The City of Plymouth may soon be taking action regarding an unsafe building.
Building Commissioner Keith Hammonds told the Board of Works Monday the structure is an outbuilding located behind a house at 415 Conger Street. “You can probably just push it, and it will probably fall over,” he said. “From what I understand from the neighbors, it’s been there for several years, and they’ve tried to talk to talk to the neighbor about tearing it down, and they’ve refused. I took a look at it and determined that it was unsafe.” Hammonds noted that the building appears to have been vacant for years, and that there are trees and brush growing in the structure.
He says the property owner was given a letter last week detailing the city’s desire to take action. A hearing was held during Monday’s meeting to give the owner the chance to dispute the city’s plan of action, but no one showed up. Following the hearing, the Board of Works voted to affirm the order to take action on the property.
City Attorney Sean Surrisi says the property owner still has a few options, “The order itself allows for 60 days to take action. You have to show substantial progress within 30 days. But with your affirmation of the order, then it’s in place and then if there wasn’t action taken by the property owner, then the city could take steps to arrange for the building to be taken down, if there’s not compliance with the order.”
Board of Works member Mike Delp also requested that the city begin the process of cleaning up the rest of the site, including the removal of what appeared to be a trailer made from part of a pickup truck. Hammonds told him that is beyond the scope of the action regarding the unsafe building and would instead fall under the city’s zoning ordinances.
