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Crumbling dam site for sale
YOUNGSTOWN
The crumbling Woodside Lake dam and a portion of the lake it impounds will be among the forfeited real-estate parcels to be auctioned to the highest bidder at a March 1 auditor’s sale.
That Austintown property had been on the list for a Nov. 30 auditor’s sale, but Mahoning County Auditor Ralph Meacham said he removed it from that sale to give lakefront homeowners more time to get dam-repair cost estimates and decide if they want to buy the property and fix the dam.
The March 1 public auction will be at 11 a.m. in the county commissioners’ courthouse basement meeting room.
The Woodside Lake property is among 21 real-estate parcels to be offered for sale in as-is condition in that auction.
The parcels failed to sell in two sheriff’s sales and were forfeited to the state for Meacham to sell as the state’s agent.
“We’re not holding back any properties that have gone through the two sheriff’s sales,” Meacham said.
“The dam and its spillway are in poor condition, and steps must be taken to repair the dam within the next year before conditions worsen,” Andrew D. Ware, acting state water resources chief, warned the county auditor’s office in an Aug. 4, 2016, letter that followed the state’s April 19, 2016, safety inspection of the Woodside Lake dam.
If there’s no buyer, or if the dam isn’t repaired, the lake likely will be drained and the dam breached, Meacham said.
That wouldn’t bode well for about 30 lakefront homeowners, some of whose properties are worth $200,000 or more, George Berick, a lakefront homeowner, said at a homeowners meeting last fall.
Lakefront homes could lose half their value under the drain-and-breach scenario, said Berick, who owns Century 21 Lakeside Realty in Austintown.
Lakefront homeowners wouldn’t let that happen, no matter what it takes to repair the dam, Berick vowed at the Nov. 10 homeowners meeting he coordinated.
Berick then proposed that one homeowner would buy the dam and part of the lake and that lakefront homeowners would then share in the purchase and repair costs.
Berick could not be reached for comment Monday on the latest plans of the homeowners group concerning the lake and dam and the group’s intentions concerning the auction.
Meacham said he last spoke to lakefront homeowners “a month or so ago,” and, at that time, they were still interested in buying the dam and part of the lake.
Dam-repair estimates from contractors and other experts range from $80,000 to more than $100,000, but the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which is mandating the repairs, puts the cost between $500,000 and $1 million, Berick said at the homeowners meeting.
Meacham urged potential bidders to study descriptions and photos of the parcels and any buildings on them on the auditor’s portion of the county’s website, www.mahoningcountyoh.gov.
Potential bidders should arrive to register at least an hour before the auction starts, he added.