Buffalo Rising Online

nobody listens but I wont tire of saying it.

get rid of the elm-oak arterial and end/begin the Kensington at Jefferson, then convert the Kensington to an olmstead parkway like entrace into the city as it was intended.

Convert Jefferson to a boulevard that runs from the Kensington to I-190 via Hamburg.

putting traffic back on jefferson will put businesses back, putting businesses back will bring back customers and employees. Customers and employees will bring back property owners and tenants

This is not a difficult concept but as simple asit is...its stil beyond the average Buffalonian IQ

It is a shame to see brick homes on the demolition list. Those are the ones that have both the value for new owners and the durability to wait for love. I agree many of the telescoping wooden homes need to go but structures like this should be considered for mothballing and just wait. There is not a very large collection of brick buildings like this in the city anymore.

with an empty lot or two next to it this could be a sweet set-up. And you already know that your neighbor takes care or their property.

It is terrible that the city has no plan to save these houses.

Texpat - Buffalo has many fewer residents with each passing. Doesn't it stand to reason there will be more and more empty houses every year regardless of what 'plan' the city has? If it saved that house somehow, then wouldn't a different house in Buffalo become empty instead? How would that help? Do you really think it's likely City Hall could devise some 'plan' that lures a bunch of people from outside Buffalo to decide to come live there in these houses? What it would need is a plan to grow population. The county could use one too. And Upstate.

1st sentence - "...with each passing year".

its sad to see what that property could and should look like. i dont understand why this area of jefferson and e. delevan look the way they do being that they are so close to canisius college. why doesnt the city sell these properties to people for a very small amount as long as they commit to fixing them up. perhaps steal some young couples from the burbs? it would be cheaper than demmoing them and its not like they could get any worse

Doc, IIRC they tried that in the Arbor Hill neighborhood in Albany. While a number of homes were fixed, the neighborhood never turned around.

I don't know all the details. I believe the program started in the early 80's. From the little I know houses were sold for $1, a number of people bought and fixed up homes, the neighborhood improved for a short time then went back into decline. When that happened there were a number of suspicious fires, I assume to recover Insurance money and get out while they could.

Atwater. The city is subsidizing the construction of new vinyl derivitive crap within a mile of these houses that are the real thing. I am surprised at your negativity. Why do you think people have left the city? It is because the fabric of the neighborhoods has decayed and the housing stock is the thread that makes up the fabric.

Other cities have successful programs for the rehabilitation of the housing stock through tax abatements and grants. What does Buffalo have? Nothing. I am not talking San Francisco either. Marginalized cities like St. Louis are successfully rehabilitating sections of the city by incenting urban pioneers with 10 year tax abatements.

Texpat - I oppose any subsidized new builds too, so we agree on that.

I think deeply unrealistic predictions such as imagining there's a lot of people living outside Buffalo's city limits who seriously want to come live in now-vacant houses and are just sitting there waiting for the right 'plan' or 'program' to be announced - is much worse than what you call my negativity. Where's any evidence a significant number of people wanting to do that exist in Buffalo's burbs? And seriously, what are they waiting for if they really want to do it? No doubt there's a few but not nearly enough to save all the saveable houses, so where does that leave us?

It doesn't seem to me that being a certain population amount, whether currently 270K - or say next year 260K or whatever, is negative. There's some negative reasons it's happening (economic decline, bad schools, crime, etc.) that I'd like to see change, but political solutions to those are a long time away if they ever happen at all. Meanwhile, the city should try to be the best it can be with whatever population it has. Blight like that isn't helpful in the least toward that goal. It will only further empty the street.

Keeping standing a run-down blighted danger right next door to another house (blue one) that another citizen is trying to maintain is a terrible idea. That's much more negative than my suggestion for being realistic. Remember the fireman so badly hurt fighting a vacant house arson last year.

There's been plenty of time for someone to buy that house. If someone makes an offer very fast, great - we can agree on that too. But if not, then yes it should go - not stand like that much longer.

What do people living next door in the well-kept house say about this? Has anybody asked them? Shouldn't their desire matter more than BR readers getting teary-eyed from afar? If they say leave it standing like that year after year waiting for some hero to come, then ok.

About what Harvey Garret is doing, it's great in that small area of the WS. Maybe other small areas can happen too (and note he has said on BR that it needs to happen without depending on special govt 'plans' and 'programs'). But meanwhile, for how long should others living on that block of Jefferson have to deal with that fire trap piece of blight sitting there?

Speaking of St. Louis, here's a blog about the demolition issues going on there. Take a look at the pictures on that link and you'll see a lot of houses there are apparently slipping trough the cracks of their tax abatement plan to save them: http://ecoabsence.blogspot.com

I should be careful with my paraphrasing of Harvey G's past comments. Anyone interested can search BR to see what he's written, but my point was he's written here that a key aspect of his WS neighborhood success was that it's bottom up people-driven. That sounds to me very different from what some earlier comments in this thread are saying - that City Hall based solutions (easy 75k rehab loans, etc.) are what's needed to save houses like this. Maybe his ears are burning and he'll chime in.

