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County blight committee moves on properties

The Warren County Blighted Property Review Committee declared three properties blighted and kicked a fourth back to the municipality during a meeting last week.

First on the docket was 1265 Rt. 62 outside of Irvine in Pleasant Township.

“The property has been around the block a couple times,” Chairman Paul Pascuzzi said. “We’re almost a year on with this particular property.”

He said the township started working with the owner back in April 2019. Ownership changed at a recent tax sale.

Committee member John Phillips, also a Pleasant Twp. supervisor, said the two-story block structure is “sitting there” and “hasn’t changed. (There is) no way anybody will ever salvage it or repair it.”

“Pleasant Township did the best they could with what they have,” Pascuzzi said before the commission approved the blight declaration.

109 OAK ST., SHEFFIELD

Christopher Kyler, one of the owners, told the committee they purchased the property from the bank with the intention of tearing the structure down.

Commissioner Jeff Eggleston said the property is one of several that are part of a state grant application for blight funding to cover the cost of demolition.

He said the county is waiting for the state to awards the grants and that they might not know the outcome of the application until March or April.

Pascuzzi said that “regardless of the grant” the property is a “safety hazard for the community. Bad things happen to vacant houses.”

The commission also deemed this property blighted.

6 RAILROAD ST., CLARENDON

Pascuzzi, also a member of Clarendon Borough Council, said the property can be rehabilitated but that it has been a challenge to figure out exactly who owns it

“No one in town knows who owns this property,” he said, explaining that the former owner passed away. “The former owner we believe had a reverse mortgage” and the property “reverted to the financial institution who had the mortgage.”

The commission approved a blight declaration motion on this property, as well.

25 CENTER ST., CLARENDON

The committee heard from ownership who provided a plan for the work to be completed to rehabilitate the structure.

Pascuzzi said this “sounds like a miscommunication” as the borough did not have the plan before it forwarded the property to the committee.

He noted that it has been “vacant for some time” and was identified as a nuisance and “a real hazard to the community.

He recommended the property be kicked back to the borough to monitor. That action was approved.

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