Over the past 20 years…
the Village of Williamsville has grown and evolved, adapting to changes in the housing market, increasing demands for community services, and rising costs of service delivery. As quality-of-life concerns take center stage, the Village now looks to the future as a mostly built-out community. The next decade presents an opportunity to revitalize and sustain the Main Street business district, enhance recreational and open spaces, and preserve the Village’s unique character—all while maintaining the strong, vibrant, historic neighborhoods that form the foundation of the community.
In 2010, the Village adopted the Williamsville Community Plan, later amended in 2015, to guide future growth. Now, it’s time to revisit the plan to and ensure it reflects the changes in our community over the past decade, and continues to provide a clear vision for the future. Engaging Village residents and stakeholders is essential to understanding the characteristics and opportunities that make the Village so special, especially as redevelopment becomes the primary path for growth.
To identify critical issues and opportunities, the Village hosted five Neighborhood Visioning Forums in 2024. These forums allowed residents, property owners, and others to discuss current conditions, local concerns, and future goals for our community.
In 2025…
the Village contracted with Collier’s Engineering & Design for the Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Code Update. The Village Board has appointed a Comprehensive Plan Update Committee, who will provide policy guidance to the consultants throughout the comprehensive planning process. The plan serves as guidance for the work that committees undertake on behalf of the Village. This approach sets the Village up for success by focusing on a list of priorities that work toward common, clearly articulated goals.
Comprehensive Plan Public Workshop May 2025
View photo gallery from the event.
The Village is served by a number of volunteer committees made up of dedicated residents that provide input on a wide range of Village issues. While the Village Board is generally the responsible party with respect to many of the actions in the plan, many recommendations may speak directly to the work of a particular committee.
In addition to specific strategies and actions, the plan lays out a series of overarching principles and objectives that will help guide future development. The plan concludes with an implementation section that contains the highest priority actions for the Village.
More about the Plan
Vision Statement
Williamsville’s future builds upon its present as a unique and historic place. Our Village functions as an integral part of the Town of Amherst and the surrounding region. Ideally, the future Village will enhance this unique character by building upon our defining characteristics:
- Our Diverse Neighborhoods;
- Our Main Street Shopping District; and
- Our Physical Setting.
Our Vision ensures that Village neighborhoods remain safe and secure, with a range of housing available to all. Each neighborhood has its own identity, derived from a strong sense of community and active participation by residents in civic life.
The physical setting of Williamsville is defined by our natural resources, places of commerce, open spaces and civic activity. Amherst State Park, Glen Park and Island Park are linked by Ellicott Creek to form a green corridor that intersects with the Main Street Business District and historic Water Mill Complex to form the crossroads of Village life. A high quality of design is reflected in the built environment throughout Williamsville, especially along its defining corridors and at “gateway” entrances. While our Village welcomes future growth in the form of new jobs, new assets and new living opportunities, we also demand that each is sensitively developed within the context of the natural setting our current residents enjoy. We welcome change, yet choose to embrace that change within an adopted planning policy that protects the quality of life for both residents and visitors.
Walkability & Traffic
The Williamsville Community Plan sets forth recommendations for mitigating the impacts of the large volumes of traffic that utilize Main Street every day. Such mitigation involves the provision of pedestrian amenities such as bulb-outs, a median, and improvements to traffic signal phasing. At the same time, the plan acknowledges the importance of allowing Main Street to continue to handle large volumes of traffic. However, the proposed recommendations have built-in flexibility so that they can be adapted with relative ease should future traffic volumes on Main Street decrease in connection with potential changes to the larger regional transportation network.
Historic Preservation
The goal of land use classifications for Williamsville’s commercial and residential areas is to ensure that they are able to remain relevant and economically healthy well into the future, while preserving, enhancing and leveraging the character and charm that has been handed down from the past. By integrating historic preservation design standards, residential design guidelines, and other key guidance documents, the Comprehensive Plan update seeks to better protect the Village’s stock of historic structures.
Greenspace & Parks
A ribbon of green flows through the center of the Village connecting Island Park to the south and Glen Park and Amherst State Park to the north. However, these parks are not readily visible or easily accessible from Main Street. And although they are virtually contiguous, each park in practice functions in relative isolation from the other. Providing better physical and visual connections between these parks would allow them to function as a larger unit and tie the Village into a regional system of interconnected parks.
The creation of the Greenway could take place in phases, beginning with relatively easy steps, such as signage and distinctive pavement markings that indicate the location of the Greenway, to more concrete improvements that establish the Greenway in the built environment. Carrying the Greenway across Main Street will be an important facet. A Greenway Plan could be prepared to pin-point the exact location of the Greenway, identify the potential users of the Greenway and their needs, and establish the look, form and function of this important element to the Village’s multi-layered circulation network.