Pictured is a condemned home at 1035 N. Main St., Jamestown. The property is among dozens currently targeted for demolition in the city. P-J photo by Eric Tichy

Dozens of structures have been targeted for demolition in Jamestown while dozens more have been identified as potential candidates for future razing.

Crystal Surdyk, city director of development, provided a brief status report Monday to members of the City Council’s Housing Committee on the city’s demolition list. She noted upward of 120 properties that are in various stages of being resolved — whether currently slated to be taken down; are in review for potential demolition; or already have been torn down.

Surdyk provided members of the Housing Committee a list of properties by street that are on the demolition list. Of the more than 100 properties identified, 58 have been targeted for demolition with another 25 identified as having the potential for being demolished.

Only five properties on the current list she provided — 563 E. Second St., 343 Fairmount Ave., 19 Foote Ave., 94 Liberty St. and 703 Washington St. — have been torn down.

Razing uninhabitable homes, as the city has come to learn, is time-consuming and expensive. Surdyk told Housing Committee members in August the demolition process includes surveys for asbestos and lead that could require extensive remediation work if discovered. Surveys are followed by air monitoring at the property site before a demolition can be greenlit.

To assist with its growing list of condemned properties, the city contracted with the Chautauqua County Land Bank Corp. In August 2022, Land Bank officials requested $1 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds from the city to assist with its razing efforts. At that meeting, Gina Paradis, Land Bank executive director, said 65% of the organization’s time was being spent in the county.

On Monday, Surdyk praised the Land Bank and its work to help Jamestown with its housing efforts.

“I will continue to say, and continue to advocate, that land banks are vital to communities like ours, and our Land Bank has been a wonderful partner and resource,” she said. “They really do have a really huge impact, in a positive way, on our community.”

Indeed, from 2013 to 2021, the Chautauqua County Land Bank oversaw 97 demolitions within the city, accounting for nearly 60% of all the demolitions the organization completed countywide. In the city alone, it cost $2.656 million for those properties to be torn down.

In their pitch for ARPA funds in 2022, the Land Bank officials said their work resulted in $2.475 million in assessed value being put back on the tax roll.

Councilman Bill Reynolds, R-Ward V, asked Surdyk about emergency demolitions and whether specific funding is set aside. Historically, she said between $100,000 to $120,000 is allocated each year for emergency work.

However, she also referenced major fires in recent years — including blazes at the former sites of Jamestown-Royal Upholstery Corp. and Crawford Furniture — that resulted in massive up-front cleanup costs.

“We have been stretched pretty thin when it comes to our emergency demolition funding over the last several years,” she said.

Some work can be done using Community Development Block Grant funds the city receives. But, as Surdyk pointed out, “We’re limited in the amount of funding we can use for demolition using CDBG.”

When the city does incur costs for overseeing an emergency demolition, she said the city does make “every attempt to recoup the funds to go back into our demolition funding.”

She continued, “It’s taxpayer money at the end of the day. So we do everything that we can to recover that.”