Alexandria’s new mayor says he hasn’t forgotten about three buildings in various states of disrepair, and the city is preparing to take action soon.
Alexandria mayor taking on code issues
By Chris Mayhew • cmayhew@nky.com 2:03 pm, Feb 25, 2011
Alexandria’s new mayor says he hasn’t forgotten about three buildings in various states of disrepair, and the city is preparing to take action soon.
“One important thing to me when I was campaigning was the appearance of the city,” said Mayor Bill Rachford, who took office in January.
The city is working with the owners of two properties who are willingly working with the city to either fix up or demolish structures in disrepair, and that’s the preference, Rachford said.
The owner of a the third property who Rachford said he gets asked about by residents the most, is not working with the city.
Rachford inherited the city’s ongoing condemnation process of a building at 8339 Main St., across from the county courthouse. The city boarded-up the building in August because the windows were broken out, and it was declared a public safety hazard. The city building inspector condemned the building Feb. 7, Rachford said.
The city’s previous Dec. 18 deadline for the property’s owner, Edward C. Schumann, of Cutters Trace in Melbourne, to propose a plan to either demolish or fix up the building had expired with the city receiving no answer about intentions for the property. Likewise, there has also been no response by Schumann to repeated attempts by The Alexandria Recorder to contact him about the building.
“I’m just not going to put up with the condition it’s in, and the owner is not cooperating with us, so everything has to be done within the letter of the law so we don’t get accused of violating anyone’s constitutional rights,” Rachford said.
The property-owners the city is working with include the owner of a house in disrepair on Sunset Drive.
“I think he’s probably going to demolish it,” Rachford said of the house.
Owners of another property on Ky. 10, east of the intersection with Riley Road, are also working with the city concerning the condition of a house and the foundation of an old garage that is exposed and doesn’t have a roof over it, Rachford said.
“There’s a garage there and a house that’s on the same lot, the house needs to have a certified engineer go through and make sure everything meets specs,” he said.
The property owner seems to want to work on it so the garage can be a storage facility including building an interior and putting a roof over it, Rachford said. That’s just fine as long as everything is done according to city code, he said.
At the Thursday, Feb. 17 council meeting, Mike Duncan, the city attorney said the city doesn’t take lightly the pursuit of some of the actions the city is entitled by law to take including condemning a building or enforcing city codes. At the meeting Rachford said there were a couple of properties the city was taking action in regards to soon.
“That’s a very serious action, but like the mayor said, we’ll have a couple that may be coming up soon,” Duncan said.
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