Coincidence? This Buffalo News photo shows Niagara Falls Community Development Director, Seth Piccirillo posing in front of a home owned by Ralph Pescrillo, a landlord who owns rental homes where Piccirillo is targeting a plan where taxpayers pay college grads to live in rental homes. Landlord Pescrillo is Mayor Dyster’s next door neighbor.

The Buffalo News broke a story in its June 11 edition about the city's new plan to pay college graduates to live in certain neighborhoods in Niagara Falls.

Community Development Director, Seth Piccirillo was pictured in front of a good-looking house in the city. While the address of the house was not identified in the News article, the Reporter was able to identify the property as 745 Fourth St. The house belongs to Ralph Pescrillo, who happens to live next door to Mayor Paul Dyster.

Dyster's home address is 626 Orchard Parkway. Pescrillo lives at 630 Orchard Parkway.

A search of the city’s website, www.niagarafallsusa.org, reveals Pescrillo owns more than 60 houses in the city, a number of them in the targeted areas of young Seth Piccirillo's new housing incentive program.

According to sources, Pescrillo rents homes to parolees who need an address as a requirement of their parole. Some landlords take as many as five parolees, or college students for that matter, in a single-family home, dividing the house into several addresses like a rooming house.

If Pescrillo or any landlord uses the same plan with the college grads, he might get several students in a single home, all getting grants from the city, to combine to pay a handsome rent.

It may be coincidence that Piccirillo is posing in front of a rental home owned by Mayor Dyster's next-door neighbor, a big-time landlord. Still, it makes one wonder if this housing incentive program is landlord driven.