Council discusses the sale of Little League Drive

TONAWANDA - The sale of Little League Drive, which was dead in the water a year ago is no longer so and residents are unhappy with the plans to continue working with Natale Builders on the property.

The property has been appraised multiple times in the $500,000 range, but the sale price that has been quoted is nowhere near the appraisal price.

When the council went into executive session on Tuesday night they were going to discuss the issues with the project, most importantly being who would pay for the infrastructure costs. Roger Puthalski, a city resident, said the developer should be paying for those costs.

“If the council has another proposal where the guy was interested in paying for the infrastructure why do you just dismiss those,” said Puthalski. “You’re asking people in the city where the medium income is $49,000 to subsidize this project with houses that they couldn’t afford to build.”

City residents echoed his concerns over where the money for this project was going to come from and why the taxpayers should be burdened with the costs.

Board President Carleton Zeisz used River Edge as an example of a long term investment the city has made in the past and how it has brought substantial income back into the city over the past 29 years.

“Just because people in the city make an investment in an infrastructure doesn’t mean they don’t get anything back,” said Zeisz. “Once 10 houses were built the city would start making money and that would be within a matter of a couple years. Everything we have charted out was over a period of 25 years.”

Not everyone is looking at the project as a burden though.

“Any new family that would move into said development, let’s say next year, their first child wouldn’t graduate until 2030. This brings a lot of new people to the area, and a lot of new kids to our schools and a lot more money going into our businesses,” said Steve Kazprzak.

Zeisz assured everyone that the council was not hiding any information from the city and as soon as they had a definite plan they would share it, but while negotiations are still going on, things are up in the air.