Town of Amherst Planning Board·May 21, 2026
A pocket park splits a dead-end block · Battery-storage rules clear on a 5–2 split · Two Wehrle Drive extensions sail through
In a full seven-member session that ran a shade under an hour and a half, the Amherst Planning Board approved a small town-built park at 75 Tupelo Lane 7–0 — brushing aside two residents who warned that a fenced, wooded playground at the end of their block invited trouble the police would struggle to see. The board then sent the Town Board a favorable recommendation on a new zoning law regulating utility-scale Battery Energy Storage Systems, but only on a 5–2 split, with two members unpersuaded that the fire and decommissioning safeguards go far enough. Two Wehrle Drive site-plan extensions — a 60,240-square-foot warehouse and a 70,500-square-foot self-storage building — passed 7–0 each, and the board bumped its September meeting off the Bills' home opener.
The most ordinary item on the docket produced the night's only real argument. Evergreen Park is a modest thing on paper — a 2,100-square-foot playground, a bench, a bike rack, and a six-space parking lot on a 1.7-acre town parcel at the wooded, dead-end west end of a new Tupelo Lane subdivision. Jeff Szatkowski[*], a landscape architect with the Town's Planning Department presenting on the Town's own behalf, walked the board through the changes made since April: a new ADA parking space carved into the Tupelo Lane right-of-way with an accessible route and Braille signage, a re-worked stormwater line, an added row of shrubs at a neighbor's request, and a vinyl-fence option added as a bid alternate.[1] A state DEC Article 24 wetlands permit was in hand.[1]
Then the block spoke. Heather Griffith of 59 Tupelo Lane, who prefaced her remarks by thanking the volunteer board, said her objection was not litter or noise — "I don't care about those anymore" — but seclusion. Fenced on three sides and screened by conifers at the end of a dead-end street, the park would be a place, she argued, where "nobody is going to be able to see what's going on" after hours, and the handful of nearby households would become the ones known for calling the police.[2] She had surveyed Amherst's playgrounds on Google Maps, she said, and found none on a dead end or so hidden from passing traffic.
David Schlant[*] of 65 Tupelo Lane, directly across from the park, came at it from two angles. He made an unusually numerate pitch for a vinyl fence — running an "equivalent annual cost" over a 30-year vinyl lifespan against a 20-year wood fence and figuring vinyl would save the Town roughly $390 a year at 8% interest — while conceding it was "not something I'm an expert in, it's just something I did for myself."[3] His sharper worry was the ADA space landing at the foot of his driveway; formalizing a parking spot there, he said, would "dramatically increase the likelihood" of a car blocking his backing-out, and asked it be nudged a few feet right.
Szatkowski answered that the space sits where it does because it must stay 20 feet clear of the crosswalk and as close to the play area as the clearances allow, and that the seclusion cut the other way once trees were limbed and cleared for the play space and wetland restoration.[1] A board member floated adding a seventh condition to shift the ADA spot for Schlant's benefit; the chair pushed back, noting anyone can legally park there today and that designating it a handicap space would, if anything, make casual parking less likely — and dismissed the driveway fear as "conjecture and not based in fact."[4] No seventh condition was added.
The board didn't take one vote here — it took two, in a fixed order. First it adopted a Negative Declaration under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQR): a formal finding that the project will have no significant adverse environmental impact, which clears the way to act. Only then did it vote to approve the site plan itself. A reader watching "7–0, then 7–0" isn't seeing the board vote twice on the same thing — it's the environmental clearance and the approval, back to back.
