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Commissioner Ryan Maier said, "So far in this fiscal year, the city has
demolished seven properties. We have two that are set to be demolished
and an additional 12 that are in the pipeline."
Read more... and see the video.
Showing posts with label Abandoned properties. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abandoned properties. Show all posts
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Lake Worth Commissioner Christopher McVoy interviewed on WPEC Channel 12
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Commissioner McVoy is fed up with all the abandoned properties in Lake Worth, as are we all. He has been talking to the city manager with ideas of more action and less talk and more direct ordinances.
Read about it... and see the video.
Commissioner McVoy is fed up with all the abandoned properties in Lake Worth, as are we all. He has been talking to the city manager with ideas of more action and less talk and more direct ordinances.
Read about it... and see the video.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Elite Blight, Code Infractions and other pretty pictures
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As previously stated, there is blight all across the City. Everyone in their own particular neighborhoods should be concentrating on their own homes, the area around them and their own streets, helping to clean it up. You see yards, nothing but weeds...dead trees...dead palm fronds, shrubs that haven't been pruned, paint peeling, mildew, etc. Boarded up and foreclosed properties are everywhere. Just a little TLC would go a long way. People have become lazy and complacent and even mowing the "grass" has become a "drag."
There is nothing much we can do about blight that has been caused by the City itself and/or those who use City/County property or a City that has not or can not act on code infractions. It's not our job to clean up after every park user who has thrown down a paper cup as that would be a full-time endeavor. Perhaps the neighborhood associations can suggest block captains to organize residents to get some of this work done on their own streets or as a group, start knocking on doors of their neighbors.
It used to be the CRA's mission to eradicate blight. Now they seem to be concentrating solely on building and grabbing federal cash. Half the city is in the CRA district...When you have a commission that feels it is perfectly a-okay to give the CRA the downtown tax base, then we have a problem. Everyone was giddy about the Gulfstream Hotel selling but it appears from the CRA map that the city will NOT get any of that tax when and if the investor is lucky enough to find a buyer or whatever his intent. They tell us that spending $23 million on 138 houses across the city was a big start...home ownership. For the most part, owner occupied dwellings help eliminate the blight but a once pristine perfect neighborhood that has few rentals has also fallen with the times. When you have a commission only concentrating on the tax base and voting in affordable rentals, this eventually adds to the slum, blight and the crime.
As previously stated, there is blight all across the City. Everyone in their own particular neighborhoods should be concentrating on their own homes, the area around them and their own streets, helping to clean it up. You see yards, nothing but weeds...dead trees...dead palm fronds, shrubs that haven't been pruned, paint peeling, mildew, etc. Boarded up and foreclosed properties are everywhere. Just a little TLC would go a long way. People have become lazy and complacent and even mowing the "grass" has become a "drag."
There is nothing much we can do about blight that has been caused by the City itself and/or those who use City/County property or a City that has not or can not act on code infractions. It's not our job to clean up after every park user who has thrown down a paper cup as that would be a full-time endeavor. Perhaps the neighborhood associations can suggest block captains to organize residents to get some of this work done on their own streets or as a group, start knocking on doors of their neighbors.
It used to be the CRA's mission to eradicate blight. Now they seem to be concentrating solely on building and grabbing federal cash. Half the city is in the CRA district...When you have a commission that feels it is perfectly a-okay to give the CRA the downtown tax base, then we have a problem. Everyone was giddy about the Gulfstream Hotel selling but it appears from the CRA map that the city will NOT get any of that tax when and if the investor is lucky enough to find a buyer or whatever his intent. They tell us that spending $23 million on 138 houses across the city was a big start...home ownership. For the most part, owner occupied dwellings help eliminate the blight but a once pristine perfect neighborhood that has few rentals has also fallen with the times. When you have a commission only concentrating on the tax base and voting in affordable rentals, this eventually adds to the slum, blight and the crime.
Monday, May 5, 2014
Former Baseball fields
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Located about 11 miles from downtown Minneapolis, Metropolitan Stadium was
the home of the Minnesota Twins for 20 seasons. The history of the stadium
dates to the early 1950s when city officials began searching for a site to
construct a stadium in hopes of luring a Major League Baseball franchise.
