Some are abandoned after fires, broken dreams or bad investments. Others have owners who have died and some languish after being neglected by absentee owners.
Syracuse demolition inspector Ted Koagel supervises progress at 322 Greenway Ave., which was razed June 16. Watch a video of the demolition. Syracuse, NY -- The charred remains of Chandrika Baker’s second-floor bedroom have been open to the elements since fire gutted her house in July 2007.
Her 5-year-old son accidentally started the fire at 426 Rich St., Syracuse, with a lighter as Baker watched helplessly from a neighbor’s yard. Her 13-year-old son tried to douse the fire with a bucket of water, but it spread too quickly, according to a fire department report. Both boys made it out safely.
The house didn’t fare as well. It instantly joined a list of more than 1,600 vacant structures in Syracuse.
The city’s demolition inspector said there’s no one reason a house becomes vacant. “Every house has a story,” Ted Koagel said.
Some are abandoned after fires, broken dreams or bad investments. Others have owners who died with no one left to take over. Some languish after being neglected by absentee owners.
The city spends about $1 million — all in city taxpayer money — to raze about 80 homes a year like 426 Rich St. Non-profits and private homeowners also do about 20 to 30 demolitions, Koagel said.
But demolition can take years and countless hours by lawyers, city workers, a Supreme Court judge and private contractors. A vacant house must undergo checks for ownership, asbestos and historic significance, among other hurdles.
Nearly $500,000 in federal stimulus money has also paid for 23 demolitions in the past year. About $100,000 of that went toward tearing down a North State Street building this spring that crumbled onto Interstate 81, closing the highway and frustrating 50,000 commuters for weeks. The state eventually picked up most of the $467,000 tab.
See a list of all demolitions budgeted in the past year in Syracuse. (Note: Some dollar figures are estimates. The last category includes stimulus money given to non-profits, such as Home Headquarters Inc., for demolitions.)
Homeowners are charged for the demolition, but less than 10 percent ever pay, officials said. Some of the bills are sent to homeowners who have since died or to corporations that no longer exist.
In May, the city took the Rich Street house and 18 others to a Supreme Court judge seeking an order of demolition. Among those, one is owned by a former Syracuse woman who moved to Texas and called it a “house from hell.” Another is a house owned by a faceless, untraceable limited liability corporation that no longer exists.
One had a foundation crumbling so badly the judge issued an emergency demolition order. Its owner died five years ago; her house came crashing down the morning of June 16.
And yet another, not on the list, was awaiting the same fate when an absentee landlord from Quebec bought it for back taxes. Now, the city will have to start over to get the house with two gaping holes in its roof torn down, Koagel said.
These houses may soon join the roughly 1,000 residences demolished in Syracuse in the past decade. Each one has it’s own story. But more vacant homes are being added every day, Koagel said.
426 Rich St.The fire-damaged house where Chandrika Baker once lived is owned by Ronald and Lonnie Bowens. The brothers, who could not be reached for comment, handed over control of the house to Chandrika Baker’s mother, Shirley Baker, of Albany.
In exchange for free rent, Shirley Baker said she planned to rehab the house, near South Avenue, for Chandrika and her sons. The Bakers were friends with the Bowens, she said.
All of the bills were sent to Shirley Baker in Albany. She said she spent $15,000 in renovations, including fixing the buckling walls, replacing burst pipes and updating the electrical. She bought new appliances and started paying off back taxes. The house still has $7,018.90 in back taxes. The Bakers fixed up the yard and added insulation.
The family was in the process of repairing a broken water pipe when the fire struck. The 5-year-old boy told his mother he was trying to draw his shadow on the wall with a lighter. He said he was mimicking something he’d seen on television.
After years of searching for tenants or a buyer, Linda Cummings, of Texas, decided to walk away from this house at 186 W. Lafayette Ave.Linda Cummings, of Lewisville, Tx., said she thought she was making a good investment when she bought this South Side house from her father for $10,500 in 1994. But she later walked away.
Though she didn’t live at the house, Cummings grew up in Syracuse before her work for IBM took her across the country, she said. She retired in the Dallas suburb 10 years ago.
“I thought I was doing the right thing by keeping the house in family,” Cummings said. But finding tenants in a struggling neighborhood proved to be tough.
She said she spent money from her retirement account to rehab the house, but contractors often took the money and did bad work. For awhile, her son lived there. But later the house returned to being empty and deteriorating. In one trip back, Cummings found someone had broken in and was squatting on a mattress.
After retiring, she moved back to the house in 2008 and tried fixing it up to sell. She said she listed it for $15,000, but no one came calling.
“It’s a nightmare,” she said. “I don’t care anymore. I’m done.”