I'm not saying an effort such as his on the WS is impossible on Jefferson. But again, why should a run-down vacant house be have to be tolerated indefinitely by people already living on that block, especially next door?

I'd love to know what the people in the blue house think. Given the option of living next to well cared for house like theirs or a vacant lot I wonder what their choice would be.

St. Louis has large sections of the city that still are a mess. But there are also places like Washington Avenue which had no residents 10 years ago and now has 6,000. Ask any developer here why that is and they'll tell you that the tax abatements and eagerness of the city government to help them get projects off the ground sealed the deal.

Much like Buffalo, St. Louis isn't growing (enough) to save everything because there just isn't enough demand or money. There are some great houses, nicer than anything on the east side that are vacant and decaying. I am not saying that there aren't. What I am saying is that other sections of the city like Compton Heights, Tower Grove, Lafayette Square and Washington Avenue are seeing real benefits from people moving into them and investing money AND that it is creative public policy that is helping drive that investment.

Not everything will be saved and I acknowledge tha,t but given supportive public policy the market will sort out what is salvageable and what is not. Post after post on here has talked about how impossible it is to navigate the city bureaucracy to even try and buy one of these city owned properties. That is just plain shortsighted.

A tax abatement isn't giving money away. A 90% abatement still bring in 10% more in tax revenue than a vacant home does. And what about the money spent tearing these places down? The money is already being spent so isn't it BETTER spent on saving a house than tearing it down.

I'd love to know what the people in the blue house think. Given the option of living next to well cared for house like theirs or a vacant lot I wonder what their choice would be.

St. Louis has large sections of the city that still are a mess. But there are also places like Washington Avenue which had no residents 10 years ago and now has 6,000. Ask any developer here why that is and they'll tell you that the tax abatements and eagerness of the city government to help them get projects off the ground sealed the deal.

Much like Buffalo, St. Louis isn't growing (enough) to save everything because there just isn't enough demand or money. There are some great houses, nicer than anything on the east side that are vacant and decaying. I am not saying that there aren't. What I am saying is that other sections of the city like Compton Heights, Tower Grove, Lafayette Square and Washington Avenue are seeing real benefits from people moving into them and investing money AND that it is creative public policy that is helping drive that investment.

Not everything will be saved and I acknowledge tha,t but given supportive public policy the market will sort out what is salvageable and what is not. Post after post on here has talked about how impossible it is to navigate the city bureaucracy to even try and buy one of these city owned properties. That is just plain shortsighted.

A tax abatement isn't giving money away. A 90% abatement still bring in 10% more in tax revenue than a vacant home does. And what about the money spent tearing these places down? The money is already being spent so isn't it BETTER spent on saving a house than tearing it down.

Firts no post and now two of the same....

Yeah no kidding if a fantasy hero emerges to turn it into a well cared for house:

Given the option of living next to well cared for house like theirs or a vacant lot I wonder what their choice would be.

That's not the question. A vacant lot (which the blue house owner could buy and have as side yard) is far better and safer than what's been standing next to them empty. It's been like that at least since 2006 according to FixBuffalo.

Enough is enough. Unless someone steps up fast as a serious new owner for that red fire trap falling apart, the people in the blue house and the other neighbors shouldn't have to tolerate that blight and danger any longer. They've paid their dues and then some.

I agree with you the reported city real estate office idiocy is inexcusable. Some of our full time council members should take a break from more exciting work and apply oversight to force improvements. I won't mind if they also start a tax abatement program you suggest. I doubt any of that will save a lot of houses when the population keeps shrinking thousands per year.

So we agree some, but disagree whether there's many suburbanites who are waiting, just waiting, for a tax abatement offer and then they'll decide to be urban pioneers to rehab and move into that kind of house and live there.

I'd believe there's a few people willing to try, but don't see evidence that there's many. Clearly much fewer than the potentially saveable abandoned houses. No other home owner should be forced to have a house sitting like that year after year next door indefinitely waiting for a savior who in most cases never comes.

If I was in the Blue house, i'd want the red house secured and marketed to be rehabbed thus adding value to my home while complimenting it. It would help more than vacant land all around me or new tiny vinyls.

I bought my house two doors down from a vacant one with its front door wide open. Three years later is was totally gutted and rehabbed. It adds much more to street now than an empty grass lot wood have and the whole street is now still intact.

This all brick home is unique and deserves some higher planning. Like the house next to it, it could also be an anchor on the street.

It doesn't have to be suburbanites flocking back to the city, though I do think that is a real documented nationwide trend. They, however, are probably more drawn to the more established neighborhoods and the waterfront.

There are renters that are already city dwellers today that, with the right programs, could be convinced to invest and buy in the city. Everywhere I have been it seems like marginalized neighborhoods are transformed by "the creative class" ie gays and artisy types, as well as people priced out of other areas. Because real estate values in Buffalo aren't so high as to have priced people out of much of the city we have to find other ways to make urban homesteading financially viable.

I was actually hoping that someone would knock on the door of that blue house or maybe already knows the owner and would ask them for us what there opinion is. I am not in Buffalo or I'd do it.

