Maybee Alley Might Go Two-Way Again After Nearly Two Decades

Ellicottville Now reported that on September 22, the Ellicottville Village Board opened a public hearing on whether a traffic law from 2007 still makes sense. The law made Maybee Alley one-way. Reversing it means the board has to formally rescind Local Law No. 1 of 2007, which means the alley has run in a single direction for essentially all of the past two decades, longer than most of the shops and restaurants around it have been open.

That alone might not be worth a headline. But the alley wasn't the only thing on the table that night. The same meeting included a public hearing on the proposed sale of 24 Rockwell Avenue and a new local law that would add a 5% occupancy tax inside the village. Three separate questions, one agenda, one evening at Town Hall. That combination says more about where Ellicottville is right now than any single item does on its own.

A Law Nobody Talks About Anymore

Maybee Alley is one of several named alleys woven through the two-street downtown grid, alongside Hotel Alley, Hughey Alley, and Marshall Alley. None of them show up on the postcards. They're the kind of infrastructure you only think about when you're circling for parking on a Saturday in ski season or trying to cut between Washington and Monroe Streets without walking the long way around.

The Village Board scheduled the Maybee Alley hearing during its August 18 meeting, alongside the Rockwell Avenue and occupancy tax items, according to Ellicottville Now's coverage of that meeting. Nobody on record has explained why the alley went one-way in 2007, and that's part of the point. Whatever problem the law solved almost twenty years ago either got solved, stopped mattering, or got outgrown by a downtown that looks different than it did back then. Undoing it now is less a traffic decision than a small piece of housekeeping that happens to double as a signal: the village is willing to revisit rules that have simply been sitting on the books.

Three Items, One Meeting

The hearing itself covered ground that has nothing to do with each other on paper.

• Maybee Alley traffic pattern. Returning it to two-way would require rescinding the 2007 law that made it one-way.
• 24 Rockwell Avenue. The board held a public hearing on the proposed sale of this village-owned property.
• A 5% occupancy tax. A new local law would apply the tax within the village, a notable move for a place that already leans heavily on short-term visitors during ski season and festival weekends.

Reading these as three unconnected line items misses the pattern. A village doesn't typically bundle a traffic reversal, a property sale, and a new tax into one hearing unless it's in an active stretch of reassessing how its downtown operates, not just cosmetically but procedurally. The board isn't repaving Washington Street or adding a crosswalk. It's rewriting the rules that sit underneath those visible changes.

What Two-Way Traffic Would Actually Change

If the law gets rescinded, the practical effect for someone who already lives in or around the village is small but real. Right now, Maybee Alley only moves traffic in one direction, which means it only offers one way in or one way out, depending on which direction that is. During Fall Festival weekend, the Chamber's slate of 17-plus annual events, or any Saturday when Holiday Valley traffic backs up onto Route 219, a one-way alley is a fixed constraint. Two-way access turns it into an option. Not a shortcut nobody's found yet, but a second route through a downtown that only has so many streets to begin with.

This is a proposal, not a done deal. The September 22 hearing was where residents got to weigh in, and public comment at these meetings has shaped outcomes before. Whether the board voted the same night or is holding the question for a future meeting hadn't been reported as of this writing. If you use that alley regularly, whether on foot, in a car, or walking a dog around the block before dinner, this is the decision to watch for on the village's next agenda.

A Village Also Chasing State Money

This hearing didn't happen in isolation. Ellicottville has spent the past year applying for state revitalization funding, and the same September update from Village Clerk Amy Hayward that flagged the alley hearing also flagged a stack of grant applications working their way through state agencies. The village expects word in late October on a NY Plays Grant for an all-inclusive playground and on an Engineering Planning Grant from the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation. A decision on a Water Infrastructure Improvement Grant is expected in November or December. Beyond those, the village has applications pending for playground and trail system funding, a proposed amphitheater, and infrastructure improvements along Park Street and Fillmore Drive, with decisions expected between December and January.

None of this happens by accident. The village partnered with G&G Municipal Consulting to pursue funding through the state's Downtown Revitalization Initiative and NY Forward programs, and it has already picked up a Pro-Housing Community designation from NYS Homes and Community Renewal, a distinction that can factor into how competitive future state funding applications look. A village actively courting that kind of money has an incentive to show it can also manage its own downtown cleanly, which makes a housekeeping item like the Maybee Alley law more than a footnote. It's the kind of small, visible fix that state reviewers notice when they're deciding where else to send money.

What's Already Landed This Fall

Some of this is still pending. Some of it isn't. The board approved the 2026 Fall Festival with no changes from the previous year, keeping that weekend on its usual footing while everything else gets debated. Griffis Sculpture Park has already rolled out Night Lights, its immersive lighting and performance program that turns the park into a different kind of evening destination through the fall. Olean-based trainer Dave Preston opened a new fitness studio in the village, bringing personalized coaching and group classes to a stretch of town that didn't have that option before.

A newly formed Special Events Committee is also working to schedule its first meeting to review how the village handles event applications and approvals going forward, a process that will likely shape how future festivals and pop-up markets get greenlit. And the village's eCode project, which reorganizes how zoning and municipal code get published and searched, is still moving through review after the village attorney and planner completed their analysis and sent it back for next steps.

Taken together, these aren't dramatic changes. They're the ordinary mechanics of a small village doing a lot of administrative work at once: a code rewrite, a grant push, an events policy review, and now a look at a traffic law that's outlasted its original purpose. If you live here, the version of this worth paying attention to isn't any single line item. It's the fact that several of them are moving in the same season, which means more of these small votes are likely to land on a Village Board agenda before winter than in a typical quiet stretch.

The meeting was held at 6:00pm at the Ellicottville Town Hall, moved from its usual date because of a scheduling conflict with the NYCOM conference. All three hearings, the alley, the Rockwell Avenue sale, and the occupancy tax, took place there before the board moved to its regular business.

If you're the kind of resident who tracks these agendas because you live two blocks from Washington Street and actually use the alley, or you're just trying to keep up with how the village is handling this stretch of grant applications and code changes, Jennifer Courtney keeps an eye on these updates as part of living and working in the village year-round, and is glad to talk through what any of it might mean for your corner of town.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.