City Council members met Monday for a work session meeting. P-J Photo by Christopher Blakeslee

Housing demolitions and how to fill open lots were a point of interest for some members of the Jamestown City Council on Monday.

Crystal Surdyk, city development director, had a lot of questions about the current state of housing she had to field during the more than one-hour meeting.

“There’s 84 properties and one more we identified earlier today (for demolition)” Surdyk said. “Lots of moving parts, and I mentioned this in the Housing Committee meeting, this is a question that comes up often — the same companies that typically bid on demolition are the same companies that typically have excavating equipment. They are likely doing excavation, paving and concrete work during the warmer months, and we’ll see a lot of demolitions this time of year than we’d see in the summer months.”

Surdyk also explained that, on average, the city allocates $100,000 a year for demolitions.

“We blew through that quickly,” she said. “We’ve got 45 houses that have been demolished, and on average it costs around $33,000 per house to take down.”

Even if the city was able to fund the entire cost for demolitions it would still take years to complete all the work. “It would cost the city $2.7 million to fund all the demolitions,” said Marie Carrubba, D-Ward 4.

“Realistically, it would take five years, it would take several years,” Surdyk said. “We could try a hopeful three-year plan and try and figure out how many a contractor or contractors could do in a certain amount of time.”

However, the current demolition rate has drawn some council members to question why it’s taking so long.

“Do you know how we managed to demolish 29 buildings in 2019, then only 19 in the following three-years,” asked Councilman Brent P. Sheldon, R-Ward 1.

“Money, as we mentioned,” Surdyk responded. “We blew through all our money. Jamestown Royal cost us over $100,000 then Second Street, that was over $80,000 just in the emergency demo cost. Plus, the stabilization of the buildings on either side, then we had a pandemic where we didn’t do anything for a year and a half.”

Councilman Jeff Russell asked about developing vacant land in the city.

“We only had one home built in the city last year,” he said. “The Country View Estates up by East Virgina Boulevard has been sitting there for over 20 years. There are roughly 15 lots up there, and there for sale by the city, with a price range between $13,000 and $16,000. Could we reduce these lots by maybe half and attract more people?”

Russell also asked if it were possible to sell the lots for $1 and attract more people, with the understanding that they would have to build within three years, and the sale would only be open to individuals and not development companies.