ENVIRONMENT: Panel takes on brownfield issues
Old industrial sites in Buffalo-Niagara region need more state help
State programs have been developed but are struggling to address environmental problems at old industrial sites in Niagara Falls and the greater Western New York region.
That was the message at a Tuesday forum at Niagara Falls Public Library which was organized by state Senator Antoine Thompson, D-Buffalo. A series of speakers included local and state officials and members of private industry.
“Niagara Falls has lots of brownfields and lots of energy issues,” Thompson told an audience of about 50 people. “Those are important in turning the economy and community forward.”
The region’s industrial legacy includes thousands of properties both large and small which need to be cleaned, presenting both a costly problem and an opportunity for growth while avoiding sprawl, Thompson said.
At the center of the discussion was the state’s Brownfield Cleanup Program, which allocates millions each year for site cleanups and redevelopment costs. The program was passed in 2003 among much fanfare with the goal of $300 billion in state green investment and jobs by 2013.
Speakers detailed limited success the program has had, but pointed out its vast potential has been derailed by politics. Especially troubling is the Brownfield Opportunity Area, which strives to target low-income areas as a whole and develop a plan to reuse their abandoned businesses, said Mathy Stanislaus, co-founder of New Partners for Community Revitalization.
Communities all over the region and state — including Buffalo and Niagara Falls — applied and were accepted for the grant, but two years later they are seeing no money, Stanislaus said. That’s because Gov. Eliot Spitzer, state Sen. Joseph Bruno and Assemblyman Sheldon Silver have stalled in signing a roughly three-page memorandum of understanding.
Other problems exist with the program, including the rate of incentives. Properties cleaned in Manhattan have received some massive tax breaks because their property is worth so much, whereas some places in Western New York are not available for the kind of relief that would make clean-up and reuse a sensible option.
There’s also the issue of whether anybody will buy a property once it’s cleaned up. Several sites sit clean but undeveloped in Syracuse because there isn’t enough interest, said Dale Desnoyers of the state Department of Conservation.
Niagara Falls faces the same problem, said Niagara Falls City Planner Tom DeSantis.
“The city has no shortage of brownfield sites,” he said. “All that land is likely to be reused for commerce and industrial services.”
Instead, sites should be available for a number of different kinds of reuse, including residential and green space, he said.
Moderator Robert Knoer, a managing attorney of The Knoer Group, said that hopes to reform the program do exist, and that once the money begins flowing from Albany it could be a significant boost to the region.
An example of the program working is the HealthNow headquarters on West Genesee Street in downtown Buffalo. Dennis Gorski, a former Erie County executive and senior vice president of HealthNow, said the biggest deciding factor in the newly constructed building — visible from the I-190 — were tax breaks under the Brownfield Cleanup Program.
“It demonstrates the strength and efficacy of the program,” he said.