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Ten Niagara Falls properties in the downtown core are scheduled to return to the tax rolls thanks to a vote of the city council last night.
The properties will be sold to Restore Niagara LLC for $50,000 with promises of a $1 million Restore New York Grant.
In order to receive the funds, Restore Niagara needs to 1) Pay for the work and 2) See reimbursement after the entire project is complete.
Three years ago, the City of Niagara Falls voted to gift the same 10 properties to Rod Davis. Davis, who had a crappy reputation, benefited from being slick. Empire State Development, and the city, failed to complete a sufficient background check.
Wednesday, Renee Moran, Red Door Real Estate founder and Restore Niagara founder, addressed the council on agenda items only. She said she started on the east side in Buffalo working to turn vacant properties into homes and renters into homeowners.
When the Buffalo market began to get tight, she shifted focus to Niagara Falls, in the process renovating a funeral home on Michigan Avenue that had been vacant for 25 years. She is a city homeowner as well.
Moran said she was brought an investor interested in a different project to Kevin Forma, the Niagara Falls director of planning and, in the course of discussions, asked what happened to the Davis properties.
The answer was nothing. As acting Corporation Counsel Tom DeBoy said,, a few developers had looked at the parcels and then walked away.
Moran said when she toured the properties, some were in better shape than anticipated. In fact, she said, she has salvaged houses in worse shape than four in the package that would be scheduled for demolition.
Plans included in the supporting documents for Restore Niagara LLC include start and completion dates. Four of the properties will be rehabbed and kept as AirBnb. Six properties will be secured, cleaned out and sold. Completion dates range from Oct. 1, 2025 for the properties to be secured and cleaned out to April 1, 2027 for a long-vacant 4th St. property.
The Restore New York grant is based on reimbursement, not up-front funding. Hence, in order to receive any funding from the state, the entire project needs to be complete. Moran told the Express she could complete the project event without Restore NY grant.
The council, after some discussion and Donta Myles questioning the process by which properties are made available, ultimately approved the sale, 3-0 with Traci Bax and Brian Archie absent.
A resolution placed on the agenda by DeBoy relating to his ongoing squabbles with Myles failed to make the floor. Early in the meeting, Myles and DeBoy bickered over the difference between a point of order and a point of information as interpreted in Roberts Rules of Order. DeBoy acts a parliamentarian in addition to being the only representative of the administration who attends meetings and answers
