Attorneys for a Brooklyn developer and the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus once again squared off in front of the Buffalo Planning Board on Monday evening, trading barbs and accusations about their respective clients as the battle continues over whether the northernmost stub of North Oak Street will remain curved to Ellicott Street or be straightened out to Virginia Street to make room for an affordable housing project.
The News’ Buffalo Next team covers the changing Buffalo Niagara economy. Get the news in your inbox 5 days a week.
Two weeks after the start of a public hearing on the project and more than a year after the Planning Board initially approved it, the two sides renewed their legal arguments over BFC Partners’ $37 million plan to construct a new six-story building on the northwest corner of McCarley Gardens, and realign North Oak in the process.
That north-south street was diverted to the west just below Virginia 40 years ago when McCarley was built, but BFC is proposing to restore the original street grid in a land-swap with the city.
The overall project – in which BFC is working with McCarley owner St. John Baptist Church – would expand the 15-acre low-income housing community just below the medical campus by adding 220 new affordable and workforce apartments, above 21,000 square feet of commercial retail space lining three sides that’s designed to “activate” the streets around it. The medical campus says it supports that, but not the rest of it.
“We’ve been consistent that we support the project…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply