Legislation that would have established an Erie County Planning board after an absence of 20 years was vetoed this week by County Executive Chris Collins, despite strong support from Smart Growth advocates, business leaders, and The Buffalo News. The effort for a new board began in 2007 and had recently passed the county legislature by a 9 to 6 vote, with supporters at a subsequent hearing saying it was needed to advise against new developments that promote continued suburban sprawl.
Buffalo's "sprawl without growth" is probably the worst in the state, and arguably the worst in the country, according to observers of Western New York's steadily deteriorating economic situation.
The hollowing out of downtown Buffalo (and similar conditions in parts of Cheektowaga, Tonawanda, and Lackawanna) is obvious and well-documented. While Erie County grew by three percent between 1950 and 2007 (to 926,000 from 897,000), the City of Buffalo lost almost 400,000 people.
According to recent news reports, the number of developed square miles in Erie and Niagara counties tripled from 1950 to 2000, while the overall population declined, leaving fewer people to pay for increased infrastructure. Proponents of the new board said it could steer towns away from developments that require costly expansions of roads and sewers that further disperse the population and add to the cost of local government. Adoption of a regional plan itself could at least show promising alternatives to continued sprawl and highlight better outcomes that are possible, they said.
Although every other major county in the state has a planning board, County Executive Chris Collins said the new advisory board would be another layer of bureaucracy, calling it "a powerless, yet obstructive hurdle to developers looking to invest in our community." City and town governments hold the power of land use decisions in New York, and they are advised by local planning boards which they appoint. Local planning boards are frequently enticed by developments that add to the tax rolls, while their county counterparts typically take a broader view of development by considering the overall impacts of development among towns.
Read the full Buffalo News story at:
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/southernsuburbs/story/672341.html
Commentary from the Buffalo News is found at:
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/647379.html
