By Staff Reporter
BUFFALO — A federal judge has sent the City of Buffalo’s lawsuit against Seneca Nation leaders back to state court, which keeps alive the city’s bid to halt a $10 million Seneca One Stop gas station on Miami Street in the Old First Ward. It also means the city goes another week without the emergency order it asked for.
In a seven-page decision signed Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Meredith A. Vacca granted the city’s motion to remand the case to New York State Supreme Court in Erie County. She ruled that the Seneca Nation had not shown the federal court had jurisdiction. Because the case left her court, Judge Vacca wrote, “the City’s request for temporary injunctive relief is denied as outside of the Court’s authority.”
The ruling in City of Buffalo v. Seneca (W.D.N.Y. No. 1:26-cv-02279) came a day after the judge heard arguments on Oct. 13. The Chronicle reviewed the decision and both sides’ briefs in the federal court record.
What the judge decided, and what she didn’t
Judge Vacca did not decide who controls the land. She ruled only on where the fight belongs.
The city sued on Oct. 7 under two state-law claims: violations of the Buffalo Unified Development Ordinance, the city code and the state building code, and public nuisance. Attorneys for the Nation, from the Washington firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, moved the case to federal court the next day. They argued that every one of the city’s claims depends on a federal question: whether the U.S. Department of the Interior properly placed the parcel into “restricted fee” status in February 2023 under the Seneca Nation Settlement Act of 1990.
Judge Vacca relied on a 2012 Second Circuit ruling involving the Shinnecock Indian Nation’s attempt to build a casino on Long Island. She found that whether the Nation’s project violates state and local law is “distinct from the question as to whether federal law precludes the City from regulating development of the Site.” If the Nation showed it had complied with local law, she wrote, “a court could resolve the City’s claims without reaching the federal issue.”
One line of the order’s conclusion says “County of Monroe,” but the body of the order and the clerk’s docket both send the case to Erie County.
Two lawsuits, one judge
The remand does not end the city’s federal fight. On Oct. 8 the city also sued the Interior Department under the Administrative Procedure Act (No. 1:26-cv-02275). That suit argues the 2023 restricted-fee decision should be vacated because the Nation did not buy the land with Settlement Act money. Court records show Judge Vacca was assigned that case too.
“Today’s filing addresses a separate legal question from the action announced yesterday,” Corporation Counsel Rosa Alina Pizzi said on Oct. 8, as reported by WBEN. “The City is asking the federal court to review and provide clarity on the Department of the Interior’s decision.”
Deputy Corporation Counsel William Rossi called the Interior approval a “rubber stamp,” WBEN reported.
The city’s case
The city says the project needs a building permit, a traffic study, a special-use permit, a use variance and environmental review. It also alleges that site work has already disturbed potentially contaminated soil and sent material onto neighboring properties and into the Buffalo River.
“This project would have a major impact on the surrounding neighborhood, the Buffalo River, and the public investments we have made in this part of Buffalo,” Mayor Sean Ryan said in an Oct. 7 statement. “We have a responsibility to protect those investments and the people who live, work, and spend time here.”
The city points to the $11.3 million public rebuild of Ohio Street, which turned a four-lane industrial road into a waterfront corridor with a separated bike and pedestrian path. In a Sept. 28 city release, Fillmore District Council Member Mitch Nowakowski said, “A 28-bay fuel depot is simply inconsistent with the surrounding neighborhood and the direction this corridor has taken.”
The Nation’s case
The Nation says it followed federal law and that the city had years to object.
According to the Nation’s Oct. 13 brief, it notified the state, Erie County and the city in December 2022 that it planned to put the Miami Street parcels into restricted fee, and none of them objected. The brief also cites an Aug. 7, 2023 letter from the city’s assessment commissioner acknowledging the parcels “are in fact entitled to the exemption associated with Restricted Fee Status.”
The brief says the Nation’s contractor sent gas station designs to the Buffalo Sewer Authority on April 7, 2026, followed by six months of talks on a stormwater maintenance agreement. In the brief’s words, the city “created an emergency of its own making.” It also notes that a smaller Seneca One Stop has operated on restricted-fee land at 180 Perry Street since 2020, and that the city has never sought to regulate it.
“I invited the Mayor to meet with the Nation to discuss this situation. His response was a City Stop Work Order that bears no weight on our sovereign land followed a day later by a lawsuit,” Seneca Nation President J. Conrad Seneca said in a statement reported by Spectrum News.
“The city, especially the Mayor simple don’t get it,” Mr. Seneca said in an Oct. 7 statement quoted by WBEN. “This is Seneca land – now and forever.” “He continually mischaracterizes our project as a truck stop,” Mr. Seneca added.
According to WBEN, the Nation plans 24 fueling positions plus two diesel-only stations, a convenience store, a small grocery, fast food and a Nativa cannabis dispensary. The Nation expects to employ at least 50 people, and the site is set to open in July. In the most recent public reports, construction was continuing.
The questions ahead
Back in state court, the city will again ask for an injunction. It sued Mr. Seneca and the councilors in their official capacities, not the Nation itself. At least one Indian-law expert expects the officials to claim sovereign immunity anyway.
“Relations to Indian nations and land are never run-of-the-mill, and should not be,” Joe Heath, a Cornell Law professor and longtime general counsel to the Onondaga Nation, told Buffalo Toronto Public Media. Mr. Heath, who is not involved in the case, described the city’s two-front strategy this way: “Just throw everything you have up against the wall and see if anything sticks.”
The record raises questions for both sides. Why didn’t the city object when it was notified in December 2022, or when its assessor accepted the tax exemption in 2023? Why did the city negotiate stormwater terms for six months before treating the project as an emergency? And if the parcel is sovereign, what does the Nation owe neighbors and the river if the city’s contamination allegations prove true? The Nation’s brief says it works with the city on “tie-in” rules such as stormwater drainage.
Much may depend on the Interior case. If the 2023 decision stands, the Nation’s position gets much stronger. If a court vacates it, the city’s claim to regulate the parcel gets much stronger.
No state court hearing date had been posted as of Friday evening.
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