About 30 Southside residents gathered at the Cannon St. Community
Center to kick off a campaign to
demolish the vacant 12 unit apartment building at 170 W. Newell
Street. As we sat outside in the bright
sunshine, we didn’t have to imagine what we were talking about. The
building is located right next to
the community center.
Area residents have put up with drugs, gangs and prostitution coming
out of the building. The former owner
was a notorious slumlord who never paid taxes and never got the
required inspections and permits from city
Code Enforcement. Unfortunately, the city was too lazy to go the
extra step to close him down. The building began
to rapidly deteriorate.
In 2005, the building was sold to an absentee landlord from Long
Island. The final straw for residents: the new
slumlord pumped sewage backup from the basement onto the side yard.
At the meeting, SUN got a commitment from Monica Williams, Onondaga
County legislator, to bring the County
Health Department back to study the site of the dumping and to look
into fines against the slumlord. City Attorney
Rory McMahon announced that the city will pursue a hearing against
the owner for violation the city’s Nuisance
Abatement ordinance preventing the landlord from re-opening the
building for at least a year. They also will look
for ways to ratchet up the pressure on his delinquent taxes–now over
$20,000.
SUN also collected postcards from the people at the meeting,
describing their opinions of the building, that we will
be sending to the new slumlord. We will be looking for creative ways
to put pressure on this slumlord until that
building is gone and the community center isn’t living under a
cloud. We do not give up.
