RESIDENT PETITION OPPOSING REZONING

“Marchner Estates” Concept Development

1210 Fairport Nine Mile Point Road, Town of Penfield, NY — Tax Parcel at the NE corner of NYS Route 250 and Marchner Road

To the Town of Penfield Town Board, Planning Board, and Town Supervisor:

We, the undersigned residents and property owners of the Town of Penfield, write in firm opposition to any rezoning of 1210 Fairport Nine Mile Point Road out of its current Rural Agricultural (RA-2) designation. Many of us have lived in this neighborhood for decades, and several families along this road go back multiple generations. We are not asking the Town to extract concessions from this applicant. We are asking the Town Board to exercise the legal discretion it holds, and decline to advance this rezoning at all.

This is not a request that can be satisfied by a public meeting, a revised site plan, or a traffic mitigation package. Our position is that this parcel should remain in active agricultural use under its current zoning, consistent with the purpose for which that zoning district was created. The legal and factual grounds below are offered to support that position, not as a checklist for the applicant to work through.

The applicant has presented a concept plan for the 57-acre parcel at 1210 Fairport Nine Mile Point Road, of which approximately 53 acres would be developed. The site is currently zoned RA-2 (Rural Agricultural, two-acre minimum lot size). The applicant is requesting a rezoning — likely to a Planned Development (PD) or via an incentive zoning request — to permit approximately 204 residential units: 177 four-rent townhouse units in three- and four-unit buildings, plus a number of for-sale single-family homes on lots as small as 65 feet by 120 feet (under 8,000 square feet). This represents a density of nearly 5 units per acre, a substantial increase over the 1 unit per 2 acres currently permitted.

A. No Neighborhood Engagement to Date

At the May 20 work session, the applicant confirmed under direct questioning from the Town Board that no neighbors had been contacted prior to presenting this concept. Residents along Fairport Nine Mile Point Road and Marchner Road learned of a 204-unit development at their doorstep only after the fact. We ask the Board to require a genuine public information meeting, hosted by the applicant, before any formal application is accepted for review.

B. Inadequate Road Infrastructure

The concept plan shows new access points onto both Marchner Road and Fairport Nine Mile Point Road (NYS Route 250), a state highway. Marchner Road is a narrow, rural two-lane road never designed to carry the traffic volume this density would generate. At the work session, the Town Engineer confirmed that:

•       No traffic study has been conducted for this site or for Marchner Road's capacity.

•       At least one culvert on Marchner Road, just east of the property, has already been flagged for upgrade.

•       There is no traffic signal at the Marchner Road/Route 250 intersection today, and any new access will require NYSDOT and Monroe County review given existing safety concerns on Route 250.

The 2008 Route 250 Corridor Study (prepared for the Town of Penfield and other municipalities) documents that several intersections along this corridor already operate at Level of Service D or worse during peak hours. Adding 204 units of new traffic onto an already-strained, two-lane rural corridor without a current, site-specific traffic study is not responsible planning.

C. Loss of Prime Agricultural Soils and Open Space

This parcel is currently active farmland within the RA-2 Rural Agricultural district, a zoning classification the Town adopted specifically to preserve the rural and agricultural character of this part of Penfield and to discourage the kind of tract-style subdivision being proposed here. A USDA NRCS Web Soil Survey report run for the parcel (Monroe County, NY, Area of Interest covering the 52.3-acre developable area) confirms this is not marginal land:

 | Soil Unit | Name | Acres (% of AOI) | USDA Classification
| HlA | Hilton loam, 0–3% slopes | 12.9 (24.6%) | Prime farmland
| HlB | Hilton loam, 3–8% slopes | 4.8 (9.2%) | Prime farmland
| BrA | Brockport silty clay loam, 0–2% | 16.3 (31.2%) | Prime farmland if drained
| Mf | Massena fine sandy loam | 14.9 (28.4%) | Prime farmland if drained
| Rb | Rhinebeck silt loam | 1.0 (1.8%) | Prime farmland if drained
| RgB | Riga silt loam, 2–8% slopes | 1.2 (2.2%) | Farmland of statewide importance
| Ca | Canandaigua silt loam | 1.3 (2.5%) | Not prime (poorly drained)

In short, roughly 94% of this parcel’s soils — nearly 49 of its 52.3 developable acres — are classified by USDA as prime farmland or prime farmland if drained. This is precisely the soil resource the Town's RA-2 district and its 1999 Open Space Plan were designed to protect. We ask the Board to weigh that established policy goal seriously against any density bonus the applicant may request through incentive zoning.

