By Neale Gulley<br><a href="mailto:gulleyn@gnnewspaper.com">E-mail Neale</a>
The Tonawanda News
Sat, May 17 2008
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The markers were handed out and residents of North Tonawanda went to town.
They went downtown, veered hard right across Thompson Street and — in a fraction of a second — shot down Niagara Falls Boulevard. They leapt River Road in a single bound and landed on Tonawanda Island with inky precision.
Thursday’s meeting, at the DeGraff Community Center, was the fourth time in the past two years members of the community were invited by city planners to sketch the next chapter of North Tonawanda’s history.
The city’s master plan steering committee, members of the Lumber City Development Co., and individuals representing Bergmann Associates (adviser to planners here) released the results of six proposed development missions. The work is based heavily on existing city trends and the results of a survey taken by Bergmann Associates in order to gauge residents’ likes and dislikes.
Before turning their attentions to the drafting tables, however, residents were asked to vote their “gut reaction” on 50 images of various cityscapes nationwide, in order to help development planners decide what is and isn’t appropriate here.
Residents established a kind of consensus early in the slide show.
“Where is that, Hoboken?”
“Is this (one of those) controversial roundabouts?”
“Well . . . the roads look nice,” said some of those in attendance.
When Andy Raus, project manager for the draft future land use plan, asked those in attendance whether they had participated in the survey, hands remained still. A slim majority of the 28 people present were individuals not representing the city, but Lumber City Development Corp. Coordinator Chuck Bell said attendance at three other public meetings was “standing room only.”
Bell offered two specific reasons for residents to care about the evolving land use plan. He said when the city seeks public money for improvements, the ability to connect the work with aspects of a pre-determined, comprehensive strategy increases the odds of approval by those who hold the purse strings.
Also, there is the issue of future legality.
“It actually does form the legal basis for your zoning,” he said. “It comes right out of your land use plan.”
Some of the boldest proposals center on “gateway” points of entry to the city. Officials note both ends of River Road, the Twin Cities Highway and the northeast end of Niagara Falls Boulevard among these.
Two corridors have taken shape — each bookended by either light industry or commerce — and filled with higher density residences in between. One from the Buffalo Bolt site, designed to move down adjacent to a more service-filled Oliver Street, through a proposed park, on through dense multifamily “townhouses” — all the while running the length of a beautified waterfront — before arriving at what planners continually refer to as the new “critical mass” downtown. That may be one way of describing plans for mixed use and upper floor development there.
Under the plan, park land, high-density housing, waterfront and partially commercialized residential neighborhoods would all converge with downtown shopping along a stretch of west Thompson Street.
Results of Thursday night’s community survey, as well as numerous suggestions resulting from the workshop sessions will all be factored into the working plan as planning efforts continue.
“We’re going to consolidate all the common ideas onto one map,” Raus said at the conclusion of the roughly three-hour meeting.
Contact reporter Neale Gulleyat 693-1000, ext. 114.
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