GENESEE COUNTY, NEW YORK - The Sierra Club and Tonawanda Seneca Nation filed suit today in State Supreme Court challenging a zoning agreement between the Town of Alabama and the Genesee County Economic Development Center (GCEDC) to facilitate industrial development at the WNY Science and Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park (STAMP) in Alabama, NY.

The suit alleges that the zoning agreement, which prevents the Town from making changes to its municipal zoning laws and comprehensive plan absent GCEDC approval, violates state law prohibitions against bargaining away legislative discretion and binding future Town Boards. Because the agreement is void, the suit alleges, zoning rules based upon it are void as well. The suit seeks a court declaration that the agreement and associated zoning rules are void, and asks the court to annul the agreement and the zoning framework it creates. If successful, the action would restore the Town Board’s ability to adjust zoning rules at STAMP as it is able to do in the rest of the Town.

“Local residents, including Sierra Club members, have asked the Town to protect their community from STAMP noise and pollution by enacting stronger zoning laws, and the Town has responded that their hands are tied by this agreement,” said Diane Ciurczak, Vice-Chair of the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter. “That’s not right, either for the community or for the planet.”

“Our people share many of the same concerns as our neighbors in the Town of Alabama,” said Chief Roger Hill, Snipe Clan Sachem of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation. “This zoning agreement makes it impossible for the people who live here to protect their community and the environment we all share.”

Despite nearly twenty years of effort and more than $410 million in taxpayer subsidies, GCEDC has struggled to attract viable tenants or to construct basic infrastructure at STAMP. GCEDC and the Town of Alabama Planning Board are currently reviewing a proposal from STREAM U.S. Data Centers to site a 2.2 million square foot, 500 megawatt hyperscale data center at STAMP. 

The Sierra Club is the largest and oldest environmental nonprofit organization in the United States, and its Atlantic Chapter has about 37,000 members throughout New York State. The Tonawanda Seneca Nation is a traditional Haudenosaunee Nation whose treaty-protected Reservation Territory shares a boundary with the STAMP site.