The City is proceeding with construction of the controversial Sycamore Village development on an East Side brown-field site that is said to now be clean and safe for habitation.
This development and several others around the city like it is subsidized to the tune of just over $100,000 per housing unit. Since the 1980's the city has promoted the construction of new houses as infill between existing buildings and as whole new neighborhoods, filling wide stretches of vacant land (as is being done at Sycamore Village). These developments are built in a suburban style with house designs and materials common to newer towns and cities. The lots are laid out 1 1/2 to 2 times wider than standard city lots. Driveways are often 2 cars wide and the space between houses is much greater than other city neighborhoods.
In the mean time, the city has plans to demolish as many as 10,000 buildings over the next few years that have been abandoned and neglected. These forlorn buildings and many others heading for the same fait will cost the city upwards of $15,000 apiece to demolish. Many of these buildings have certainly outlived their usefulness and probably should be cleared.
Unfortunately, many more have great potential value that is not being tapped. Once demolished these unique buildings will be gone forever. The potential they hold will also be gone, likely to be replaced by new houses of banal design and cheap materials. As houses wait for demolition, their decay spreads to neighboring houses until whole streets get devoured by decay. Many extremely valuable and historic streets are being lost through this process in Buffalo, though they do not have to be.
The houses shown below are all part of the city's upcoming property auction scheduled for September 22. There is no plan for what to do with them if they do not sell. All of them appear to be eminently salvageable. All of them have unique histories and interesting design features. Most likely 90% of these buildings will be demolished before long. The plan behind these new builds and tear downs seems to be the idea that the city must become suburban to succeed and to do this all of these pesky old buildings need to go. Or perhaps there is no plan at all other than to spend available housing subsidies on something new.
Why not spend Sycamore Village type money on something that could really pay benefits for existing neighborhoods? Why not renovate a whole street that is in distress? A plan like this could pay off huge on a street like Coe Place adjacent to the New Art Space Lofts or on some of the streets of the Lower West Side which are already starting to attract private development money. Repairing one distressed house on a mostly stable street can head off disaster for that street. Strategic and targeted spending of money on the thing that makes Buffalo unique can leverage the proven strength of history to save its neighborhoods.
Buffalo can not compete with the suburbs on suburban terms. Buffalos salvation does not depend on its ultimate suburbanization. Buffalo needs to build and compete by using the tremendous and unfortunately neglected assets it already has in abundance, its historic urban fabric.
Imagine these buildings below renovated to like new condition. Then imagine new plastic houses in their place. You may not have to imagine the second scenario for much longer.
