On Sunday we walked around the Fruit Belt and spotted some incredible progress on a new housing development. These shots are from the corner of Virgina and Lemon Streets.
St. John Fruitbelt Community Development Corp.Ground was broken in November for a 28 unit townhouse development in Buffalo’s Fruitbelt neighborhood. The 3 and 4 bedroom family rentals received an allocation of Low Income Housing Credits from the State of New York. LISC subsidiary National Equity Fund is the project investor, having agreed to provide approximately $ 5 million in equity funding. Construction financing is being provided by M&T Bank.
The new homes are sponsored by St. John Baptist Church, and will be the largest new housing development in the Fruitbelt in many years. Not only will this investment give families a new great place to live, it will also further downtown housing opportunities in keeping with both the Queen City Hub Plan and the master plan of the adjacent Buffalo-Niagara Medical Campus.
From an April 2006 Business First article we learn...
"We are using the same formula that we're using in the Fruit Belt already in other parts," Wanamaker said. "That formula initiative in the Fruit Belt is almost exactly what you see in the Cold Springs neighborhood, where you have a faith-based community development corporation."The design here is a huge step forward for the City's East side. Would like to know what the costs are compared to vinyl. First saw this development in January - right here.
Artspace • BAVPA • Tour d'Neglect - 2007 • Woodlawn Row Houses • faq • my flickr
9 comments:
These are so much better than what Bethel and Belmont are building. Hopefully they can take some pointers from St. Johns... Dude, you have way too many CDC's over there. Everything west of Main is covered by one NHS (the amalgamation of the West Side NHS and the Black Rock/ Riverside NHS). Love the brick!
New builds on the East Side that AREN'T vinyl!
This is great!
I hope they build more of this in the future and cut out the vinyl victorian crap with no windows on the side.
-Grant
Moronic idea to use at rentals. Does not anyone notice the condition of most rental properties in city. OK yes their are landlords who don't care but as well too many trash tenants that don't appreciate the new housing and will ruin it in no time. Buffalo blunders yet again. Never seem to learn from past mistakes. There are more than enough available empty places in Buffalo for rental housing. Use all this money to repair it. Ok where is reasoning? Don't take care of what you aalready have and just build more????? Bozo school of Moronics at work.
$5 Million / 28 units = $178,571 per unit. They'd better be brick if not gold-leaf faced.
These units likely are tax-exempt, thereby NOT adding to the tax base but further costing the existing (shrinking) tax base MORE because these additional units need fire, police, etc... City services that are paid by everyone else.
We are looking into the rabbit hole, Alice, might as well come in, everyone else is here ... welcome to Wonderland !!
This is HUGE improvement over the usual suburban vinyl crap that's been plopped in this section of the city way too much. The brick veneer is a'ight.
Though, I'm kinda shaky on the whole deal with this being rental housing too, but I've seen instances of subsidized rentals where the landlord is actually proactive and gets rid of problem tenants right away. So..no, most low-income renters are NOT drug dealers, crackheads, and gang members, despite what some people like to believe.
Still, we have to be VERY cautious about adding more dwelling units to a shrinking city.
When are the low income rental projects in Clarence and Orchard Park going to be completed? Ooops that's right_there are none! Oh well :-(
Been there...
We've been falling down the rabbit hole for years...we are so far in that we now accept this inverted world as normal.
Steel...
Didn't know that Clarence had a CDC!
Many different entities can build low/mod income units; and CDC's have different geographic areas of coverage. Bethel probably couldn't build in Clarence, BUT Belmont does build in many outlying areas. Belmont has a current project (not without some controversy from mid-upper income neighbors) in Wheatfield.
Sorry to be a drag, but Fruit Belt is two words.
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