zoning

A plan to build apartment complexes on East Main Street drew a full house to Monday's City Council meeting, but the project, aimed at people in vulnerable populations, got mixed reviews from the 23 speakers.

The City Council was being asked to move forward a resolution to rezone the properties at 661, 665 and 679 E. Main St. Most of the location is a former State Police barracks.

The area is currently part of an industrial zone. The council is being asked to consider rezoning it to Commercial, or C2.

This would allow the project from DePaul, known as Batavia Square Apartments, to move forward, but it would not mean the project is approved.

City Attorney George Van Nest reminded council members they were being asked to consider a rezoning proposal, not the actual project that inspires the consideration.

“You really need to center on the question, does this zoning change make sense, notwithstanding some of the considerations that may have been out there or questions about other uses or other studies that are not specifically germane to the question of zoning itself," Van Nest said. "The petition is for rezoning that is at the behest of the City Council legislatively.”

There was a public hearing on the rezoning issue, but comments during to hearing had to be just about the rezoning issue. Since many of the 23 speakers at the meeting wanted to talk about more than just zoning, they took to the podium during the public comments section of the council meeting.

About half of the speakers favored the project, and of those, about half worked, have worked for DePaul or were families that have benefitted from DePaul's services.

Opposition came from people concerned about adding more rental apartment units to the city and how that would impact the current population and private-property landlords. They also raised the issue the amount of taxes DePaul would be paying while the new apartments would lead to the use of city services, such as police and fire.

The council voted by a narrow 5-4 margin to move the resolution for the zoning change to its next business meeting.

"If it's to be believed that 50 percent of the residences in the City of Batavia are rentals, then the question is, why do we need more rentals?" Chuck Ruffino said.

He referenced a study being done on the county's housing stock, designed to help planners understand local housing needs. Ruffino said the council shouldn't move forward without more information.

"We really don’t have good information on which to make this decision, because once you make that decision, the agenda is set," he said. "You can’t take it away. It’s done. Thirty years, tax exempt."

Russ Romano raised concerns about the number of rentals already in the community, the need for the housing study to be completed, and the seeming shortage of housing for people in the workforce. He also questioned the wisdom of changing the zoning.

"I question the fact that you can make this change in zoning when it goes against the current zoning law of being zoned industrial," Romano said. "I think it's dangerous and in your comprehensive plan it has not changed."

John Gerace said he doesn't believe anybody in the community is against housing for people on disability or against veterans or seniors, but he did question the need for it now, especially housing that is tax-break subsidized.

He calculated that at $25 million for construction, each of the 80 units would be worth more than $300,000.

"I would like to live in a $325,000 apartment," Gerace said.

Since subsidized rents are available to many potential tenants, Gerace said he's concerned that current landlords will lose out.

"It will be a drain on the local economy, on local landlords who bought property and have been paying property taxes right along and have vacancies right now," Gerace said.

George Galliford said it would be unfair to local landlords to allow this project to move forward.

“It seems to me that it’s very unfair competition for landlords who have been conscientious, paid their taxes, done what they needed to do and are never ever given any kind of favor," Galliford said. "Thirty years is a long time. Those payments in lieu of taxes are to me are a joke. They should be much, much more than what they are. It’s unfair competition."

John Roach said he thought it was premature for the City to move forward with project approval. 

He said the current vacancy rate in the city is 7 percent and that 5 percent is considered ideal. He said the county is projected to lose 9 percent of its population in coming years.

Adding more apartment units will just put more financial pressure on existing landlords, he suggested, and if those properties move off the tax roles, "it will just put more pressure on the rest of us."

The DePaul project also had its defenders.

Stacy Falkowski (top photo), a Batavia resident, said life is getting harder for her elderly parents, especially now that her father has Parkinson's disease. She described the difficulties she and her mother have caring for her father in her parent's current commercial apartment.

She said her father has fallen more than once in the bathroom and they're lucky he hasn't been seriously hurt; no broken bones, but there has been blood to clean up.

“It’s pretty tough to deal with every single day of the month,” she said.

The planned DePaul housing complex, with its amenities for the elderly, the disabled and other vulnerable adults, along with greater social opportunities, would be great for her parents.

Most of the people who would move there, she said, are already local residents and to counter the argument against the lower taxes paid by DePaul, she said our local older residents had earned this sort of amenity.

"These people are paying taxes, and they’ve lived in the City ofBataviaa for many years and paid a lot of taxes, school taxes, property taxes," Falkowski said.

