BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority has unveiled early renderings and plans for the new and improved public housing buildings on Marine Drive. This comes after they heard input from residents about the Marine Drive apartments over the last three days.
The focus of recent discussions is to create a design that's resident-driven.
"The buildings need to be addressed, one way or the other, they need to be addressed, but they need to be addressed in a way that meets the needs of the people who live there. And they've been living there, some of them for a very long time, and I don't want to jam anything down anyone's throats. But we need people to understand what they don't have, what they can have and what the buildings are lacking." Gillian Brown, the executive director of BMHA said.
The BMHA hopes phase one of construction will start sometime in 2024, with people moving in sometime in 2025.
The draft of the $400 million plan would change the housing to a "create modern, high-quality" affordable housing on the site. The same number of apartments would be featured in the new development, guaranteeing that all current residents could get a unit.
The new building would be built in the surface parking lot at the current buildings.