Developer Frank Parlato, tired of waiting for Hamburg and Clarence to
develop parks on property he has offered those towns, will open the land to
the public.
"I plan to post the land, telling the public where it is, and will develop
parking areas in Hamburg at Buttermilk Falls," he said. "Saturday, I'll be
at Buttermilk Falls to show people around that site."
Hamburg, which has title to bottom lands along 18-Mile Creek, has not
rejected Parlato's offer of the falls and 1.8 acres above it for parking
and access. But it also has not acted to buy it, either.
And the developer's latest move has at least one town official worried.
"We don't want a parking lot at the top of the bank," said George McKnight,
Hamburg's director of planning. "We would not encourage it for safety
reasons. We want people to use the stream bank and to enjoy the falls --
but from the bottom, along safer access."
Evans and Hamburg are developing an access plan. Evans will put in a
parking lot at the old Versailles Plank bridge in Evans, while Hamburg
repairs the bridge and provides a handicapped access ramp to the stream
bank.
The state will supply $ 20,000, and the two towns will pick up the rest of
the cost, said Hamburg Highway Superintendent Richard A. Smith, who is
developing engineering plans with his Evans counterpart, Edward Michalski.
"We expect to have the work done sometime this summer," Smith said.
The property in Clarence, at Goodrich and Tonawanda Creek roads, is about
25 acres, including 3,000 feet of frontage along Tonawanda Creek. It was
offered to the Town Board last year.
The board rejected Parlato's sale offer and later took exception to his
attending a Republican Party picnic to lobby for his proposal.
"But nothing free is too bad," said Clarence Supervisor Irving Grenzebach
Jr. "As long as he's assuming liability if someone falls in, we don't have
any say about how he uses his property. Maybe it's what the town needs."
Parlato has developed several stagnant subdivisions by buying them, then
selling fewer lots while dedicating portions of them as "forever wild"
forest lands held in common.
Last fall, he tried a "900" telephone system where callers could call and
pledge money for a fund to be divvied up among towns that had open space
plans on the books. That was not successful, he said.
"I put the pledge plan on hold after the fall. But we did raise $ 1,000,
which will be parceled out," Parlato said. Some of that money will go to
the Western New York Land Conservancy, he added.
In mid-May, he plans to spend his own money to put down gravel and create a
parking lot at Buttermilk Falls, which is on North Creek Road near Route 20
in Hamburg. The parking will be across the road from a steep path leading
to the creek and giving access to the scenic waterfall and the town-owned
strip along the creek.
That worries McKnight.
"We don't want people to come down that steep bank -- and it could be
dangerous to have people looking at the falls from the top, peering over
the lip," he said. "We'd really prefer to have them come in from the Evans
side." But Parlato is impatient.
"If we wait for town approval, it won't get done this year," he said. "I
believe that allowing people to use the property at their own risk is worth
any possible problems (that could arise) until the towns approve these
parks."