton · A Cooler on Main · The Flume Line
After months of process and a public hearing that closed in April, the Historic Preservation Commission voted unanimously Tuesday night to recommend that the Village Board nominate 13 South Cayuga Road as a local historic landmark — a designation the property's owners, through their attorneys, have formally opposed. The recommendation, citing the property's special character and the distinguishing characteristics of its style and period under village Code Chapter 47, now travels to the Board of Trustees, which alone holds the power to landmark. Elsewhere on a full agenda: a demolition referral for a vacant house at 61 Stanton Street was held a month while the village digs into its permit history; a Main Street landmark won quick approval for a new cooler, on the condition it match the building's brick; and a proposed backyard fence along the historic mill flume at the edge of Glen Park was tabled when the survey showed the fence line cutting straight across the 19th-century wooden raceway.
The night's defining vote was months in the making. The property at 13 South Cayuga Road — a street the village knows well enough to have commissioned its own Intensive Level Survey of South Cayuga Road historic assets — has been before the commission across multiple meetings, with a public hearing that closed on April 28. On Tuesday, with new correspondence from the owners' attorneys arriving the same day and entered into the record, the commission moved.
The motion was precise. Citing the criteria of village Code Chapter 47, the commission found the property “exemplifies or possesses special character or historical aesthetic interest or value” as part of the village's development, and “embodies the distinguishing characteristics of its style, period, or method of design” — criteria (i) and (iii) of the landmark standard — and voted to recommend that the Village Board nominate the property, identified as SBL 80.08-3-12, as a local historic landmark pursuant to Code sections 47-9 and 47-12. The vote was unanimous, with no negatives recorded.
The owners' side has not been silent, and the commission took care to keep its record straight. In corrections to the April 28 minutes adopted at the end of Tuesday's session, members specified that the owners' attorneys presented — not “argued” — their position that the application does not meet the landmark criteria, along with points on procedural standards, and that Vice Chairperson Catherine Waterman-Kulpa read a prepared statement into the record rather than addressing generalized “fairness and objectivity” concerns, as an earlier draft had put it.
What happens next is the part residents should watch: the commission recommends, but the Board of Trustees decides. The full package must reach the Village Board within ten days. Members noted the board would meet June 8 and anticipated a public hearing — likely in July, around the board's reorganization meeting — before any vote to designate.
Every demolition permit in the village makes a stop at the Historic Preservation Commission, and Tuesday it was 61 Stanton Street's turn. The applicant, Jason Schnell[*], lives across the street at 66 Stanton and told the commission he has looked at the vacant house for the eight years he's lived there. The property cycled through auctions — a prior buyer died before doing anything with it — and Schnell bought it at auction hoping to rehabilitate it, only to find the roughly 760-square-foot interior gutted and, in his telling, filled with “an unbelievable amount of garbage.”
The history is murkier than the tax rolls suggest. The foundation dates to 1927, but Schnell believes the structure above it was rebuilt around 1946–47 — he found newspapers from that era beneath the floorboards — which raises the question of what, exactly, is historic about what stands there now. Commissioners wanted the village's own records consulted: building-permit files and the assessor's history for the parcel. Under the referral mechanism, the commission's options are narrow — begin a landmark nomination or let the review window run — and members recalled a prior case on Eagle Street that tabled through multiple meetings without a nomination ever advancing. With the applicant's consent, the item was held one month; Schnell, who hopes to clear the lot and get the parcel to market, agreed to return. “If you give us another month, we will see you,” the chair told him — at the commission's next meeting, June 23.
The evening's easiest approval went to 5409 Main Street, one of the Main Street properties designated a local landmark in the village's 2014 round. The application — a new cooler unit behind the building — came with a survey, two renderings, and equipment specifications, and the commission approved the certificate of appropriateness as submitted on May 7, 2026, with one condition drawn from the applicant's own testimony: the cooler's color will match the building's brick.
The discussion around it was the interesting part. The property runs eleven garbage totes — nine plus two oversized ones its hauler supplied — on a lot too tight for an enclosed dumpster, and the neighboring property's dumpster sits unenclosed on a ledge four feet above the applicant's rear lot line. Village code requires an enclosure for any establishment with more than two totes, and one commissioner conceded the rule “probably has not been enforced consistently.” The commission kept its action to the cooler and referred the garbage geography — both the tote count and the neighbor's open dumpster — to village staff for follow-up.
