Matter of Bruck v. Town of Rochester Planning Bd. (Adaptive-Reuse Site Plan Upheld Over Parking-Calculation Challenge)

Zoning & Land Use Ruling Issued
Date
October 29, 2026
Added to tracker
October 30, 2026
Court or forum
Appellate Division, Third Department, New York
State
New York
Presiding judge
Christine M. Clark
Property type
Mixed-Use
Amount / scale
Not a monetary dispute; challenge to a conditional site plan approval for an adaptive-reuse development
Parties
Respondent (Developer): Accord, LLCRespondent: Town of Rochester Planning Board

New York's Third Department upheld a Planning Board's site plan approval for Accord LLC's mixed-use granary redevelopment, rejecting neighbors' claims that the project deviated from the approved plan and miscalculated restaurant parking.

New York's Appellate Division, Third Department, affirmed on October 29, 2026 a Planning Board's conditional site plan approval for Accord, LLC's adaptive-reuse redevelopment of a historic granary and seed mill complex in the Hamlet of Accord, Town of Rochester, rejecting neighboring property owners' claims that the approved site plan improperly deviated from the Town Board's conceptual development plan and miscalculated the project's restaurant parking requirement. The court held the Planning Board had broad discretion to find the scaled-back project in substantial conformance with the original plan and to adopt the Town Board's parking determination.

Why it matters

The decision gives developers of adaptive-reuse projects in flexible overlay districts a clear deference standard: later-stage site plan modifications that trim rather than expand a project's scope are far safer ground for a 'substantial conformance' finding, and a documented, reasoned parking methodology in the administrative record will be upheld over a neighbor's own recalculation. Municipalities and developers negotiating similar historic-building conversions into mixed commercial and hospitality uses should take note of how much latitude courts will give a planning board's record-based findings on both conformance and parking.

Original source ↗
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New York's Appellate Division, Third Department, on October 29, 2026 affirmed a Planning Board's approval of a mixed-use adaptive-reuse project built around a historic granary and seed mill complex in the Hamlet of Accord, Ulster County, rejecting a challenge from neighboring property owners who argued the project's parking plan violated the local zoning code and deviated improperly from the plan the Town Board had originally approved. The ruling in Matter of Bruck v. Town of Rochester Planning Board closes out, at least at this stage, a dispute that pitted two individual petitioners who own property near the site against both the town's Planning Board and the project's developer, Accord, LLC.

Case timeline · 3 entries Latest: October 29, 2026 — Third Department affirms, upholding the site plan approval

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