Fillmore Avenue: Bulb-outs and bicycle lanes

Bulb-outs, bicycle lanes, and other street improvements are coming to Fillmore Avenue. This would have been unimaginable only eight or nine years ago, before Mayor Byron W. Brown came into office.

During Brown's administration, the City adopted New York State's first complete streets ordinance, and everywhere improvements are being made to the City's streets, this policy is being implemented. The Green Code, a comprehensive rewrite of Buffalo's land use and zoning policies, intends to take this policy even further. Today we have a policy to do complete streets; when the new code is adopted, Buffalo will have a policy on how to do complete streets.

The Fillmore Avenue Streetscape Project represents a $2.2 million investment by the City. Bravo to Mayor Byron Brown and advocates such as Go Bike Buffalo for bringing about this culture change in City Hall. Pedestrian and bicycle investments will add so much value, especially on the city's East Side.

See also:  fixBuffalo Fillmore Avenue photo set.

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Buffalo Green Code: neighborhood open houses

The City is hosting a series of Buffalo Green Code open houses this coming week to reveal a "sneak preview" of the new zoning ordinance, which is now being written. From the Mayor's Office of Strategic Planning:

We’re preparing a new zoning ordinance to shape Buffalo’s future. It’s designed to build on the land use plan that was developed last year, and to make our shared vision for the city a reality.The zoning ordinance contains the specific and detailed laws that will govern development in our city. Please join us at an upcoming Open House to learn more about how this will benefit your neighborhood and let us know what you think.  

Here's the schedule of open houses:

 

• WEST: Mon., June 4, 6 pm, Lafayette High School, 370 Lafayette Ave.
• NORTHWEST: Tues., June 5, 6 pm, Riverside High School, 51 Ontario St.
• SOUTH: Tues., June 5, 6 pm, South Park High School, 150 Southside Pkwy.
• ELLICOTT: Wed., June 6, 6 pm, Montessori School, 342 Clinton St.
• NORTHEAST: Wed., June 6, 6 pm, Bennett High School, 2885 Main St.
• NORTH: Thurs., June 7, 6 pm, North Park Academy, 780 Parkside Ave.
• CENTRAL: Fri., June 8, 8 am; or Noon, Central Library, Lafayette Sq.
• MASTEN/E. DELAVAN: Sat., June 9, 9 am, East High School, 820 Northampton St.
• EAST: Sat., June 9th, 1 pm, Matt Urban Center, 1081 Broadway

The Green Code is the most important planning initiative the City of Buffalo has undertaken in decades. Plan to attend one of these open houses.  For additional information about the Buffalo Green Code check out the following fixBuffalo posts, especially this one - Mayor Brown's official announcement - on Earth Day, 2010.

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Code Green: City releases zoning technical report

The Mayor's Office of Strategic Planning released A New Zoning Direction for Buffalo: Technical Report (download PDF here) late yesterday. The report outlines the City's proposed approach to overhauling its zoning ordinance, a use-based or "Euclidean" code that dates to 1953.

A new Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) will replace the existing zoning and subdivision ordinances and all 46 urban renewal plans in their entirety. This second phase of the Buffalo Green Code will be form-based, with a strong emphasis on traditional urbanism and walkable, mixed-use development. Buffalonians, especially on the East Side, will be encouraged to know the UDO will remove regulatory barriers to the reuse of vacant land and structures. Read the report. Show up at the public forum on Tuesday, April 10, 6:15 pm, at ECC City Campus. This project will revolutionize Buffalo, so be there or be square.

Download the 4-page policy brief here and the Technical Report here. See you Tuesday.

See:  April 2010 Earth Day Public Announcement, pics and podcast.

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Code Green: ECC City Campus - April 10

The latest installment in the Buffalo Green Code is set to be rolled out at ECC’s City Campus on April 10, 6:15 pm, when the Mayor’s Office of Strategic Planning and its consultant team will outline the proposed approach for the new zoning code. Here’s the PDF of the City’s four-page policy brief. 

Green Code Community Planning Day - March 2011

This will undoubtedly be among the most important planning events of the year. Be sure to attend. Details from the Mayor’s office below:

The Buffalo Green Code is entering its second phase this spring with citizens, planners, and consultants turning their attention to the work of actually writing a new zoning ordinance that will shape Buffalo's regeneration in the 21st century. Mayor Byron W. Brown is firmly fixed on a new code that will make Buffalo more sustainable in the years to come - economically, environmentally, and socially.  read the rest

fixBuffalo readers will remember the Green Code's official announcement on Earth Day, April 2010.  Additional Green code posts are available here: Green Code posts.