By the time she’s finished paying off all the debts, she said she’ll have spent more than $60,000.
By then, the house probably won’t be there anymore. A crumbling foundation has landed it on the city’s short list for demolition.
“It’s a house from hell,” Cummings said.
A defunct LLC from Wyoming owns this house at 109 Davis St.109 Davis St.
This Near West Side house became vacant in 2006, a year after a Wyoming limited liability corporation bought it as a package with 11 other homes for $255,000.
Syracuse officials have been unable to contact anyone in connection with Essbees LLC in years. The state of Wyoming dissolved the corporation for failing to pay back taxes, said Corporation Counsel Juanita Perez Williams. But the LLC remains on the books in New York state, despite having no person of contact, she said.
At one point, a “Jason Jacobs” was listed for the LLC, but officials aren’t sure what connection, if any, he has with the properties. After Wyoming, the LLC’s latest address is Daleville, Ala. The city hired a person to serve court papers at the Daleville address, but the LLC’s participants had already moved on.
The Davis Street house, more than 100 years old, has been cited for numerous code violations, including deteriorating basement walls, floors and ceiling, sewage backups, leaking and missing plumbing and excessive dampness. On May 20, the city billed the landlord $212.50 for cleaning up the lawn, weeds and shrubs.
Essbees LLC owes $6,881.15 in back taxes on 109 Davis St. Across their properties, they owe more than $95,000 in back taxes and have hundreds of code violations. The rest of their properties are located on the Near West and South sides. All but one are vacant, according to city records.
This house was targeted for demolition before an absentee landlord bought it for back taxes in 2008. Now, the demolition process is starting over.317 Lexington Ave.
The roof has been caving in for years on this bungalow, two doors down from three brand-new homes on the city’s East Side.
The front door is secure, but windows are missing from the second floor. The city started demolition proceedings, but those were delayed when a new owner from Quebec took control of the house for back taxes in 2008, Koagel said. Now, the city must start over by serving demolition orders to the new owner, he said.
Boards cover the enclosed front porch, and the stucco deteriorated to reveal the rotting foundation in front of the house. It was cited for 20 code violations — including an unsound illegal storage of flammable materials — in 2006 and has been vacant since July 2008, according to city records.
Next door, a well-kept house is on the market for $74,500. And down the street, three homes are under construction by Housing Visions for low-income residents.
The house is owned by Dov Silver, who bought it for $1 in 2008. Silver owns seven houses in Syracuse; all but one are vacant, according to city records. Silver could not be reached for comment.
The owner owes $13,326.47 in delinquent taxes for 317 Lexington Ave. dating back to 2006.
An emergency demolition order was issued for 322 Greenway Ave. after the foundation started crumbing. The owner died in 2005.322 Greenway Ave.
This North Side house has been neglected so long it has no living owner, according to property records.
Its last resident, Rose Sablowski, died in 2005 at age 92. She had moved into a nursing home in the early 2000s, leaving the house vacant, said neighbor Nancy Gorman. She had no will and no one acquired the property from her estate, records show. Her son who lives in Syracuse declined comment. But one of her grandsons, Douglas Mura, said that the property wasn’t left to anyone.
No one has been caring for the small, one-story house since 2005, neighbors said.
Dave Baker, the area’s housing director for the local chapter of Tomorrow’s Neighborhoods Today, has been pushing for months to get the house razed. He pointed out that the foundation had collapsed on the side and rear, and rain was pouring into the house through a hole in the roof.
Inside, squatters had left mattresses in the dining room and bedrooms. The house was musty and smelled strongly of mildew. Sunlight poured into the dining room through the hole in the roof. Rain had rotted away the floor.
The morning of June 16, a huge excavator ripped down the house in about two hours. Workers in white contamination suits cleaned up the asbestos-laced rubble. After it was trucked away, the contractor backfilled the hole with soil.
The job cost the city $15,999. It was the first house to be demolished of the 19 taken to court in May. The others have to go through an eight or nine month process, including a public bidding process and an asbestos survey. This one was demolished quickly because its unsafe foundation threatened homes tightly bunched on either side.
In its place will be a vacant lot — the first on the block of this dense neighborhood tucked between Henninger High School and Burnet Avenue. It would be very difficult to build on the 33-foot wide lot because of zoning regulations requiring at least a 40-foot lot for development, officials said.
Instead, the demolition contractor will plant grass seed. Every year, an employee will mow the lawn and cut down the overgrowth.
The city will bill the homeowner for the maintenance; in this case, the deceased woman, Rose Sablowski.
Contact Douglass Dowty at ddowty@syracuse.com or 470-6070.