BUFFALO, N.Y. — Representatives of Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown announced on Thursday the beginning of a journey to secure the financing needed for the redevelopment the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority sites in the city.

"Development does take time, but that is why for many of us who have been working on this for years, it is satisfying to see that we are finally getting to the point that we will see physical change for the vacant and abandoned buildings at Perry," said Brendan Mehaffy, Office of Strategic Planning executive director.

"The Brown Administration drafted a resolution that is now being sponsored by Councilmember Nowakowski to secure $5 million from New York state as part of the Restore New York Program to begin the demolition of the vacant and abandoned properties at Perry.”

Other sites in the works are the Marine Drive Apartments and Shaffer Village. Mehaffy says the resolution became public on Thursday.  

"Councilmember Nowakowski will be taking that before the Common Council and then we will be submitting an application to New York state for that $5 million," Mehaffy said.

Mehaffy says they expect to leverage that money from the federal government and conversations are ongoing about that. BMHA Executive Director Gillian Brown says there were public meetings held in which initial drafts of what could be built at the Perry site were shared.  

"At each of these meetings, we have engaged with different residents,” said Gillian Brown. “We've taken their ideas, their hopes, their dreams for this neighborhood and we've given them back to our developer partners.”

Mehaffy says they hope to be awarded the resources, and once they are, they will have to contract the demolition and hopes the site will be ready for redevelopment by the end of next summer.