By Staff Reporter
ORCHARD PARK — The Orchard Park Town Board meets again tonight, and the most argued-over idea in town is not on the agenda.
That idea is the Gateway Mixed-Use zone, a proposed rewrite of the zoning around the new Highmark Stadium that would let buildings rise to 60 feet, about five stories, along corridors near Abbott Road, Big Tree Road and Southwestern Boulevard. The board tabled it Oct. 7 after a public hearing that ran nearly an hour and a half. By the count of Deputy Supervisor Scott Honer, 31 people stood up to speak, most of them against it.
Tonight’s agenda instead lists a block grant hearing, two site plans, parking fines and a Nov. 4 budget hearing date. Supervisor Joseph Liberti has told reporters a gateway vote could come as early as November.
What the town is proposing
The gateway zone is the second phase of the town’s stadium plan. The first, the Stadium Mixed-Use zone, was adopted last December. As WKBW reported, it covers land within 1,000 feet of the stadium and generally caps buildings at 35 feet.
The new zone would reach farther: south, north and east of the stadium and near the Route 219 exit, according to the town’s planning consultant, who walked the board through it at the Oct. 7 meeting. He said the map now takes in some properties south of Sheldon Road and the Quaker Center area. Mixed-use buildings would be allowed outright, with homes on upper floors only, and the draft definitions in the town’s supporting documents require at least 20 percent of such a building’s floor area to go to nonresidential use.
The same packet includes a draft environmental resolution that would classify the rezoning as a “Type I” action under state law and declare that it “will result in no major impacts.”
“Orchard Park is open for business,” Mr. Liberti told WKBW. “We want a well-planned development near the stadium, so we want stuff like restaurants, hotels, retail, but also we want to protect the residential neighborhoods that make Orchard Park home.”
He has a particular corner in mind. Of Abbott and Big Tree roads, where a gas station is going up and nearby properties are for sale, he told WGRZ, “That would be a great, great spot for a hotel because it’s directly near the stadium, and it will be great for visitors and our residents to stay there.”
What neighbors said
A few speakers backed the plan, one calling it “a positive development.” A written comment read by the clerk asked for better communication with residents.
Most did not. Neighbors from Big Tree, Sheldon and Abbott roads raised traffic, noise, drainage and building heights, and a sense that the stadium is reshaping their streets around them.
“You put in a gas station on the corner of Big Tree and Abbott Road – that is the biggest snarl up of traffic before and after the games, and now you added a gas station to it. Doesn’t seem to be common sense to me,” said a Big Tree Road property owner who gave his name as Bob and said he has lived in town 44 years, as quoted by WBEN.
A woman who said she has lived on Sheldon Road for 40 years told the board she and her husband had been saving for an addition when their lot was drawn into the new zone.
“I don’t know how Sheldon Road, which is a residential neighborhood, got put into this mixed-use zone,” she said, noting the street has a middle school on it.
Another Big Tree Road resident, William, said the town has the order backward. “It doesn’t make sense to me that you don’t approach the state, approach the county, and beautify the area before you start sticking commercial buildings and other things in the area,” he said.
The board’s answer
After the hearing closed, Mr. Liberti moved to table the zone, and the motion carried. He said the town had held six public forums and had looped in Hamburg so the neighboring towns’ rules would mirror each other. “So Hamburg doesn’t have a 20-story hotel where we have a two-story hotel,” he said.
“The intent is not to push out the residents,” Mr. Liberti said. He promised a hard look at Sheldon Road, traffic, garbage, noise and drainage. “We are listening. This is not going on deaf ears.”
Councilmember Julia Mombrea said board members left with pages of notes. “It seems like we have work to do still,” she said, adding that any revisions would be posted on the town website and the zone would return to an agenda.
Mr. Liberti also announced that the town would pause enforcement against private game-day RV lots and revisit the issue for 2027 and 2028.
The tax backdrop
The zoning fight is landing in the middle of budget season. The town’s tentative 2027 budget raises the total levy across all funds to $21,705,018, an increase of $1,611,996, or 8 percent. The general fund levy alone would rise from $8,768,701 to $10,025,483.
That 8 percent came up at the hearing. Mr. Honer called it a first draft and said the board had found some potential savings. The hope, he said, is “to get it down to hopefully the tax cap. I can’t promise you that.”
What to watch
Will Sheldon Road stay in the zone? Will the 60-foot height survive, and where? Will the town publish a traffic analysis for the Abbott and Big Tree corner before a vote? And will the revised map be posted early enough for neighbors to read it before the board acts?
The board meets at 7 p.m. tonight at the Municipal Center, 4295 South Buffalo St. Meetings stream live from the town’s recorded meetings page.
Photo: Fans and traffic outside the new Highmark Stadium. WuTang94 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0, cropped.
Leave a Reply