A Statement from The Church at Shawnee Landing
(Uploaded on February 16, 2007)
The Church At Shawnee Landing
P.O. Box 196
Wheatfield, NY 14120
The Town of Wheatfield Supervisor has accused The Church of failing to live up to its agreements with regard to construction at Shawnee Landing.
The Church disputes this outrageous claim. The Church abided by all requests from the Town of Wheatfield Planning Board. On May 17, 2006 the board gave conditional approval on two separate site plan submissions, one from The Church, and the other from the adjacent Town Homes at Shawnee Landing Project.
While it has been the Church’s plan to undertake construction soon after the beginning of the Town Homes project, we have never guaranteed that both projects would be undertaken simultaneously. The projects were planned on a coordinated basis. But the Town Homes had a firm November deadline to commence construction. The Church intends to use the same general contractor for its project, but the beginning of that project is not contingent on a specific deadline.
It is our firm hope and desire to begin construction early this year, barring any further difficulties with The Town.
We have been planning for this project for some seven years now. The land was acquired in 2000, and at that time the Church had no development partners. We have no recollection of any formal submissions of site plans to the town in those early stages. We do recall a period beginning in 2001 when The Church was first considering an early concept including two 80 unit senior apartment buildings. Those plans never came to fruition. We did not begin working with Belmont Shelter as a co-developer until early 2002.
We dropped the single building concept in favor of Town Homes, and in late 2003, upon advice that state funding would be unlikely for a “seniors only” project, we added affordable housing for families.
Formal application was FIRST made to the Town in early 2004. Anything under consideration prior to that was far too preliminary to have been considered viable.
The facts are clear that the Town approved site plans for The Church and Town Homes with a Church entrance onto Shawnee, and a Town Homes entrance onto Demler/Klemer Roads. Traffic studies supported that concept. For some inexplicable reason, and without further traffic studies to support a change, the Town Board voted in January to change the approved site plan by closing the only legal public access to the Town Homes project.
The Town’s actions have been vindictive, arbitrary, capricious and harmful to the Church’s finances.
We have been honest in our dealings with The Town.
We can only pray that The Town will reciprocate in the weeks and months to come.
But that rocky road has yet to be traveled.
Rev. Jerry McGlone
Pastor
The Church at Shawnee Landing
