“The longer it is in this condition the worse it is going to get.”

That’s the sentiment Paul Pascuzzi, chairman of the Warren County Blighted Property Review Committee, talking about the former Barley Home, 506 S. State St., ravaged by fire in 2014.

The property’s owner, Roger Shattuck, spoke to the committee during its meeting Thursday.

He said that he is trying to sell the property but is fighting with the insurance company. “(They are) saying it is under investigation and won’t let us in there,” he said.

“The fact of the matter is (you) have a very dilapidated building,” Pascuzzi said, explaining that it continues to be a risk for additional fire which would put people in harms way.

“We want to tear it down… as soon as we can get in there,” Shattuck said. “We can’t make them do anything.”

He said he went to a Conewango Township meeting where the supervisors asked him to board up the property, which they have done and explained that people have been breaking into the property as well as dumping garbage at the site.

“(I) think we have to forward it on to the (county) Planning Commission,” said committee member Charles Morrison.

County Planner Dan Glotz said that the property would go before that body at its meeting on the first Tuesday in March.

Shattuck said that they have received offers to buy the property but “can’t do anything” due to the insurance issues.

In the wake of the fire, a state police fire marshal said that the fire likely started in the northeast corner of the first floor but, due to the extensive wreckage, a cause could not be found.

A ruling deemed the cause of the fire as “undetermined.”