On August 12, 2017, the Lake Erie Rally was held at the Northern Chautauqua Conservation Club in Dunkirk, New York. Presentations given by a variety of public agency representatives depicted a bright, revitalized future for communities on Chautauqua County‘s stretch of the Lake Erie waterfront.
Organized and proctored by Chautauqua County Executive Vince Horrigan, area officials, representatives and members of the public were updated on current waterfront cleanup and redevelopment projects and plans that affect ten communities from Erie County Pennsylvania to Erie County, New York.
As the host of the event, Dunkirk got a lot of attention. Not every community has a major resource like Lake Erie on its doorstep, and even fewer have the untapped potential of Dunkirk’s waterfront. A plan to make it a destination, and its Central Avenue business district a revitalized corridor to that attraction, is in the final stages.
The city started phase two of the Brownfield Opportunity Area (BOA) planning process over a year ago and according to Planning and Development Director Rebecca Yanus, she expects to have the final draft for review any day now before passing it on to the state for final approval.
“A BOA really helps realize a community’s vision for redevelopment and community revitalization,” Planning and Development Director Rebecca Yanus said. “The city of Dunkirk has an immense amount of brownfield sites and vacant sites and this phase is really identifying those sites and deciding what kinds of plans and projects we want to see in the future in the city of Dunkirk.”
A BOA plan, once approved, creates a designated area that is eligible for state grants and tax credits. However, the plan is not limited to brownfields.
“The overall goal is to remove blight and spur economic development by identifying opportunities for reinvestment and revitalization,” Yanus continued. “It’s important that we go through phase two of the study because the overall goal is to become a BOA-designated community. This really helps us because it gives us the support from the department of state.”
A significant portion of the funding for the revitalization projects along the waterfront derives from the Local Waterfront Revitalization Program (LWRP). It was launched in 2014, as an attempt to resurrect an unfinished plan that was initiated in 1999.
Patrick Gooch, Senior Planner at the Chautauqua County Department of Planning and Economic Development explained the importance of LWRP, “A finished LWRP allows us to tap into funds to revitalize the waterfront in a way we can’t currently do so. It is a locally-prepared land and water use plan for communities to develop natural public working waterfronts. That’s key. It’s not just about recreational access, it’s not just about working waterfronts, it’s a combination of both.”
Photo of Dunkirk waterfront in 1992 by Ken Winters, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
See Post-Journal article by Nicole Gugino.
See Chautauqua County Department of Planning & Economic Development website.