Colleen Gillam, from Waterport, said her 25-year-old son currently lives in a DePaul apartment in Batavia and for the first time in his life, he's living on his own and doing very well. She said for people like her son, the kind of housing DePaul provides is hard to come by.

"I think with this coming into your community it will only benefit you and the families who live here and in the surrounding areas," she said.

Chris Syracuse, a longtime employee of DePaul said when DePaul comes into a community, they do so humbly and with an eye toward building a beautiful facility that the community will be proud to see.

"Never in 27 years have I ever had somebody say to me, ‘I regret DePaul coming into my community,' " Syracuse said.

After the council discussion and before the vote, City Manager Jason Molino addressed some of the issues raised during the meeting.

He said the area had been zoned industrial for 50 years. Before that, it was considered a business district, which is similar to today's commercial zone. Over the past half century, there has been no industrial activity in the area. The train tracks that would have supported industrial activity, and supported the Trojan tractor factory in the area, were removed in the 1960s or 1970s. Over the past 50 years it's been mixed commercial and residential with some light manufacturing.  

During that period, industrial growth in the city has taken place around Graham, Treadeasy, and O-AT-KA, and future industrial growth is more likely to take place in the greenfield developments outside of the city. The East Main Street area of the city isn't likely to attract any industrial development.

"It hasn’t happened in the past 50 years, and it’s not likely to occur in that specific area," he said.

Mark Fuller, project developer.

UPDATE 8:05 p.m.: This story has been corrected to include the right address of the property to be leased from landowner Sam Scarborough, and to reflect the proper per-foot incentive price for the proposed met tower.

A Houston-based energy company would like to figure out if there's enough wind blowing through Alabama to justify building windmills around farmland, so the company is proposing erecting a temporary, 311-foot meteorological tower.

While the town has zoning code that covers wind towers and communications towers, there's no code covering meteorological, or "met," towers.

The ambiguity has delayed a decision by the town board on whether to grant a variance, through what is known as an Incentive Zoning Application, for the tower.  

An incentive application involves the company paying an annual fee for the ability to vary from the zoning law.

In this case, EDP Renewables North America, operating as Alabama Ledge Wind Farm, LLC, already agreed to pay a $5-per-foot incentive to construct a tower that exceeds the allowable height.

Over five years, that payment comes to about $18,000.

Town officials think the tower, which will be on land leased from a local farmer, Sam Scarborough, on Gorton Road, should be at least 1,000 feet from Gorton Road.

The current proposed location is 668 feet from Gorton Road.

Using a calculation pulled from the communication tower provisions of the law for setback (the distance from the road), the town is proposing an additional incentive fee of $20 per foot.

That would drive up the five-year cost of incentives to nearly $50,000.

Jim Muscato, attorney for EDP, thinks that fee is unreasonable and excessive.

"The purpose of incentives on a project is to look at what incentives are necessary to allow the project to go forward and come up with a reasonable accommodation for the impacts associated with the project," Muscato said. "What we're talking about here is a met tower where the associated impacts are fairly modest."

While Muscato believes the 1,000-foot setback, as opposed to a setback that doubles the height of the tower, or 622 feet, is excessive, he said his company is willing to go along with that setback definition if the incentive fee is reasonable. He would like the board to propose a reasonable incentive fee.

Town Board Member Kevin Fisher suggested that $20 might be reasonable, but he doesn't have an enough information to know at this point. He doesn't know what the market price might be, and he doesn't know how much of an impact the tower might have on town residents. He hasn't heard from constituents enough to know.

"I don’t think it’s fair to us to say, 'You guys should accept it because you don't have met tower regulations or zoning laws,' " Fisher said. "We didn’t have any reason for any of this stuff until you walked in the door."

Ronald Gilbert, planning board chairman, was in the audience and he reminded the board that some years ago, EDP, operating then as Horizon Energy, proposed a wind farm in Alabama, which is how the current zoning code came to be written, and it was Horizon officials who said then no zoning code covering met towers was necessary because a met tower wouldn't be part of the wind farm.

Town Attorney Mark Boylan said the conversation made him a little uncomfortable because the town is looking at establishing a requirement for incentives based on two sections of zoning code that do not deal directly with met towers. That introduces an element of an arbitrary decision.

When he hears the other attorney, he said, using words such as arbitrary and reasonable and unreasonable and he's offering a compromise, then, Boylan, said he's concerned about the potential for litigation if the applicant finds the board's decision unacceptable.

