Spend enough time in local planning meetings across the Finger Lakes and you’ll see a pattern: A housing project appears, concerns pile up, revisions are requested, and everyone agrees affordability is worsening — yet the meeting ends with little actual change.
After a conversation with Strong Towns Chief Technical Advisor Edward Erfurt, one thing became clear: The region doesn’t just have a housing shortage. It has a decision-making problem.
Erfurt argues many barriers aren’t economic or state-level at all — they’re procedural. Lengthy reviews, overlapping requirements, and routine variances make it easiest to build large edge-of-town projects while smaller homes and infill apartments struggle to survive the approval process. The result is a mismatch between what communities say they need and what actually gets built.
The full column explores why some municipalities are starting to shift from “gatekeeping” development to guiding it — and why that cultural change may matter more than sweeping legislative reform.
Josh is the Vice President of FingerLakes1.com. Have a question? Send them to [email protected].