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Buffalo's New Blog - Re|Form Buffalo

I met up with LaLuce Mitchell, Buffalo's newest blogger yesterday.  His recent graduate work  in Chicago intersects with the Buffalo Green Code, Buffalo's effort to implement a form-based code that enhances and protects the City's historic character.  fixBuffalo readers will remember this Earth Day post from 2010 profiling Mayor Byron W. Brown's announcement to implement a "green" zoning code.  LaLuce is blogging at Re|Form Buffalo. 

LaLuce Mitchell - Re|Form Buffalo blogger

LaLuce wanted fixBuffalo readers to know this:  "I'm writing this blog on behalf of Re|Form Buffalo, a new group established to ensure Buffalo gets the best out of the Green Code, its form-based zoning reform. I am a Chicagoan recently transplanted to Buffalo. I hold a Masters Degree in Historic Preservation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where I wrote a thesis on form-based codes and historic preservation. I live on the Lower West Side, walk to work at a downtown architecture firm where I am a historic preservation specialist, and revel in the public life of Buffalo's cafes, restaurants, and cultural amenities."

Check in with LaLuce as he keeps a keen eye on what's happening with Buffalo's Green Code. 

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Code Green - What's next for the East Side?

The time to determine the future of the East Side is now. Well, it’s actually between February 28 and March 5, when the City of Buffalo is hosting a series of neighborhood workshops to get the public’s input on what will be the first detailed land use plan assembled in Buffalo since 1977.

Kehr Street, looking North

Why is this important? Mayor Bryon W. Brown is undertaking one of the most significant planning projects in over a generation, putting into place master plans for the development of every neighborhood and an entirely new, green zoning code (the first since 1951) that will give these plans “teeth.” The Mayor has dubbed the initiative the Buffalo Green Code. 

The upcoming neighborhood workshops will be the foundation for shaping the City’s long-term strategy on nearly any issue that touches “land use,” a catch phrase that includes everything from urban design, transportation, public space, renewable energy, to economic development.

What do you want to see for Buffalo’s East Side? Employment sites in job-strapped neighborhoods? Cleaned up brownfields? Restored landmarks? Parks in place of vacant lots? More healthy food options? Land banking? Want to stamp out the dreaded Vinyl Victorian once and for all? Want a boulevard in place of the Kensington?

Whatever your priorities are, they become part of the plan only if you show up and speak your mind. There are nine neighborhood workshops in all. Learn more about them here. The core East Side neighborhoods are covered in three of these workshops listed here:

Ellicott (Old First Ward, The Valley, Hydraulics/Larkin District, Lower East Side)
Wednesday, March 2, 6:30 - 9:00pm
Montessori School, 342 Clinton St. 

Masten (Midtown, Fruit Belt, Masten Park, Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, Schiller Park, Cold Springs/Midtown, MLK Park, Delavan/Grider, Hamlin Park)
Saturday, March 5, 9:00 - 11:30am
East High School, 820 Northampton St. 

East (Broadway/Fillmore, Lovejoy, Kaisertown, Seneca/Babcock, Little Hollywood, Clinton/Bailey)
Saturday, March 5, 1:00 - 3:30 pm
Col. Matt Urban Center, 1081 Broadway St.

For additional information check out last April's Green Code press conference - pics and podcast - here. 

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Norquist on Buffalo's Future

John Norquist, former Mayor of Milwaukee and President of the Congress for the New Urbanism, was in Buffalo recently and spoke at the Burchfield Penny Art Center.

The podcast of Norquist's remarks - Part I - runs about an hour after the jump.

The panel discussion that followed was led by Kate Foster - Director of UB's Institute for Local Governance and Regional Growth and featured two of Buffalo's most progressively minded urban developers: Carl Montante and Rocco Termini.  They were joined by Jacques Gourguechon, a Principal of Camiros the firm retained by the City of Buffalo to undertake the complete over-haul of the city's antiquated 1951 zoning ordinance.

The podcast of the morning's panel discussion and Q&A - Part II - runs about an hour, after the jump.

