Jun 18, 2025
OBSERVER Photo by Braden Carmen Ryan Burlingame presented suggested updates to current Zoning Laws in the village of Cassadaga on behalf of the Zoning Rewrite Committee at a recent Village Board meeting.
CASSADAGA — After going unaddressed for over two decades, the Village of Cassadaga will soon update its Zoning Laws. Ryan Burlingame, a member of the Zoning Rewrite Committee, presented an abbreviated version of the laws and regulations at a recent Village Board meeting.
The presentation lasted more than 26 minutes, followed by nearly 10 more minutes of discussion as Burlingame covered new additions, removals, and revisions to the existing Village Zoning Laws, which have remained intact since 2002.
One major finding that the committee “circled back to numerous times” was a lack of enforcement. Burlingame said the committee focused on making the new zoning laws “more user friendly” to make the laws easier to understand and enforce.
“Zoning is as good as the enforcement is,” Burlingame said. “If you have something going on illegally and the Zoning Enforcement Officer either doesn’t know about it or they don’t bother and they don’t do anything, it’s pointless. Why even have it?”
Village Trustee Cathy Cruver later emphasized the importance of enforcement in stating she did not want to see the committee’s efforts go to waste if nothing is done under new regulations.
The village’s Zoning Laws are driven by the Comprehensive Plan, which serves as a guide to decision making in the village. “It tells the village what we want,” Burlingame said.
Burlingame suggested requiring all businesses to apply for permits – even at no cost – as a way of keeping track of what is in the village, which could also serve as a means of promotion. Keeping track of all businesses also ensures that fire inspections are up to date, which the committee and the Village Board both acknowledged has been an issue for many years.
The committee added a section to address short-term rental properties, which became a highly contentious issue in the village in recent years. Burlingame used short-term rental properties as an example of an issue that Zoning and Code Enforcement officials could bring to the Village Board before it gets out of hand.
Other new sections were included to address uncontrolled vegetation; wetlands and bodies of water; and property maintenance. The committee also removed sections on gas compressors; mobile home parks; and towers/windmills.
Burlingame said the “meat and potatoes” of the document is Article VI, which features 48 sections. Among the topics addressed in Article VI include rental properties; home occupations; junk vehicles; farm animals; solar energy systems and battery storage facilities.
“We sat down sometimes way too long on certain sections because we kept going back and forth on certain discussions. … You really take people into consideration, properties into consideration, but more importantly, the village in consideration. You want to make you protect the community,” Burlingame said.
The Village Board will review the committee’s submission in the coming weeks before officially adopting new laws and regulations. The Village Board plans to revisit the Zoning Laws every five years with a committee appointed by the Village Board to avoid going more than two decades without updates again.
Also of note in the village, Nancy Wickmark reported on behalf of the Cassadaga Lakes Association regarding the efforts to lower the water levels of the lakes. In an effort to address flooding concerns, attention was paid to removing beaver dams, but the process has not gone smoothly.
“It has taken longer, obviously, than we had originally hoped to get all the permitting done,” Wickmark said.
The Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy found several issues standing in the way of removing beaver dams impacting the Conservancy waterways at this time. Among them were the value to the ecosystem, including the flow of water and retention of water in dry seasons; the risk of damage to wetlands when removing debris; and the timing of removal, as beaver dams would likely be rebuilt by the winter months.
The next meeting of the Cassadaga Village Board is Wednesday, June 25 at 7 p.m. at the Village Hall.
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