Aurora BoT creates new Institutional Zone for heart of Wells campus

In March of 2024, as part of a major revision of municipal law developed over two years, the Village Board decided that the Institutionally zoned Wells campus would be zoned entirely Mixed-Use. This was at the request of the college. It was meant to open the campus to some commercial development coinciding with continued educational use by Wells, in an attempt to help the college find new financial options and income streams.

When the college announced its closure on April 29, 2024, the Village Board discovered that the NYS Dept. of State had not yet filed the zoning change. That meant it had not yet been adopted into law. As a result, the Village Trustees decided to pause the process and re-evaluate the new zoning for the campus (intended to “save” the college) in light of the sudden closure.

In several weeks of public discussion, the Village Board viewed the campus as a block to be zoned one way or the other, Institutional or Mixed-Use.  In June, the WLS proposed a compromise using the boundaries of the National Historic Register District to delineate a newly defined* Institutional zone, while zoning the outlying portions of the campus (e.g., the Golf Course) as Mixed-Use available for commercial development.

We are gratified and relieved to note that on July 24, the Village BoT included this compromise in finally adopting its new municipal zoning law. The law now provides Institutional zoning to protect the core historic campus of our beloved Wells.

* Definition - The purpose of the Institutional District is to provide for continued institutional use of a portion of the former Wells College campus. The intent of this Zoning District is to provide space for non-profit, public, and semi-public entities to house schools, medical centers, municipal offices, libraries, museums, research centers, creative and performing arts centers, and facilities for charitable, fraternal and religious or other similar organizations.”

The letter from the WLS to Aurora’s Village Trustees is here.