Grant dollars to knock down the building (if the City ends up being the one to knock it
down) would be October of 2023. You could not be acting in a more timely fashion to
be addressing this at the Council level. What that tells me is that the Department of
Safety and Inspections (DSI) is getting this through as fast as they can.
Simultaneously, the bank got a hold of the property after the mortgage went through.
They ordered a code compliance inspection, posted a performance deposit, got the
bids to do the rehabilitation work, and have the insurance money. They have a plan to
rehabilitate the property by the end of the year with costs in the low $60,000 range.
That is consistent with what the Fire Department estimated for property losses, but
that isn't as high as what DSI thought. I think reviewing this with the vacant building
inspector would make sure these numbers are sound, given that we are talking about
the fire damaging the back of the building predominantly, and other damage moving
forward not being as severe. You can tell from photos that the back of the house was
severely damaged. The front of the house looks better, where you're not seeing smoke
damage or holes in the roof. Fires are very difficult for neighborhoods, as we saw just a
couple weeks ago during another hearing. I take this very seriously. I do believe that
the City needs to give the property owner a chance, since they have provided all of the
standard things that we look for in a rehabilitation to save the value of the property. I
am recommending granting 180 days to complete the rehabilitation, though the time
estimate is less than that. I would also like to note that, based on the conversations
during the Legislative Hearing and the documents, this neighborhood has a very strong
social fabric and is resilient. Things like that help lead to recovery. I would also like to
give a shout-out to Officer Shawn Filiowich, who has helped problem-solve this. The
reason the personal stuff is important is because there were so many opportunities to
address this before it got this far. The City tried to and couldn't, and the owner was
unable or unwilling to do anything.
Hellen Wells O'Brien: I have lived on the West Side since 1980, and was a rent until
1995 when I helped to build the house I live across the street from the property. For
almost 3 years, my neighbors and I documented incidents and reported dozens of
emergency situations including a death, violent behavior like people brandishing
improvised weapons, and a gun firing that nearly hit a friend getting out of her car.
Babies and children were also in danger both within the house and in the surrounding
neighborhood. There was also evidence of drug dealing and human trafficking. Racing
vehicles came through continuously. Four months before the fire, the property went up
at a Sheriff's auction and was purchased by Freedom Mortgage Company. They are a
billion-dollar out of state company with no investment in our community. They did very
little to secure the property and we have had to make numerous calls because people
have been breaking in and occupying the property. It has felt for a long time that this
problem owner and now the bank are more protected than we are as neighbors. I
appreciate Moermond's words about our resiliency, but there is a limit to that. It is not
fair to put that on us for what will be 4 years. While this happened during covid, we
have also lost people while dealing with this. I appreciate everyone who helped us, but
there is something wrong that allows this injustice.
Ann Pineles: I live next door to the property. Our garage is 38 inches from the one that
burned. I want this property razed. It is small and abuts our property, and I am
concerned about how they will do rehab while respecting our space. They would need
to ask permission to come onto our property, because the former owner allowed us to
put a fence in, and they would have to come onto our property to do any work. There is
more work that needs to be done than originally noted, but I really feel like there is a
lack of respect from the mortgage company. A dumpster has been placed in the
driveway and a couple weeks ago a contractor took a board off a burned window and
started throwing things from the upper level into the dumpster. As a result, fiberglass
siding and burned debris ended up outside the dumpster. There are also elm trees on
this property next to our driveway that obstructs visibility when I'm backing out of the
driveway. They have gotten bigger and bigger, and I asked a contractor if I could cut