Muscato said he doesn't mean to imply his client is contemplating litigation, but then added, "I think what a court is going to assess is that a $50,000 payment over five years of a permit is either not calculable or reasonable or whether it is considered arbitrary. Even if we can't get past the thousand feet or two times the height, we're willing to talk about a more reasonable calculation that would be reasonable for what an incentive payment for a setback would be."

The town board tabled the zoning incentive application so more research can be done and they can put more thought into the request. It will be taken up again at the January meeting.

Only two residents turned out for the public hearing portion of the meeting, David Bencic and Randy Chalmers.

Bencic delivered a page-and-a-half statement that raised questions and concerns about any future wind farm in the area. Many of his questions were answered in the course of his presentation.

Chalmers' statement was much shorter.

"I'm really kind of against them (wind turbines), if you want to know my opinion," Chalmers said. "That's all I've got to say."

Any city residents who are concerned about rooming houses opening in their neighborhoods need not worry much longer.

The city is working on a change to the zoning law that would prohibit new rooming houses, boarding houses, lodging houses, tourist homes and tourist camps inside of R-2 districts.

The change would also prohibit future development of such facilities in C-1, C-2 and C-3 districts. 

There are currently 10 rooming houses in the city with a total of 80 available rooms.

"At this point, we think we're saturated with an adequate amount of rooming houses and boarding houses in the city and this provides the ability to limit expansion," said City Manager Jason Molino. "The existing ones will continue to stay in place. They will continue to be regulated and reviewed and permitted every year, as they should be, but this will limit the expansion."

Molino presented the proposed change to the zoning ordinance to the Genesee County Planning Board, just one step in the process of making the change in the zoning law. The board unanimously recommended approval of the proposal.

The current codes governing rooming and boarding houses and multiple-family dwellings in the city are inconsistent with the city's master plan and strategic plan, Molino told the board.

Numerous studies, he said, have shown that rooming houses, in particular, and multi-family dwellings, intermingled in otherwise single-family neighborhoods, bring down property values and encourage the deterioration of whole blocks.

Such uses are also inconsistent with economic development in commercial districts.

This is an issue the city has been looking at for some time, Molino said, but officials became more aware of the need to tighten up the code after local property owner and investor Terry Platt purchased a large home on East Main Street and announced plans to convert it into a rooming house. The city's planning board denied Platt his application for the use, responding to concerns raised by neighbors and other residents; however, Platt challenged the ruling court and eventually prevailed and was able to convert the property into a rooming house.

"That certainly opened everybody's eyes to the potential of where these rooming houses could be located," Molino said. "It has a lot of impact that people perceive as being negative if rooming houses open in certain areas, so that certainly opened our eyes to the inconsistencies in the code."

The proposed zoning change could be perceived as inconsistent with a couple of emerging trends in American society.

First, is the seeming interest of Millennials to avoid home ownership and find suitable places to rent in cities. The second is a trend among some homeowners to use services such as Airbnb to rent rooms to travelers.

On the first point, Molino said he doesn't think Millennials are looking for the kind of rentals this zoning change would curtail.

"They're looking for a little more secure housing, generally, furnished housing, not shared common bathrooms, in areas that are close to amenities and part of a development," Molino said. "There's a disparity in the housing qualities when you start talking about Millennials and the population of empty-nesters who are looking to downsize. They're generally not looking to downsize into rooming houses."

While services such as Airbnb are growing in popularity -- there are even two houses available for guest lodging in Genesee County -- it hasn't been an issue in the city yet, Molino said. The proposed zoning change isn't really meant to address such services, but if it ever became an issue here, Batavia, like any city, would need to study the issue and find the most balanced solution available.

"You've got to look at what comes with it," Molino said. "Are there negative effects? Are there positive effects? Is it similar to a bed and breakfast or not? What comes with that activity? I think what most communities will start dealing with is, what are the positive and negative effects that come with the activity and do they balance each other house, and if not, what revisions of code or enforcement mechanisms do they want to put in place to balance it out."

The proposed zoning change will need to be go through a public hearing and be approved by City Council before becoming law.

The failure to publish a public notice prior to a September 2013 Le Roy Zoning Board of Appeals meeting on whether Frost Ridge Campground was in violation of zoning laws deprived neighbors of an opportunity to meaningfully participate in the board's decision, Judge Robert C. Noonan wrote in a ruling issued Friday.

