Busti Homes Demolished
West Side members of the Clean Air Coalition were shocked to hear that the Busti Avenue homes had already been demolished early Monday morning.
“Community members should have definitely received more notice that the homes were going to come down on Saturday. The Peace Bridge Authority should have taken the weekend to inform residents that the homes were coming down- we’re only a couple of steps away” was resident Tangia Delk’s initial reaction to learning that the Busti Homes were on their way down on Monday morning. Similarly, Reverend Dr. Lanzot of Primera Iglesia Unida Metodista on Virginia Street “doesn’t understand why the powers that be took the powers to do without consulting the community”.
News of the judge’s decision was announced Friday afternoon, and by Saturday morning the houses were pretty much heaps on the ground. The Coalition does not believe this is how a good neighbor would act- a good neighbor will give you advance notice of such a dusty, noisy and impactful project. “There is just no consideration or transparency between the PBA and the residents. They feel they can do what they want when they want”, was Natasha Soto’s- an organizer for the Coalition who works on the West Side, “would it have been too much to ask for a mailing or leaflet, or a meeting hosted by the PBA over the weekend and have the houses demoed on Monday? What is the rush if all that they’re putting up is green space? Now the residents who live near there have nothing blocking them from the thousands of carcinogenic diesel exhaust emitting trucks passing through the truck plaza.”
Not only were the demolitions executed in record time, but residents are not even sure of what will be put in their place. “They [PBA] was doing it on the low, they were hiding it. Everything is being done behind closed doors. The situation for the past 20 years has been to expand the plaza, and they want us to believe that they are getting rid of these homes so quickly to build green space?! I don’t buy it”, says Ana Martinez, a resident who lives on Niagara Street.
“Now that the homes are gone, they have to at least give us answers before they start construction of the so-called ‘green space’. Who does it benefit? Is it for residents, business owners, who decides what gets put there? They already call us lazy- so this is a perfect opportunity to prove them right, especially when they cut out the first step and don’t even inform us of what’s going on. We’re really concerned; we have issues we’re concerned about. They are making us play catch up in our own neighborhood when they put news out on a Friday, and things are already in action on Saturday!” exclaims Ms. Delk.
Clean Air has been asking the PBA’s Chair, Sam Hoyt, to release plans they have for the area for over a year. If all they doing is putting in green space once they remove those houses, the Coalition sees no reason why the PBA can’t release those plans with the green spaces in them. They should make these plans public, and they should be including the residents that live on the West Side every step of the way. The PBA should be ashamed that residents had no idea that the houses were down already on Monday, especially since the members of the PBA making these decisions do not live on the West Side.