Both votes carried 7–0. Member Jonathan O'Rourke moved the Negative Declaration and then the approval on its six existing conditions; Carrie Kahn[*] seconded.[5]
The night's second public hearing was not an approval at all but a recommendation on a rewrite of the Town's zoning code. Daniel Ulatowski[*], the Town's Assistant Planning Director and Zoning Enforcement Officer, returned with a revised draft of ZTA-2026-01, which would permit utility-scale Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) as a principal use in just two zoning districts — General Industrial and Research & Development — where today they are allowed only as an accessory to solar arrays.[6] These are the utility-grade compounds, he explained: racks of batteries that store surplus grid, solar or wind energy and release it at peak demand, backstopping a grid that "as you all have experienced" has seen outages.[6]
Ulatowski walked the board through changes made since March, after the members asked for and received hands-on training. The draft now sorts systems into three tiers, regulates accessory installations as well as principal ones, keeps a 500-foot minimum setback from residential districts (waivable only if an applicant can technically justify it through a hazard-mitigation analysis), and adds a new 100-foot setback to any adjacent road line.[6] He showed a Carson Power[*] sample layout — a pair of five-megawatt compounds on a developed site near the Youngs Road/Wehrle Drive[*] area across from the SUNY Erie college campus — while noting the developer wanted a 50-foot setback the Town would not give.[6]
The board's questions circled fire, money and proximity. Members pressed on what "surety bond acceptable to the town" would actually mean for decommissioning an abandoned facility, and on cleanup costs after a catastrophic failure; Ulatowski said the Law Department would vet the bond's adequacy, "similar to what we do with cell towers," and agreed to add language routing acceptance through the Town Attorney.[7] One member, invoking the January 29th incident in which the community had struggled to extricate patients, warned about siting so much stored energy near a healthcare hub and a large college population.[8] Ulatowski leaned on the training, on rapidly improving containment technology, and on the point that every actual facility would still return for full site-plan review.
When the vote came, member John [O'Rourke][*] moved to recommend approval, saying the presentation "anticipated the concerns and questions that came up" and addressed them "as well as we're able to do at this early stage."[9] It carried 5–2, with Carrie Kahn and BrittanyLee Penberthy voting no — the only dissents recorded all night.[10]
On a zoning-text amendment the Planning Board is advisory only — the elected Town Board writes and adopts the law. So the 5–2 vote here forwards a favorable recommendation to the Town Board and no more; the actual public hearing and adoption happen there, potentially with the Law Department's further edits. The two "no" votes don't block the law; they register two members' reservations for the Town Board to weigh. And even once the rules exist, no battery site is approved by this vote: each real proposal still comes back for a full major site-plan review, with a fire-department emergency-response plan required up front.
Under Unfinished Business — no public hearing — the board renewed two lapsing approvals along Wehrle Drive, each a two-year extension carried 7–0. The first, at 2425 & 2445 Wehrle Drive (SP-2019-19_C, petitioner Donald Steinwachs[*]), keeps alive a single-story 60,240-square-foot warehouse/office building with 12 deep docks, three at-grade docks and staging for 34 tractor-trailers, subject to one condition: that the Amherst Fire Chiefs Association's April 14, 2026 concerns be satisfied.[11] The second, at 2495 Wehrle Drive (SP-2023-12_A, petitioner 416 Homez Inc.[*]), extends a 70,500-square-foot climate-controlled self-storage facility, with no conditions attached; the site work includes piping a stretch of Town Ditch 18A.[12] Member Harbinder Singh Gill moved the first; Penberthy moved the second.
Before adjourning, the board heard a short primer from Sean Hopkins of the Town Attorney's office — newly joined to the Amherst Law Department — on a regulatory reversal that changes how much wetland the state controls. New York's 2022 amendments, effective January 1, 2025, had dramatically expanded DEC jurisdiction over freshwater wetlands: from a general 12.4-acre threshold "all the way down to literally anything," Hopkins said, even a hundredth of an acre in census-defined urban areas — a category that swept in much of Amherst and Western New York.[13] But an Albany Supreme Court ruling on April 8 sided with the petitioners challenging the rules, and the DEC chose not to appeal.
The upshot: "we're back to the old rules," Hopkins said — 12.4 acres and larger regulated — though the underlying statute stays on the books and the implementing regulations do not, leaving "an area of uncertainty." The Planning Department, he noted, coordinates its environmental review with the DEC on every project, so any site-specific concern would still surface. Asked, with evident dryness, whether the Legislature might simply "go back to the drawing board," the room registered that "the irony is thick there."[13]
Director Dan Howard closed with an update that the Town is standing up a new comprehensive plan, a roughly two-year effort for which planning-board members would be appointed to a special advisory committee. The board approved the April 16 minutes (5–0 with O'Rourke and Raffaele abstaining as absent that night), rescheduled a meeting, and adjourned at 7:48 p.m.[14]
SEQR is the State Environmental Quality Review process — the environmental check a board must run before approving many projects. A Negative Declaration ("neg dec") is its most common outcome: a written finding that the action will cause no significant adverse environmental impact, so no further environmental study is required. It is not a rejection — the "negative" refers to the absence of significant impact, and it is the step that unlocks the approval vote. That is exactly the sequence the board followed on the Tupelo Lane park.