The night's most delicate tabling involved a proposed fence at a property along the historic mill raceway at the edge of Glen Park — infrastructure that, as one member put it, “brought water down… a pretty important part of the mill.” The survey in the commission's packet shows a three-foot-wide wooden flume sitting on the property line itself, with zero clearance to the boundary — and the owner's marked-up fence line cuts directly across the historic wood.
Pink flags on the ground mark the intended post locations, and that is precisely what worried the commission: fence posts mean concrete foundations, and concrete foundations driven along — or through — the flume could undermine a structure that has survived since the village's milling era. Add two more complications — mature trees that the survey places on Glen Park's side of the line, and the safety logic of fencing children away from the open spillway — and the commission concluded it was, in one member's words, “guessing.” The application was tabled for hard information: what the already-issued permits actually authorize, and what the post foundations will be.
The meeting closed with a piece of village history in motion. A commission member announced a project to restore the little bridge between the two duck ponds in Glen Park — described as the last surviving vestige of the Altman era, when the Glen operated as a private amusement ground and everything else from that period was cleared away. The bridge has known masonry problems, and the two top rails are to be replaced; fundraising begins soon, with an estimate being sought from a contractor for the restoration cost.
The first fundraiser has a date: at the village's Arbor Day and birthday festivities on June 6 at Island Park, the member will sell her local-history book at cost, with the $15 price going directly to the bridge fund. And there will be a living link to the era on hand — Ron Urban, son of Clyde Urban, who superintended the Glen for thirty years and raised his family in a house on the park grounds, is traveling in from Kingston, N.Y. for the occasion. “If anybody wants to ask any questions from that era,” the member told colleagues, “I encourage you to come and see Ron.”
Two housekeeping notes bracketed the night. An item concerning the Meeting House was tabled again to a future agenda without discussion. And the minutes of the April 28 meeting — the session at which the South Cayuga landmark public hearing closed — were approved only after detailed corrections: the owners' attorneys' positions restyled as statements presented rather than arguments made, the landmark criteria renumbered to match the code's lowercase roman numerals, and Vice Chairperson Waterman-Kulpa's contribution recorded as a written statement read into the record. For a proceeding that may end up scrutinized closely if the landmark fight continues, the commission was visibly careful about what the paper says.
Seven members answered the roll: Chairperson Susan Fenster, Vice Chairperson Catherine Waterman-Kulpa, and members Anthony Bannon, Kathleen DeLaney, Patrice Hannotte, Raymond Herman, and Patricia Walker. The commission votes by voice; motions carried unanimously as recorded, with no negatives noted.
Corrections specified that the local-landmark designation application dated 3/17/26 be cited into the record; criteria renumbered to the code's lowercase roman numerals; the owners' attorneys' positions recorded as presented statements rather than arguments; and Vice Chairperson Waterman-Kulpa's remarks recorded as a written statement read into the record.
Vacant ~760 sq ft house; 1927 foundation with the structure above believed rebuilt ca. 1946–47. Applicant Jason Schnell[*] (66 Stanton) consented to the extension and returns at the June 23 meeting. Under the referral mechanism the commission may open a landmark nomination or allow the review window to run.
Approval covers the application as submitted — survey, two renderings, and cooler specifications — with the condition, per the applicant's statement, that the cooler's color match the brick of the building. The property is a 2014-designated Main Street landmark. The garbage-tote and neighboring-dumpster questions raised in discussion were referred to village staff, not acted on.
The motion cited landmark criteria (i) — special character or historical/aesthetic interest or value as part of the village's development — and (iii) — distinguishing characteristics of style, period, or method of design. Same-day correspondence from the owners' attorneys was acknowledged on the record as part of the commission's consideration before the vote. The recommendation package is due to the Village Board within ten days; trustees were expected to take it up beginning with their June 8 meeting, with a public hearing anticipated over the summer. The commission recommends; the Board of Trustees decides.
Tabled at the chair's request without substantive discussion.
The survey shows a three-foot-wide wooden flume of the historic mill raceway sitting on the property line, and the proposed fence line crossing it; pink flags mark intended post locations. The commission requested documentation of what issued permits authorize and how the fence posts will be founded, citing risk to the flume, trees on Glen Park's side of the line, and the open spillway.
The commission adjourned following announcements, with one member having departed before the final minutes vote.