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New public meeting set for Bills Stadium as neighborhood groups call for $500M in investments from community benefit agreement

Multiple studies were released on the Buffalo Bills SEQR website. This comes as community groups call for fruit belt investments from the benefits agreement.

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — The Buffalo Bills have released hundreds of pages of documents related to the new stadium. 

Those documents, including archeological studies, environmental reviews, traffic assessments, demolition plans, and more have been published to the Buffalo Bills SEQR website. 

A public meeting has been scheduled for Thursday, October 27 at the Orchard Park Community Activity Center. The meeting will start at 6 P.M. 

Erie County, New York State and the Buffalo Bills recently announced that another negotiating extension has been agreed upon. The three parties are working on, among many parts, the community benefits agreement. 

The community benefits agreement lays out how the Bills will invest in Western New York.

Wednesday, advocates from several community groups were at the site of the old Rockpile in the Fruit Belt calling on the Bills ownership to make those investments.

They want those investments to total half a billion dollars over the next 30 years given the taxpayers' billion-dollar funding of the stadium. 

"I don't want to call this an ask or a demand because I don't feel like we should have to demand something that just makes sense," said Jillian Hansworth from the #716PlayFair Coalition. "I don't feel like we should have to ask that a team that is building a stadium with our tax dollars to reinvest in the community, I don't think we should have to demand that, I don't think we should have to be here right now doing this, but here we are.

The coalition wants funding to be directed toward housing, infrastructure, transportation and other areas of need. 

"Right now, people cannot get to the stadium," said Hamburg Town Supervisor Randy Hoak. "Folks from Hamburg cannot get into all the wonderful amenities that the city of Buffalo offers the residents, that's just the beginning of the conversation about how the buffalo bills can't be good neighbors"

If you're unable to attend the October 27 public hearing, Erie County will be streaming it on its YouTube channel. 

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