Buffalo Rising Online

SHOCKING!

Anybody know the implications for the real estate department?

What are we doing with the vacant lots all over this city? Do we have plan to make neighborhoodsl vibrant again like a true city or continue with the suburban houses and retail store plazas surrounded by parking lots? If you look at what the City of New York did to Harlem, we could do the same for many of Buffalo's old run down neighborhoods too. Get a plan for each section of the city and ReDevelope it. Market to big corporations, retailers, and see the difference we could make all over this city.

If you look at areas of the South Bronx that were Completely Demolished block by block and look at them today, many of those empty blocks are now filled with modern high rise apartments, co-ops and retail. Even in Harlem or many sections of NYC, areas that were once neglected or empty are now filled in with new development (High Rise/Mix Use Buildings that WORK TOGETHER) not single family homes just to replace the once we tore down, but NEW ideas and WOW factors to entice people to move back to these areas.

NYC is a wildly inappropriate model for Buffalo to use. Even in hard times, it was still a world financial capitol. Our hard times have seen us lose half our population. It's long past time to start pushing for growth where it's feasible, and to start managing our decline where it isn't.

Until steady, well paid jobs are added to the mix, Buffalo will only shuffle the deck. A solid base of industry needs to be re-established........hopefully renewable. "green" energy. The other part of the equation is to get rid of the weighted, down state favoritism for funding and development. Research and find that Brian has a very strong record. He is also a native of Buffalo.

we'll see, mayoral appointments don't mean much to me. Remember we appointed toby also. The closed process to pick and choose people in power by one many bothers me.

Also these three things don't work together "accelerating the city’s demolition and redevelopment program, strengthening residential neighborhoods & commercial districts, improving preservation efforts" Choose ONE and go with it. otherwise this is the same crap strategy we have had. Demolish here with Tons of money and sprinkle what is left around.. How about investing ALL of the city's resources together to actually accomplish something significant and inspiring.

sbrof --

I don't see the contradiction between those three things. That sounds like the ideal approach to me -- demolishing what's beyond use and saving what can be rehabbed. To date, the rhetoric has been entirely about demolition, and some useful properties have been lost. Who knows how any of this will be implemented, but it sounds like an improvement.

Get the inspectors CELL PHONES My biggest problem as a contractor is getting hold of my Inspector. They are only in the office for a few hours, once the leave, your out of luck. There is little reason for most inspectors to be in city hall. With modern technology, most inspection documentation can be done by laptop from the location. This will put inspectors in the neighborhoods where we can use them. Lack of electrical inspections can cost a developer thousands of dollars in hold ups.

"we'll see, mayoral appointments don't mean much to me. Remember we appointed toby also. The closed process to pick and choose people in power by one many bothers me.sbrof"

My first thought was that Cleveland is doing so well that we need to hire their people for our city? Doesnt make sense.

Brown hired another politically connected minority to fill a position in his administration....that would get him more mileage....seems more believable

but who knows...the talk is good...question is....and I mean this sincerely rather than sarcastically....is this guy going to do anything real and substantial that the average property owner and average developer/business owner will notice (thats really the bottom line isnt it)?

Because...from what we have seen at the Vernor and sSchmidt and Graystone and (adjacent to Redjacket), etc and recently the livery and even more recently in all the city owned property that is going un-maintained.....(the city isnt performing its job in any sense of the word except harrassing those that ask that the city do its job)

Cant blame Brown though..city hasnt done its job in a very long time and certainly not under Masiello (the most brainless administration in common memory).

At the very least Brown presents a good image....but...the day to day reality...hasnt changed for most of us if not any of us.

How good could Cleveland be? They don't even a have a ClevelandRising.

Have you ever been to Cleveland, sayvanderlay? Of course not, they have a wonderful downtown and a waterfront, years ahead of Buffalo. Two Downtown Malls, Football, Baseball, Rock'n Roll Hall of Fame, and I believe the Baseball Hall of Fame too, all DOWNTOWN and they have a great park system much like ours with beautiful old homes and kept up properties. So why not hire someone from Cleveland to help Buffalo?

........Cleveland's downtown streets are also paved with gold! Personally, I think Buffalo could to better than Cleveland, especially at the waterfront.

So we should aspire to be like Cleveland? I don't think so GDC, they made some improvements to the city and added a few event venues but for the most part the city is still suffering the same fate as Buffalo and other rust belt cities. The difference is that Buffalo is far worse from the start, we had more and lost more. To say that we will make it when we are like Cleveland or Baltimore is like feeling that we hit the big time because we moved from the singlewide to the doublewide. Don't set the bar too low.

