Durkeeville 100 year old house in danger of demolition

[sheclown]

from the April 25th petition for injunction:  (directly quoted)

I'm asking that the court gives us more time to restore our family properties for rehabilitation.  We have engineer's and contractor's ready to start work immediately to restore both homes at 1504 N. Myrtle Avenue, Jacksonville, Florida 32209 and 1481 West 6th Street, Jacksonville, Florida 32209.

The City of Jacksonville wants to tear down our properties, we have engineer's and contractors ready to start work right away.  All I'm asking for the courts to give us sometime to restore our family properties; this is all we have left of our family heritage.  This is our "legacy".  This is all we have left of our parent's and grandparent's; please give us the time we need to restore our family properties.  I'm asking the court to grant us some time to restore our family properties; our family homes are over 100 years old, both properties has withstand all types of bad weather; no-one has gotten hurt on or around our family properties.

We have copies of the report's from the engineer's stating our family properties are sound and both properties can be restore for rehabilitation.  See copies of the report's attached.

[sheclown]

The city has a report from an independent engineer company Atlantic Engineer they had stated that our family properties are not sound; that was date 2007.

We have reports from the engineer in 2009 stated that our family homes are sound and both homes can be restore for rehabilitation.  The city has a copy of this same report from us in 2009 that stated our family properties are sound and both of the properties can be restore for rehabilitation at 1504 N. Myrtle Avenue and 1481 West 6th Street, both homes are located in Jacksonville, Florida.  I'm asking the court to give us time to restore both homes for rehabilitation.

We had a fire in our family home in 1996, shortly after the fire we had a bad contractor, who had ruin our family home more; see the copy of the report attached.  We had went to court, this process had taken a very long time, we were instructed by the construction board not to do anything until the hearing was over and then after the hearing was over the construction board would tell us when we could start repairing our family home after they make their inspection and check with the code enforcement board.  This took 18 months.

All we're asking for the court to give us more time to repair our family homes, we had went to code enforcement department to file for a appeal we were denied an appeal, we did not think that was fair.  We then spoke with a representative from the code enforcement department, a that time they had mentioned o us their was a stipulation agreement we can sign because we are within the 5 year window, all we have to do is sign the stipulation agreement stating that we're going to make the repairs on our family properties and that would stop the demolish process on both of the properties, once the representative went out of their office to get the agreement from their supervisor,there were told by their supervisor that Kimberly Scott cannot sign any agreement, she knows who we are, we cannot see her or say anything to her.  So then we went to see if we could speak with Kimberly Scott boss, a Terrance Barker he was to busy in the middle of some emergency; he was suppose to call us back, till this day he has not return a call to us.  We had went everywhere trying to find help from the city council and with the mayor's office; no-one has contacted us back from the mayor's office.  We thought we were going to receive some help from the city council; Warren Jones was going to help us, we cannot understand why he had changed his mine, we gave Warren Jones copies of the contracts we had explained everything to the councilman and to the city council board, the reason's why we could not repair our family homes.  Councilman Jones had told us in 2005, 2006, 2007 letters were sent to us and they returned stating that we had refused the letters.  We had told them the (council) we did not get any mail, all of our mail goes to a p. o. box and if some of the mail went elsewhere, we did not know anything about it, all we can say about that whoever had sent out the letter's did not look at the right address to send our mail to us.  We did not refused any mail,

[sheclown]

Please all we are asking is for some time to restore our family property.  The city council had mentioned to us at the city council meeting they have been receiving complaints from 2 neighbors; the first one is Levroyus Parlow he stays next door to our family home, he has made so many complaints against our family home, they are not true, our family home is not going to fall on his property, our property has not damaged his property at all, in all of these years; he parks all of his cars in the driveway next to our family home (he has cars and a truck) nothing has happen to any of them till this date, Cecilla Miller who has also made numerous complaints stays 2 blocks up from our family home, she lives no-where near us, far as the other neighbors hey have no complaints with us; we always keep up our family home, it's always neat and clean

[sheclown]

All we need is time to repair our family home.  It is just my sister and myself, our brother is some 3,000 miles away serving in the United States Navy.

No-one knows what life is going to bring or how you would handle the experiences.  In 1996 we had a fire at our home, after the fire my father had hired a contractor, my father trust this man Willie D. Williams, my father thought our family home would be fixed and we would have our home fixed, that didn't not happen,Willie D. Williams had turned out to be a bad contractor, my father had did everything he was suppose to, file the necessary papers, we went to court, on several occasions in Jacksonville and out of Jacksonville.  In 1999 we had buried our father, that next year in 2000 we had buried our uncle. 

The compliant goes into some personal issues which I promised not to post. 

[sheclown]

One set of grandparents lived in the Myrtle Street house and the other on the west 6th street house.  The twin sisters who are now 53, remember going to the west 6th street house after school.   Grandma kept chickens which they butchered in the backyard and a vegetable garden.  Thursday was meatloaf night.  A memory still strong in both sisters' hearts.  And Boston Cream pie.

Stories were told to them about the ice trucks going down west 6th street delivering ice to their grandparents house. Stories about their grandpa who worked for the railroad and built 6th street to move his bride out of the apartments on Cleveland Street.

There is a picture of one of the grandparents in LaVilla.  I will get clarification on this.

Regardless of ownership, legacy, and other issues, this is a structure filled with folk art.  The carvings, alone, make it a significant piece of history. 

