Today, the Macon Dangerous Building Commission declared the house at 207 Butler Street a dangerous building, starting a 30-day legal clock for its 25-year-old owner, who says he doesn’t have the money to take it down.
Owner Trevor Lake received an official letter from the city’s code enforcement office at the meeting. Under the declaration, he has 30 days to act, Mayor Holman told the committee.
Holman estimated the full process could take about six months from the committee’s action to removal of the building.
“The city can’t tear down a privately owned house without giving the owner time and following the legal steps,” he told Elisabeth Dawson, the next-door neighbor. He also said he’s tired of giving owners extra time and could drive the committee past 20 similar houses in town.
Video of the meeting:
Dawson lives at 205 Butler Street. During the meeting she engaged in some spirited back-and-forth with Mayor Holman and told the committee she complained about the house since she bought her home six years ago. The city boarded it up and mowed the lot twice in that time, she said, and nothing else happened until she posted about it on Facebook.
“My children are in danger,” Dawson said. “I want answers. I’m not saying tear it down tomorrow.”
Lake had previously worked on cleaning up the lot in preparation for bringing the building down, but he said Dawson stopped his workers due to allegations of poison ivy in the brush pile that was being burned. She said smoke from brush Lake burned on the lot carried poison ivy into her home, and her husband and son had allergic reactions.
One of the points, Lake and Holman raised is a question as to where the property boundaries are. Both men stated at different times that the GIS showed Dawson’s home was as many as four feet on Lake’s property.
Dawson disputed that, saying a strip of concrete between the houses marks the line she was shown when she bought the home. Lake is having the lot surveyed. If the survey confirms the overlap, it becomes a civil matter, Holman said, but it shouldn’t hold up the declaration or removal of the building remnants.
Lake told the Chronicle the property was given to him when he was 21, after the previous owner ran into trouble. He expected the trailer at the back of the lot to be rentable. When he went inside, it had been gutted.
He let the property go to the city’s auction sale, hoping someone would buy it. No one did, and no one would take it when he offered it for free.
“Nobody wants it, nobody wants to tear it down,” Lake said.
Lake puts the cost of demolition and cleanup at $15,000 at minimum, based on a quick look. Holman, a contractor who does demolition work, estimated $50,000 during the meeting.
Lake runs a remodeling business that does kitchens and bathrooms; he said he isn’t equipped for demolition.
He stopped clearing and burning on the lot when Dawson asked, he said, and since then rising fuel prices and clients putting off jobs have left him short of money. Contractors have been reluctant to bid the job because the house sits so close to its neighbors.
“I’m not trying to neglect it,” Lake told the committee. “It got given to me, I’m 25.” I just don’t have that kind of money handy, he said.
In an Oct. 14 letter to Lake Construction LLC, Dawson asked for $13,000 for damage she attributes to the property, including foundation damage from opossums and raccoons and basement moisture she says damaged her furnace. She asked for a written response within 14 days and reserved the right to add hotel costs. The letter did not itemize any of the alleged damages.
Photos by Staff