City’s East End residents ask for help
Several residents living in Uniontown’s East End asked city council Tuesday for help in cleaning up problems created by abandoned houses and lots. Mary Grace Furnier of Varndell Street said she was asked by her neighbors to ask council to demolish a vacant house at 24 Varndell St. that is the source of roaches that have spread to her home and other houses on the street.
She said she recently had her house spayed to kill the roaches and some elderly residents who have had their homes sprayed have experienced breathing problems due to the insecticide. The property is overgrown with weeds and the house is also home to rats, she said.
“This house has been a problem for 10 years,” Furnier said.
She called on council to enact stiff penalties for property owners and landlords that don’t maintain their properties.
“There was a serious cockroach problem (at the house),” code enforcement officer and fire chief Myron Nypaver said.
He said he was willing to meet with neighborhood residents so he could explain the demolition process, address their concerns and help organize clean up efforts. He said he meets regularly with North Gallatin Avenue area residents for those reasons.
“Great headway has been made on Gallatin Avenue,” Nypaver said. “It has made a difference.”
He said the city relies on Community Development Block Grants to fund demolitions, but the grant program has much red tape, like a requirement that homes be vacant for a year before CDBG money can be used for demolition. The red tape can be circumvented if the demolition is considered an emergency, Nypaver said.
He said the owner of 24 Varndell St. recently paid off more than $6,000 in liens that were filed against the property and he is working with the city on an agreement in which he would convey ownership to the city for demolition.
City Councilman Blair Jones Sr., street department director, said the house can be razed soon after the city receives the deed.
“If I get the deed tomorrow, I can tear it down next week,” Jones said.
The Rev. Alfred L. Jones of 135 Searight Ave. said an overgrown lot next door to his house is home to rats and raccoons, which become unwelcome visitors to his property.
Nypaver said the weeds and trees that fill the lot are too much for the city’s regular grass cutting equipment, but he has secured funding to use a bulldozer to clear it.
Mayor James Sileo said slum landlords and absentee property owners have created problems for the city for years.
“We have a lot of slum landlords. I don’t have the answer,” Sileo said.
Nypaver said there are six houses left on this year’s demolition list. They are on Coolspring, Coffey and Lincoln streets. He said 61 structures have been demolished in the last four years.
An Evans Street resident said tenants in properties owned by slumlords litter streets and alleys with garbage.
He asked council to develop a comprehensive plan to deal with slumlords.
“Dump that garbage in (slum landlords’) front yards and see how they like to live with it,” Councilman Gary Crozier said.
In other business, Crozier said he thought council was supposed to meet with the city’s Redevelopment Authority board during the council meeting.
Sileo said the board cancelled the meeting.
At its Sept. 23rd meeting, the authority board unanimously voted to fire executive director William Long, who held the job since December 2001 and discussed a letter from Fay-Penn Economic Development Council suggesting that it administer the Morgantown Street redevelopment project under an agreement with the authority.
Crozier, who attended the authority meeting, suggested that the board and council meet.
In another redevelopment issue, council unanimously voted in favor of joining the Pennsylvania Section 108 Loan Guarantee Program Consortium.
Mike Krajovic, president of Fay-Penn, which the city hired to manage its proposed downtown redevelopment project, explained that joining the consortium includes the city with a number of other municipalities considering applying for the federal Section 108 loan guarantee funds.
He said there are no immediate plans to apply for program funding, but joining the consortium creates an option for the city.
“Right now, we don’t see a need (to apply)” Krajovic said.
He said the money comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and could be used to match state capital budget funds.
The city has been approved to receive about $5 million from the capital budget for the project, which has yet to get underway. The highlight of the project is a proposed multi-level parking garage in place of the city’s existing parking lot on Penn Street.
Krajovic said he is trying to determine if private money spent downtown can be used for the match.
The private investment he referred to is the downtown streetscape improvements and the purchase and renovations of downtown buildings personally financed by county commissioner Joseph A. Hardy III.