D. Stormwater, Drainage, and Watershed Impacts

The concept plan shows three separate stormwater management facilities (retention ponds), reflecting the scale of impervious surface this development would introduce. A stream or watercourse runs through the property between the proposed single-family and townhouse areas, and a wetland/floodplain area exists on the adjacent parcel to the east. This site lies within the Four Mile Creek watershed. According to Monroe County's own Department of Environmental Services stormwater documentation, Four Mile Creek originates in north-central Penfield, flows north through the Four Mile Creek Preserve in Webster, and empties directly into Lake Ontario near the intersection of Lake Road and Webster Road. The watershed covers approximately 12,000 acres across Monroe and Wayne Counties. The impact of this development is therefore not limited to the parcel itself or its immediate neighbors: increased impervious surface, altered runoff patterns, and the loss of farmland that currently absorbs and filters precipitation have a cumulative effect on water quality and volume entering Four Mile Creek and, through it, Lake Ontario. We ask that any environmental review evaluate this project's impact at the watershed scale, consistent with Monroe County's own stormwater planning for this creek, and that the applicant's own acknowledgment that wetland delineation has not yet been completed be treated as a reason for caution, not a formality to be completed later in the process.

E. Density and Neighborhood Character

While the applicant has cited the Town's 2022 Comprehensive Plan Update as identifying this corner for higher-density residential use, the scale proposed — 204 units at nearly 5 units per acre, including 177 rental townhouse units — goes well beyond the character of the surrounding rural-residential neighborhood. We ask the Board to consider whether a substantially lower-density, owner-occupied alternative more consistent with the immediately surrounding RA-2 and rural-residential parcels would better serve both the Comprehensive Plan's housing goals and the existing neighborhood.

F. Zoning Uncertainty

The applicant itself acknowledged at the work session that no existing zoning district cleanly accommodates this mixed-product proposal, and that they are seeking the Town's guidance on whether to pursue a Planned Development (PD) rezone or an incentive zoning approach. We ask the Board not to treat this zoning uncertainty as a reason to grant unusual flexibility, but as a signal that the proposal does not fit the area as currently planned and zoned.

G. Community Character and Generational Residency

This is not an abstract planning question for the families who live along Fairport Nine Mile Point Road and Marchner Road. Many residents have lived in this neighborhood for decades, and multiple families here span more than one generation on the same road. The rural, low-density, agricultural character of this area is not incidental — it is the reason many of us chose to live here, and it is the character the Town's own RA-2 zoning was written to protect. A 204-unit development at nearly 5 units per acre, including 177 rental townhouse units, would permanently and irreversibly change that character. This is not a harm a traffic study or a landscaped buffer can mitigate.

The following are not informal preferences. They are grounds rooted in the Town's own Code and in New York State law that the Town Board and Planning Board are obligated to apply.

A. The Rezoning Conflicts with the RA-2 District's Own Stated Purpose

Penfield Town Code § 250-5.1 states the purpose of the Rural Agricultural District (RA-2) in explicit terms: “to assure a proper economic and physical environment for continued agricultural use of land; to maintain an open rural character to viable agricultural areas; to assure compatible types and densities of development on lands within and adjacent to the Northeastern Monroe County Agricultural Use District; and to assure low densities of development in areas without sanitary sewers.” This parcel is currently zoned RA-2 and is currently in active agricultural use. A 204-unit, nearly-5-units-per-acre development is not a marginal departure from this purpose — it is its direct negation. The Town Board is not required to find a path to yes simply because an applicant has requested one.

B. Incentive Zoning Is Discretionary and Requires the Benefit Run to the Community, Not the Developer

The applicant has indicated it may pursue this rezoning through incentive zoning under Town Law § 261-b and Penfield Town Code Chapter 255. That statute is explicit that incentive zoning exists to “advance the town's specific physical, cultural and social policies in accordance with the town's comprehensive plan,” that any density bonus must be granted only in exchange for “specific physical, social, or cultural benefits or amenities” that “inure to the community,” and that the system operates “as the town board deems necessary and appropriate” — meaning it is fully discretionary. The Town Board is under no obligation to grant a density bonus here, and should not, where the requested bonus serves the applicant's profitability far more than it serves any defined community benefit.

C. This Project Requires Full SEQRA Review, Not a Streamlined Sign-Off

Under SEQRA (6 NYCRR § 617.4), this application independently triggers Type I status — the classification reserved for actions “more likely to have a significant adverse impact on the environment” — on at least two separate grounds: (1) any rezoning affecting more than 25 acres, and this proposal affects roughly 53 acres; and (2) the scale of the residential development itself, at approximately 204 units. Type I status requires a Full Environmental Assessment Form, mandatory coordinated review among all involved agencies, and a presumption that the impacts warrant serious scrutiny, potentially including a Draft Environmental Impact Statement. We ask the Town Board, as lead agency, to commit now to full Type I review and to resist any effort to streamline this project through an abbreviated or uncoordinated environmental process.

D. Agricultural Data Statement and Notice Requirements Apply

This parcel lies within Monroe County Agricultural District No. 5, which includes the Town of Penfield. Under New York Agriculture and Markets Law § 305-b, any application for subdivision approval, site plan approval, or rezoning-related review on property within an agricultural district containing a farm operation, or within five hundred feet of a farm operation in that district, must include a completed Agricultural Data Statement, and the Town must mail direct written notice, at the applicant's expense, to every owner of farmland within 500 feet of the project boundary. We ask the Town to confirm that this requirement has been and will continue to be strictly followed, and that all eligible neighboring farm owners receive this notice directly, not by general announcement.

