OLD TOWN, Maine — A foreclosed home that caught fire more than two years ago and was left with a gaping hole in its roof, no running water and full of pet feces, has been condemned and city officials want it torn down.
A public hearing was held Monday night about whether the foreclosed home at 614 Main St. should be deemed a dangerous building. No one spoke in favor of saving the building, so city leaders decided to move forward with plans to tear it down, City Manager Bill Mayo said Tuesday.
The final decision on demolishing it will be made at the February city council meeting, Mayo said.
A couple of days after the fire in October 2012, Code Enforcement Officer David Russell inspected the dwelling and placarded it with a notice of condemnation.
“Many structural members had been severely damaged along with a large section of the roof being burnt off,” Russell said in an email Tuesday. “Another contributing factor was that apparently there had been no water service to the dwelling thus no sanitary facilities within the dwelling.
“The prior owners had multiple pets that were allowed to defecate within the building. The prior owners also displayed, what I would consider hoarding tendencies. When you add to these conditions the amount of water that was utilized to contain the fire and the lack of funds available to the prior owners to make any attempts at cleaning the building out, the building was shuttered.”
In the spring of 2013, after no improvements were made, Russell approached the city council to have the structure deemed a dangerous building, and requested that the council order the building be demolished.
The foreclosed home is owned by Nationstar Mortgage company, Russell said.
Also at the meeting, the council approved allocating $28,671 to the Federal Aviation Administration for design work at the Dewitt Field Municipal Airport, with knowledge that “all but 5 percent ($1,433) will be reimbursed,” the agenda states.
The city wants to expand the airport but needs a few FAA-required safety improvements to grow, including relocating Runway 30 and relocating or replacing Runway 4-22, which currently has a seaplane base at one end and a runway protection zone that sits over the river.
The shorter secondary runway, Runway 4-22, is used by small planes whenever there is a strong crosswind.
The Federal Aviation Administration already awarded Old Town a $365,862 grant in July 2013 to reconstruct the existing taxi-lane pavement at Dewitt Field. The city is responsible for about 5 percent of the cost of any FAA projects.
The Maine DOT Work Plan released in January 2014 details an ambitious schedule of 1,600-plus projects to be completed by the MDOT over a three-year period, and rebuilding and repaving Runway 4-22 at Dewitt Field, for an estimated $4.12 million, is on the list. This project includes removing obstructions.
The work at the airport is expected to start in the spring, Mayo said.