Some of you may remember Kenneth. He was a "Make It Happen" back in Nov 2010. Kenneth likes to work on his own house and is always tinkering about.
This week he got himself into a jam trying to repair some rotten wood at the back of his house. He removed key structural elements. Without realizing what he was doing, he has seriously compromised the structural integrity of the rear of his house. Now the house he and his family have owned since his grandmother bought it years ago, is condemned and will likely end up as an emergency demolition.
Here is a video of Kenneth taken before our Make It Happen in November of 2010.
URL=http://s860.photobucket.com/albums/ab165/sheclown/?action=view¤t=MVI_2738.mp4](http://i860.photobucket.com/albums/ab165/sheclown/th_MVI_2738.jpg)[/URL]
Okay Community this is the deal:
We need to raise $2500 for Kenneth and it has to happen quickly. I just got off the phone from him. It has finally sunk in what he has done to the home he and his family have lived in for decades. We need to temporarily brace the back of his house. We need to pull a permit, get some supplies for temporary bracing. I believe I can talk our beloved architect into helping us, but we need to come together to help him and to keep from losing this house.
Labor will be free and a love gift from Glory Homes, but we need help with the hard costs.
Kenneth is on disability and has promised to pay $150 a month toward the debt. Can we get some help?
This will only stabilize the house. It will not remove the condemnation, but it is a start, a very important one.
It needs to happen within the next 24 hours.
Great response so far. Looks like we have $600 in cash, free labor from Gloria and from the architect! Need a couple hundred more. Otherwise... the banner in the footer will go to "0" again tomorrow or next week.
I think it is also very important to state that a couple of the code enforcement folks have been very concerned about Kenneth losing his home and have been cooperating with us on this. A pleasant turn from the past. I hope it continues.
We also have an electrician willing to help out and I believe we can come up with a plan that may make huge steps in getting Kenneth back into his house.
Thanks to all who have donated so far. We can do this.
How do we donate?
for now, post your pledge here if you would like to contribute towards the loan. You can also use paypal/credit card via the donate button on our site (note that this is for Kenneth with your donation). http://forum.preservationsos.org
Done!
Thanks!
After plying our architect with some of Mark and Tommy's special breakfast in a cup, he willingly agreed to draw up the plans for temporary bracing of Kenneth's house, do it quickly and do it for free. With those plans hours later, I was able to pull the permit yesterday afternoon.
Our electrician already visited the site and will be helping us as well.
This community has been immediate in their response to help Kenneth and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Our plan is to build the temporary bracing tomorrow. Three "walls" to hold up back corner of the house. Then the building department inspects which should hold off any abatement by the city and keep the house secure.
The next step is to get Kenneth back into his home and we do that by removing the condemnation. I will be pulling an alteration and repair permit to do the repairs necessary to get a certificate of occupancy. Nicole is compiling our to-do list with an eye toward donated supplies and eager helping hands.
(http://i860.photobucket.com/albums/ab165/sheclown/IMG_3109-1.jpg)
Removing the condemnation will be a longer process, but with the support from the neighborhood, which has been phenomenal, it can be done.
Thank you to all who pledged to help with muscle and with dollars. Nicole Lopez will be in touch :)
Friday, Gloria raced around and pulled the necessary permits to stabilize Kenneth's backside of the house. It took her all day.
This morning, she, Joe, and Danny put in 5 hours of work to brace the back.
It's braced and safe.
Neighbors donated hundreds of dollars to pay for the materials to make it happen, all received within just hours of Gloria's post for help.
Tomorrow, the Chief of Code Enforcement, Kim Scott, comes out to the site to assess. Gloria moved so fast b/c it appeared as though an emergency demolition was eminent.
Well. Not anymore.
She had architect plans and direction from the city's contracted engineer.
The house will remain condemned, however it is is structurally safe NOW.
The continued plan is to get it up to code and make it habitable again with the certificate of occupancy.
Kudos to Gloria and Joe to say the least.
if you donate at http://forum.preservationsos.org , please specify what project this is for (Kenneth's house) and if this is supposed to be a donation or a loan. If you are just in favor of demolishing it all, we are taking donations to buy Nicole a plane ticket out of here ;-)
Haha movedsouth.
Kudos to Joe, Gloria, and Danny for making it happen in an unbelievably short amount of time.
Many thanks to the folks who donated immediately cash to buy supplies, permits, etc.
Springfield is filled with love and hope and there is nothing better than being a part of a neighborhood that cares.
(http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/ii530/iloveionia/Kenneth.jpg)
“Hope†is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all - "
Emily Dickinson
We have lived across the street from Kenneth for the past 8 years. He is really a great neighbor and helps us out whenever we need anything. THANK YOU to everyone who has donated their time or money to help him! His family home is very important to him and he tries to do what he can to keep it looking nice. We love his jazz band that plays on the porch sometimes and we hope his home is able to be saved so we can continue to be great neighbors and enjoy his music, company, and helping hand. THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE!
Temporary bracing to stablize the backside of the house passed structural inspection this morning with code enforcement on site.
House is safe with absolute thanks to Joe and Gloria.
(http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/ii530/iloveionia/kennybraced.jpg)
(http://i860.photobucket.com/albums/ab165/sheclown/redtag2.jpg)
I wonder who was behind this?
Here's the ACTIVE permit:
(http://i860.photobucket.com/albums/ab165/sheclown/permit.jpg)
Kenneth's house is a duplex. Nothing odd about that in and of itself, but in the case of this house, each duplex has a separate owner (Kenneth owns upstairs and his brother owns downstairs). Each duplex has its own real estate number.
Friday, code enforcement told me that I would have to pull a permit for each floor, upstairs and downstairs (double the price, btw).
I got two building inspection forms filled out, one for each floor, upstairs and downstairs, got them each notarized, took them to get COAs. Was told in historic planning that they would only be issuing one COA for that building. Okay.
I took my two building permit forms to building permit department to pull my permit to make repairs to the exterior. They only wanted to issue one permit and as the plan reviewer said "we'd have to send the inspector out to inspect the same work twice?"
So, he gave me a permit for the house, just one.
This is what is going on.
Total crap. They know that this is a neighborhood project and done with volunteer hours and dollars. I don't think they expected us to do it, frankly.
I have architectural plans, there is a copy on file downtown in both the building department and the historic building department.
The problem with saying that this is because there is confusion over two addresses and one permit is that this inspector wrote the stop work order for BOTH addresses. It appears as of he acted on a complaint or a phone call from MCCD and never bothered to get the facts before he wrote that stop work order. I left a message he won't like requiring him to go remove the erroneous stop work order tomorrow.
Of course since there is a copy of the permit posted, perhaps there is reading comprehension issues?
Building permit code enforcement and municipal code enforcement playing ping pong with Kenneth's house. Looks like a not-so-nice phone call from strider may have taken care of Kenneth's permit issue.
The inspector kept saying ..."we were given this address..."
Quote from: sheclown on August 02, 2012, 08:56:54 AM
The inspector kept saying ..."we were given this address..."
and din't double check it? I can "give them" lots of addresses.. can I shut down all construction in Jacksonville with a couple phone calls?