All seven Planning Board members were present and voting — Chairperson Michael J. Chmiel and members Harbinder Singh Gill, Mike Hogan, Carrie Kahn, Jonathan O'Rourke, BrittanyLee Penberthy and Joseph P. Raffaele, Jr. — so a full roll call runs up to 7–0. Councilmember John Davis, the board's liaison, was absent and is non-voting. No recusals. Every action was unanimous except the 5–2 battery-storage recommendation; roster verified against the Town's official Planning Board page and the May 21 minutes.
Environmental determination on the proposed town park (2,100 sq ft playground, six-space lot) under SP-2026-02, taken before the site-plan action. Moved by O'Rourke, seconded by Hogan; carried on roll call.
Approval of the site plan as presented, on its six drafted conditions. A proposed seventh condition — to shift the ADA parking space away from an abutting driveway at the request of a resident — was floated but not adopted after the chair and another member objected. Moved by O'Rourke, seconded by Kahn; carried on roll call.
Motion to recommend that the Town Board approve the zoning-text amendment permitting utility-scale Battery Energy Storage Systems as a principal use in the General Industrial and Research & Development districts, with the setback, tiering and screening provisions in the revised draft. The Planning Board is advisory on a text amendment. Moved by O'Rourke, seconded by Raffaele; carried 5–2, with Kahn and Penberthy opposed — the only dissenting votes of the meeting.
Two-year extension of site-plan approval for a 60,240 sq ft single-story warehouse/office building (petitioner Donald Steinwachs), on one condition: that the Amherst Fire Chiefs Association's April 14, 2026 letter be addressed to the association's satisfaction. Unfinished Business — no public hearing. Moved by Gill, seconded by Kahn; carried on roll call.
Two-year extension of site-plan approval for a 70,500 sq ft climate-controlled self-storage facility (petitioner 416 Homez Inc.), no conditions attached. Unfinished Business — no public hearing. Moved by Penberthy, seconded by Gill; carried on roll call.
Motion to move the September 17 Planning Board meeting to September 24 — the September 17 date being the Buffalo Bills' home opener, expected to hurt attendance. Taken at the top of the meeting. Moved by O'Rourke, seconded by Raffaele; carried on roll call.
Approval of the April 16, 2026 meeting minutes. Moved by Penberthy, seconded by Kahn; carried 5–0, with O'Rourke and Raffaele abstaining (both absent from the April 16 meeting).
Sources. This brief was built from three records of the same meeting: the Town of Amherst's live YouTube stream transcript (faster-whisper "medium" model, ~75 minutes, language confidence p=1.00), the official IQM2 agenda packet, and the official IQM2 minutes for May 21, 2026. Where the audio and the official documents disagreed on a proper noun, the agenda and minutes governed. All outcomes, movers, seconders and vote splits are taken from the official minutes.
Roster. The seven-member Planning Board roster was verified against the Town's official Planning Board page and reconciled name-by-name to the May 21 minutes' roll call: Chairperson Michael J. Chmiel, Esq.; members Harbinder Singh Gill, Mike Hogan, Carrie Kahn, Jonathan O'Rourke, BrittanyLee Penberthy and Joseph P. Raffaele, Jr. — all seven present and voting. Councilmember John Davis, the board's liaison, was recorded absent and is non-voting.
Names & corrections [*]. A [*] marks a proper noun corrected from a likely Whisper mistranscription and confirmed against the official record. The audio variously rendered landscape architect Jeff Szatkowski as "Zachowski/Zakowsky," Assistant Planning Director Daniel Ulatowski as "Wachowski/Yeltsin," resident David Schlant as "Schlantz," and the developer 416 Homez Inc. and petitioner Donald Steinwachs (both confirmed from the agenda/minutes). Street fix: the transcript's repeated "Whirly Drive" is Wehrle Drive (street-check suggest, conf 0.833; independently confirmed by the agenda and minutes); a transcript stutter "Tupelo Tupelo Lane" is Tupelo Lane. The board member who moved the battery-storage recommendation is identified in the minutes as Jonathan O'Rourke (the audio's "John"); "Carson Power" (the BESS sample-site developer) and the "Youngs Road / Wehrle Drive" sample location come from audio and are flagged pending the agenda packet. Residents' and presenters' names appear only in audio and the minutes' narrative and are attributed by role where a spelling could not be independently pinned. Verify any name against the official Town Clerk's record before quoting formally.