Parlato faces new charges on building code violations

By RICK PFEIFFER

November 02, 2005

The developer of the former AquaFalls site, already facing charges that he violated Falls’ city ordinances over the summer, has now been charged with a trio of building code violations.

Frank Parlato Jr. was charged with obstruction of streets or sidewalks, disturbing streets or sidewalks and sidewalks to be kept clean and in repair. He was arraigned and released on his own recognizance.

Parlato will face a non-jury trial Dec. 12 on those charges and charges filed in September accusing him of failing to follow rules for submitting a request for special permits, failure to get special permits and engaging in activities that require special permits.

The Buffalo-based developer said the new charges are no surprise.

“They’re piling on,” Parlato said of Falls city officials. “The real secret here is (City Administrator) Dan Bristol is unhappy that I won’t take his commands.”

In a complaint, filed by City Engineer Robert Curtis, Parlato is accused of allowing city sidewalks and right of ways at his property, now called One Niagara, to be “undermined.” Curtis claims “portions of the excavation have given way, which have caused such sidewalks and pedestrian right of ways to become cracked, broken, crumbled, separated and structurally unstable and/or unsafe.”

Parlato says that’s not his fault.

“The sidewalks were crumbling before I got to the property,” he said. “I’ve averted a collapse with 2,572 truckloads (of fill material) in that cavern.”

Upset by the latest charges, Parlato said, “I was told by the mayor, ‘Kid, fill that hole and we’ll do the rest.’ Well, it all evaporated. The city let the sidewalks crumble. To pin that on me is ridiculous.”

The developer also is accused of putting up fencing and barricades that Curtis said encroach on the sidewalks and right of ways. The city engineer charges the “fences and barricades are insufficient to protect pedestrians in the area from the obvious safety hazards created by (Parlato).”

“The sidewalks are not collapsing to the point where they’re gonna fall in,” Parlato said. “There’s not a real danger.”

Parlato said he is preparing to counter-sue the city over their earlier charges against him, which involved allowing vendors to set up on his property and allowing people to park their cars in the old AquaFalls hole.

“The federal government moves 300 jobs out of town and no one says anything. I put up a few tents and it’s the end of the world,” he said. “I’m counter-suing over a law that gives the city a monopoly on parking, when every other tourist city in America allows private parking."