Buffalo needs to attract talented and motivated people to live here, we have some but not enough. I don't agree with the "brain drain" theory, just because someone has a college degree doesn't mean that they are intelligent or motivated. In most cities having a college degree is a requirement for a job, but not in union-centric Buffalo. We need to be more attractive to large corporations, which means that we need to change the way that we view corporations and government. Stop worrying about the huddled masses yearning for their lifelong job security, and start focusing on the elite class of intelligent and motivated employees who will make a difference for this region.

Make Buffalo (and NY) more attractive to businesses. Look to successful systems (like Virginia and North Carolina) as examples instead of another rust belt city that is too mired in the past to compete with the big cities in the new economy.

I guess he is a Buffalo native... that could be good news since he might have a stronger drive to help fix his home town.

While I agree that new ideas and outside people and money are good for our city I don't think they are the only way to improve ourselves. There are a lot of talented people who live and have moved away. What is wrong with someone who moved away for 20 years, gained some world experience and wants to come back and apply it to Buffalo? Somehow I think those are the best kinds of people because they have the love, memories and drive to improve their hometown with their gained life experiences. People who have never left Buffalo can and do have some perspectives that are not always the most helpful; but in today's world with so many family and friends elsewhere there are few really insular people left around here.

Brown is a POOR example of new outside ideas really improving our city. The hard work was done by Masiello (sorry to say but he cut the city's workforce by some 30% and started to streamline inspections and permits and reduced their lead time from over a year to months and came out for the first comprehensive plan in 30+ years one of which won a national award and helped to change the mentality of Downtown Buffalo as a place to work play and live) and Brown has so far just been riding the coat tails and not really ruining anything. His main objectives have been to demolish more of our history and blight and impose Citistat as an accountability model. One good thing, one ok to bad (IMO), ohh and he will fill in pot holes.. great vision with this guy. I am hoping this new hire will provide him with someone he is confident in and will provide the drive and vision for his home town with his outside Buffalo experience.

"Brown hired another politically connected minority"

Brian Reilly is a minority? Black Irish, maybe?

1)Systematically demo the far east side past Jefferson/Humbolt Park and landbank it. Allow notible churches etc to become stewards of the land around them. Imagine Corpus Christi etc being located on a multi acre park/nature like campus instead of surrounded by vacant homes.

2)Fringe neighborhoods along the cheektowaga border work with Cheektowaga to try to do something to halt the disinvestment, but our societal intertial forces of pick up and run are heavy in that direction.

3)Systematically demo/new build the near east side block by block from DT outward with selective rehabs for notible properties. Make them part of the any new build developer contracts.

4)West/North/South buffalo focus on buidling rehabs using demo as last resorts. Make programs to get those with homes on sparsely populated areas/streets of the east side into homes on the near east side or west side in housing swaps.

5) Use urban walkable design guidlines for all new build blocks and in-fill.

There are way to many buildings in Buffalo. Like a sick tree it needs to be pruned to regain its strength and to be able to grow again. Like an army thining out on too many front lines it needs to retreat, get defensive, and plan for highly specific offensives with high returns on sucess. Even as far out as genesee and broadway between filmore and bailey the amount of vacant/burnt out houses houses is stagering on all the side streets.

What is better, Buffalo with the current amount of people/money/services/investment scattered over 30sq miles or concentrated on a land size 60% of that with the rest cleared and laid out for future growth if needed. Would sq miles of clear land around the edges of a more densly populated city look more appealing or sq miles of streets filled with vacant houses around a sparsely populated city? Is money better spent fixing old water pipes and streets that have a few inhabited houses on them or completely removing them instead? If you had a 10,000 sqft house where you were not using half the rooms and you could not afford to keep the whole place up and portions of it were falling down, would you not downsize to something smaller sized, but better cared for?

Some may try to point to the failed 60's urban renewal, removing people from older homes, wholesale demolition for the promise of new development that never came etc. This is very different. A staggering amount of these homes on the east side are already vacant and falling down with vacant lots all around them and are not near the core. It would not be with the promise of future development, but in the name of more concentrated new development and leaving service-light land for future development, if needed.

I realize this is over simplified, but if the city would have anything like this as a mission statement etc one would feel that we are actually heading toward a greater goal. At least one great then "5in5".

Reilly got fired for being ineffective in Cleveland and got fired from his job before that. He has a lot of baggage already and he has only been here a few months. Target on his back, getting bigger and bigger