Flickr.com ImageThe tightly-knit and efficient "6th Street Block Club" continue to fill the front lines in the revitalization struggle in their corner of Hawthorne, which is now arguably one of the more challenging areas since the Eco Village is pretty near cleaned up...
I was recently forwarded some of their emails in regard to 2301 3rd Street North. The house was condemned and vacant, yet lights were on, there was a television in the upstairs. The block club started to worry about what might be going on at the house, so they contacted Mary Etzioni with the City of Minneapolis, a frequent point of contact for this kind of thing. Soon after that, a high-ranking officer in the 4th Precinct went to check out the house, PERSONALLY.
Here is that officer's firsthand account:
I checked on this house last night and again today. Today I spoke to a new resident, (name withheld by JNS). He speaks English like I speak Spanish but I was able to learn:
He moved into the house within the past week. He has keys to the house. He might have recently purchased the home at auction. (This was a bit unclear) He lives in the house with his wife and three children. (The kids were at school today) A plumber was supposed to come soon to restore the pipes so they could get water service. Electricity is working.
I tried to explain to him that the house is condemned but I am not sure how much of that I got across. I also tried to explain to him that the city inspector would be contacting him and that the house cannot be lived in until it is inspected and is up to code. Again, I am not sure how much of that registered. He does have a phone number (Rugel passes on the number) but I suggest a Spanish speaking interpreter for any contact with him.
He did seem pretty cooperative and a nice fellow, but obviously this is a bad situation.
(End of officer's email)
This information caused the ultra-vigilant block club to be much less concerned about the situation, and just glad that the "right people" were involved.
You have to wonder how many more times this will happen, as auctions throw NOMI houses on the market at such affordable prices that some well-meaning folks might get in over their heads.
All the same, my opinion is: this situation sounds better than slumlord ownership or demolition, not necessarily in that order.
8 comments:
This sounds like it might be a situation where they bought the house with cash (since it was cheap enough)and just thought they could fix it up in stages. That's not exactly unheard of in other countries where people sometimes just beg, borrow and steal construction materials over time to build a house. Usually one doesn't do this alone--between traded labor and supplies, generally a whole social network is involved. Hopefully this guy has that.
If the place isn't dangerous and the story they are telling (and the officer's understanding) is true I hope they get forbearance from the city while they get the house up to developed country standards.
John, you might be interested in the slumlord quick 'n dirty remodelling going on at 2515 and 2519 3rd Street. The slumlord starts a major rehab without even pulling a permit. The inspector shuts him down, but he starts work again as soon as she's out of sight. After another visit from inspections he finally pulls a permit for 2519, but only for rehab and mechanical. With no electrical permit, they're already pulling wire.
Then said slumlord pulls a permit to demolish a 15 by 20 foot chunk of 2515 at a cost of $1200. I and a contractor experienced in rehabbing older buildings took a look at 2515 and concluded that it's unstable and the whole house needs to come down. Thursday a rented baby "backhoe of doom" shows up with a newbie operator at the controls. Inspections was again notified, but by the time they showed up the whole rear of the building had been knocked down and the whole yards were a mess of dirt and rubble. The inspectors took a few pictures of the rubble piles and within a couple hours more dumpsters arrived and said rubble was transferred into the dumpsters.
Then, with no permit for excavation or expansion of 2515, the backhoe operator started digging what looks to be a hole to expand the basement of 2515. He kept at it 'til around 10 last night, and I suspect the "baby backhoe of doom" will be running all weekend as the slumlord tries to do as much damage as possible while the inspectors are off for the weekend.
BTW, this slumlord has big plans- one of the things that tipped us off was when he had a whole truck and trailer load of materials including 20 odd toilets delivered to the site. Clearly he's rehabbing the duplexes to maximize the number of bedrooms and thusly Section 8 income. At the current rate of shoddy construction I expect these will be drug houses again by July.
sounds like the slumlord is trying to install egressed windows in the basement in order to make bedrooms.
@Anonymous: If that's 3rd St N, it's in Hawthorne. I'm out of town for the Easter weekend, but call my voicemail (612-529-6033 x204) if you want to leave details, or email things to jskrenes@hawthorneneighborhoodcouncil.org. You'll remain anonymous if you so choose. But if something that egregious is happening in the neighborhood where I'm the Housing Director, I'll go over there personally with my camera and cell phone, document it, and report it.
If you can, Jeff, let me know how it goes and send me some pictures.
I just got back from 2515-19.
Pictures coming soon on overnorth.blogspot.
Thanks everyone for your assistance and help. I grabbed some pictures too this morning before this do it yourselfer who went to far started up again. Yes, he's out there in the baby backhoe of doom on Easter. Looks like he's digging further under the back of what's left of the house now, undermining what little foundations it has. He's lucky the ground is dry and it ain't windy- it wouldn't take much to blow the whole house over on him at this point.
I have yet to figure out what he's making, and as he hasn't pulled a permit for an excavation, the city probably doesn't either. At first I thought he might be excavating to put in an new foundation to support an extension of the house in the back. But he's now starting to dig out under the remaining portion of the house. Maybe he wants to dig a new basement, then pull what remains of the house rearward onto it? He's also digging a couple feet deeper than he needs too...
To read more about this situation on Connie's blog, use this URL.
http://overnorth.blogspot.com/
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