UDP Co-sponsors "State of the Waters" A Critical Look at Buffalo's Lakes, Rivers and Streams

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The Urban Design Project in the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning is co-sponsoring a conference, "State of the Waters: A Conference on Buffalo's Lakes, Rivers and Streams," to be held on April 6.

Projects underway to develop public access to Buffalo's waterfront and how ongoing ecological problems like contamination and loss of habitat undermine those efforts will be among topics discussed at the conference. It also will highlight two projects that were initiated to ensure that Buffalo's waterfront future is a bright one -- the City of Buffalo Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan and its Waterfront Corridor Initiative.

The conference will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Buffalo Convention Center. Other co-sponsors are the City of Buffalo, to which the Urban Design Project is a consultant, and the Friends of the Buffalo Niagara Rivers.

The cost of registration, which includes breakfast and lunch, is $30. For further information, contact Friends of the Buffalo Niagara Rivers at 523-2423 or go to the organization's Web site at http://www.FBNR.org.

Conference organizers say that the City of Buffalo Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan and its Waterfront Corridor Initiative call for a great deal of public input.

Both projects, they note, will have a significant impact on two countries, seven of Buffalo's nine city council districts, 30 percent of the city's land mass, nearly 25 percent of the Buffalo population, several low-income and minority neighborhoods and two rivers of enormous concern to the future of this region, the Niagara and Buffalo rivers.

Among those scheduled to speak is Assemblyman Brian Higgins. Erie County Executive Joel Giambra and Erin Crotty, commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, have been invited to speak.

Margaret Wooster, executive director of Great Lakes United, will lead a roundtable discussion titled "Water Quality and Waterfront Access: The Environmental Constraints on Public Use."

The UB Urban Design Project (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 urban design students and faculty members together with local governments, community-based organizations and individual citizens to engage in the work of making better places and 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 with goals to restore the ecological health of 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 Western New York economy and encourage community awareness, "ownership" and stewardship of the rivers.