The website of the Buffalo Green Code, the title Mayor Byron Brown has given the zoning re-write effort, was formally unveiled by Jacques Gourguechon during the forum.  The event was sponsored by Jaeckle, Fleishman & Muegel LLP and was part of their annual WNY Economic & Land Development Forum.  

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ReThinking the City - Buffalo, NY

Today the Buffalo News carried a spot-on editorial about Buffalo's (new) Green Code - ReThinking the City.

Making redevelopment easier is a critical factor in reviving Buffalo, and must remain a key City Hall goal. Good zoning codes are a part of that process, and long have troubled developers trying to wend their way through the system— so the mayor’s recent announcement, in the historic Larkin District, of a three-year $2.1 million overhaul of zoning regulations can be put in the category of good news.

Even better, there’s a state reimbursement of $750,000 toward that effort.

The latest redevelopment vision for this Rust Belt city would trend more toward “green urbanism” and, for the first time in decades, include a “walkability” aspect. Let’s get started...read the rest.

Related post: Buffalo, NY - The (new) Green Zone (4/23/10)

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Buffalo, NY - The (new) Green Zone

Imagine a city - walkable and dense where the principles of good urban design are embodied and historic structures are re-purposed and not demolished - a place where we work and live. With the complete over-haul of the City's zoning code in the cross-hairs of Mayor Byron Brown's second term, that reality, took a giant leap forward yesterday with the Mayor's announcement of "Buffalo Green Code".

Mayor Byron Brown, Brendan MeHaffy and Howard Zemsky

At the center of this is Mayor Byron Brown's totally genius decision and recent appointment of Brendan Mehaffey as the Executive Director of the City of Buffalo’s Office of Strategic Planning. Brendan will be leading the zoning code re-write along with renowned Chicago planning firm, Camiros, which is partnering with Boston-based Goody Clancy. Here's a link (mp3 after the jump) to a short podcast of yesterday's events.

Local form-based code advocate Chuck Banas has created an authoritative resource to help us understand the new code's guiding principles. His project was completed with support from the New Millennium Group and the Western New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

The event took place on Earth Day in the Hydraulics, the site of the City's first industrial neighborhood. The Hydraulics is home to developer Howard Zemsky's new transformative vision - Larkin Development. Learn more about this neighborhood at The Hydraulics Press, a Buffalo based blog.

Here's the podcast. 

Buffalo Rising covered the story - here.

Related posts:

• Pics of yesterday's event
  
• Smart Code in the City (11/24/08)
• City's Action Plan (4/15/07)

Update - 4/25/10 

• Press conference video, here - courtesy of WNYmedia.net
• Business First covered the story - here.
• WBFO has this story.

Update - 4/4/12

• Public Meeting 4/10/12 and download A New Zoning Direction for Buffalo: Technical Report

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Neighborhood Plans

Two weeks ago Belmont Shelter announced plans to build 50 "rent-to-own" houses in Buffalo's Cold Springs neighborhood. Here's the Buffalo News announcement. The $12.1 million project scatters new houses over two council districts over an area of about 60 square blocks, combining more tightly-knit urban lots into larger suburban ones, all within blocks of a half-billion dollar transit system that depends on proximity to a dense neighborhood. The suburban style houses come at a hefty price - a stunning $240k per house.

Here's the site map. The smaller images below, provided by Belmont Shelter, show the exact locations of the proposed new builds.

click to enlarge

click image then 'all sizes' for larger image

There are dozens of houses here in Belmont's target area that are part of the remaining historic neighborhood fabric. As these houses are being proposed, dozens of historic properties in Belmont's target area - the kind of houses that add value and could retain residents over the long haul - continue to decay. These houses can and should be saved. Neighborhood revitiliztion on a national scale is not being led by the construction of 'vinyl victorians', it's being led by the other model Belmont has embraced - the reconstruction of historic homes such as the Hamiltion Ward House at 19 Coe Place. Neighborhoods in every city in America that are experiencing revitalization are doing so because of the economic development resource of character buildings. Belmont should be challenged to name any district in America that has benefited from scattershot suburbanization in historic neighborhoods. If Belmont concentrated on its own precedent, performing restorations of character buildings like the Hamilton Ward House at 19 Coe Place, all over Midtown and Cold Spring, the impact would be transformative.

