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Fremont takes action on condemned homes

By Sarah A. Wise
NL Staff Writer
21 June 2007 — After making final rulings on the final two houses slated for condemnation, the town of Fremont is ready to close out its first round of eliminating condemned houses.

Last December, the town had five houses along Sycamore street inspected and declared condemned. The owners of the houses were then presented with a letter stating that they must make improvements on the house or have the house taken down.

Six months later, it seems that the board has reached final decisions on the project.

Homes at 509 and 805 Sycamore Street have been torn down in accordance with the order. A third home at 407 Sycamore is slated to be burned as a practice fire by the fire department. The owner, Isaac Ryals, has agreed to remove asbestos from the home so that the department can proceed with the controlled burn.

Two more homes remained on the list for demolition - a home at 807 owned by Mr. Ryals, and a home at 809 owned by Alderman Billy Harvey. A request was granted at the board’s May meeting to give Mr. Ryals and Mr. Harvey until this week to make required repairs to the homes to remove them from the condemned list.

Both homes were reinspected this week. However, Town Administrator Kerry McDuffie did tell the board that the homes were inspected by a different inspector because the regular inspector has been out this week.

When the structure at 807 was inspected, Mr. McDuffie noted that most of the work on the outside of the house had been completed, and only a few minor repairs remained. He did say, however, that the house was not secure at the time of inspection because the door frame of the house was damaged.

However, upon discussing the situation with Mr. Ryals, it was determined that someone had broken into the house in the past few days while Mr. Ryals was out of town. The door had been kicked in, and Mr. Ryals said he would fix the door and door frame within a week.

The aldermen agreed to removing the home from condemned status if the door was repaired by next Tuesday.

Upon inspection, the structure at 809 had also seen some exterior improvements. Mr. McDuffie said the outside had been painted, but that no structural work had been completed. However, Mr. Harvey intended to use the home as a storage place, not as a residence.

Mr. Harvey said he had done some exterior improvements, such as repairing the porch and fixing broken windows. He added that he had repaired the windows twice, because neighborhood kids had broken out the windows the first time.

“I’m trying to make it look liveable, so they won’t throw rocks at it,” he said.

He added that he had never intended for the home to be used as a residence, and just inteded to keep his home improvement materials there.

Mayor Devone Jones said he didn’t know what the zoning laws said in reference to using the home as a storage facility, but that he didn’t disapprove of the plan.

Mr. McDuffie said that he didn’t know for sure without looking, but if someone were to come to him and ask to build a storage facility to stand alone on a residential lot, he wouldn’t be inclined to approve the request.

Mr. Harvey emphasized that he was exerting his best efforts to make the home look nice and as much a part of the neighborhood as possible.

“When we began this project, I got the impression that we were doing it to eliminate houses that looked bad,” he said. “I’ve made improvements to the house and I’d like to have it taken off of the list.”

The other aldermen agreed. They unanimously felt that the property could be removed from the list if plywood over the windows was removed by next Tuesday.

The board will officially approve the removal of both properties from condemned status at a meeting next week.

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