MINOA — Minoa Mayor Bill Brazill summed up the details of a recent sitdown concerning the proposal for 85 rental homes in the Minoa Farms neighborhood.
The discussion took place the afternoon of Dec. 5 in the board room of the village hall on North Main Street. It brought together the mayor, Trustee Bobby Schepp, Clerk-Treasurer Lisa DeVona, Attorney Courtney Hills, Code Enforcement Officer Mike Jones, Department of Public Works Superintendent Tom Petterelli and engineer Alex Wisniewski along with Minoa Farms developer Elliot Lasky in from Buffalo and Brandon Jacobson of Brolex Properties LLC, the company presenting the plan.
“We had a really good discussion,” Brazill said. “We laid it on the line how we want to go forward.”
Along with the additions of the single-level and two-story rental homes, an intent of the project is to establish an access road leading through Minoa Farms Park to prevent truck traffic and the transfer of heavy construction equipment from going through the residential parts of the neighborhood.
Brazill said Brolex also has to work on bettering its reputation in the view of Minoa’s residents. He said that in certain instances the company has put in household infrastructure in a backward way within the development area, to the point that yards had to be dug up to correct the problem.
Although supply chain issues were to blame in large part according to Brazill, the company was also delayed in securing windows and other materials to finish the punch lists for some homes. As a result, would-be Minoa Farms homeowners were forced to push back their move-in dates as much as a year in some cases.
“We can’t afford to have any more fiascos like we had with those homes,” Brazill said. “The people over there are happy in them now, but it’s just what they had to go through to get in. It really became a mess.”
Brazill said that Jacobson was receptive during the Dec. 5 meeting and not defensive against criticism.
The way the development has been planned out, Minoa Farms will have 284 homes upon its completion, Brazill said.
He further said that the one-floor, ranch-style rental homes proposed by Brolex would be suitable for elderly people already living in the village who wish to move out of their multi-story households out of concern for their mobility.