E. The Town's Most Current Traffic Data Does Not Cover This Intersection — a Gap, Not an Excuse

To the extent the applicant or Town staff rely on the 2008 Route 250 Corridor Transportation Study to support this project's traffic assumptions, that study is now nearly two decades old, based on 2005 traffic counts and a travel-demand model built around now-superseded 2025 regional projections. It should not be treated as current authority.

The Town does possess more recent data: the Penfield Townwide Traffic Study (Barton & Loguidice, March 2024) and the NY Route 250 Corridor Improvements Plan – Town of Penfield Summary Report (March 2024). The Town Supervisor stated in a January 2025 public communication that the Townwide Traffic Study was specifically intended to inform the Town Board, Planning Board, and Zoning Board of Appeals in their review of development project applications.

We reviewed the full 931-page Townwide Traffic Study. It consists of individual Intersection Safety Reports for sixteen specific locations: Baird Road, Bay Road/Empire Boulevard, Browncroft Boulevard/Creek Street/Blossom Road, Browncroft Boulevard/Panorama Trail, Creek Street/Plank Road, Empire Boulevard/Plank Road, Empire Boulevard/Brandt Point, Penfield Road/Baird Road, Penfield Road/Fairport Nine Mile Line Road (Route 441/Route 250), Penfield Road/Five Mile Line Road, Penfield Road/Panorama Trail, Penfield Road/Willow Pond, Atlantic Avenue/Scribner Road/Whalen Road, Plank Road/Jackson Road, and Plank Road/Shoecraft Road. The intersection of Route 250 and Marchner Road — the intersection this development would directly impact with a new curb cut — does not appear anywhere in this study.

We also reviewed the NY Route 250 Corridor Improvements Plan (Barton & Loguidice, January 2024). That study, commissioned because the Town recognized that several known developments along Route 250 would together strain the corridor's capacity, modeled twelve intersections and produced a corridor-wide, multi-development cost-sharing plan totaling approximately $7,018,000 in needed improvements. Critically, however, that study's geographic scope runs only from Plank Road to Whalen Road — the stretch of Route 250 near the Town center, roughly two to three miles south of this parcel. It was scoped around six specific, already-known developments (Arbors at Penfield, Pathstone Penfield Mixed Use Development, Penfield Square, Penfield Heights, Curatolo, and the Evangelical Church expansion), none of which is this project. Marchner Road does not appear anywhere in this study either.

In other words, the Town has already demonstrated, through these two 2024 studies, that it has both the engineering capacity and the institutional willingness to conduct exactly this kind of corridor-wide, multi-development traffic and cost-sharing analysis when warranted. It has simply not yet done so for the Route 250/Marchner Road area, because no development of this scale had been proposed there until now. We ask the Town to apply the same rigor here, before any rezoning decision, that it applied to the Whalen Road and Atlantic Avenue corridor: a current, site-specific traffic study, a corridor-level capacity analysis if other parcels along this stretch are also likely to be proposed for development, and a cost-sharing approach that places the burden of any necessary infrastructure improvements on the applicant, not on existing taxpayers.

Our position is that the Town Board should decline to advance this rezoning. Nothing below should be read as a list of conditions that, once met, would satisfy our opposition. If, despite our opposition, this application proceeds, we ask the Town to treat the following as the legal minimum, not a finish line:

1.      Classify this action as Type I under SEQRA and require a Full Environmental Assessment Form and coordinated review, with a Draft Environmental Impact Statement if any involved agency identifies potential significant adverse impacts.

2.      Require a complete Agricultural Data Statement and confirm direct mailed notice, at the applicant's expense, to every farm owner within 500 feet of the parcel, as required by Agriculture and Markets Law § 305-b.

3.      Require a current, independent traffic impact study of Marchner Road and the Route 250/Marchner Road intersection, conducted in coordination with NYSDOT and consistent with the methodology of the Town's own 2024 Townwide Traffic Study and the NY Route 250 Corridor Improvements Plan (March 2024) — neither of which currently covers this intersection — and not rely on the 2008 Route 250 Corridor Study for any current traffic determination.

4.      Require complete wetland delineation, hydrology, and stormwater analysis, with findings made public, addressing impacts on Four Mile Creek and downstream and downhill properties.

5.      If incentive zoning is sought, require the applicant to identify a specific, enumerated community benefit under Town Law § 261-b that inures to Penfield residents, and require the Town Board to make an affirmative finding that the requested density bonus is necessary and appropriate — not simply that the applicant requested it.

6.      Provide the surrounding neighborhood with timely, direct notice of every future hearing, work session, and filing related to this parcel, beyond what state law minimally requires.

We recognize the property owner has the right to seek development approval, and that the Town Board has full legal authority and discretion to deny this rezoning. We are asking the Board to use that discretion. The character of this neighborhood, the quality of its soils, the capacity of its roads, and the decades — in some cases generations — that families have invested here are not factors to be weighed against a developer's request for flexibility. They are the reasons this land was zoned RA-2 in the first place, and we ask the Town to keep it that way.