The Minnesota Twins last game at Metropolitan Stadium was on September 30, 1981. For several years the stadium sat empty before being demolished in January 1985. The site was redeveloped and is now the location of the Mall of America. Inside the mall, a plaque marks the location of homeplate and a red chair bolted along a wall marks Harmon Killebrew's 520 foot homerun in 1967. -Read more...
It could be worse--Bush Stadium, once home to minor league
baseball teams in Indianapolis, Indiana, has found new life as an
apartment complex. It was vacated by the ballclub when they moved to the new downtown ballpark Victory Field in mid-season 1996.
Between 2008 and 2011 the Stadium was used as a storage site for cars traded in as part of the Cash for Clunkers program.
In 2011 it was proposed the stadium be turned into an apartment complex, and on March 15, 2012 demolition began. The structure of the stadium was preserved and divided into three floors of studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units. The field itself retains the look of a baseball diamond with an open grassy area.
If you're looking for a point to all of this, it is that baseball teams come and go. Cities spend multi-millions luring teams with the the false hope of economic development and prosperity to be left holding the bag. National teams seem to want multi-million amenities after a city has already spent mega millions or they threaten to move-on. This too, could be John Prince Park.
Photo: Ball Parks of Baseball
The Minnesota Twins last game at Metropolitan Stadium was on September 30, 1981. For several years the stadium sat empty before being demolished in January 1985. The site was redeveloped and is now the location of the Mall of America. Inside the mall, a plaque marks the location of homeplate and a red chair bolted along a wall marks Harmon Killebrew's 520 foot homerun in 1967. -Read more...
Bush Stadium - photo: ABNF Co.
Between 2008 and 2011 the Stadium was used as a storage site for cars traded in as part of the Cash for Clunkers program.
In 2011 it was proposed the stadium be turned into an apartment complex, and on March 15, 2012 demolition began. The structure of the stadium was preserved and divided into three floors of studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units. The field itself retains the look of a baseball diamond with an open grassy area.
If you're looking for a point to all of this, it is that baseball teams come and go. Cities spend multi-millions luring teams with the the false hope of economic development and prosperity to be left holding the bag. National teams seem to want multi-million amenities after a city has already spent mega millions or they threaten to move-on. This too, could be John Prince Park.
Memorial Park, Baltimore
Photo credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, MD-1111-64
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Demolitions in Lake Worth
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Demolition in Lake Worth
My neighbor, Bill Taylor, was interviewed by Channel 12 and he gives his thoughts on the demolitions taking place in Lake Worth. In today's Palm Beach Post, Local News page three, there is a photo of a property in the 1400 block of Lucerne that met the chopping block. It was described as "dilapidated." It wasn't but it was boarded up and abandoned. This property consisting of two houses was owned years ago by John Jordan before it got in its abandoned state.
Demolition in Lake Worth
My neighbor, Bill Taylor, was interviewed by Channel 12 and he gives his thoughts on the demolitions taking place in Lake Worth. In today's Palm Beach Post, Local News page three, there is a photo of a property in the 1400 block of Lucerne that met the chopping block. It was described as "dilapidated." It wasn't but it was boarded up and abandoned. This property consisting of two houses was owned years ago by John Jordan before it got in its abandoned state.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Lake Worth abandoned house fire
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Fire at an abandoned, boarded up house on 700 block of North A Street. Read about it...
1,999 to go!
Fire at an abandoned, boarded up house on 700 block of North A Street. Read about it...
1,999 to go!
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Lake Worth Cleaning-up Vacant Houses
See the video and the mayor on Channel 12 talking about the abandoned slum properties that dot our city.
Where's a match? (That's a joke for all of you who love to make steak out of hamburger)
Where's a match? (That's a joke for all of you who love to make steak out of hamburger)
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Destructive pests threaten the neighborhood
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GUEST BLOGGER
President of ROLOH, says:
826 Sunset Drive needs to be torn down not boarded up as satellite images show many holes in the roof which indicates i'ts caving in. Also since they do not keep this "mowed" on a regular basis they are running vermin such as raccoons all over the neighborhood. This has caused thousands of dollars in damages to homes--from several homes having their roofs ripped open to others having their side vents ripped open by raccoons trying to find a "new" home. (5 homes that we know of so far and as we drive the neighborhood I'm sure we will find others.)
