The mayoral campaign picked up momentum Tuesday, with incumbent Byron Brown touting support from veterans and developer Doug Jemal, while India Walton picked up Latino support with her promises for more affordable housing and less gentrification.
“His welcoming and his sincerity and his commitment to seeing this city grow and become a better city is why I’m standing here in front of you today," Jemal – the Washington developer who has taken Buffalo by storm with more than a half dozen major real estate projects since coming to town in 2016 – said of Brown during an event at the USS Little Rock at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park. Jemal called the mayor "a special individual."
Both candidates for mayor on Monday held news conferences about where they stand on issues of public safety.
Those supporting Walton say members of their community, many of whom have lived in their neighborhoods for generations, are being priced out because of high rents and the lack of affordable housing.
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“Our people cannot rent decent housing on the Lower West Side anymore because they’re $1,000, $1,500, $2,000, $2,500," said Jose C. Pizarro, who helped spearhead the Western New York Hispanic American Veterans Memorial at the Naval Park. "I mean is this affordable for a poor community? No, it’s not affordable. And we need affordable housing,” Pizarro said.
“Gentrification. It’s a major problem," added Cesar Cabrera, a member of Latinos for India Walton for Mayor.
Both Byron Brown and India Walton are frantically preparing behind the scenes for the post-Labor Day blitz.
Walton said Tuesday she would seek to repeal the 485-a property tax exemption for development projects that she said benefits developers at the expense of residents.
“We’re going to stop pushing our city to the brink of bankruptcy in order to furnish big-time developers with windfall profits on the public dime,” she said.
The 485-a program – named for the section of the state real property tax code that authorizes it – was created by the State Legislature in 2002 to encourage the adaptive reuse of vacant or underutilized commercial and industrial buildings in cities. In particular, it was supposed to provide an incentive for mixed-use projects that incorporate both residential and commercial tenants.
Critics of the program say property owners would pay more in property taxes if the properties were assessed at their full value. Instead, what they would have paid is passed on to other property owners and renters in Buffalo, who effectively make up the difference in the municipal budget.
Developers and city officials, however, say the program has helped advance projects that created valuable benefits for Buffalo, like the restoration of dilapidated buildings. And, they add, the incentive is needed to make many projects financially viable in Buffalo, where the property values and rents aren't high enough to support the projects.
"We’re the party of making sure everyone has a boat, so a rising tide lifts them, instead of drowning them. We’re the party of 'everybody in, nobody out,' ” Walton said after receiving the endorsement.
What's more, the legislation authorizes an exemption only on the increase in property value that results from redevelopment. That means the original assessment prior to redevelopment is not discounted, and taxes are still paid on that. Under the law, the full amount of the increase is tax-exempt for the first eight years. Full taxation takes effect after the 12th year.
Walton said Buffalo faces "a terrible wave of gentrification."
"And when I talk about gentrification, I talk about the negative impacts of neighborhood change,” Walton said. “Development is possible without displacing the people that currently exist.”
“As long as our housing system is set up to increase profits of developers and large-scale landlords rather than meet the needs of the rest of us, the working people, then the rich will live here where they please, and the rest of us will where we can,” she said.
Brown said Walton does not understand how government functions.
The Brown campaign had submitted more than 3,700 signatures on a petition to secure an independent line – called the “Buffalo Party” – for the Nov. 2 ballot.
“So again, India Walton reflects her complete lack of understanding of how city government works," he said. "She has no power to repeal 485-a because 485-a is a state law passed by the state of New York, not by the Buffalo city government,” he said.
“We had two options as a municipality based on the state law – completely opt out or opt in," the mayor said.
The city decided "it made more sense to opt in to move development in the city of Buffalo, and if things are being developed, if jobs are being created and developers are focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion, it will lift all parts of the community," he said.
His administration has been pushing that concept to developers “to make sure that there is the hiring of minority and female workers, of minority and women-owned business, to make sure that when hiring is done it reflects the diversity of our community, that it is inclusive and that it is equitable," Brown said.
Walton said she will support a city-wide federation of community land trusts “to enable neighborhoods to democratically develop themselves and insulate themselves from being priced out.”
Walton’s Latino supporters say Walton has a good grasp of affordable housing.
“And that’s what we need," Pizarro said. "Right now, through gentrification, our people are being pushed out of the Lower West Side – not only because they are buying up our properties on the Lower West Side, but the rents are outrageous.”
Brown, who lost the June 22 Democratic mayoral primary to Walton in a major political upset, will wage a write-in effort to retain his job and has gone to court in a bid for his name to appear on an independent ballot line in November’s mayoral election.
