One of Uhrichsville’s abandoned houses torn down, others to follow
UHRICHSVILLE (WJER) (Feb. 17, 2022) – City officials aren’t waiting until spring to start eliminating more of the city’s eyesores.
Tear-down started Wednesday at an abandoned house in the 100-block of Thompson Street. Mayor Mark Haney says it was one of the first he added to the city’s demolition list after he took office two years ago, but the pandemic slowed the process.
“You have to find out if it’s been sold and bought and who owes the taxes. Then you have to be able to serve the papers. With COVID, the courts were closed down through the process, so a lot of this would have probably gone faster if we hadn’t had the pandemic.”
He says they’re still trying to acquire several others, including one in the same neighborhood, that will be torn down or sold off with the stipulation that the buyer brings the property up to code.
“We have both options, and we have the mow-to-own option on a lot of the vacant lot. The problem is a lot of the lot sizes in the city of Uhrichsville is they’re not buildable, so we look at neighbors who might want to acquire that for more yard space, and then they combine it with their lot.”
Council set aside $50,000 for demolition in 2021, and Haney plans to request the same amount again this year.