YOUNGSTOWN Laws hold up tearing some houses down

Costly regulations make multiple demolitions on the same streets impossible.
By ROGER G. SMITH
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The grass is so high in front of three neighboring houses on West Delason Avenue that the blades slump over from their own weight.
The houses at 51, 53 and 57 W. Delason are typical candidates for demolition. The doors and windows are open or broken and vandals stripped the inside, said Malcolm Shorter, 16.
Shorter has lived across the street his whole life. The houses have been abandoned half that time. Crack addicts and stray dogs come and go, he said. Shorter wants to see all the houses torn down. A playground for the nearby Legacy Academy charter school might be nice, he said.
"It looks like a ghost town. They need to build something," Shorter said. "Anything -- I don't care. So it won't be empty."
Likewise, there are many spots around the city with two, three, four or more condemned houses in close proximity.
Federal regulations
Mike Damiano, the city's housing and demolition director, would love to erase those spots in one swoop.
But federal environmental regulations make razing such spots financially impossible for the city.
The results are neighborhoods across the city stuck with big chunks of blighted housing that often see only one demolition per year.
There are 47 streets with three or more condemned houses, an analysis of the city's housing demolition database shows. It's common for a street to have six, seven or eight condemned addresses. Elm Street tops out at 11.
Even worse, 17 spots in the city have three to six homes on the demolition list within the same block -- several of them neighboring properties.
The city knocked down neighboring condemned homes in the past.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, however, doesn't allow that.
EPA says local governments can't tear down more than one house on each block unless they do two things. First is the $200 test for asbestos. Second is removing any hazard found.
Testing a house isn't a big deal. The problem is a positive test. The average house with asbestos needs a $10,000 to $12,000 abatement, Damiano said.
"I could get three or four houses down with that," he said.
Indeed, finances are the rub.
Damiano has so many homes on the demolition list -- the number hovers around 550 at any given time -- that he stays away from multiple demolitions and asbestos testing. He uses 500 feet as a guideline, not razing more than one house at a time within that radius.
The money is better spent razing houses one at time all over the city than paying for asbestos abatements and a few demolitions in one spot, he said.
"I've got an unbelievable amount of demos," he said. "There's so many ... I'm not desperate."
The city can knock down homes and buildings with up to four apartments without asbestos testing. The city can't knock down neighboring single-family homes, however. Damiano finds that curious.
Contamination issue
EPA rules are meant to keep asbestos from contaminating the neighborhood.
Significant quantities of asbestos wouldn't be escaping into the air anyway, Damiano said. Standard procedure on razings is to hose down the house to keep the dust down -- including asbestos.
"How much stuff is going to get in the air?" he asked.
Indeed, wetting down asbestos demolitions reduces problems, said Jeffrey Bratko, an environmental scientist in the U.S. EPA's Air and Radiation Division in Chicago. A typical, single-family house is little threat, he said.
Multiple demolitions still pose a hazard, however, Bratko said. The fibers dry out and don't decompose, blowing around for years waiting to be inhaled. That's why the rules prohibit multiple demolitions on the same block, he said.
The city probably never should have been tearing down neighboring homes without asbestos checks, Bratko said. EPA asbestos rules date to the 1970s and '80s. A 1995 rule clarification published in the Federal Register makes clear that EPA prohibits more than one demolition per block without asbestos tests or abatement, he said.
Was done recently
Nonetheless, the city did that in the past. Records show the city leveled nine homes on Woodland Avenue, eight on McGuffey Road and seven on Evergreen Avenue as recently as 1999.
It doesn't matter how much time separates neighboring demolitions, either, Bratko said. The city typically doesn't get to the same block for a year or more. The city should be doing asbestos tests and abatements whenever more than one razing is scheduled on a block, he said.
Many things about the rules frustrate Damiano.
Consecutive demolitions would save precious time, money and make a visual impact in neighborhoods, he said.
"You get a better price. Plus, you clean out a neighborhood," he said.
The city would save about 10 percent on $50,000 to $60,000 contracts that pay to level 25 homes, Damiano said. The savings come from contractors' not having to move their equipment as often. The city could put those savings toward a couple dozen more demolitions a year, he said.
People would see tangible signs of progress if the city could keep clearing noticeable sections of a street, he said. Often, demolition of one house on a deteriorating street benefits only the immediate neighbors and goes largely unnoticed, Damiano said.
Plus, residents wouldn't have to wonder why the city knocks down one house but leaves a condemned house standing next door, he said.
That's not what Samantha Hallman of West Marion Avenue and her two kids, ages 14 and 17, want to see.
There are three homes in the 400 block of West Marion on the city's list, but only one scheduled to come down within the year.
Crime follows
Such spots are bringing prostitution and drug use into the neighborhood, she said. Hallman has ordered her kids to use the street, not the sidewalks, because they get used syringes from drug users stuck in their shoes and bike tires.
"It's escalating the crime problem," she said.
Hallman keeps her house and yard maintained, but the lingering eyesores give other residents an excuse to let their properties go, she said. That won't likely change until rows of eyesores come down, she said.
"It's deplorable. It's not encouraging," Hallman said.
rgsmith@vindy.com