By Teresa Mulvaney
ALBANY — A state grant meant to bring cheap, fast internet to low-income apartment buildings in Greater Buffalo has grown for the second time this year. The number of households it promises to connect is now about a third lower than when Gov. Kathy Hochul announced it 14 months ago.
Materials prepared for the Oct. 22 meeting of the Empire State Development board of directors ask the directors to raise the Affordable Housing Connectivity Program grant to CBN AHCP Buffalo, LLC to “up to $4,747,216.21.” In March, the same board set it at $4,089,593.27. The board packet describes the project as a hybrid fiber and fixed-wireless network for 133 residential buildings and 2,020 low-income households in Erie and Niagara counties.
When the governor’s office first announced the award on Aug. 21, 2025, it was listed as $2,849,775 to Community Broadband Networks for Greater Buffalo. A few days later, the state’s public dashboard showed 3,065 units, according to a data appendix compiled by New York Law School’s Advanced Communications Law & Policy Institute.
Across the three state approvals, the grant has grown about 67%, and the promised reach has fallen from 3,065 units to 2,020. Using the state’s own figures, the public cost per household has risen from roughly $930 to roughly $2,350.
What changed, in the state’s words
The October board materials say the latest increase comes from a change in how service will reach some buildings, not from a change in the number of buildings.
The document says that after the board approved the project’s General Project Plan on March 26, 2026, “the grantee had to change to the internet service delivery approach for eight of the eleven properties originally slated to be served by Third-Party fiber.” CBN will now “construct underground fiber to serve four properties and will serve the other four via grantee owned fixed-wireless access.”
“The switch to underground construction increased the overall project budget,” the packet says. It adds that the design change “does not impact the overall portfolio scope or affect the total number of properties, buildings, or units included in the project.” The state calls the change “consistent with the Program goals of building new fiber infrastructure in lower income areas.”
The packet does not explain why the third-party fiber plan for those eight properties fell through, and it does not name the properties.
The deal for tenants is unchanged. CBN has committed to monthly prices of $10 for 100/20 Mbps service, $20 for 200/200 Mbps and $30 for symmetrical gigabit service, “without an increase through December 2034.” The company will own and operate the network as open access, so other providers could later offer service over it. It will also partner with community groups on digital literacy workshops.
The packet says no benefit-cost analysis is required for these broadband projects “since these projects generate long-term benefits not captured in the short-term period used for the BCA and may involve no permanent job commitments.” The grantee pays a 1% commitment fee and must reimburse ESD’s direct costs, including the cost of “holding a public hearing.”
The same meeting packet seeks a parallel increase for CBN’s companion Ithaca-area project, from $1,567,923.65 to $1,723,786.28, also tied to a switch to underground construction.
A federal clock
The money is federal. The program is paid for through the U.S. Treasury’s Capital Projects Fund under the 2021 American Rescue Plan. According to the board materials, Treasury “extended the period of performance date by which the project must be substantially complete to June 30, 2027.” The packet lists the Buffalo project’s completion as June 2027, which leaves about eight months.
When the awards were announced, state officials pitched them as a way to reach housing that the private market tends to skip.
In the August 2025 announcement, Gov. Hochul said “broadband isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity for education, healthcare, economic opportunity, and full participation in modern life.”
Assemblymember Steve Otis said then: “This announcement is especially exciting with the focus on providing access to affordable and public housing complexes that are the types of facilities often left out of high-speed broadband access many take for granted.”
Rep. Tim Kennedy of Buffalo said in the same release that “investing in broadband infrastructure is one of the most meaningful ways we can strengthen our communities and expand opportunities for working families across Western New York and New York State.”
Less for more, statewide
The Buffalo project is not an outlier. In an August analysis titled “Less for More,” researchers Alex Karras and Michael Santorelli of the New York Law School institute tracked every ConnectALL middle-mile and affordable-housing award through press releases, dashboards, federal reports and ESD board packets.
“Bottom line: about $38M more in MIP and AHCP grants, for roughly 34,000 fewer connections promised than first announced,” they wrote. They found the cost per household in the affordable-housing program up 91% and its reach down 44%.
“None of these changes were announced by the state broadband office, ConnectALL,” the authors wrote. “Instead, the ACLP learned of these significant changes by digging through voluminous meeting packets prepared for the board of directors of Empire State Development, which oversees ConnectALL.”
They also found that the state covered higher middle-mile costs by moving unspent affordable-housing money, a shift they said “was buried in a footnote in the state’s latest CPF Performance Report submitted to the U.S. Treasury in July.”