One of the proposed 'vinyl victorians' - NRP Group

fixBuffalo readers may remember that Belmont Shelter purchased the Hamilton Ward House on Coe Place with the intent to demolish it and enlarge their parking lot. Through a combination of efforts - 'friends of Coe Place', a series of posts and an Artvoice cover story - 7/2006 - Belmont Shelter reveresed its decision. They've completed what is an amazing renovation - right here - that contributes to the streetscape and character of the neighborhood. This has helped attract new investment.

In this new proposal, best practices are being ignored. LISC-Buffalo has called for strategic reinvestment in our City along the core - along Main Street - see Getting Smarter about Decline. In Braddock, PA - four miles from Pittsburgh - it's like Buffalo, writ small and was recently profiled in a New York Times article - Rock Bottom for Decades, Showing Signs of Life. It featured Mayor John Fetterman's take on historic neighborhoods and the economic necessity of historic structures and their renovation. Mayor Fetterman said:

If struggling communities don’t preserve their architecture, there’s no chance of any resurgence down the line.

What makes Midtown unique is the architectural character and unique personality. Building suburban houses on large lots like the ones proposed not only do not help, they make the neighborhood worse by destroying the personality and character of the neighborhood which is its most compelling economic asset. It saps the potential and undermines the character of the neighborhood. Midtown: Poised for Renaissance, written by Chris Hawley (for the City of Buffalo), looks at the assets of this neighborhood and draws a set of conclusions that vastly differ from Belmont's plan. Hawley recognizes the necessity of restoring the neighborhood's historic building stock and deemphasizes the suburbanization of the neighborhood as undermining its character and economic potential. It's the City's own plan. Why isn't it being followed?

While discussing Belmont's proposal with Jeff Brennen, local green contractor, Jeff remarked, "It appears as though Belmont Shelter is strictly concerned with their mission and not the what is good for the City of Buffalo and its neighborhoods long term."

Drilling into the the individual site plans and taking a closer look, the new builds will occupy a footprint that incorporates two parcels, sometimes three. While this may seem necessary to satisfy current building code requirements, it isn't. They have a right to build on existing lots with a preexisting residential use by right - the old lots are grandfathered in. The proposed plan further reduces the possibility for density just blocks away from one of the city's most amazing assets, the subway. Residential proposals that rely on suburban style footprints endorse a car culture and reduce the possibility of achieving the sort of density that make neighborhoods thrive.

The City's Planning Board is expected to approve Belmont's proposal tomorrow morning during their bi-weekly meeting on the 9th floor of City Hall at 8am.

Belmont Shelter's phone number is 716-884-7791.

Neighborhood Plan background - Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V and Part VI

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Buffalo's Death Row...

Visited 830 Sycamore this afternoon (white house on left), the abandoned, boarded, derelict and vacant house where the body of Yvonne Peterson was found Thursday afternoon. Guess what? The house is still not boarded! In fact, the two houses next door at 832 and 836 Sycamore are clearly open and not secured. A quick check of City records and it appears as though the City of Buffalo is the responsible party for mowing the lawn and keeping the place up to code at 836 Sycamore the green sided house with the decorative ghetto palm next to the front door.

Looking around the immediate vicinity it's hard not to notice that this once prosperous commercial strip on Sycamore Street is now framed by the Transfiguration Church and this burned out convenience store.

click image to enlarge

I had the opportunity to talk with two neighborhood residents about the discovery of Yvonne's body at 830 Sycamore, the house with the pink door where a window once was. They both claimed that her hands were missing fingers and independentily of one another both residents told me that her head was bashed in and that the woman who found the body ran down the street to the Dockery Center screaming something about having just found a body, hanging.

click image to enlarge

Here the various close ups the three houses that comprise Buffalo's Death Row. The first pic shows the narrow garbage strewn passage way between 830 and 832 and the open door where Yvonne presumably entered...minimally I would have expected the three houses to be properly boarded and secured shortly after Yvonne's body was found. But wait...51 Eaton is still wide open today, a full 60 days after Shawn Luchy's partially decomposed body was found in another abandoned house in Buffalo, NY.

Hello Byron, please send the board up crews on Monday morning to 836 Sycamore Street. Hello...oops, I thought you were listening...

I wrote this yesterday and this about the first body. Still wondering how many other bodies are decomposing in Buffalo's abandonded, boarded, derelict and vacant houses?

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