I really like the CorridorONE project and always have. No, it won't solve the traffic woes we have around here but it's a very good start IMO. I think this area REALLY needs rail service and by the time it gets really nasty around here a good rail service would be in place. HBG is very lucky in a sense because it has a clean slate, much like Charlotte, PHX, etc. Why not take advantage of that and do
something at least? To have a new airport terminal and then add brand new rail service to many places on top of that, wow!!! IMO something that would be very attractive for the area...
Check this out.
Living/working in the city everyday I can personally attest to the difference this has made. Keep up the good work HBG!!!
City speeds renovation with a war on blight
Monday, July 11, 2005
BY JOHN LUCIEW
Of The Patriot-News
It used to be someone's home.
Now the windows are boarded up, the grass is overgrown and the porch is rotted and sagging.
For neighbors, it's more than an eyesore.
Abandoned properties such as the row of five homes on the 2400 block of Harrisburg's North Sixth Street can be a magnet for trash dumpers, rodents and even drug dealers.
At the very worst, these blighted homes can be the source of fires that threaten lives and property.
It's no wonder that residents such as Joe Petrovitz of the 500 block of Seneca Street want such buildings taken down immediately.
"It's an epidemic," he said. "These buildings are used as flophouses for two-legged creatures, four-legged creatures -- any slithering thing."
About a month ago, Petrovitz took his complaints about the properties on North Sixth Street to City Council. This month, the heavy machinery rolled in and reduced the buildings to a pile of bricks and debris.
"I'm going to give credit where credit is due," Petrovitz said.
City officials said the quick response had nothing to do with Petrovitz's complaint. The timing was a coincidence.
The 2400 block of North Sixth Street, along with other condemned properties at Sixth and Seneca streets, the 1400 block of North Sixth Street, as well as 2326 and 2328 Jefferson St., and 408, 410 and 412 Woodbine St. are all to come down this quarter, city spokesman Randy King said.
The city maintains a list of about 240 condemned properties awaiting demolition, and it has been attacking the problem in a systematic way for decades.
In 2000, Mayor Stephen R. Reed stepped up the pace by hiring a demolition expert and forming a city crew to bring down the blighted buildings faster and more economically than hired contractors could.
The crew has knocked down 30 to 70 structures a year for $300,000 to $500,000 annually. Most of the money comes from federal grants.
"We're the only municipality in Pennsylvania in the demolition business," Reed said. "It's cheaper and faster."
Last year, 32 properties came down, many of them party-walled structures next to inhabited homes.
This year, 30 condemned structures have been razed, with about 30 more to be done before the end of the year, King said.
For residents, the transformation can be jarring, as long-standing dilapidated homes are reduced to rubble in days.
The destruction can look like the site of an explosion or a disaster, especially with abandoned clothes, furniture and appliances strewn amid crumbled bricks, splintered wood and broken glass.
In time, these sites can become housing or businesses, just as other once-blighted areas have been reclaimed, city officials said.
In Allison Hill, the scene of numerous demolitions several summers ago, town houses have been built and occupied.
King cited midtown's Capitol Heights residential development as a prime example of rebuilding a neighborhood by razing and reclaiming abandoned properties.
But the city's demolition crew can't work fast enough, especially to those who live next to a crumbling structure.
When fire swept through four row houses in the 1300 block of South 12th Street in May, some of the 15 residents displaced by the blaze blamed it on the two abandoned properties next to their dwellings. Someone had set fire to garbage near the rear stairwell of one of the vacant homes.
Reed said the city's demolition program couldn't have prevented the tragedy. The vacant house, although abandoned, wasn't in bad enough shape to be legally condemned.
"Those buildings were structurally sound," Reed said. "The fact that a property is vacant is not illegal."
Reed estimated there are 75 to 150 abandoned properties that are otherwise structurally sound and can't be condemned and demolished.
Reed said some will be bought or taken over and restored, either privately or by the city. The rest likely will deteriorate until they meet the legal qualifications to be condemned.
Condemning property is a long process that involves the fire department, codes office and the courts.
Reed said he sympathizes with residents who feel the pace of demolition isn't fast enough. But he said the root of the problem lies with neglectful property owners and absentee landlords.
"Everyone likes to blame the city," he said. "The real culprits are the property owners who abandon these properties and let them go."
Still, Harrisburg's demolition list of 240 properties is a far cry from when Reed took office in 1982. Then, nearly 6,000 structures were on the list.
Since then, thousands of buildings have come down and more than 4,000 residential units have been built to take their place, according to figures provided by the city.
Once the condemned properties are demolished, the city places liens on the deeds to the land to try and recover its costs.
Most often, the properties go to tax sales or are taken over by the city. That way, once-problem properties can be bundled with other land and sold to developers intent on building homes or creating the centerpiece of a redevelopment project.
Then, from the rubble, the seeds of a new neighborhood are planted.