News

For Immediate Release
December 20, 2016

Media Contact:
Max Anderson
max@openbuffalo.org
716-292-4995

BUFFALO – Gentrification is real, and it has arrived in Buffalo. Residents and community leaders from across Buffalo converged at Buffalo City Hall on Tuesday, December 20, at 1:30 p.m., to demand that Inclusionary Zoning be included in the City’s Green Code. (This rally took place ahead of a 2:00 p.m. Common Council meeting concerning the Green Code.)

Those present demanded that City lawmakers make sure that our communities are respected and have affordable housing, rather than simply line the pockets of wealthy investors and developers.

“Buffalo has long regarded itself as ‘The City of Good Neighbors,’” said Grace Andriette, a resident of Buffalo’s West Side. “Unless we as a community are willing to take affirmative steps to ensure that all of our residents can enjoy our city's revitalization, and have opportunities to live in our revitalized neighborhoods, we fail to live up to our own reputation.”

By linking the production of affordable housing to the production of market-rate housing, Inclusionary Zoning is one of the most powerful tools at our disposal when it comes to combatting the affordable housing crisis and negative effects of gentrification in the city of Buffalo. Inclusionary Zoning policies, like the one residents have been fighting for in the Green Code, would require new residential developments to make a certain percentage of the housing units affordable to low- or moderate-income residents.

Given that developers are planning to build hundreds of market-rate and upscale housing units within the coming year, and thousands over the next decade — priced out of reach of so many in Buffalo — those who demonstrated Tuesday expressed how essential it is that the Buffalo Common Council not pass the Green Code without a comprehensive Inclusionary Zoning policy.

“All we are asking for is inclusion,” said Nathaniel Cole, a resident of the Fruit Belt neighborhood. “We would love to keep our homes. We just hope you find it in your heart to give us Inclusionary Zoning.”

>>> To learn more about the case for Inclusionary Zoning in Buffalo, see the report “Inclusionary Zoning: Creating Equity and Lasting Affordability in the City of Buffalo, New York."

What: Community Rally for Inclusionary Zoning
When: Tuesday, December 20, at 1:30 p.m.
Where: Buffalo City Hall, Room 1417 (65 Niagara Square, Buffalo NY 14202)

For media inquiries, please contact Max Anderson at max@openbuffalo.org or 716-292-4995.

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