Regarding the structural issues.  I saw only one small roof leak.  Small.  My house has a bigger leak than this.

Vandals broke into the house and removed a good portion of the trim.  But enough remains.  Then they trashed the contents. 

The structure has since been made very secure.

And the house is intact.

If landmarked, this could be an easy mothball. 

[thelakelander]

What's the reason for demolition against the owner's will?

[DDC]

I have a lot to learn about the inner workings of COJ, so my question is this. Is the department that targeted and destroyed these houses and originally included the Claude Nolan Building the same one that is trying to destroy the Springfield Plastics building? If so, who appoints or hires the leadership of this department? Where do they get the authority to do what they do? And how far would we have to go over their heads to stop them and force a change in procedures? I understand that there has to be rules and codes when it comes to structures and "public safety" as they like to state, but this is ridiculous. Is there anything that can be done that we are already not doing?

[MEGATRON]

Wasn't this the house where the pilings were messed up causing the house to lean?

[iloveionia]

I will answer to the best of my ability given my experience.

Lake: Code's practice is driven by harassing owners who don't do work to their property in a "timely" manner.  I have heard time and time again about the length of time a case has been open on a property and "nothing" has been done so it must come down.  Code Enforcement is Henny Penny: The sky is falling!  They state time and time again that a home is a safety concern when it is not.  It is blight, no doubt, and neighbors (certainly in this case) are plotting against the home and owner, thereby prompting code to feed their fix.  It isn't always complaint driven, sometimes code just drives by and cites an owner (such as in the case of Springfield Plastics.)  Regardless, once there is a complaint (either neighbor, stranger, or code initiated,) it's game on from a code enforcement dept. perspective.  When that file is opened on a property, they will come back every 1-3 months on their own to inspect and document, more, if nuisance neighbors are complaining. 

DDC:  The department is Municipal Code and Compliance Department, aka Code, aka MCCD.  The chief, Kimberly Scott, is in an appointed position.  She was appointed in 2007, right as coincidently the so called non-existent "formal track to demolition" became a practice.  Under her reign Historic Springfield lost near 100 homes.  The authority comes from "Chapter 508" of the municipal code.  Now this is funny because they interpret it how they want and do only what they want out of the code.  Meaning, they have the ability to stabilize and mothball properties but they refuse.  Walnut Court several years ago (an SFR historic home in Springfield) received a stay of execution that came from the mayor.  (Not the current one.)  So in answer, the chief answers to the mayor.  Mothballing has helped maintain the status quo in Springfield.  That was legislation.  It is my opinion that code enforcement needs a complete overhaul.  I spoke to the demolition contractor who won the bid to demolish this home on W. 6th Street on Friday  (I had spoken to one other before: Patterson Apts. contractor) and their relationship and understanding of Code Enforcement is no better than ours.  Now that said, there are folks who support code and their systematic annihilation of homes, history, and folks livelihood.  Seems to be a southern thing I can't quite grasp.  I am not at all surprised at the experience the sisters are having.  Pissed, but not surprised.  It's a standard practice from code enforcement and neighbors/residents who have misplaced THEIR place in this world.  What to do?  In the sisters case, get the home Landmarked (Joel is working on that) and then pull a mothball COA.  We've about 30 days minimum before the bulldozer will show up.  There are no guarantees.  What can you do?  Write the mayor.  Scream loud and scream a lot. 

MEGATRON: No.

[MEGATRON]

Funny. The City cited a faulty pier. So did sheclown. Don't ignore the facts that do not fit your argument.

What should have occurred here?  What's your solution and who pays for that solution?

[iloveionia]

The city is not specific in their reports. Nor are they engineers.
As for the pier? My oversight. I replaced SEVERAL on my condemned bungalow years ago. Big whoop.
I already stated the resolve. Landmark. Mothball.
I volunteer my time regularly.
As does sheclown and others.
I also give freely in monetary ways. It is my way.
My money goes where my mouth is, not out someplace else.
As for previous resolve? Sure, rehab and make habitable.
The world is not perfect, fair or consistent.
I prefer to help, not hamper.

[sheclown]

The pier issue was with the other house.

Both houses are (were) pretty solid.

Point is that (and I was wrong on the amount I quoted earlier) for $5450.00 plus the cost of asbestos survey ($300), $5,750.00 the house was awarded to Harold's Land Clearing to demolish.  If they find asbestos, the cost will be $65,000.00

see line 13



There was asbestos on the Myrtle Street house.  Don't know what that demo cost the city.

For $2500, we could pay a contractor to mothball West 6th Street and save the historic fabric of our city.

[MEGATRON]

The pier issue was with the other house.

Both houses are (were) pretty solid.

Point is that (and I was wrong on the amount I quoted earlier) for $5450.00 plus the cost of asbestos survey ($300), $5,750.00 the house was awarded to Harold's Land Clearing to demolish.  If they find asbestos, the cost will be $65,000.00

There was asbestos on the Myrtle Street house.  Don't know what that demo cost the city.

For $2500, we could pay a contractor to mothball West 6th Street and save the historic fabric of our city.

who owns it at that point?

[Debbie Thompson]

The owner. Mothballing it doesn't change the ownership. It preserves and protects the property and buys the owner time to restore it. Just as these sisters have asked.

[iloveionia]

We have two folks who have pledged the materials and labor to make it happen (mothballing at $2500.) 
One step at a time.
Landmark.
Mothball.
Restore/Renovate.