Tex - For one thing I'm too lazy to go ask the people living in the blue well-kept house and other nearby neighbors.

I was actually hoping that someone would knock on the door of that blue house or maybe already knows the owner and would ask them for us what there opinion is.

Yes, as we've both said, their opinions should matter much more than what any BR commenters say. Considering the house has been like that over two years now, what does common sense tell us?. Look in the picture at how far away the red falling-apart house is. Four feet away? If you lived there, wouldn't you have worried (reasonably) about arson every night for the past 2+ years? Would you enjoy the part time job of looking all around that house every day, at least once a day, for the past 2+ years to be sure it's still all boarded up?

Could you seriously honestly think if you were living four feet away you'd say "Oh sure, let's wait another year, or two, or three, or... whatever it takes! The brick house must be saved!" ? For how long?

I mentioned suburbanites because if a city resident moved to this one, ripple effect is another vacancy and eventual tearful demolition on some other block. It's anyone's guess whether that eventual demo-ed house is less preferable than this one.

It doesn't have to be suburbanites flocking back to the city...

In the end, it's numbers. Thousands fewer residents/year, every year, for decades... still continuing... some nice saveable houses, even brick ones, keep becoming vacated and eventually some need to be demoed for greater good of people still living nearby.

For the longer term, City Hall could try to start some better programs/plans to save a few houses. Maybe they even already have some programs like that - I don't know. One of the full time council members who use blogs like this for happy news press releases could write a comment here about if there's any programs like that or in they're trying to start any. Maybe murals and beaches are more interesting for them to communicate with the public about.

Whatever programs exist, there should always be reasonable time frames of how long nearby neighbors should have to put up with something like the red house four feet away while waiting for saviors.

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Sorry, didn't close tag right. Hopefully this fixes it. (a preview page would be nice!)

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I mentioned suburbanites because if a city resident moved to this one, ripple effect is another vacancy and eventual tearful demolition on some other block. It's anyone's guess whether that eventual demo-ed house is less preferable than this one.

It doesn't have to be suburbanites flocking back to the city...

In the end, it's numbers. Thousands fewer residents/year, every year, for decades... still continuing... some nice saveable houses, even brick ones, keep becoming vacated and eventually some need to be demoed for greater good of people still living nearby.

For the longer term, City Hall could try to start some better programs/plans to save a few houses. Maybe they even already have some programs like that - I don't know. One of the full time council members who use blogs like this for happy news press releases could write a comment here about if there's any programs like that or in they're trying to start any. Maybe murals and beaches are more interesting for them to communicate with the public about.

Whatever programs exist, there should always be reasonable time frames of how long nearby neighbors should have to put up with something like the red house four feet away while waiting for saviors.

(that fixed it - feel free to delete my 17:29 comment with messed up tag)

There are several perspectives here, and like the seven blind men and the elephant, each has part of the picture, useful only when shared with the others.

City officials, with their view of the whole, see a shrinking tax base on one hand, but they also see an "over-supply" of housing city-wide. From that perspective, they could either keep waiting for Gaudot or decide the red house has performed poorly in the market and take it down -- problem solved.

At the other extreme is the homeowner. The guys in the blue house could go either way depending on what's good for them and their investment. If they believe somebody who cares will buy and invest, that's fine. Otherwise, they may vote for an empty lot.

At the nexus between city and homeowner is the community. Neighborhoods are in my opinion a much-neglected layer of the civic order. And forty-some years into Urban Renewal, they've been kicked around some. Once capable of maintaining themselves, they are now too often dependent upon government and its priorities. A real shame too, because stakeholders focused on neighborhoods have the luxury of a longterm view.

They can recognize, for example, that unemployment, arsonists and slum lords determine which buildings fail, not the imagined "market" which left inner-city neighborhoods after redlining. That lots that become vacant tend to stay vacant (forever). That law enforcement after demolition becomes a nightmare as line-of-sight visibility becomes infinitely more complex, and "eyes on the street" disappear or cower inside. That destroying buildings won't end crime, poverty and abandonment because buildings aren't what caused it. That neighborhoods are complex beings, with interdependent parts like housing, street life, education and jobs - you hit one part, it hurts the others. Neighborhoods could lead an urban resurgence but like I say, they've been kicked around some.

Btw, I do hope that Buffalonians appreciate the work of people like Aaron Bartley, Harvey Garrett and others we read about who are working tirelessly to repair the rended fabric of your city's neighborhoods. You guys are lucky.

But the most important thing to recognize is this: that density and diversity are the very lifeblood of cities. I think that homeowners, neighborhoods and city governments need to re-align themselves to a new reality -- that we are places in competition with other places everywhere for the residents we need to attract to survive. The game has changed -- it's not automatic anymore.

For city hall, assuming the role of organizing, incentivizing and empowering neighborhoods with this new competitive mindset would be an act of visionary leadership. And for homeowners, to once again see their interests as aligned with (instead of threatened by) those of the wider community would be to correct the central error of urban planning of the past half century.