IDAs listen to critics, tighten bonding rules. (Industrial Development Agency)

The Amherst Industrial Development Agency did something town Supervisor Dan Ward never thought he'd see.

A multi-tenant office building that in years past might have received a standard bond package without much discussion by the agency's board of directors was tabled. The directors asked Executive Director James Allen to convene a policy committee to look at its incentive packages for multi-tenant buildings.

"I was delighted," said Ward, a frequent critic of industrial development agencies. "It's about time those guys got religion, but unfortunately, it might be after the horses left the barn."

Mixed metaphors aside, the multi-office review marks the second time in recent months that the Amherst IDA balked at offering bonds, incentives or abatements to projects that might have been approved in the past.

The agency also decided last fall it would stop approving bonds for medical diagnostic equipment following a report by the Health Systems Agency of Western New York that stated the area had a proliferation of such equipment.

But Ward isn't ready to claim victory yet.

"Talk is cheap, especially in an election year. Let's see what they are really going to," he said.

The Amherst …