The ruling was in response to a motion by the defendants, Greg and David Luetticke-Archbell, to have a lawsuit thrown out that challenges their ability to host live music concerts at the campground.

"The ZEO (Zoning Enforcement Officer)/ZBA's lack of compliance with the notice requirements was so grievous that no statute of limitations bars this action," Noonan wrote in the decision.

Noonan's ruling means that the lawsuits against Frost Ridge will proceed to trial.

The Luetticke-Archbells are fighting two lawsuits over live music at their natural amphitheater, and allegations that the campground was expanded in violation of zoning codes.

One lawsuit was filed by David and Marney Cleere and Scott and Betsy Collins, the other by the Town of Le Roy.

To date, the case has been a series of motions and hearings, but it appears that Noonan's ruling on this motion clears the way for trial.

Marney Cleere, one of the co-plaintiffs in the pair of lawsuits filed against Frost Ridge over alleged zoning violations and live music at the venue, spent a lot of time on the witness stand today.

Cleere was called to testify in a hearing aimed at establishing when the statute of limitations' clock started ticking on a Le Roy Zoning of Board of Appeals determination that all activities at Frost Ridge are "grandfathered in," and whether that ZBA determination was made properly.

David Roach, the attorney Frost Ridge, and the campground's owners, Greg and David Luetticke-Archbell, called Cleere to try and establish what the Oatka Trails Road resident knew about the Sept. 25 ZBA decision and the day she knew it.

If she knew about it before April 8, it could mean there is evidence to establish that her and her co-plaintiffs did not file their complaint in a timely fashion. Depending on how Noonan interprets the law and case law, that could mean at least a portion of their suit against Frost Ridge could be thrown out of court.

Cleere testified today that she received a copy of the minutes from the Sept. 25, 2013 ZBA meeting on March 26, 2014.

Getting that admission from Cleere took dozens and dozens of questions from Roach and attorney Karl Essler, representing the ZBA, which is a co-defendant in the Cleere/Collins lawsuit.

Frost Ridge is also being sued by the Town of Le Roy.

Roach started his questioning by establishing that Cleere had an e-mail address with a username and password that only she could access.

He then showed her an e-mail from Patty Canfield, the Le Roy town clerk, to her e-mail address.  

Cleere never admitted to having previously seen the e-mail, but said she couldn't say that her e-mail account was hacked or that the e-mail could be fraudulent.

Once, when asked by Roach if the e-mail was sent to her, she responded: "It has my e-mail address on it, yes."

The e-mail is from early October.

It appears to have had three attachments (not included with the printed e-mail used as evidence). Those attachments were supposedly the ZBA minutes from June 11, July 23 and Aug. 27.

Roach quoted Canfield as writing, "I believe they will approve Sept. 25. minutes at next meeting."

Asked if the e-mail from Canfield was in response from Cleere for a copy of the Sept. 25 meeting minutes, Cleere said she would have to review her e-mails to answer the question.

She had no recollection of requesting those specific minutes from the town.

Later in her testimony, Cleere said she didn't request them until March because she didn't know that the minutes existed nor that Frost Ridge was discussed at the Sept. 25 ZBA meeting. Her request was prompted by communications with attorneys from both sides of the dispute, according to her testimony.

Asked several times in different ways if she took any action between October and March to obtain a copy of the Sept. 25 meeting minutes, Cleere responded, "I didn't know of that meeting, so what would have caused me to request those minutes?"

She obtained the copy of the Sept. 25 minutes from Code Enforcement Officer Jeff Steinbrenner, who, according to testimony by himself and other prior witnesses, kept all the minutes in a file in his office.

Cleere also testified -- while being questioned by her attorney Mindy Zoghlin -- that she became angry when she learned about the Sept. 25 meeting in March.

"Obviously, we were furious that we weren't made aware of this meeting," Cleere said. "We didn't understand why we weren't made aware of this, why it took six months."

Cleere said the package of material she received from Steinbrenner contained no application from Frost Ridge, no supporting documents and no notice of public hearing.

Part of what Zoghlin is trying to establish is that the ZBA's determination lacked jurisdictional validity. 

If she can show that the ZBA acted outside the scope of the law, the Sept. 25 determination would be meaningless and, potentially, the statute of limitations question becomes moot.

Zoghlin spent a lot of time today questioning David Luetticke-Archbell about his interpretation of communications from the town, what they meant, what he understood and what he believed, all in an effort to draw a distinction between the campsite zoning issues at Frost Ridge and the issue of live music.

