City Development Director Crystal Surdyk talks about condemned houses in the city with the Housing Committee during Monday’s meeting. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

Development Department officials are trying to cut the number of condemned homes in the city.

Following a request from the City Council’s Housing Committee for an updated list of condemned houses within the city, city Development Director Crystal Surdyk provided the committee with the list and discussed ongoing work when it comes to condemned houses and demolitions. Despite some ongoing software issues, Surdyk provided a list of around 80 condemned houses to the committee during the meeting, adding that because of the issues she knew there were some not on the list. Earlier in the year it was believed that the list included about 120 houses.

One thing related to condemned housing and old code enforcement cases that Surdyk said the Department of Development is now trying to do is have a “pre-court huddle” every Thursday to get everything organized, make sure cases are all in order, and that they have all supporting documents they need in court. Two hours are set aside for this, with one focused on old cases that have been lingering in the department for a number of reasons, and trying to get a handle on the status of some of these cases and closing out some of the old code violation cases. Similar work is being done for condemned houses.

“The goal with condemned houses is always going to be to get them uncondemned, and hopefully that doesn’t mean by purview of a demolition,” Surdyk said. “You know, working with the property owner and determining the reasons why it’s condemned and are there things that can be done to bring it back into a habitable space.”

Some houses on the condemned list have changed hands, including 40 Winsor which is now owned by Ramsay Agriculture, and others may have changed hands during the last tax auction which might not have been updated in the system yet. 40 Winsor is an example of one that is now a redevelopment project and is no longer an active case as it is now focused more on permitting and the economic development side of things.

Demolition wise, Surdyk said more are coming down now that the weather has changed, specifically three that came down on Fulton Street with four additional there to come down. An emergency demolition order was able to be received from the court for a property on Allen Street that had a fire that will soon be going out to bid with CDBG funding. There are a few others on the condemned houses list on Allen Street as well. A property on Forest Avenue was demolished earlier this week.

It was noted by Councilman Bill Reynolds, R-Ward 5, that the demolition process is one that is ongoing and constantly changing, adding that it might be nice to get a baseline for the new incoming council members to go off of next year. A brief conversation was held about who pays for demolitions, which Surdyk said is a combination of things, depending on the insurance of the property owners, and if they do not have insurance or the funding for the demolition depending on the situation the city pays the bill and it is something fronted with taxpayer dollars, including CDBG funds. Surdyk noted there is a limited amount of CDBG funds each year that can be used for demolitions, so they have to go about it in a strategic way to target properties for demolition.

“Since I’ve been here in this position we’ve never been able to use it for that,” Surdyk said. “It always ends up coming to having to use it for emergency purposes.”

The city also has between $100,000 and $130,000 annually allocated in the budget for emergency purposes as well to be used when they absolutely have to. Surdyk said the city does everything they can to hold property owners accountable and have them pay for demolitions, but if a home’s poor condition becomes a life and safety issue it is up to the city to make that determination to demolish the home. This usually also requires a court order unless it is ready to fall down and deemed to be truly hazardous, and a court order is also needed for the clean up. Following the clean up the city then has to file for a lean, which Surdyk said is hard to do, especially if dealing with an LLC. She noted that the process is “not, not complicated”, also clarifying that constituents have said they have heard that the department does not like to take property owners to court and have them pay fines, and that when they do have to do that they first try to work with property owners, always preferring to have the code violations brought to compliance before bringing it to court.

“Any time we issue code violations we do everything we can from the first notice of violation to making the decision to issue an appearance ticket before we actually get to that point,” Surdyk said. “There are some property owners that just have egregious amounts of code violations that I have no problem taking them to court, because we have done everything else we are able to do to get them to compliance and they have not been responsible property owners.”

Surdyk gave a recent example of one property owner they brought before court with eight or nine properties all under different LLCs that, after they brought proper service before the court and presented their case, the Department of Development got over $30,000 in fines. While she said she would have liked to see the $30,000 go into the properties, at that point it was not going to, and that the property owner is now trying to appeal, which she added was anticipated. There is a lot that goes on that the general public does not know about, she said.

It was also noted that demolition costs average around $33,000 per house, depending on each house’s situation.

“It’s a process,” Surdyk said. “It is not a fast thing. I know people get frustrated; we get frustrated. It’s hard, you just want it down. Once we’ve made that decision that the structure needs to be demolished and that that’s the best case scenario it’s hard because we know it’s going to be at least four months from that time for it to get on the ground. It’s probably going to be at least a year in reality.”

The Department of Development also does not always have the money, especially with over 100 homes on the list to be done. Surdyk said they do the best they can with the resources they have, though recently they have made a little bit more of a dent with the help of ARPA money and through the partnership with the Chautauqua County Land Bank.

The property at 182 Jones and Gifford that had a fire last week was then discussed, including that it was already condemned with a few issues, including sewage. The department has been working with the current owner on it, who works with construction and will be converting it after a full assessment on the damage is done. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

There was discussion about a Chinese Restaurant in Brooklyn Square as well, and Surdyk said there is still ongoing economic development work on how to redevelop Brooklyn Square.