| Date: | April 4, 2025 |
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by PPG Staff
Each week, PPG summarizes important takeaways from the major Buffalo Common Council meetings. We also include information from council meetings related to our Community Agenda items. If you want to learn more about how the council meetings work and how you can get involved, check out our guide. As a reminder: anyone can attend these meetings. They are on the 13th floor of City Hall, and all the agendas can be found on the council’s meeting website.
Both the Caucus and the Regular common council meetings this week were brief, though they passed some significant legislation. In particular, after months of deliberations, council members unanimously adopted a new city ordinance setting limits on short term rentals (STRs). The increase of these Airbnb/VRBO-type rentals caused many community members to complain to their council representatives. The council members then paused licensing for STRs until they could create an ordinance to regulate STR growth. The new legislation will require more ownership transparency, enforce housing violations rules, and require owners to either live in the city or to have a management company running the locations. Now, the approved ordinance just awaits the acting mayor’s signature.
The council also hopes to fast-track changes to the city’s parking fines, which are slated to increase, most by ten dollars. Additionally, parking lot owners will now pay annually for their licenses, rather than every two years.
Majority Leader Leah Halton-Pope submitted a proposal to expand the city’s housing anti-discrimination law. This language is meant to protect disabled tenants as well as the trans and gender nonconforming communities. It bars discrimination based on “a person's actual or perceived gender-related identity, self-image, appearance, behavior, expression, or other gender-related characteristic regardless of whether the gender identity, self-image, appearance, expression, or behavior is different from that traditionally associated with the sex assigned to that person at birth.”
Buffalo will renew its lease with Grassroots Gardens, a partnership of about 75 gardens throughout the city. The organization is paying $1 for the annual rental of thirty city lots, each of which is home to a community garden. Many of these are run by block clubs, and some belong to schools, churches, businesses, or community organizations; each of them runs according to its own plan and needs, with Grassroots Gardens providing help and supplies when possible.
Council members also adopted a plan to establish a “Reflection Room” in City Hall for employees. This is meant to be a space for meditation, reflection, and prayer, and it comes out of Council Members David Rivera’s and Zeneta Everhart’s interest in mental health.