■ Accentuating the negatives: This week’s Common Council agenda included seven notices of negative declarations, which exempt developers from undergoing a lengthy and expensive environmental impact study before getting the go-ahead on a project. These are often issued for small-scale builds, or reuses of sites or existing structures that don’t stray far from past uses—cases when the only environmental impact will be those transient issues related to construction itself.

For example, Ellicott Development plans to build a new Family Dollar store at the corner of Niagara and Pennsylvania, where there once was a full-service gas station. Despite the environmental remediation required because of the site’s former use—tanks will have to be dug up and removed, at the very least—the city’s Planning Board recommended that the developer be granted a negative declaration. The $450,000 project will take four to six months to complete, once all permits are issued and construction begins, and will bring the number of Family Dollar stores in Buffalo to 19.

■ The Planning Board also recommended negative declarations for D’Youville College’s proposed new pharmacy school at 573 Prospect, a $19 million project, and also for the Kissling Group’s renovation of the former National Casket Company at the corner of Virginia and Park into 10 lofts. They’re called “live-work” spaces, a popular hyphenation these days. (More on this project next week.)