Man stops demolition of South Side home

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

With a large bulldozer already on his property, a city man obtained a temporary restraining order barring the city from demolishing the one-story South Side house.

Magistrate Dennis Sarisky of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court issued the order Tuesday, forbidding the city from razing the 10-room, 84-year-old, single-family dwelling at 2278 Volney Road.

The city’s bulldozer arrived Monday at the house belonging to Thomas T. Kelly, who also lists a Redondo Road address on the city’s North Side.

The magistrate set a preliminary injunction hearing on the matter for 2 p.m. April 25.

DeMaine Kitchen, chief of staff for Mayor Charles P. Sammarone, sent Kelly a letter April 11, saying the Volney Road house “is vacant, structurally unsound, and also poses a danger to surrounding occupied structures” and to firefighters, if they enter it.

“This is an immediate emergency situation,” Kitchen wrote, adding the city intended to immediately demolish the house.

In a Tuesday affidavit in support of his restraining order request, Kelly, through his lawyer, Donald P. Leone, said, “The property is not unsafe, a nuisance or unsanitary and blighted.” Kelly also said he has not had a chance to remove his personal belongings from the premises since he received Kitchen’s letter.