City residents bring similar concerns to Housing Committee
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Derelict houses and absentee landlords were among the multiple concerns brought forth by city residents to members of the Housing Committee during their latest meeting.
With those issues also came a suggestion to help understand housing in the city.
A local architect, Don Harrington, from the Lakeview Historic District began with a concern about derelict houses that do not seem to go away. Specifically, he identified a barn in his neighborhood that has needed to be taken care of for three years that eventually led to the owner being taken to court last August, with a court order to remedy it or take it down within 30 days.
"That was 13 months ago," Harrington said. "He's kind of disappeared. I've tried to contact him. So, really, I think the Department of Development does a really good job of identifying properties but the enforcement seems to be the problem."
In the fine print on the court order Harrington said he read that there was something saying the city does not have the money to charge back expenses to take care of the problem, which he said makes it unenforceable. Additionally, he said there are some other specific rules when it comes to historical districts such as Lakeview, and wondered if there could be some discussion on if the ordinance could be rewritten to help with some of these problems.
"One of the things we've been talking about is infill housing," Harrington said. "Does infill housing even make sense, in this city for one thing, but especially the historic districts?"
Giving a specific example of a house scheduled for infill, Harrington said the least expensive house that could then be built there would be around $300 per square foot. Most of his clients, he said, end up paying $350 to $450 per square foot. A 1,000 square foot house, which Harrington said is bare minimum, would be $300,000 to $400,000 and no one would buy it.
"There's a problem, a mismatch with funding almost anything that you do, and discussing infill housing I think is really going to need some subsidy from the state or some other sources," Harrington said. "There's a mismatch between the amount of money and I'm not exactly sure why, the amount of money the city has for demolitions and how many need to be done. It's just never going to catch up and I think we need to have a different way of thinking about this."
Harrington said he would love to be involved in any of these types of discussions that could be possible on this subject.
Another city resident, John O'Hagan, brought up a similar problem of an absentee landlord and house falling into disarray with multiple other issues. The house sits next to his own on Price Street, and it was vacant at the time that they had bought their house around 12 years ago. At the time, he said, they were told that it was not known who owns it, and it has since been "gobbled up" by landlords like other properties in the city.
"We've had nothing but problems with that house since," O'Hagan said. "There are broken windows, several broken windows in the house. There are I would say 12 to 15 bags of garbage in the driveway. There's two abandoned cars in the driveway with no plates on them, and they've been sitting there abandoned for two or three months now."
O'Hagan said they have been trying to get this resolved with the city, coming down to city hall multiple times. City council members said they would come down and see it first hand. O'Hagan noted the absentee landlord, who lives somewhere in New Jersey, saying there is no way to address the issues.
"Police have been there many, many times for drugs," O'Hagan said. "I just need a possible resolution if there is one. I know it's difficult to deal with absentee landlords and things like that."
There is a constant noise problem as well.
Director of Development Crystal Surdyk was not able to be in attendance at the meeting as she was away at a conference, with the subject of how to reclaim abandoned housing, so Councilwoman Hannah Jaroszynski, D-Ward 5 and chair of the housing committee, said she would email her to provide a follow up on both addresses.
Another city resident, Doug Champ, suggested the possibility of the city holding a housing conference of some sort to help people understand more what is available in the city.
"I think it is important now, and next year I would like to see a housing conference in Jamestown, dealing with all of the issues and all of the funding capabilities and all of the programs that the city has and the county has, nonprofits have, etc., so people can understand what's available," Champ said.
Champ said the conference could be a one day event to give the Department of Development the chance to tell people what resources they have available, what they do not have, and what they have accomplished with areas such as CDBG funding. He added that it seems that the city is spinning their wheels with another issue after another issue and that this conference could put it together into one package to make it easier for people to understand what is available and show what their needs are. He also mentioned the Housing Assistance Program from a few years ago, which Champ said delegated itself out to the needs of the community, identifying specifics and then moving forward to accomplish what was needed. Champ suggested the conference could be next year before construction season, late winter or early spring, and everyone could be invited.
Jaroszynski agreed that a conference would be great, and Councilman Daniel Gonzalez, D-At Large, said a similar program was held earlier this year at Wicked Warrens, specifically discussing lead and lead inspections.
"It was a very good information seminar where everyone got to have their questions asked and answered and have a presentation," Gonzalez said. "I think something like that would be super beneficial. I've seen it work and I know a lot of people got a lot of useful information from the last time we did something like that, so it's very possible that we could do something similar to that in the future."