MASON CITY – A house city officials have deemed unsafe will be demolished, the Mason City council decided this week.
The house is located at 716 North Federal Avenue and is owned by Janette M. Hazelett. The house was inspected earlier this year, and demo proceedings commenced in March. City building inspectors determined that along with structural defects, the house is “manifestly unsafe and a sanitary hazard to the neighborhood.”
All costs of the demolition will be assessed against Hazelett, the property owner, after Tuesday’s city council decision to approve the project. They will try to hire the lowest bidder.
The city has sought improvements along North Federal Avenue from north of 6th Street to at least 17th Street, but little progress has been made thus far, despite a neighborhood meeting held earlier this year where city officials sought input from the public. There has been a few cosmetic changes to a few properties along the busy route, but no major changes, upgrades, or demolitions of problem properties have taken place.
This is sad for this woman. I knew her dad well and she must have run into tough financial times.
There are a lot of them on North Federal that used to be fine old homes. Then the slum lords got them and now they are destroyed. There are houses like that all over town. I can say the one in our neighborhood that was a drug house has new owners that live in the house and they are doing a great job of cleaning it and the yard. It just shows that if the owner lives in the home they will probably take care of it. Now, that is not to say that all renters are bad. We have several around that do a good job. They don’t take care like the owners would. but still they keep them up.
that’s a start now lets demo all the others like that in town. I have one 2 doors down that needs it
I agree. This kind of action is long overdue. 6 years in office for Eric an his 2 puppets Solberg and Hickey and we are still staring at these dumps all over town. I blame the people of Mason City for not calling them out. You all want to live in the midst of trash? Well, you got it.