Preservation Board
Buffalo's Preservation Board denied the demolition of a mixed-use building at 328 North Oak Street, two weeks after tabling the same application. It also found the landmark nomination for the Broadway Auditorium complete, sending it forward — and, in the same sitting, received and filed demolition notices for a house on East Street and a gas station on Niagara Street without objection.
On October 1 this board tabled an application to demolish the mixed-use building at 328 North Oak Street — the only item on that docket it actively held, while letting two other demolitions pass without objection. On October 15 it took the application back up and denied it, 7–0. Moved by Don Gilbert, seconded by Damante' Curry.[2][4]
A denial is the strongest thing this board does. Where receiving and filing a demolition notice lets the work proceed on the ordinary building-department track, and tabling pauses it, a denial refuses the certificate the demolition needs. On these two dockets it happened once, to this building, after the board had first given itself two weeks.[3]
The record does not say why. A documents-only brief can establish the sequence precisely — tabled on the first, denied on the fifteenth, unanimous both times — and can establish nothing at all about the reasoning, because the city does not publish this board's recordings and the written file carries dispositions rather than deliberations.[1]
The contrast within the same hour is the thing to notice. Having refused one demolition outright, the board received and filed two others: a double-unit dwelling with an accessory dwelling unit at 97 East Street, and a gas station at 2212 Niagara Street. Both 7–0, both closed without objection.[2]
Across the two October meetings the tally is five demolition items: four received and filed — two on Fougeron Street, one on East Street, one on Niagara Street — and one denied. That ratio is the most useful single fact in either brief for a reader trying to understand what this board does. Most demolition notices pass. The exception is the story.[4]
The board voted 7–0 that the landmark nomination for the Broadway Auditorium at 201 Broadway is complete — moved by Eric Lander, seconded by Catherine Schweitzer.[2]
That disposition is procedural and easy to pass over, but it is the step that starts the clock. Finding a nomination complete means the board accepts it is properly made and can proceed to investigation, a public hearing and a recommendation to the Common Council. It is not a designation and not a vote on the merits.[3]
It does, however, carry the consequence that matters most in practice: once a property is under nomination, the interim restriction attaches, and the owner cannot demolish or materially alter it while the process runs. For a building of the Broadway Auditorium's scale, that protection beginning is the news, whatever the Council eventually decides.[3]
124 Mariner Street came back from the October 1 tabling and was approved 7–0, moved by Kevin Brady and seconded by Eric Lander. The application is a mixed bag of the kind preservation boards weigh case by case: wood siding added to the rear elevation, one window's dimensions changed, a vinyl window added on an interior side elevation, and two vinyl egress windows.[2]
Vinyl on a protected building is normally the sticking point, and the pattern here — wood where the street sees it, vinyl where it does not, egress windows driven by life-safety requirements rather than taste — is the usual shape of a compromise. Whether that is what the board reasoned is not recoverable from the file.[1]
Two further applications were approved outright: 693 Tonawanda Street, the former Engine No. 26, where a window is removed, its opening expanded and an intake air louver installed; and 380 Northland Avenue, where a chimney is cut down to the roof line and an asphalt shingle roof replaced in kind.[2]
Six items passed as certificates of no effect — work on protected property that does not change its appearance and needs no board vote: asphalt shingle roofs replaced in kind at 35 Beverly Road and 106 East Delavan Avenue; in-kind repairs or replacement to porch deck, foundation walls, vinyl windows and vinyl siding at 132 Sears Street; in-kind masonry repairs at 204 Allen Street; a porch column replaced in kind at 245 North Street; and a chimney rebuilt in kind at 408 Franklin Street.[2]
The seven members recorded on this docket are not the same six who sat a fortnight earlier. Don Gilbert and Ruth Bryant appear here and not on October 1; Anthony James, who moved the Public School 51 designation at that meeting, does not appear on this one.[2][4]
The written record gives no reason for either change, and none is required — board members miss meetings. It is noted because the board that denied the North Oak Street demolition was constituted differently from the board that tabled it two weeks earlier, and because the city publishes no roll call for this body: the roll-call field in both agendas is an unfilled template placeholder, so attendance here is derived entirely from the named vote lists.[2]
One further wrinkle in the attendance record: Catherine Schweitzer is absent from the vote on the first item of the day and present on all eight that follow, which on an ordinary reading means she arrived after the meeting began.[2]
Seven members recorded on eight of the nine votes — Gwen Howard, Don Gilbert, Damante' Curry, Eric Lander, Catherine Schweitzer, Ruth Bryant and Kevin Brady — with six on the first item. All votes unanimous, no abstentions or recusals. This brief is built from documents alone; no discussion is reported because none is available.
Moved by Gilbert, seconded by Curry. The same application was tabled by this board on October 1, when two other demolitions on the same docket were received and filed without objection.
The only demolition denied across either October meeting. The written record carries the disposition and no reasoning.
Item 16 moved by Curry, seconded by Lander. Item 17 moved by Bryant, seconded by Brady. Both closed without a preservation objection, which leaves the demolitions to proceed on the ordinary building-department track.
Moved by Lander, seconded by Schweitzer. Finding a nomination complete is the procedural step that allows the board to proceed to investigation, a public hearing and a recommendation to the Common Council. It is not a designation and not a decision on the merits.
The interim restriction that accompanies a nomination attaches from this stage, so the building cannot be demolished or materially altered while the process runs.
Moved by Brady, seconded by Lander. Wood siding to the rear elevation, one window's dimensions changed, one vinyl window on an interior side elevation and two vinyl egress windows. Tabled by this board on October 1 and approved without conditions a fortnight later.
693 Tonawanda Street: remove a window, expand the opening and install an intake air louver — moved by Lander, seconded by Curry. 380 Northland Avenue: cut a chimney down to the roof line and replace an asphalt shingle roof in kind — moved by Schweitzer, seconded by Curry.
Both moved by Gilbert, seconded by Brady. The September 3 minutes are the ones whose approval appeared on the October 1 agenda with a null vote record — no mover, no seconder, no votes — and which were tabled there.
This is a documents-only brief. The Preservation Board is the one Buffalo body whose meeting video the city does not publish to its records portal; its recordings sit in a separate cloud service and reach this publication, when they reach it at all, as password-protected share links. Rather than leave the meeting unreported, it is briefed from the city's own published agenda, minutes and recorded votes under this pipeline's standing practice for boards that are not streamed.
What is missing, stated plainly. Every address, disposition, mover, seconder and tally here comes from the written record. What no document supplies is the reasoning: why this board refused the North Oak Street demolition having tabled it, why two other demolitions drew no objection the same afternoon, what was said about vinyl windows on Mariner Street, or whether any owner, neighbour or advocate spoke. No discussion is reported because none is available — not because none took place.
Why this brief is late. This publication's Buffalo ingest reads the city's CivicClerk portal, which caps a query at fifteen results and returns a link to the next page. Our poller was not following that link and, sorting oldest-first, re-read the same fifteen September meetings twice a day while newer ones accumulated unseen. Fixed October 17; eleven Buffalo meetings were ingested at once. The city published on time.
Attendance. The city publishes no roll call for this board — the field in both October agendas is an unfilled template placeholder — so the membership reported here is derived from the named vote lists on each item. Two members appear on this docket who did not vote on October 1, and one who voted then does not appear now. One member is absent from the first vote of the day and present for the remaining eight.
A record artefact. One member's name appears duplicated in the city's vote data on every item, rendered as the same first and last name twice over. It is treated here as a single member and printed once.
Explanations of what denial, “received and filed”, “determined complete” and certificates of no effect mean are general context supplied for readers, not drawn from anything said at this meeting.