Endicott studies vacated buildings issue

Endicott Town Council has been discussing unused buildings at its recent sessions with the discussion focusing on the possibility of condemning abandoned buildings and houses in the town.

Mayor David Bilow told the Gazette some residents have come forth with concerns regarding buildings.

“There’s a group of vocal residents who are rightfully wanting these cleaned up,” he said.

The mayor said he is not sure which direction the town, which is on a tight budget, should go at this time.

“If it does become successful to condemn the building, the town would have to fix it up,” Bilow said, addressing one specific building. “We’d have to properly bring the property back into the standard of today or pay to get rid of the building. If we brought it back, we’d have to sell it to recoup the costs, or we would just have to get rid of it and turn the property into another park which we would then have maintenance costs.

“We haven’t figured out how we can do something without incurring more costs,” he added. “We are gladly listening to any suggestions.”

The town council discussed abandoned homes and buildings at its meetings in September, October, November and December, and at those times discussed working with the building inspector on the process for condemnation. That process is on hold right now though because of the weather.

“We haven’t made any progress on pursuing that further,” said Laura Jones, town clerk/treasurer.

Jones said the subject has been on people’s minds for “some time.”

Bilow said one of the main costs involved in the condemnation process would be legal fees.

“There are pretty large costs which are hard to figure out,” he noted. “The legal costs are pretty high, and we don’t even know the real total cost to fix it up because condemnation is a taking of property. It’s a lot of bells and whistles.”

Bilow said if anyone has any suggestions, they could contact him or attend a town council meeting. The town council meets once a month on the second Tuesday of the month.