EDITORIALS
Seed the East Side
Urban farm proposal merits cultivating, while critics cluck at West Side chickens
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Despite some objections by the mayor, here’s an idea that should take root: Farm Buffalo.
This city, the third-poorest large city in the nation, should be embracing ideas to make its citizenry self-sustaining, not to mention healthier. National urban farming and “eat local” movements offer paths to those goals, but grass-roots efforts here face withering criticism—a West Side woman who wants to raise chickens so she could pass out eggs to her neighbors, and an East Side couple who moved their family from Wyoming County with hopes of starting a small vegetable farm. Each has met political resistance.
Mayor Byron W. Brown has not ruled out the idea of urban farming, nor should he. But in opposing the East Side farm, his administration cites an award-winning Queen City Hub Plan and the idea of long-term planning. While the administration should be credited for supporting comprehensive planning, this is a good new idea and officials should work with the East Side couple either to make this long-vacant site work, or find another one. And the administration needs to work in concert with the Common Council on the issue of small backyard chicken coops.
These farms should come with strings attached—odor rules and restrictions on the use of pesticides, for example. These are urban areas, after all, with higher residential densities by far than the countryside. But careful legislation and permitting can address those problems.
West Side resident Monique Watts bought five hens and built a small chicken coop in the backyard of her Rhode Island Street home, but someone cried fowl and animal control officers informed her she couldn’t keep the hens because of a 2004 Common Council amendment that prohibited keeping chickens. As the city attorney pointed out, some worry that backyard chickens might carry and transmit avian flu; Erie County’s health commissioner, Dr. Anthony J. Billittier IV, has “concerns when animals other than domestic pets are raised in close proximity to residential areas.”
Niagara Council Member David A. Rivera, though, is planning legislation that would allow city residents to raise hens—within stringent guidelines. No roosters would be allowed, the chickens would have to have a specified amount of space to roam and restrictions would be placed on how close a chicken coop could be to homes or businesses.
East Siders Mark and Janice Stevens had hoped to turn 27 contiguous city-owned lots into an urban farm, purchasing the entire two acres of vacant land on Wilson Street to grow vegetables they would use for themselves and sell back to the community. The mayor insists housing should be built on that acreage, to turn area renters into homeowners.
Home ownership improves neighborhoods and strengthens the city’s tax base. But the local branch of Habitat for Humanity, the group that would develop housing on the acreage the Stevens family wanted for an urban garden, is willing to look at other sites. Common Council President David A. Franczyk has met with the couple, and is trying to persuade Habitat to consider other vacant East Side locations or opt for fewer homes on Wilson Street.
The city has 14,100 vacant lots, with thousands on the East Side. These acres have been unused—farm it now, and if future trends demand housing, how hard could it be to repurchase and develop the fields?
The city’s master plan draws general, strategic-investment zones. It’s meant to weed out bad proposals, but not dogmatically to block unforeseen but really good ones. An urban farm on a couple of acres a few blocks away from that historic farmer’s mecca, the Broadway Market, could be worked into the market-area investment strategy; given time, this idea could bear economic fruit. For an area that needs positive change, it’s well worth considering.
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