Preserve the Buffalo Outer Harbor on Lake Erie as Public Parklands

[Save Us]

Why does a decision have to be made today? Even more...once something goes parkland it's almost impossible to convert back. This group wants it to be converted to parkland for personal preference. While you make some points on how difficult anything but parkland would be....these folks just want the green space.

On the other hand, while there is a massive barrier to developing the outer harbor....there is a massive barrier to developing the outer harbor. If it's as difficult and unlikely as you point out, why do you need to lock in something that is already improbable? It does not make sense to me. My take is lay down some very basic ground rules.

IF the outer harbor is to ever be developed
1) an environmental cleanup has to take place on the entire outer harbor and
2) infrastructure needs to be run/built for the entire outer harbor regardless of the size of the initial project.



This means that the people of today don't lock in people in 40 years but the people of today pretty much get what they want. In order for the outer harbor to ever be developed Buffalo would have a demand that we can't imagine existing today. Similar to how someone could not imagine living in Las Vegas in 1905.

Who knows what will happen.

The fact that anything has happened is a miracle for this town.

[Linda_D]

Why does a decision have to be made today? Even more...once something goes parkland it's almost impossible to convert back. This group wants it to be converted to parkland for personal preference. While you make some points on how difficult anything but parkland would be....these folks just want the green space.

On the other hand, while there is a massive barrier to developing the outer harbor....there is a massive barrier to developing the outer harbor. If it's as difficult and unlikely as you point out, why do you need to lock in something that is already improbable? It does not make sense to me. My take is lay down some very basic ground rules.

IF the outer harbor is to ever be developed
1) an environmental cleanup has to take place on the entire outer harbor and
2) infrastructure needs to be run/built for the entire outer harbor regardless of the size of the initial project.



This means that the people of today don't lock in people in 40 years but the people of today pretty much get what they want. In order for the outer harbor to ever be developed Buffalo would have a demand that we can't imagine existing today. Similar to how someone could not imagine living in Las Vegas in 1905.

Who knows what will happen.

I would prefer it to not be parkland myself. Landbanking this area might be the best way to go. However, my guess is that this group is fearful, and probably rightly so, that the harbor commission group is nothing but a front for the Buffalo area's politically powerful and self-serving developer community. As fifty plus years of "downtown redevelopment" in Buffalo has demonstrated, this group will push any project, no matter how ill-conceived or costly to taxpayers, in order to make the most profit, and its aims are furthered by the complicity of Buffalo pols and the Buffalo News.

[300miles]

Even more...once something goes parkland it's almost impossible to convert back.

Just the opposite is true. We have a history of destroying parkland. Half of Front Park turned into plaza space for the Peace Bridge and it's riverfront views were ruined with expressway offramps. Delaware Park was split in two by an expressway. Humboldt Parkway with destroyed for an expressway, which also cut into MLK park. Ruining historic parks seems to be easy. I can't think of an instance in Buffalo where a bustling developed site was destroyed to create a park.

[leftWNYbecauseofBS]

Just the opposite is true. We have a history of destroying parkland. Half of Front Park turned into plaza space for the Peace Bridge and it's riverfront views were ruined with expressway offramps. Delaware Park was split in two by an expressway. Humboldt Parkway with destroyed for an expressway, which also cut into MLK park. Ruining historic parks seems to be easy. I can't think of an instance in Buffalo where a bustling developed site was destroyed to create a park.

Wow. Great points. Sadly, I stand corrected.

[grump]

Interestingly, each destruction of parkland cited by 300miles was for a public works project, bridges and hi ways, rather, than for business sites. And in a area like this, with an economy in perpetual recession, why inGod's name would we take a successful business site and turn it into a park?

[300miles]

you're right about that, at least for the larger parks. Seems they've been ruined for expressways and bridges.

I can think of one smaller park - Johnson Park near downtown, where half of the small neighborhood park was converted into commercial land between Elmwood and Delaware. Today that half is still commercial retail and a parking lot, and the other half west of Elmwood is still a neighborhood park.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.8923...5404,18z?hl=en