Zoghlin argued that the zoning issues and the music issue are completely separate issues. The zoning issues, according to her, require a zoning variance, while the live music issue requires an area variance, a use variance or a special-use permit.  

If the ZBA wasn't considering live music at its Sept. 25 meeting (and Board Chair Debbie Jackett testified clearly that it did), then the ZBA determination is reduced to only a consideration of campsite placement and use.

As Zoghlin repeatedly asked questions to try and get Luetticke-Archbell to discuss these topics as separate issues, often with objections from Roach, the parade of objections eventually flared up, resulting in both attorneys making lengthy arguments to Noonan about why, or why not, the line of questioning was relevant.

"We can't just pull out of thin air the separation of the two issues because the record already states they're one issue," Roach said.

"The record" being a reference to a couple of documents already in evidence, including a letter from Steinbrenner to Frost Ridge that treats live music as just one in many alleged zoning violations.

"The communication that triggered the ZBA hearing didn't come directly from code enforcement (a reference to a supposed copy-and-paste by Steinbrenner of a message from Town Supervisor Steve Barbeau)," Zoghlin said. "That communication, while inartfully drawn, had the effect of mixing up and confusing two issues. ... 

"When we get to the jurisdictional issue," Zoghlin continued a statement or two later, "NYS town law and Town of Le Roy zoning code requires an application so we can avoid this kind of problem, so when the ZBA considers something, they have some type of idea exactly what they are being asked to rule on.

"There's no application here," she said. "To say the documents speak for themselves doesn't really help. To compound the problem, nothing was published anywhere so that anybody in town had any inkling the ZBA might consider a determination. The entire procedure is flawed from beginning to end so that it doesn't determine anything. I don't understand the thought process that says they're not asking for two things that are totally different in a way that makes any sense."

Noonan overruled Roach's objection, but also expressed skepticism about Zoghlin's line of questioning. 

"Maybe I'm missing something," Noonan said. "I realize zoning is a highly technical issue conducted by lay people who sometimes make mistakes in the process, but I don't see how going through the thought process of people gives us any enlightenment that will help me to decide this case when the case is based on documents."

With the hearing completed today, now we wait.

The attorneys will draft memos of facts and case law for Noonan to consider prior to issuing his ruling. Those documents are due Sept. 29. Noonan didn't indicate how long it would be after that before he issues a ruling on these motions.

Without a complete dismissal of the case, there will be more court appearances before the lawsuits are decided.

In the meantime, the Marshall Tucker Band is scheduled to play The Ridge on Sept. 6.

Noonan continued his order lifting the ban on live music at Frost Ridge, which allows the Sept. 6 concert to go forward as planned.

Two shows that were previously postponed because of the restraining order. John Michael Montgomery and Jason Michael Carroll have been rescheduled to dates near the end of October. The fate of those shows may depend on the status of the legal case at that time.

Local landlord Terry Platt has brought an Article 78 action against the City of Batavia over a planning committee's denial of his application to open a rooming home on East Main Street, and the Erie County judge presiding over the case indicated in court today he leans in favor of Platt's side of the case.

When Larry O'Connor, representing the city's insurance company, told Judge John Curran that he thought the case was straightforward, Curran responded, "I think it is straightforward and you're running up hill."

O'Connor said he got that feeling after listening to Curran pepper Platt's attorney, Michael Perley, with questions about how the case should be decided.

Platt sought approval from the city in May for a rooming house at 316 E. Main St. and several neighbors came to a meeting of the Batavia Planning and Development Committee and objected to the plan.

The committee voted to deny Platt the necessary approval for the project.

In the Article 78 action, Platt's attorney argues that the proposed use is both allowed by existing zoning, fits the mixed use nature of the neighborhood and could not be denied on any legal basis.

O'Connor said the committee had the authority to deny the application based on the city's Comprehensive Master Plan.

That, however, raises what Perley characterized as a "fatal defect" in the city's case -- there's no proof on the record that the city ever formally approved its master plan.

O'Connor did not provide proof of plan approval prior to arguments in the case and Curran said the record is now closed. O'Connor said, however, he could provide proof of an approval. (Outside of court, O'Connor said Curran could "take judicial notice" of the approval, even if it's not part of the record).

Perley said the city couldn't produce a copy of the master plan when Platt issued a FOIL request for the document earlier this year.

A copy was found and it is now part of the case.

