County dwellings in disrepair to be demolished

DUSTIN ENSINGER

Staff Writer

Delaware County homes in advanced stages of dis­re­pair could be com­ing down soon, thanks to a fed­eral set­tle­ment agree­ment with the nation’s five largest mort­gage servicers.

Delaware County com­mis­sion­ers voted 2–0 Mon­day to approve an agree­ment with the Ohio Attor­ney General’s Office for the Mov­ing Ohio For­ward Demo­li­tion Pro­gram, which will pro­vide the county with $500,000 to remove blighted res­i­den­tial properties.

The $25 bil­lion set­tle­ment with Ally/GMAC, Bank of Amer­ica, Citi, JPMor­gan­Chase and Wells Fargo is the result of a fed­eral law­suit alleg­ing that the com­pa­nies engaged in fraud­u­lent fore­clo­sure prac­tices. A total of $75 mil­lion was ear­marked for Ohio res­i­den­tial home demolitions.

Com­mis­sioner Ken O’Brien abstained from the vote despite the fact that last month he voted against a mea­sure approv­ing an agree­ment with a com­pany to write the grant appli­ca­tion. At the time, he said that he is not con­vinced that fraud occurred, and if it did, the set­tle­ment money should be used to help those with mortgages.

At a cost of about $10,000 per demo­li­tion, the county should be able to bring down about 50 blighted homes.

Com­mis­sioner Tommy Thomp­son ques­tioned whether that will be enough to remove most of the county’s blighted homes.

“Can we assume that this one-time project prob­a­bly won’t be enough to do all that is nec­es­sary and all that is needed in Delaware County?” Thomp­son asked.

“I think $500,000 will go a long way,” Delaware County Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Direc­tor Gus Com­stock said.

The county was actu­ally eli­gi­ble to receive $858,000 for home demo­li­tions but accept­ing any­thing more than $500,000 would have required a local match. Fol­low­ing Comstock’s rec­om­men­da­tion, com­mis­sion­ers decided to accept $500,000, and avoid pony­ing up any match­ing funds.

The Ohio Attor­ney General’s office has already approved the county’s appli­ca­tion for the grant pro­gram. Accord­ing to Com­stock, the project should go out to bid in the near future.

“The next time you see us, we’ll be here with bid doc­u­ments,” Com­stock said.

The project, Com­stock said, will improve prop­erty val­ues for home­own­ers near blighted properties.

Accord­ing to Com­stock, the grant appli­ca­tions should be filed by Novem­ber, and demo­li­tions could begin soon after.

County res­i­dents can con­tact Com­stock at GComstock@co.delaware.oh.us to rec­om­mend prop­er­ties for demolition.

The com­mis­sion­ers on Mon­day also:

• Unan­i­mously approved a mod­i­fi­ca­tion to the con­tract for the Smoth­ers and Harlem roads round­about project. The amend­ment increases the con­tract to Jobes Hen­der­son and Asso­ciates by $33,297, bring­ing the total to $199,166. The project is a joint ven­ture between Delaware and Franklin coun­ties. All costs are split evenly between the two counties.

• Voted 3–0 in favor of approv­ing a $1.4 mil­lion con­tract with Dou­ble Z Con­struc­tion for the Cheshire and 3B’s & K roads inter­sec­tion improve­ment project. The project received inter­est from six other bid­ders, a fact that O’Brien was very pleased with.

• Fol­low­ing tra­di­tion, com­mis­sion­ers voted unan­i­mously to hold their Sept. 17 meet­ing on the fair­grounds dur­ing fair week. The meet­ing will begin at 9:30 a.m.

Posted by Gary Henery on Aug 1 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.