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Life in an emergency deconstruction zone: Not fun at 3 a.m.
By adamg on Sat, 01/04/2020 - 12:23pm
After years of doing nothing about neighborhood complaints about the unoccupied, decaying five-story building at 23 Upton St., city officials have given the go-ahead for 24-hour demolition and shoring-up work there following its partial collapse on Thursday. Liana Rogue reports from the block:
After ignoring a vacant building for decades with neighborhood complaints (until collapsed), the city and developers decided the residents of this south end block deserve no sleep ever. Safety first but does that include moving the trash @ 3am???
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
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Comments
ISD
Does anyone really think that ISD gives a rat's arse about neighborhood residents? It's all about the political contributions, the permits and their pensions.
Glad to hear this goes on in
Glad to hear this goes on in other neighborhoods too. We need elected officials who work for residents.
No win situation
If they had waiting until Monday so as to not inconvenience anyone and there had been further collapse that endangered the abutting properties, then people would complain they didn't act fast enough.
Annoyance
The neighbors are pissed that a quick demo bypassing most of the normal rules was the goal of the owner/developer. This wasn't some freak building failure, it was the result of ISD ignoring complaints for years until the structure fell into such a state that the owner/developer could get their wish (a quick demo) out of necessity.
quick demo? um, no
a few things about this property
1) no developer wants a wall to collapse to fast track his/her project. that's just dangerous, expensive, and probably more costly than doing the work in an intentional way
2) the current owner bought this last year and waited to get started. the years of neglect pre-dated them but it's arguable that they should have gotten right into this rather than letting the neglected brick go through another cycle of freezing/thawing water
3) ISD did not ignore complaints, they condemned the structure. The owner died. His estate was sold off. This buyer purchased it last year.
Cynical
Maybe they didn't want this outcome but it isn't going to hurt their rebuilding efforts to not need to wait for the property to go through various reviews until they are given the formal permission to demolish. Insurance might be paying for some or all of the demo which is a nice bonus.
not cynical but probably not accurate
too much liability to have this as a 'plan'
besides, this building had permits in place to redevelop when it was sold. obtained by the original owner who died but not utilized.
the fact that they didn't move on it in a more timely fashion was (in my opinion) just stupid.
Not the part they wanted to demolish
They can't change the exterior walls, so this isn't helping the developers. Now they have the added expense of paying for emergency demolition and rebuilding the rear wall.
311
is useless when it comes to ISD complaints. The only response you get is “duplicate of existing case” and never receive a resolution.
No follow up
That is the problem with the 311 system, complaints are forwarded to the departments, but no one follows up to make sure things are actually fixed.
My favorite is "Case Noted."
My favorite is "Case Noted." i.e. "We acknowledge that this is a problem, but we are not going to do anything about it, so kindly f off.
City Living
Neighbors made earlier complaints the bricks were falling out paving the road for a collapse. ISD condemned the building but didn't make sure the required improvements that they ordered were actually made. Why weren't fines issued for lack of repairs when a building that attached to a other structures is deemed unfit to enter?
The new owner that owned the building for almost a year, lives on Union park, right around the corner and sits on the board of union park association. https://www.upna.org/Board.html
Most of the work was done between 11pm - 11AM. Instead of keeping noise down to just one side, they also ran a loud compressor on the staircase of Upton street. Daylight hours were reserved for officials to come down and stare at the building. No notification was provided to anyone that emergency permits were granted for work through the night and weekend.
Gross negligence by all.