Springfield wins right to tear down old Valley Street bakery building, owner will appeal, again

After a decision by the Vermont Supreme Court, the blighted building at 23 Valley Street in Springfield will be demolished.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20150313/NEWS02/703139917

Springfield wins right to tear down old Valley Street bakery building, owner will appeal, again By Susan Smallheer Staff Writer | March 13,2015 Photo by Len Emery After a decision by the Vermont Supreme Court, the blighted building at 23 Valley Street in Springfield will be demolished. SPRINGFIELD — The Vermont Supreme Court has sided with the town of Springfield in its efforts to have an old bakery building on Valley Street torn down because it is unsafe. In a decision handed down this week, the state’s high court dismissed an appeal filed by Donald Bishop over a September 2013 order from the town concerning his buildings at 23 Valley Street. Bishop had appealed the town’s decision to Windsor Superior Court, which also had sided with the town. Bishop, who is fighting with the town about the future of another fire-damaged building on Wall Street, had been ordered to make repairs by Dec. 1, 2013, or it would be considered a “public nuisance” and under a town ordinance, the town would have the right to tear it down. Town Manager Tom Yennerell said Thursday the town would do just that. But he said the town had to get a permit from the state Agency of Natural Resources to demolish the building and dispose of its remains in a landfill. Yennerell said he had called Bishop personally Thursday to tell him about the town’s intentions, and to give him the chance to move his property out of the building, which at one point was a bakery. “I told him I would follow up with a letter,” Yennerell said. He said the town had an asbestos survey done on the building last summer, and it had turned up asbestos free. Bishop’s attorney, Richard Bowen of Springfield, said late Thursday he would be filing a motion for reargument with the Supreme Court, asking that the case be sent back to Woodstock civil court. He said there was a “major difference between state statute and the town’s ordinance” when it comes to the town’s unsafe building ordinance. He said the case was dismissed in both courts because it was filed after the 30-day appeal period. “The judge wouldn’t let us in the front door,” Bowen said. “Had she allowed us time to brief it, we would have raised those issues,” Bowen said. Bowen said the town had tried to condemn the property many years ago because of a culvert under Valley Street, which directs the brook under downtown Springfield. “The town wants it,” he said. The legal victory is another step in the town’s push to address blighted and unsafe buildings in town that started about two years ago. So far, about half the buildings on the town’s Top 10 list of dilapidated properties have been demolished. The high court noted that Bishop had not filed a timely appeal of the town’s 2013 order; according to the Supreme Court decision, Bishop should have filed his appeal within 30 days. In addition to the timeliness issue, the court said Bishop’s engineer’s letter about the condition of the building, “on its face did not satisfy the requirements of the 2013 order.” “We find no error,” wrote the three-justice panel, referring to the lower-court ruling. The Supreme Court panel was headed by Chief Justice Paul L. Reiber, and signed by Marilyn Skoglund and Beth Robinson, both associate justices. The three justices wrote that the trial judge in the case, Mary Miles Teachout, had interpreted the facts in the case “in the light most favorable to (Bishop),” as well as giving Bishop the benefit of the doubt in several instances. Town Attorney Stephen Ankuda said the order affected 23 Valley Street, and not the building next to it, the one adjacent to the exit from People’s United Bank parking lot. That building is owned by Bishop as well. “It’s not the building tight to the exit,” said Ankuda, who said the bakery building was owned by Jean Bishop’s father, who ran a bakery there many years ago. Ankuda said 21 Valley Street had been examined and was not considered unsafe. A fire several years ago damaged the top floor of the house, but Bishop had remodeled it after the fire. The old bakery is on the banks of the Valley Street Brook, said Ankuda, who grew up in the neighborhood. The town now has the right to tear it down, he said. “He had the chance to fix it, and he didn’t fix it. He filed appeals and all the time lines have expired,” Ankuda said. Yennerell said Bishop has 30 days from the Springfield Select Board’s Feb. 23 decision to condemn the Wall Street building to file an appeal in Woodstock civil court. Bowen said Bishop would be filing for a state permit to partially demolish the Wall Street property, although he said he would likely have to file an appeal to prevent the town from demolishing that property as well.