Buffalo's 'Subsidy Tour' underscores dangers of incentive abuse
Opposition to tax-exemption programs that benefit wealthy developers and upscale renters instead of average Buffalonians is not going to go away.
Not surprisingly, any "subsidy tour" would have to begin at One Canalside, the $32 million Benderson Development initiative that has become the poster project for subsidized abuse. Benderson converted a former state office building into a hotel, law offices and a restaurant – and a single apartment.
That lone dwelling allowed it to qualify for $5.9 million in tax breaks under the state’s 485-a program, which is supposed to spur the conversion of old buildings into viable new enterprises.
The tour, organized by the Our City coalition of community groups pressing officials to respond to citizens instead of developers, wound up at the old School 77 on Plymouth Avenue - which was cited as an example of how tax credits can be used to benefit the community instead of the well-off and well-connected.
PUSH Buffalo used historic tax credits, low-interest loans and grants to turn the school into a $14.8 million community hub that taps solar power while housing its offices plus affordable senior citizen apartments, new space for Ujima Theater Co., and space for the anti-poverty group Peace of the City.
The contrast between development efforts that work for those on the middle and lower rungs of the economic ladder and development that works for those at the top could not have been more clear.
At: https://buffalonews.com/2018/11/15/rod-watson-subsidy-tour-is-latest-salvo-in-fight-for-soul-of-city/?utm_medium=more_stories
Poster child for developer incentive abuse, One Canalside (left) included a single apartment so developers could reap $5.9 million in tax breaks.
Other subsidized projects however, such as the School 77 community/residential hub built by PUSH Buffalo, have earned praise.
