Niagara Gazette

Local News

May 5, 2008

BROWNFIELDS: Grant aiming to revitalize North End needs participants

By Dan Miner<br><a href="mailto:minerd@gnnewspaper.com">E-mail Dan</a>

Leaders of a program aimed at reviving the North End are again calling for community participation as the way to make it successful.

Consultants and officials are set to kick off a six-week mini-course for the federal Brownfield Opportunity Area program. The $400,000 grant aims to turn community input, with the help of city officials, consultants and community leaders, into a master plan to attract businesses and cleanup and redevelop the area.

The process is expected to wrap up in about 17 months.

“With this program, it’s very important that you have participation by residents,” said Willie Dunn, executive director of the Highland Avenue Revitalization Committee. “This course will help residents to have a real strong sense about brownfields and their issues and opportunities.”

The course begins Tuesday at 6 p.m. with a two-hour introduction to brownfields at the Doris W. Jones Family Resource Building on Ninth Street. The session will focus specifically on three issues, including the definition of brownfields, challenges brownfields pose to the Highland community and planning for their reuse with a neighborhood strategy.

Buffalo-based firm Environmental Education Associates will host the meeting along with likely appearances by the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the city planning department.

“The opening week is an introduction,” said Mary Fisher, a specialist for Environmental Education Associates. “We’ll be talking to people that may know nothing about (brownfields) and some people who may have been through this before, because they’ve done startup projects like this in the past.”

There will be one session a week for six weeks. Future sessions will include more detailed discussions about the program’s goals and opportunities and concludes with a bus tour of brownfields in Niagara Falls — both the U.S. and Canadian sides — as well as St. Catharines, Ontario.

Contact reporter Dan Minerat 282-2311, ext. 2263.

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