Southtowns Record

Planning Board Regular Meeting, Jun 17, 2026 — Minutes

Government
Town of Hamburg
Board
Planning Board
Meeting
Jun 17, 2026
Kind
Minutes
Topics
Zoning and land use, Roads and traffic, Water, sewer and drainage, Parks and recreation, Housing

Original document

Same meeting

Text · page 8 of 11

Town of Hamburg Planning Board Minutes  June 17, 2026

correspondence that has been received has been forwarded to the Planning Board and
added to the public comment folder.

Mr. Rogers reminded the Board that the LWRP Committee reviewed this project and has
provided a positive recommendation.

Mr. Rogers took some time to clear up some questions from the public:

The Board was asked if it was the Lakeview Overlay District into consideration, but this
project is within the Route 5 Overlay District, not the Lakeview Overlay District.

In terms of zoning, this property is R-1 which allows for single family homes or cluster
housing if the Board approves. This means that apartments, commercial development,
retail strip plazas, dispensaries, car washes etc. are not allowed.

There have been questions about stormwater draining in terms of grading. The action
before the Planning Board is taking the overall parcel and deciding whether it has merit
to be split into four (4) buildable lots. At this point in time, it is unknown whether or not
there will be development on the two (2) vacant lots. Should development happen, the
Planning Board does not have approval power over single family homes, so that
developer would deal with the Town Engineer and Code Enforcement.

The Planning Board requested that the State Department of Transportation be
contacted regarding access onto Route 5. Two (2) emails have been sent and there was
no response. The typical DOT policy is that if there is arterial access or secondary
access to their State Highway system, they try to push access onto that secondary
road. In this case, the two (2) lots would have frontage onto Route 5 and do not have
any secondary access. It is unclear what DOT would do, but Mr. Rogers would imagine
that they would have to give access to any type of development.

The Town’s Historic Preservation Commission questioned the historical significance of
the property. The Planning Department did receive a copy of the survey done by
Preservation Studios that was commissioned by the Town of Hamburg. This property is
mentioned in the survey but is suggested that the Town do further research. It does not
have a recommendation that it is a National, State, or locally designated property.

Chris Van Leaven provided a response to the public comments that were heard during
the public hearing:

A letter was presented at the last meeting from Ms. Tavakoli, that was written on August
16, 2012, seeking a horse variance. At the time, she was not considering subdividing
and did not see how to do it, but after 14 years of evaluation and planning, they figured
out a way to do it that would keep much of the property character.

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