BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Community leaders are calling for change in neighborhoods within the City of Buffalo. They want leaders to do more about vacant lots.
While driving through the city, you may come across vacant lots bringing blight and concern for many neighborhoods.
Donna Latham-Edwards said it is especially bad in her community in East Buffalo.
"We have the most vacant lots of any other area in the City of Buffalo," Latham-Edwards said.
Latham-Edwards is a community organizer and founder of Impacted Families Project. She. and other city organizations are joining forces to talk about the empty spots. They are hosting "Vacant Lots Town Hall" on Thursday.
She said there are roughly 8,000 vacant lots in city limits.
"When I look at our neighborhood specifically for Broadway-Fillmore, it was just so many people, it was thriving at one time, and even though if it's getting back to that, the empty lots is just not how, to me, a neighborhood is supposed to be," she added.
She suggested that the vacant lots should be beneficial for the community.
"We have all these empty blocks. We live in a food desert, so what better place to use some of these lots, you know, for us to be able to grow food for the community," she said.
SUNY Buffalo State College completed a study in July 2020 where urban planning students pointed out vacant city lots which could be reused.
"The vacant lot inventory and analysis found that the number of vacant lots in the city of Buffalo has continuously increased over the last 20 years. In 2019, the number of publicly-owned vacant lots surpassed 7,800," the study noted.
This study also noted that a majority of vacant lots exist in neighborhoods that have faced "systematic disinvestment at the hands of public and private sector practices such as redlining. This is particularly acute in many neighborhoods on the East Side of Buffalo."
The ongoing problem with vacant lots has also caught the attention of University District Councilman Rasheed N.C. Wyatt.
"Let's get those in the hands of people who want them who can manage them and take it off the city's ledger so that we don't have the expense of having to manage them," he said,
Wyatt said this has been a problem for awhile, but have yet to see a plan from the city's real estate division. He noted the division said they will be coming out with a plan soon, but he understands managing the properties can be draining.
"Because they have so many we could have them focus on other things instead of those vacant parcels," Wyatt added.
7 News did reach out to the city for further comment, but have not heard back.
The town hall will take place at the Matt Urban Center on Broadway Avenue. The event starts at 5 p.m. on Thursday. It is the first town hall, and Latham-Edwards said they hope to host more soon.
