Conference to tackle local waterfront issues
Urban Design Project involved in two Buffalo revitalization projects
By PATRICIA DONOVAN
Contributing Editor
For
decades, members of the Western New York community and environmental
organizations have lobbied to produce changes to the Buffalo waterfront,
calling it the primary locus of economic development in Erie County
and its most precious environmental asset, intrinsic to the identity
of the region.
Among
the longest-standing and insistent public demands have been for improved
public access to the waterfront and removal of the environmental constraintsfrom
intrusive infrastructure to environmental contaminants and sewage overflowsthat
inhibit its full use.
On
Saturday, the Urban Design Project (UDP) in the School of Architecture
and Planning will co-sponsor a conference that will address the state
of the waterfront and how well public demand for change is being addressed.
"State
of the Waters: A Conference on Buffalo's Lakes, Rivers and Streams"
will take place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Buffalo Convention Center.
Registration is $30, which will include breakfast and lunch. Co-sponsors
are the City of Buffalo Waterfront Corridor Initiative, to which the
Urban Design Project is a consultant, and the Friends of the Buffalo
Niagara Rivers.
The
program will feature discussions of projects now under way to develop
public access to Buffalo's waterfront and look at how ongoing ecological
problems like contamination and loss of habitat undermine those efforts.
It
also will highlight two projects that were initiated to insure that
Buffalo's waterfront future is a bright onethe City of Buffalo
Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan and its Waterfront Corridor Initiative.
Conference
organizers point out that both projects will have a significant impact
on two countries, seven of Buffalo's nine council districts, 30 percent
of the city's land mass, nearly 25 percent of its population, several
low-income and minority neighborhoods and two rivers of enormous concern
to the future of the regionthe Niagara and Buffalo rivers.
The
UDP, headed by Robert Shibley, professor of urban design, is devoted
to education, service and research in pursuit of a critical practice
of urban design. It brings students and faculty together with local
government, community-based organizations and individual citizens to
make stronger communities.
One
of the UDP's current research-action projects is "Rethinking the Niagara
Frontier," a bi-national effort in partnership with the Waterfront Regeneration
Trust to stimulate discussion and action on heritage development in
the region that spans the Niagara River and stretches from Lake Ontario
to Lake Erie.
The
City of Buffalo Waterfront Corridor Initiative, to which the UDP is
a consultant, was created to extend direct access to the waterfront
from Riverside to South Buffalo; revitalize waterfront neighborhoods
and connect them to the water; protect and repair the health of the
water, land, and wildlife along the waterfront, and to enhance the international
gateway at and around the Peace Bridge.
Friends
of the Buffalo Niagara Rivers, whose president is Lynda Schneekloth,
UB professor of architecture, is a not-for-profit regional river advocacy
organization whose goals are to restore the ecological health of the
Buffalo-Niagara River systems, improve public access to the rivers,
express and celebrate the cultural and historic fabric of the area,
support sustainable development of the WNY economy and encourage community
awareness, "ownership" and stewardship of the rivers.