Published: January 05, 2009 07:47 pm      

TRANSIT NORTH: City, towns to meet on corridor initiative

The planning and zoning boards and city/town councils of Lockport and Pendleton will meet Jan. 13 about the Transit North Historic Canalway Corridor initiative.

City Hall is hosting the 6 p.m. meeting, which Mayor Michael Tucker speculated is an “unprecedented” gathering of three neighboring municipalities’ governing boards.

The Transit Corridor initiative envisions gradual transformation of Transit Road, from Main Street in the city to Tonawanda Creek at Pendleton, to a retail/commercial mecca, partly through development of old-fashioned looking facades.

Key to the transformation is adoption, by each municipality, of shared design guidelines for private and public property. Since the initiative got under way in 2007, however, only the Town of Lockport has enacted Corridor-supporting local legislation. Its planning board now has legal authority to steer construction along South Transit Road toward styles that prevailed locally between the 1820s and 1920s.

Lockport Supervisor Marc Smith, who chairs the Corridor committee, said the joint meeting is meant to jump-start discussion of the project and what each partner needs to do “to keep it moving forward.”

“Some common goals were set for 2008 that the town was aggressive in achieving, but I didn’t see everybody else take that same aggressive stance,” he said. “That’s not a criticism of the others — I think it was understood the town (of Lockport) would take the lead and the city and Pendleton would see how it went — but now we really need to make sure these boards are fully briefed on what we’re trying to accomplish. It’s imperative that all the municipalities end up with some standardized code.”

Since a mid-2008 meeting with Smith, Pendleton supervisor Jim Riester said, his town’s planning board is warming to the Corridor concept but remains concerned whether local design laws really have any “teeth” in them. If they were to be challenged down the line, after pioneer Corridor developers followed them, unevenness could result.

Also, Riester said, there is indecision among planning commissioners whether buildings should be placed closer to or a distance from South Transit. In the Town of Lockport, existing code for South Transit mandates buildings closer to the road and parking in back.

According to Smith, finer details like building setback don’t have to be copied from municipality to municipality.

“The point is not to create 50 gingerbread men all cut out and frosted the same,” he said. “As long as we’re all focused on the same cohesive elements — green space and historic elements of (construction) — the rest of the details can be each municipality’s twist on it.”

Ahead of the joint meeting, Fourth Ward Alderman Patrick Schrader said he’s pushing again to get South Transit street rezoned. His idea is to replace multiple residential and business zones with a uniform Neighborhood Commercial-General Residence District. The new zone would facilitate easier conversion of homes to businesses in support of the Corridor concept, he said.

The proposal has sat on the back burner for many months while the city finalizes its Local Waterfront Revitalization Program, which also affects the stretch, but that still isn’t done, he said Monday.

“I’m going ahead (with rezoning). I think everybody’s OK with it now,” he said.

Meanwhile, Schrader said, the Council worked indirectly on Corridor-supporting legislation last year by enacting a stringent sign law. Provisions prohibiting modern sign touches across zone types — streamers, flashing text and the like — show the city planning board already is oriented to Corridor design imperatives, he said.

Construction and developer inquiries have slowed dramatically the last few months, thanks to nationwide recession. Looking on the bright side, Riester and Smith both said that means now is the best time for the municipalities to plot their redevelopment strategy.

“Look what the economy has done for us: It slowed things right down, so now we’re not behind the eight ball on anything,” Smith joked.

Contact reporter Joyce Miles at 439-9222, ext. 6245.