07/21/09: UB South Student Housing Controversy

Original YNN Buffalo Air Date: 07/21/09
A Hamburg community is upset over proposed student housing that could move into their neck of the woods. More than 200 Hamburg homeowners say they don’t want collegic student housing in their neighborhood.
“Buy them a bus and bring them from the city to there. don’t have them around here where they are going to wreck everything,” yelled one resident.
“Why didn’t you have the meeting before you purchase 75% of the majority of that parcel?” demanded a second resident.
Burke Construction purchased about 17 acres of land along Sheldon and Brompton Roads. Developers say they want to rezone the area to allow dormitory style student housing for nearby Erie Community College’s South Campus.
“This type of project needs to be rezoned and the neighbors need to be involved in that,” said Developer David Burke.
But the neighbors aren’t ready to roll out the welcome wagon for co-eds.
“We paid $8,000 in taxes and we want a quiet area,” said an angry resident.
Homeowners at Bormpton and Sheldon say when they moved in they expected new neighbors to move in and new homes to be built. But dormitories were not on their radar. Many say they want their new neighbors to pay mortgages not tuition.
There’s also the issue of increased traffic and young drivers.
“This is like a highway they do 50-60 miles per hour leaving Buffalo Bills games,’ said
Audrey Tobin. She says traffic in her neighborhood picks up around football season and fears the college crowd could cause a safety hazard.
“Think of the amount of traffic that’s going to be going in and out of here. If you have 500 students think of how many cars does that equal does,” added Tobin.
“Me and my neighbors sit there and we can count 150 cars a day that go through a stop sign. So if we got all this young kids there, how many more accidents are there going to be,” said neighborhood elder Paul Colly
Hamburg town officials say they will take the residents and developers concerns into account before rezoning the area.
“We’ll talk about it in our code review committee. That is where the decision will be made on this project,” said Hamburg Zoning Board Chairman Vincent Gugliuzza.
Developers say they have a lot to think about.
“I think that the message is concise and clear and i think that we have to go back to the drawing board,” added Burke.