The researchers were careful about cause. They noted that broadband construction costs have risen with materials, tariffs, labor and “higher than expected ROW, pole, and related access costs.” But they pointed to a design choice: the programs “did not require their grantees to put up a match, so in many cases the full project cost is borne by the state.” The data, they concluded, “suggest these programs may be falling well short of a prudent and efficient use of limited public funds.”
Their project-by-project appendix traces Greater Buffalo from 3,065 units in August 2025, to 3,090 in the September 2025 federal performance report, to 2,020 when ESD approved the March 2026 plan. That works out to a 44% rise in the grant before October’s increase.
The appendix also tracks a separate “Buffalo City” affordable-housing award. It was announced in December 2024 at $4,678,197 for 5,033 units. By the time ESD acted on it in November 2025, it stood at $4,263,800 for 3,353 units: a smaller grant, but a 33% drop in reach.
The ErieNet dependency
The Greater Buffalo project leans on another publicly funded network that is still under construction. The October packet says CBN “will partner with ErieNET, a local development corporation that operates a middle-mile dark fiber network, to provide fiber backhaul to connect buildings.”
ErieNet is Erie County’s nearly 400-mile open-access fiber backbone. County Executive Mark Poloncarz first announced it in 2019. WBEN reported in June that the county has allocated $36 million in American Rescue Plan money to it. In the same August 2025 announcement as the CBN award, the state gave ErieNet $5,088,381 to extend 42 miles of fiber to 82 anchor institutions in Buffalo, Lackawanna and Erie County public-safety sites.
At its annual meeting in March, ErieNet said it expected substantial completion by the end of 2026. “After earlier delays related to utility coordination and permitting, we are now seeing consistent fiber installation across Erie County—bringing us closer to delivering reliable, affordable connectivity for all,” Executive Director Melissa Hartman said in the release.
Mr. Poloncarz has blamed much of the delay on the condition of existing utility poles. “Unfortunately, we are required to clean up poles like this before we can string our own lines. It has slowed down the process, but I am glad to say the work will be done this year,” he said in his April State of the County address, as reported by Buffalo Toronto Public Media.
In June, he told WBEN: “I thought it would be done by now. Yes, I am frustrated.”
The county’s own procurement documents show how close the timeline is. ErieNet’s request for proposals for internet service (RFP 2026-03CI), with responses due Aug. 7, says “ErieNet is still in the construction phase of building its network backbone.” It says the first locations are “expected to have fiber connectivity tested and turned over to subscribers by October 30, 2026,” with the earliest service date of Nov. 13. The Buffalo Chronicle could not find any public announcement of an award under that solicitation.
Critics in the Legislature
Republican members of the Erie County Legislature have pressed the administration on cost and schedule. In a June 7 release, Legislator Frank Todaro said: “We are seven years in, and what do we have to show for it? Nothing. This just goes to show you that government should not be in this business.”
Legislator Chris Greene asked: “Where is the cost savings that the Administration keeps telling us will happen with ErieNet? We have paid tens of millions of dollars and still nothing.”
Legislator Lindsay Lorigo said: “ErieNet has missed deadline after deadline and still has not delivered on the promises made to taxpayers.”
ErieNet’s chairman, Thomas Baines, called the 2025 state middle-mile grant “a big win for Erie County,” saying in an ErieNet release that “it means more people and businesses will finally get the reliable internet they need, and our police, fire, and emergency teams will have the secure connections they depend on.”
Who is accountable
Responsibility runs through several offices. ConnectALL, the state broadband office overseen by ESD and its president and CEO, Hope Knight, picked the grantee, sets the terms and brings changes to the ESD board. The board packet says applications were reviewed by ConnectALL, ESD project finance staff and an outside engineering consultant, LiRo-Hill. The ESD directors vote on each increase. CBN, which the packet says is expanding from its core base in the Finger Lakes and lists at an Islandia, Long Island, contact address, has to build the network. And ErieNet, a local development corporation, has to deliver the backhaul the project depends on.
The federal deadline belongs to Treasury, which has already extended it once.
What could help
The New York Law School researchers’ main recommendation is disclosure: “clear, standardized data reporting from the outset.” For Buffalo, that could mean ConnectALL publishing a property-by-property list of which buildings are in the portfolio, how each will be served and why the third-party fiber plan for eight properties fell apart.
The board materials contemplate a public hearing on the project. That hearing is the obvious place for tenants, housing operators and the Erie County Legislature to ask those questions. Another is whether ErieNet’s backbone will be lit in time for a June 2027 federal deadline.
The Buffalo Chronicle has asked ConnectALL, CBN and ErieNet for comment on the cost increases, the buildings involved and the schedule. This story will be updated with any responses.
Featured image: Photo: Profpcde / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
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