City razes roof in blight fight

[yfdgricker]

City razes roof in blight fight
Story by JOE GORMAN in the Tribune Chronicle on 12/23/2006.

YOUNGSTOWN — Give the city's Department of Public Works money for demolition, and they'll have no problem spending it.

In the first year of an aggressive demolition plan that is a priority of Mayor Jay Williams, the city knocked down 385 vacant homes, spending the entire $1.2 million allocated this year for demolitions.

In 2005, 136 homes were demolished.

Williams was moderator of the Youngstown 2010 master planning process before taking office at the beginning of the year. One of the main goals of the plan is to get rid of blight, which was the No. 1 complaint of residents during the planning process.

The city was hoping to knock down between 300 to 350 homes. It was able to surpass those numbers, however, partly because rates for demolition were lower during part of the year.

For 2007, the administration is requesting about $1.5 million. Congolose said the goal is to knock down about 400 buildings per year for the next couple of years, which should stabilize the city's vacant building program and lead to smaller requests in the future.

''Hopefully, we can get the blight under control and we we wont need this large chunk of money in the future,'' Congolose said.

Congolose said there are about 1,500 more buildings that need to be demolished.

Williams said there was a concern that the city would not even be able to spend $1 million. He said he is happy with the progress that has been made this year but said there is still more work to be done.

''I'm anxious to get at this next year,'' Williams said.

Congolose said he was not surprised at the city's demolition pace because his administrative staff does a good job of packaging properties for demolition. Williams also credited the staff for their work.

''I was pleasantly surprised at how well oiled a process this was from the administrative side,'' Williams said.

Congolose said that pretty soon a plan will be needed for the increase in vacant lots. City Council budgeted $85,000 in 2006 for grass cutting on the lots.



jgorman@tribune-chronicle.com