City seeks money to demolish houses

August 23, 2008 at 12:01a.m.

Girard Mayor James Melfi

The mayor said the program is important to the city.

GIRARD — City officials want to continue a demolition program to rid the city of more vacant buildings, but doing so will cost the city a little more money.

Mayor James Melfi said the city has traditionally taken money obtained through Community Development Block Grants and used those dollars for the demolition of abandoned or dilapidated homes. The city would remove between five and seven homes with the money.

According to Melfi, the cost of asbestos removal in some of the older structures has eaten away at the available funds and now makes it necessary for the city to add more money to keep the demolition program going.

“For the last several years the city has used CDBG funds for demolition. The city receives annually about $49,000. We used that for the demolition of vacant homes,” said Melfi. “The cost of asbestos removal has made it difficult to continue the number of demolitions we can do. That is why I will be going to council to request an additional $35,000. That is how much more we are going to need.”

Melfi, as an example, points to a recent demolition job in the city where the actual tearing down of the structure cost $3,000. The cost to remove the asbestos from that structure was $17,000.

Melfi released the locations and costs, including asbestos removal, of the next six homes to be demolished in the city. The total for all six structures with asbestos removal is $68,451:

U1012 North State St. ($19,719.50)

U1020 North State St. ($4,177)

U227 East Liberty St. ($14,356.25)

U227 Mosier Road ($3,040)

U740 Mosier Road ($3,550)

U67 Abbey St. ($23,608.45)

Melfi said the program is needed because it rids city neighborhoods of blight and eliminates asbestos as a health hazard in those same neighborhoods.

“I believe council is of the opinion to go along with this,” said Melfi. “It’s just money well spent.”

jgoodwin@vindy.com