More Historic Fabric Lost

On Wednesday, September 2nd, HAF was informed that three row houses on First Street, between Hawk and Lark Streets, were slated for emergency demolition the following day.  

This section of the block consists of seven row houses, that from first glance, look to be an intact and maintained row.  However, look a little closer and you can see the sky through the upper front windows of 61 ½ First Street where the roof has collapsed.  The deteriorating east-facing wall of 58 First Street has generated numerous calls to HAF for bricks falling and large cracks appearing in the exterior wall.  Two of the other homes will be stabilized, while the two at the west end of the row are currently occupied.

After speaking with City of Albany officials, HAF learned that each of these properties is owned by a different owner, has had numerous outstanding code violations that were never complied with, and have sat vacant for many years.  None of the owners have applied for building permits to do any renovation or stabilization work.  In addition, most of these homes are delinquent in their taxes as well.  

A lot of people ask “why don’t developers just buy them and fix them up?”  It’s easier said than done.  Most of the properties that get to the emergency demolition phase are not for sale.  Most sit uncared for by absentee owners who are unwilling to sell.  They are not even purposely buttoned up to the elements and properly mothballed to allow them to withstand the elements.  And as we all know, water is a vacant building’s worst enemy, as we are seeing again in this case with roof and other collapses.

So who is to blame, and what is HAF doing about the issue of vacant buildings and demolitions in the City of Albany?

First, absentee and apathetic property owners carry the most blame in these situations.   Too many properties sit vacant and deteriorating across the City in every neighborhood.  But it is especially detrimental when we continue to lose buildings in our historic districts.  These particular properties have sat vacant for at least seven years each.  

HAF is working with the City of Albany and others to change legislation to at least allow for the court system to do their jobs effectively.  Currently, if a property is cited for a code violation, and the owner goes to court, the owner only needs to pay the fine assessed by the court.  There is no leverage to ensure the property owner makes the repairs that created the violation.  HAF has submitted a policy change that gives the court and the Code Enforcement Department more leverage to make property owners accountable for the repairs necessary.  We will continue to work on policy issues such as this moving forward.

In addition, HAF has been invited to participate in the new Blight to Betterment Task Force spearheaded by Albany County Legislators Matthew Peter and Carolyn McLaughlin.   This Task Force is bringing together individuals and organizations at the State, County, City and community level to tackle issues facing blight, vacancy, property maintenance, homeownership disparity, and how we can all work together toward a common goal.

The bottom line is that once buildings are gone, they leave gaping holes and empty lots that are not refilled.  Once intact rows have “missing teeth” that also threaten the stability of the remaining buildings as they were not built to stand alone, causing further decay.  Once demolitions happen, the historic fabric of our neighborhoods disappears and cannot be gotten back.  It is imperative that we all work together to find solutions to stem this tide.