Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - New housing is being proposed for the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood after the Buffalo Common Council approved a developer to repurpose about 50 vacant lots on Tuesday.
"There are well over 7,000 vacant lots in the City of Buffalo, and thousands of them are in my district," said Fillmore District Councilman Mitch Nowakowski with WBEN on Wednesday. "The plan for the last 30 years in city hall was to demolish and leave vacant lots."
He says that plan created its own cycle of poverty, and took down a lot of the housing stock.
The target area is just South of Broadway on Coit Street, Detroit, Townsend and Paderewski Drive, blocks that have been demolished for decades.
Once financing is complete, Nowakowski says it would mark the first time in
a very long time that houses would be built in Broadway-Fillmore.
"It has always been my view that if we're going to bring back that neighborhood, it has to look like a neighborhood."
The developer, identified as the Crimar Group LLC, is proposing single family houses in a modular build.
"To build a 1,200-to-1,500 square-foot home, most builders say it would cost well over $300,000. So who can afford to take a mortgage out for $300,000 to live on the East Side? But with the modular build, the developer thinks he can keep the mortgage to about $200,000, with subsidies," said Nowakowski.
To put that in perspective, he says that's about the same that people are paying for rent in that area.
It coincides with the transformation that is occurring now at the old Commodore Perry Projects off South Park Avenue.
"That project is moving quite expeditiously. I could see occupancy in a year," noted Nowakowski. "And then there's the Marine Drive [Apartments] project which could break ground this year and Sinatra's Heritage Point project at Canalside is restarting. All of them bringing new housing to parts of my district."