City Manager Jason Molino confirmed later in the day that the City Council did ratify the master plan Feb. 25, 1997. Molino could not comment further on the case.

According to the discussion in the Erie County courtroom of Curran today, Curran must weight the role of the master plan in the committee's decision, whether the master plan gives the committee the authority to reject Platt's application, and whether he should take the extreme step of overturning the decision of a group of community volunteers over a zoning issue.

Curran spent a lot of time asking the attorneys questions about how they propose he decide the case.

"The property is properly zoned?" Curran asked.

"Correct," said Perley.

"There's no defect in the application?"

"Correct."

"There's no request for a variance?"

"There's no need for a variance."

"There's no request for a change in zoning?"

"No."

"There's is no need for a special-use permit?"

"No."

"Both you and Mr. O'Connor have experience in municipal law," Curran said. "You and I both know a lot of municipal law. If I run a (report) for special-use permit legal cases to come up with standards or if I run it for variances to come up with a standard, we know what I'll find. What do I run for this one?"

"The standard you apply is whether or not this decision was arbitrary and capricious," Perley said. "How does the committee deny an application that is proper for the property before it without misapplying the zoning law?"

O'Connor argued that the denial was consistent with the master plan, and Curran honed in on the section that says the permitted uses of buildings on that section of East Main Street (zoned C1, which is mixed use) includes professional offices, small restaurants and other small businesses, but says nothing about single-family residences, so how can the city argue that it wants to preserve the historic nature of the single-family residences?

The master plan as a whole is about preserving and enhancing current single-family residences, O'Connor told Curran.

"This is an area of single-family homes along with limited commercial use," O'Connor said. "The city wants to preserve the integrity and character of that area."

Then Curran laid out his underlying frustration: Neither attorney had filed a memorandum of law.

Such memorandums are often filed by attorneys to provide a judge with their views of how the law and prior legal precedents apply to a particular case.

Perley said he wrote such a memorandum and was surprised it hadn't been filed with the case. Since O'Connor hadn't received such a memo, he hadn't written a response.

Curran agreed to give both attorneys time to file such memos and continued the case to Jan. 30.

The options before Curran include: upholding the committee's decision; overturning the decision and permitting Platt to open the rooming house; or overturning the committee's ruling but ordering the committee to reconsider its decision.

A special-use permit for a new RV, boat and auto storage facility in Elba were among several items approved last night by the Genesee County Planning Board.

The 37,000-square-foot facility will, be located on Drake Street Road at the former location of Drake Street Motors. The lot is adjacent business owner's home.

If final approval is granted by Elba's planning commission, the facility will be required to only store operational vehicles -- no parts or junk.

Other business included:

• A resident at 8846 Kenney Road in Le Roy is seeking permission to kennel up to seven rescued dogs on that property. If approved by the Le Roy Planning Commission, the owner will not be allowed to operate a commercial kennel without seeking a new special-use permit. Some board members expressed concern about barking dogs, but Jim Duval, director of planning, said that issue is really the responsibility of the local planning board. "In her application, she assures everybody they're quiet dogs," Duval said.
• A site plan review for Jeffries Ag Services, 6905 Ellicott Street Road, Pavilion, for construction of a new loading area, conversion of a former tank area to dry fertilizer storage and conversion of the front storage area into office space. On the recommendation of Mel Wentland, board president, the board added a provision that the DEC be contacted to review the dike capacity and ensure it is sufficient to protect Oatka Creek from any spills.
• A sign-variance approval for Coffee Culture, going in at 6 Court St., for signs on the three public-facing sides of the building.
• Both Bergen and Stafford are proposing changes to their zoning laws.

West Bergen Road has grown into a street of nice homes with well manicured yards for the most part. It's a quint and quiet rural setting.

A trucking facility just doesn't fit the picture, but there's been a truck yard at 8560 W. Bergen Road since at least the 1960s, according to Gene Sinclair, code enforcement officer for the Town of Le Roy.

Sinclair has gotten plenty of complaints about the trucks (The Batavian received a complaint, as well, which is why I went out there today), many of which are refrigeration trucks that are left running day and night.

There isn't much Sinclair can do about it, though, the land was used for its present business long before more recent zoning laws would have kept the operation out of the neighborhood.

There have been unlicensed trucks stored at the property, according to Sinclair, and he can get those removed, but any licensed truck operation is "grandfathered in," Sinclair said.

The business is owned by George Heins. I haven't been able to reach Mr. Heins. Sinclair said George's father owned the land before him.