LISC VACANT PROPERTIES ANNOUNCEMENT

National Vacant Properties Experts Present Local Officials with Strategies and Regional Action Plan to Address Neighborhood Blight 

 

(BUFFALO, N.Y) – In autumn of 2005, Buffalo was one of seven areas from across the United States selected for a comprehensive study to reclaim and restore urban and first-ring suburban neighborhoods affected by blight and property abandonment. The resulting recommendations of the report (Blueprint Buffalo) by the National Vacant Properties Campaign (NVPC) – an in-depth year-long study of vacant and abandoned properties in the City of Buffalo, and the towns of Tonawanda, Cheektowaga and Amherst – were unveiled at a news conference earlier today at the Larkin Building in downtown Buffalo. The project was championed locally by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) Buffalo, the University at Buffalo Institute of Local Governance and Regional Growth and the Amherst Industrial Development Agency. A Surdna Foundation grant financed Blueprint Buffalo along with matching support from Buffalo LISC. The NVPC team, who began their assessment in September of 2005, were back in town today to meet with Mayor Byron Brown, town supervisors and other elected officials, LISC’s advisory committee, community activists and business leaders to unveil the results of their assessment and recommendations. 

  

Joseph Schilling, founding member of the NVPC, was the team leader for this project. His most recent completed assessments included Cleveland and Dayton, Ohio. Schilling, a professor in practice at the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech in Alexandria, returned with enthusiasm and positive feedback for those involved in this study, but also with a long to-do list for elected officials and community leaders.

 

“The time seems ripe for Buffalo-Niagara leaders to chart a new course as the region must first contain and remove these problem properties before it can rebuild its neighborhoods,” said Michael Clarke, program director, Buffalo LISC. “Blueprint Buffalo offers local leaders a regional road map of strategies and tools to address the intractable blight and decay of vacant properties that have plagued many neighborhoods for decades.”

 

The team shared the 4-step action plan that they are recommending be implemented with an ambitious time table. Those steps include:

 

● Launching a citywide vacant properties initiative led by Mayor Brown and his Office of Strategic Planning

● Development of a suburban vacant property agenda, spearheaded by local elected officials and civic and business leaders from those communities

● Creation of an Erie-Buffalo Vacant Properties Coordinating Council to be the vehicle for regional problem solving, ongoing communication and information sharing, and to develop institutional capacities and partnerships

● Establishment of Buffalo-Niagara as a Vacant Property Living Laboratory – which would be the nation’s first such national demonstration model – through a series of innovative policy initiatives driven by the new Governor, State Legislature and elected Federal officials and managed by the University at Buffalo

 

"I look forward to setting a direction that the City of Buffalo and our neighboring communities can aspire to," said Mayor Brown. "By positioning Buffalo as a living laboratory, we have an opportunity to reinvent the notion of neighborhoods and build communities that will make us stronger and more viable for generations to come."

 

 

The citywide vacant properties initiative would require comprehensive code enforcement, a land banking program and established greening policies and practices. As for the creation of the Buffalo Regional Living Laboratory, the NVPC team recommends that the City of Buffalo work closely with the University at Buffalo to create a vacant property database management framework, and that they work with state and federal officials to institute pilot projects using performance-based regulations. For example, state environmental cleanup standards or special state rehabilitation codes.

 

“We found that the depth of Buffalo’s challenges present the opportunity to become a national model as a living laboratory for policy innovation that could be implemented in other parts of Upstate New York, Pennsylvania, and Western Massachusetts struggling with the same issues,” said Schilling. “Buffalo can once again lead the nation in the manufacturing of new ideas and new technologies that reclaim vacant properties.” 

 

Schilling suggests the living lab concept would engage citizens in rebuilding their own homes and neighborhoods and redefine the built environment of the city to match its current and future populations.

 

Over the next several weeks, Buffalo LISC will follow up with local officials to clarify issues and to identify next steps with the goal of reconvening its Vacant Properties Steering Committee in early 2007. The Campaign will continue to offer strategic guidance during this critical transition of transforming from recommendations to action.

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Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) helps people build better lives and brighter futures by transforming distressed communities and neighborhoods into healthy ones. Through mobilization of corporate, government, and philanthropic support, helps provide community development corporations the technical expertise, training, and policy support they need to create affordable housing, commercial and retail property, community facilities, businesses, and jobs in their communities. For more information, visit www.lisc.org/buffalo.

 

The National Vacant Properties Campaign was launched by Smart Growth America, the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), and the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech in 2003 to help communities prevent abandonment, redevelop vacant properties and revitalize communities. It is designed to help local governments and nonprofits throughout the country develop effective solutions to the pervasive problem of property abandonment — from producing cutting-edge research, identifying and disseminating policy innovations and best practices, and presenting model legislation. By January 2007 the Campaign will have provided technical assistance to more than 15 communities. In addition to its T.A. Program, the Campaign also offers fee-for-service technical assistance for local governments, nonprofit organizations, and communities. Funders of the Campaign include the Fannie Mae Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the C.S. Mott Foundation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Surdna Foundation. For more information about the Campaign, visit www.vacantproperties.org.