86 City-owned properties were recently added to the City's list of 'homestead eligible' properties. This list includes 94 Northampton. These properties (.pdf ) are now available for purchase to qualified prospective owner-occupants for $1.
Interested? - John Hannon, Director of Real Estate, is waiting to hear from you. The City's Division of Real Estate can be reached at (716) 851-5261. Update - 5/3/10 - here's the official catalog of City-owned residential property (.pdf) that's currently available for sale.
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building index • fixBuffalo flickr • creative class • shrinking cities • americansuburbX
spacing toronto • infrastructurist • inhabitat
building index • fixBuffalo flickr • creative class • shrinking cities • americansuburbX
spacing toronto • infrastructurist • inhabitat
8 comments:
This list is progress. However, 12 of the 'homestead' parcels are vacant lots (property classes 311, 312 & 330) in devastated neighborhoods. They are likely to attract little interest.
One intriguing cluster of parcels is 547, 547 & 551 E North, which is a 2 family house (1280 sq ft, assessed Value $7.5K) surrounded by two vacant lots . . . in a neighborhood of many vacant lots & backing-up to vacant land along Route 33 (Kensington X-way). A possible site for another 'urban farm'?
DicK Kern
The untold story in this post is that its author, David Torke, single-handedly navigated the political process to get these properties on the homestead list after the Division of Real Estate's request to add them collected dust for months in a Council committee. Bravo, David, for your considered, strategic approach and your decisive action. A day's worth of phone calls and personal lobbying broke this logjam. Now, the hard part. The City need buyers!
108 Farmer is the only halfway decent address, except for its 54x70 lot size and lack of a building. Most of the places on that list should probably be demolished immediately.
I think BRO should post this at their site as well (assuming you give them permission). The word needs to get out. Thank you for this list.
73 & 77 Dodge might have potential, especially if done as a pair. Quiet street, two blocks from Main, around the corner from redevelopment at Coe Pl & it looks like the neighbors across the street are maintaining their properties.
Short of possessing decades of experience in the building trades, how does one begin to ballpark costs for projects like these?
Dan Potts
MARKET THIS LIST !!! to block clubs, urban pioneers, local college websites, in local newspapers, during treeplantings/volunteer clean-ups....
I have so many ideas for 108 Farmer- I want it as is! David, do you know anything about Black Rock Academy at the corner?
I am glad to see this listing.
I was born at 441 Johnson St., which the City of Buffalo tells me never existed! I in fact have photos of the place with the house number right on it. The last time I was in Buffalo the THREE large houses my great-grandfather personally built at 439 to 441 Johnson were plain GONE.
Next to our house at 441 was another smaller but very nicely decorated house (right to the north of 441, as you'd walk toward Best St. My, how plats and houses can just disappear!
I noticed that there were SQUATTERS living on the lot where my great-grandfather built our houses, and the house-holders at the corner of Best and Johnson may very well have decided that these other properties were "theirs." Who was there to defend their homes? NO ONE. The "cleansing" had been complete.
If you could see how well-kept these homes were and the neighborhood pride there had been for generations, you'd not believe what it looks like now.
This is Buffalo's "Shadow". It's a horrible shame, and people don't know the history of how the neighborhoods (I had relatives in the Fruit Belt) were taken over, turned into slums.
I perceive the neighborhood as the epitome of VICTIMIZATION -- both of the white German Americans who were the predominant ethnic group AND the poor African-Americans who were herded into it;
Another factor that helped destroy the neighborhood was placing Hwy. 33 right through the middle of it. I recall walking regularly from our house at 441 Johnson to Genessee St. to go to all the shops, and to church. Now one cannot walk from Johnson and Best even past North Street, as the entire block was cut off with no thought to put through this ridiculous and unnecessary highway (City Hall to the Airport?? -- Really!).
Unless a "project" is made of this area of Buffalo and the real history known, I can't see how it can be "brought back."
So, here's to "HOPE".
J J Leitner Lang
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