Springfield OKs demolition of unsafe buildings

With their patience wearing thin, Select Board members have given Town Manager Robert Forguites authority to line up contracts to demolish a number of dilapidated buildings in town.
http://rutlandherald.com/article/20131113/NEWS02/711139896

Published November 13, 2013 in the Rutland Herald Springfield OKs demolition of unsafe buildings By SUSAN SMALLHEER Staff Writer SPRINGFIELD — With their patience wearing thin, Select Board members have given Town Manager Robert Forguites authority to line up contracts to demolish a number of dilapidated buildings in town. On a 4-1 vote, the Select Board asked Forguites to have the town’s engineer to re-evaluate the properties on the town’s hit list, and if the required repairs have not been done, to take the next logical step. Select Board Chairman Kristi Morris said he wasn’t in favor of doing that, saying there was no rush. “The clock’s ticking,” said Selectman Michael Knoras. Morris also noted that the board hadn’t had an update from the town’s structural engineer on work that had been done. Town Attorney Stephen Ankuda said that about three of the dozen properties had already been demolished by their owners, rather than undergoing substantial repairs. Ankuda said it was time to start enforcement action against the landowners who had ignored the town and to “seek bids for future action.” Forguites said he would contact the engineer next week, and he expected he would have a report for the board by its next meeting in two weeks. Of the original dozen dilapidated or unsafe buildings, three have been torn down, and another two or three might need to be torn down, town officials said Monday. The town owns one of the dilapidated buildings on the list, but Forguites said work had been done on that house on Cottage Avenue. Once the engineer signs off on its safety, he said, he’d put it up for sale. The town became the owner of the building via tax sale. “I want the town to get out of it,” Forguites said. The town has been working for about six months on getting some of the town’s worst eyesores cleaned up, citing its unsafe building ordinance. Some owners have responded, and some have not. High on the list of Selectman David Yesman is an apartment building on Union Street that at one time was the home of a man now in jail, and suspected of being involved in drug dealing. The apartment house, across the street from Union Street School, is now vacant and has been stripped of a lot of its copper piping by vandals, Yesman has said.