Along with approving a $600 million dollar project to redevelop two of Buffalo’s municipal housing complexes on July 31, 2023, the Buffalo Planning Board approved plans for the completion of Elmwood Crossing: a massive and privately-led, mixed-use redevelopment project at the site of Buffalo’s former Women and Children’s Hospital in the Elmwood Village neighborhood.
One resident who spoke at the planning board meeting, Daniel Sack, asked the board to adjourn the meeting since its agenda packet had grown from 841 to 879 pages the Friday before the meeting and grew to 909 pages on the Monday that the meeting was held, depriving board members and the public of a reasonable amount of time to review the material. Sack noted that three of the pages added Friday comprised a Planned Unit Development—or “PUD” (rhymes with “bud”)—for Elmwood Crossing, which had never before been published in the time since the Buffalo Common Council adopted the PUD on October 4, 2022. (A PUD comprises the rules and standards against which the Planning Board is to evaluate an application such as the one for Elmwood Crossing.)
Sack also took issue with the fact that the board was willing to entertain the Elmwood Crossing application while the site in question included signs advertising commercial leasing whose size Sack claimed violates Buffalo’s Green Code zoning ordinances.
“The illegal real estate signs were still there as of a few days ago. I asked the board to table this item until the applicant takes our laws more seriously,” Sack said.
The planning board discounted Sack’s concerns after those related to the PUD were echoed by attorney Stephanie Adams, who represents several residents whose properties abut the former hospital. Adams asked the board for time to review the newly published PUD with her clients to determine whether Elmwood Crossing’s planning board application complied with it.
The Planning Board was not moved, and the five members present approved the application fifteen minutes after opening the item for a presentation from the developer, comments from the public, and discussion by board members.
“We’re just not in a situation where, when hundreds of people are involved in this overall process, that two or three people who are not satisfied with the change or feel that they’re not fully informed should be able to hold up what is otherwise a pretty robust process,” said planning board member Cynthia Schwartz.
Residents including Sack have been concerned that potential conflicts of interest concerning Elmwood Crossing could affect the planning board’s decision-making. Schwartz sat on the neighborhood committee that advised Kaleida Health on selling the former hospital to the present owners. Public records reveal that planning board member Martha Lamparelli’s husband Paul and her brother-in-law Joseph Jacobi jointly own a house less than one hundred feet from the northeast corner of the hospital property. Two other board members have not filed their annual financial disclosures for 2023.
The non-profit Kaleida Health sold the hospital complex, assessed in excess of $22 million dollars, to Elmwood Crossing, LLC for $1 million dollars in 2017. The LLC is a collaboration between Ellicott Development—a real estate company long operated by Carl Paladino—and Sinatra & Company, led by Nick Sinatra. Both men have been the subject of public scrutiny. Paladino was removed from the Buffalo School Board in 2017 after making racist comments about Barack and Michelle Obama and later expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler in his 2022 campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives. Sinatra has kept a lower profile, but Public Accountability Initiative and The Buffalo News singled him out in 2018 for deliberate nonpayment of property taxes.