If the Sunset owners do not wish to provide continued maintenance then they should simply forfeit the property and move on. One of the houses on the Sunset Property clearly has holes in the roof. The other structures should be inspected for hazardous materials. If the one small structure is a well, is it capped? Another structure past the barn also appears to have holes in the roof. What are the three round objects in the attached image?
Save Our Neighborhood, a political action committee that began about eight years ago to save the ROLOH neighborhood residential Single Family 7 zoning from upzoning, is still in effect. It was over the 826 Sunset parcel that was bought by out-of-town land speculators. The property languishes as the owners constantly threaten a law suit to get the upzoning they desire. But like everything else in Lake Worth, the property has been abandoned over all of these years and is now rapidly deteriorating causing untold problems throughout the neighborhood, especially the nearby houses located on adjacent streets.
Vermin and racoons have resided on and about the property and it has been suggested that they have literally taken over its occupancy. Raccoons look for weak spots on a house to get through and start their family and multiply. There are plenty of weak spots as depicted above. The only solution the neighborhood now has is to capture these animals themselves and then when that is done, hope that the city will enforce its code and make sure the property is maintained. Raccoons can also be a health hazard if in or around your house. Raccoons may leave millions of roundworm eggs in their feces and after a month they develop to the infective stage.
William Waters responded:
Mr. Waples:
We are in contact with the owners through Code Compliance and are following up with the order for Board & Secure. We will have to inspect the board & secure to approve the final certificate at which time we would have the legal opportunity to go on the property itself and assess the building. A board & secure requires that all openings are secure not just doors and windows. We will not be able to final the board & secure unless all the openings including the ones in the roof are secured. Based on the extent of the deterioration, the owners may decide to demolish verses secure. We will keep you apprised of their response and it will go to the Special Magistrate should they not respond as a notice of violation has been prepared and has been filed. Thank you.
William Waters, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP BD+C
826 Sunset Drive needs to be torn down not boarded up as satellite images show many holes in the roof which indicates i'ts caving in. Also since they do not keep this "mowed" on a regular basis they are running vermin such as raccoons all over the neighborhood. This has caused thousands of dollars in damages to homes--from several homes having their roofs ripped open to others having their side vents ripped open by raccoons trying to find a "new" home. (5 homes that we know of so far and as we drive the neighborhood I'm sure we will find others.)
If the Sunset owners do not wish to provide continued maintenance then they should simply forfeit the property and move on. One of the houses on the Sunset Property clearly has holes in the roof. The other structures should be inspected for hazardous materials. If the one small structure is a well, is it capped? Another structure past the barn also appears to have holes in the roof. What are the three round objects in the attached image?
Save Our Neighborhood, a political action committee that began about eight years ago to save the ROLOH neighborhood residential Single Family 7 zoning from upzoning, is still in effect. It was over the 826 Sunset parcel that was bought by out-of-town land speculators. The property languishes as the owners constantly threaten a law suit to get the upzoning they desire. But like everything else in Lake Worth, the property has been abandoned over all of these years and is now rapidly deteriorating causing untold problems throughout the neighborhood, especially the nearby houses located on adjacent streets.
Vermin and racoons have resided on and about the property and it has been suggested that they have literally taken over its occupancy. Raccoons look for weak spots on a house to get through and start their family and multiply. There are plenty of weak spots as depicted above. The only solution the neighborhood now has is to capture these animals themselves and then when that is done, hope that the city will enforce its code and make sure the property is maintained. Raccoons can also be a health hazard if in or around your house. Raccoons may leave millions of roundworm eggs in their feces and after a month they develop to the infective stage.
A raccoon invasion
Raccoons love abandoned houses
William Waters responded:
Mr. Waples:
We are in contact with the owners through Code Compliance and are following up with the order for Board & Secure. We will have to inspect the board & secure to approve the final certificate at which time we would have the legal opportunity to go on the property itself and assess the building. A board & secure requires that all openings are secure not just doors and windows. We will not be able to final the board & secure unless all the openings including the ones in the roof are secured. Based on the extent of the deterioration, the owners may decide to demolish verses secure. We will keep you apprised of their response and it will go to the Special Magistrate should they not respond as a notice of violation has been prepared and has been filed. Thank you.
William Waters, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP BD+C
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