Accelerated NYPA funds for Buffalo raises question: "Where's ours?"

Aug. 20—Gov. Kathy Hochul announced earlier this week that her administration directed the New York Power Authority to accelerate payment of $54 million in relicensing settlement funds to support the continued redevelopment of Buffalo's waterfront.

Residents in Niagara County, which plays host to the Niagara Power Project, a prime source of hydropower within the power authority's system, may wonder why Buffalo and why not here?

Under the 2007 relicensing agreement, which granted the power authority a federal license to continue to operate the Robert Moses Power Project in Lewiston, Niagara County along with six host communities and school districts on the western end of the county share a total of $8 million in revenue annually.

The cash comes in two separate pots: Host community funds and Niagara River Greenway dollars.

The Host Community Fund includes $5 million, which is shared each year by the City of Niagara Falls (17%), the Town of Lewiston (17%), Niagara County and the Town of Niagara (13%), the Niagara Falls School District (13.5%), the Lewiston Porter School District (14.5%) and the Niagara-Wheatfield School District (12%).

Another $3 million in power authority funds are allocated annually to support projects tied to the Niagara River Greenway, a concept that, when the relicensing deal was settled, envisioned the creation of a seamless system of parks and recreational space along the Niagara River from Buffalo to Youngstown.

Buffalo gets money from the relicensing agreement, too, although those funds are distributed to the Erie County Harbor Development Corp., a public entity created in 2005 to oversee the redevelopment of Buffalo's waterfront.

On Monday, Hochul announced that the power authority's board of trustees agreed, back in March, to advance $54.2 million in relicensing agreement and Industrial Incentive Award payments to Buffalo's waterfront redevelopment corporation. Those payments would have otherwise been due over the course of roughly a decade.

Hochul said access to the funds will allow the harbor development corporation to advance various waterfront projects, including efforts to undertake a Buffalo Riverwalk feasibility study and to develop a new Gateway Building at Canalside.

"Those funds, which are linked to Niagara Power Project relicensing commitments and an Industrial Incentive Award, are separate from the annual relicensing payments from NYPA to seven host community partners in Niagara County," a spokesman from Hochul's office said in a statement issued in response to questions from the Niagara Gazette and Lockport Union-Sun & Journal newspapers.

Hochul's office noted that the power authority has previously made $72.1 million available to support projects undertaken by Buffalo's harbor development corporation.

Including those power authority revenues, more than $300 million in public funds have been spent on redevelopment projects along Buffalo's waterfront.

So would it make sense to accelerate relicensing payments to support redevelopment efforts in Niagara County, especially in Niagara Falls where there have long been redevelopment needs and financial challenges?

Well, it has happened before.

In 2011, after a New York Times article described Niagara Falls State Park as "shabby," the power authority agreed to accelerate $25.2 million in Greenway funds owed to the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. The funds were used to support a state investment under Cuomo of $70 million in various Niagara Falls State Park projects.

The City of Niagara Falls received an accelerated relicensing payment from the power authority to help stave off a financial crisis a decade ago.

In 2012, to help the city with a budget shortfall, the power authority agreed, under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo's direction, to convert $850,000 in annual payments owed to the city over a 44-year period into a lump sum payment of $13.45 million.

Outside of relicensing settlement funding, Niagara Falls and Niagara County did get a different kind of boost from the power authority, which agreed, after some strong-arming by local, state and federal officials, to contribute $42 million to reconfigure the stretch of the Robert Moses Parkway — now known as the Niagara Scenic Parkway — from Main Street to Findlay Drive in Niagara Falls.

U.S. Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo and Niagara Falls, who was instrumental in obtaining funds for Buffalo's waterfront redevelopment in the run-up to the signing of the 2007 relicensing agreement, has publicly advocated for the allocation of more power authority money to support what he described in 2017 as the "next step in Niagara Falls waterfront redevelopment."

As part of his "vision to sustain momentum along the City of Niagara Falls waterfront," Higgins called on the power authority to finance the redevelopment of the parkway's southern section, a stretch of road sitting on 134 acres that runs along the upper Niagara River between the LaSalle Expressway and downtown Niagara Falls.

Citing the 2017 Niagara Falls Opportunity Area study, which considered potential redevelopment plans for roughly 1,800 acres bordered by the parkway's southern section, Higgins called for replacement of the roadway with greenspace as well as landscaping, a boardwalk, a fishing pier, playground, picnic area and multi-use path.

"For 10 years the community has worked to develop a plan that brings people, neighborhoods and businesses closer to the water's edge but without funding this is just another plan that sits on a shelf," Higgins said at the time. "NYPA built the Robert Moses Parkway and continues to own this valuable land, and it is their responsibility to do right by the community that hosts their power generation plant and has paid the price for NYPA's role in constructing the Parkway and contributing to the industrialization of waterfront property."