SitemapWith the city stepping up its efforts this year to demolish more vacant structures, it must first know what buildings and houses need to come down and their conditions.
So says Abigail Beniston, the city’s code enforcement and blight remediation superintendent.
That’s why the Youngs-town Neighborhood Development Corp. is counting and rating all the city’s empty structures with a report expected by the end of March, she said.
The city hasn’t had a count of those structures since 2010, Beniston said.
The estimate is there are 3,500 to 4,500 vacant buildings and houses in the city that need to be demolished, she said.
Since 2010, about 2,400 vacant buildings have come down in Youngstown.
An increase in residential sanitation fees – $10 a month when it’s fully implemented by July – is being used to generate about $2.5 million annually for demolition work. It would fund the demolition of about 250 dilapidated structures annually as well as pay for demolition equipment.
The $10 monthly increase in sanitation fees is being offset by a $10-a-month decrease in residential water fees for city residents.
On Wednesday, city council also agreed to pay the salaries and benefits of Beniston and four other city employees – a housing rehabilitation coordinator, estimator housing coordinator, rehabilitation assistant and the accounting clerk for landlord registration – from the sanitation fund.
The total cost, which also includes department supplies and professional service fees, is about $620,000 annually, said Kyle Miasek, the city’s deputy finance director.
Those expenses were coming out of the city’s general fund, but it’s more appropriate to use sanitation money to pay those employees, Miasek said.
The program will allow the city to catch up on all the needed demolitions in the next six to 10 years, said Finance Director David Bozanich.
Also, council voted to allow the board of control to pay the city’s $50,000 deductible to its insurance company to settle a lawsuit.
Samuel Abutair of Washington, D.C., sued the city in 2014 contending police used excessive force and publicly humiliated him in 2013 when officers wrongfully arrested him for a restaurant robbery he didn’t commit.
He is receiving $72,000 in the settlement with the city, which is not admitting any liability.
In the lawsuit, Abutair said police inflicted cuts and bruises on his face and charged him with obstructing official business in a “purely vindictive prosecution.” A jury acquitted him of that charge.
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