The residents of our community have a right to express their feelings about developments, pro and con. The following letter was addressed to our Town Board members concerning the Maple Road proposed development project.
November 14, 2007
Members
Amherst Town Board
5583 Main Street
Williamsville, NY 14221
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen:
We, the professional and lay leaders of the Jewish Community’s largest organization in Western New York, are writing to you in your capacity as the ultimate decision makers in the evolution and development of the Town of Amherst. This is a highly unusual request. We have previously come before you on a wide variety of issues. But we come today because of a matter before you of critical importance to the Jewish Community and to the citizens of the Town of Amherst.
The question at hand is the proposed Amherst Town Centre, a mixed use development project at the former gun club site on Maple Road. We support this project wholeheartedly. Our support is on a strategic level. We do not feel that it is in our province to discuss issues of taxation, planning or land use. To the contrary, we trust the Town will negotiate the proper and beneficial terms and conditions for such a project. As this is a private development, we are requesting no special dispensation.
Our concern lies in another, larger area. We are thinking strategically about the Jewish Community, its current investment in infrastructure and its future in the Town of Amherst. Today, Amherst is the home of Western New York’s Jewish Community. This was not always the case. The Jewish Community’s history is that it has migrated from the East side, to North Buffalo, to Tonawanda and now to Amherst.
Over the past quarter century, tens of thousands of Jews have invested tens of millions of private dollars into our Jewish Communal facilities in Amherst, making the Town the base of our entire infrastructure. Our concern is that in order for our Jewish Community to hold onto our Amherst base, we need to welcome and embrace privately financed innovative developments in established parts of the town; it makes all the sense in the world.
Our next generation of Jews, along with the hundreds of professionals being drawn to the region by UB and the Buffalo Medical Campus, will be looking for new, upscale housing, designed for integration with the community. This sophisticated, worldly group wants, and has experienced neighborhoods with integrated stores, services and houses contoured to a different lifestyle. The proposed Amherst Town Centre project is responsive to these demands and expectations.
The project under consideration is virtually at the center of the Jewish community’s physical infrastructure, including the Jewish Center, Weinberg Campus, Kadimah School and all our major temples and synagogues. This proposed mixed use development would re-invigorate and shore up that infrastructure.
Let us explain the dynamics. The tens of millions of Jewish charitable dollars that created regional and national centers of excellence, such as the Jewish Community Center, the Weinberg Campus and our major temples, require ongoing charitable re-investment and constant upgrading. Without adjacent community support to adapt and stay current, institutions deteriorate, degrade, and are eventually sold off, generally at basement prices and to groups less able to subsidize excellence. In this scenario, all of us lose. The thousands of non-Jewish Amherst citizens who benefit from these excellent services (and a vast proportion of our participants, members, residents and clients and not Jewish) will be short-changed. Tax receipts on new upscale housing will be diminished, economic vibrancy and all manner of related services and activities will move to another community. And Western New York sprawl will accelerate.
We are aware that some individuals, especially neighbors in the immediate vicinity, have expressed concerns and reservations about the project. This is to be expected. But we wanted to communicate to you, our elected officials, our support for this significant enhancement to our town. We believe this project will be in the short, medium, and long terms interests of the Western New York Jewish Community, which align so clearly with those of the Town of Amherst. We request, therefore, that you approve the Town Centre project.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Hyman Polakoff, Chairman, Board of Directors
David M. Dunkelman, President & CEO