Following the advice of its attorney, the village planning board cancelled the public hearing it had scheduled for Tuesday afternoon on a site plan for a new home at 29 Lake Street.

The home was planned for a new building lot created earlier this year when Robert Schneider lopped the back yard off his home on the corner of Pioneer and Lake Streets. The subdivision of his property was approved by the planning board because it met the criteria for a building lot specified in the village zoning law. In the R2 district, the law sets the minimum lot size at 5,000 square feet.

Schneider still owns the subdivided lot and builder Don Archer from Clinton, N.Y. wants to build a rental home on it.

The planning board approved Archer's application in July, but after an initial complaint from Randel Scharf, whose home is next to the new lot, a stop work order was issued.

On August 9, the planning board again reviewed the site plan and field changes Archer wanted to make to it. The board decided at that meeting to approve the modified site plan and rescinded the stop work order.

Earlier this month Scharf corresponded with village attorney John Lambert and complained the planning board did not hold the required public hearing.

In his letter, Scharf asked Lambert to review the actions of the planning board in regard to 29 Lake Street.

Lambert recommended the planning board back up and conduct a public hearing on the site plan application for the new house.

The board issued another stop work order and scheduled the public hearing that was to have taken place Tuesday.

But before its meeting, Lambert wrote a letter to the board advising them to adjourn the hearing on the basis that Schneider's subdivision application for the new lot was inadequate.

"I have reviewed said application which included a three-page supplemental form entitlted 'Cooperstown Planning Commission Application for Approval of Subdivision Plan.' This form has no authority with regard to the Cooperstown zoning law," he wrote.

Lambert recommended that Schneider resubmit his application with details about the size, dimension and "affect on the parcel to be subdivided as well as the surrounding properties."

Schneider's attorney Robert Burch objected to the cancellation of the hearing following the announcement by planning board chairman Teresa Drerup.

Burch said he was not quite sure what Lambert was saying and that it appeared to him the letter of the law had been met.

"I urge you to go ahead with the hearing," he told the board.

But Drerup said that under the threat of a lawsuit from a neighbor, the planning board was going to use all possible caution.

She also told Burch that the board would have postponed the hearing anyway because the zoning board of appeals needs to interpret the term "principal use" which is what triggers a site plan review.

"We want to do the right thing," she said.