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http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs...361/1056/COL02
Eyesores no more
Cincinnati taking down 'shacks' one house at a time
BY TONY LANG |
TLANG@ENQUIRER.COM
Police call them crime magnets. Firefighters call them man traps. Neighbors call them eyesores.
Now, thanks to a crackdown on vacant and abandoned buildings, more people are calling them demolished.
The city of Cincinnati expects to bulldoze up to 100 buildings this year, beginning with an unprecedented assault on blight, crime and unsafe structures in Price Hill. The effort moves on to Avondale next week, then Northside in the fall.
Citywide, about 1,750 buildings have been deemed dangerous for human habitation and ordered razed or kept vacant. Almost 590 buildings in 41 neighborhoods are on a list for demolition.
Neighbors are welcoming the bulldozers with spontaneous block parties and cheers. After crime, abandoned buildings might be the biggest single drag on neighborhoods.
"It's about time we cleaned up this place," Michael Flaherty, 58, said as he watched city contractor Evans Landscaping demolish a dilapidated three-story frame dwelling at 1008 Purcell Ave. in East Price Hill. "Shoot, it's just fantastic what they're doing to change things, tearing down all these burned-out shacks."
Left unattended, vacant buildings cripple property values and contribute to a neighborhood's downward spiral. National fire officials say vacant structures account for more than 12,000 fires and 6,000 firefighter injuries each year.
In Cincinnati, thieves prey on vacant buildings and attempted rehab work, stripping out copper, aluminum and fixtures in a destructive form of urban mining.
Abandoned buildings create demand for more police and fire runs, more cleanup at taxpayer expense, more litigation, more skip-tracing costs to find delinquent owners. A 2005 study pegged the average cost of combined city services for each vacant building at $3,223 a year. Cincinnati's total annual services costs for vacant buildings: $5.5 million.
East Price Hill resident Judy Osborne hates the vacant house next door at 943 Wells St. Boarded up, it might not look as hopeless as some trashed or torched houses in her distressed neighborhood, but it still galls her, every day.
"The owners should have to live with that place," she said. "They should have to live with people kicking in the back door, the lead paint, black stuff dripping off the roof, garbage in the backyard. It's nasty. I can't take nobody in our backyard."
She even keeps her dog away from the soil for fear of lead flakes.
'FOCUS AREA' BLITZ
In February, city officials began a 90-day "blitz" of East and West Price Hill with code-enforcement inspectors, barricading crews, police, firefighters, health inspectors and demolition contractors to try to stop the spread of blight and crime. Three days ago, another demolition with a track hoe "crunching and munching" 974 Hawthorne Ave. gave East Price Hill neighbors more cause for celebration - the seventh abandoned building demolished in three months.
But relief has yet to arrive for Judy Osborne. The house at 943 Wells has been cited for open doors, yard debris and other public hazards, besides lead paint.
Osborne said the last tenant there moved out last year after complaining that her youngest children were sick from lead. The Cincinnati Health Department issued lead hazard orders against the property in April 2006, and it's now in foreclosure. The owner, Scott Ferre, declined to comment after calls to his lawyer.
Residents on Osborne's stretch of Wells Street are trying hard to maintain their block. Owners and contractors are painting exteriors, rebuilding porches, renovating kitchens and baths. "There's not a house up here I couldn't fix up," Ray Osborne, Judy's brother, said. He blames absentee owners and "corporations that fix up houses just enough for people to move in."
A few doors up, Roberta Skidmore has lived in her house almost 50 years and raised all her children there. Yet the neighborhood has fallen on such hard times that she admits that she's thought of moving out. "My husband's on dialysis, and my kids want me out," she said.
Across from 943 Wells, Doyle Brock, a retired Cincinnati Police officer, was fetching caulk for some work on his rental property. His take on vacant buildings: "Tear them down if the owners don't want to fix them up. I think we can turn this neighborhood around, but we tie police officers' hands" by not ridding neighborhoods of places that attract drug dealers, copper thieves and other criminals.
The citywide list of 1,750 vacant properties counts only those with demolition or keep-vacant orders against them. Hundreds more buildings may be abandoned or unsightly, but if secured and maintained, they aren't in violation. Buildings are considered abandoned if the owner can't be found, forcing the city to act as steward.
"Baltimore has 10 times our number of vacant buildings," said Ed Cunningham, the city's supervisor of inspections. Philadelphia has even more; vacant residences alone total 26,000. Indianapolis recently reported almost 8,000.
STIFFER FIX-UP FEES
Still, nobody is downplaying the vacant-building problem here.
William Langevin, director of Cincinnati's Department of Buildings and Inspections, was feeling fairly good in the late 1990s about cutting the total of vacant and abandoned buildings to 900. Then the economy soured, foreclosures soared, and the list of problem buildings doubled. Today, with Ohio's foreclosure rate tops in the nation, many fear an even bigger surge in abandoned structures unless tougher action is taken now.
It isn't cheap. Demolition contracts since 2004 cost the city an average of $14,600 a building. The city's total cost for demolitions since 2004: $3.5 million.
To recoup some of those costs, Cincinnati officials in April 2006 raised "license" fees that building owners must pay until major code violations are corrected. The annual fee is $900 the first year and rises to $3,500 if violations drag on for five or more years.
"We're here to stimulate activity, so owners either fix up their building or sell it to someone who can," Langevin said. "The whole point of the ordinance is to add some carrying costs for them."
Cincinnati's vacant-building problem isn't about slumlords stockpiling vast tracts of empty buildings. Only about 22 owners or corporations control five or more dwellings. Absentee owners in some cases might be too ill or poor to keep their property in good repair.
Owners who fail to correct deficiencies in their properties are subject to civil fines up to $1,000. A special city prosecutor also may bring misdemeanor criminal charges in Hamilton County's "housing court." Owners who fail to comply with building orders can face a maximum $1,000 fine and six months in jail. City records show 61 convictions last year - up from 37 in 2003.
Vine Street property owner Navneet Sachdev, 58, was sentenced to six months in jail for failing to comply with orders to keep his property vacant, boarded up and obtain a building license. He says he's afraid to go down to Over-the-Rhine after dark to check on his property because of the street crime. He says the whole city inspections system is rigged and condemnation orders are arbitrary. He calls the city's building department a "gangster organization."
"They can't solve this problem by being mean to people," Sachdev says. "If you put people in jail, what are you achieving?"
In some cases, the city may sue to recover demolition costs or gain title. Sometimes, the city donates a cleared lot to neighbors, if they promise to maintain it. Ideally, some new owner will put a tax-producing structure back on the bulldozed site. The city's community development office works on that piece of the strategy.
"Now we're even taking banks to court," Langevin says. "That's wholly new for us."