FAYETTEVILLE — Sometime in 2000 there was a fire at the house at the intersection of West Sycamore Street and North Vandeventer Avenue.
The structure was largely intact afterward. The house, with plain wooden siding and a boarded-up garage, has sat empty since.
AT A GLANCE
FAYETTEVILLE RULES
What Happens To A Burned Building? If the property’s uninsured, the Fire Department notifies Community Services. Owners have seven working days to show some clean-up progress. Owners then have 90 days to secure the structure, with the city checking in every couple of weeks. If that time passes with no progress, the condemnation and razing process begins. To report a suspicious property, call 575-8260.
SOURCE: STAFF REPORT
“It just is so bedraggled,” said Nancy Allen, a former Fayetteville alderwoman who lives nearby and said she’s concerned kids could get in. “There are uglier structures, I’m sure, but really it did concern me. If I were 8 years old and lived at the apartments nearby, that’d be a clubhouse.”
The owner of the house hasn’t broken any rules and the structure is still sound, said Jeremy Pate, development services director. New windows have been installed, for example, and the lawn is mowed.
“The property’s still secure, it’s still boarded up, so it’s still in compliance,” he said.
The house is likely one of several damaged or seemingly abandoned properties around town. Pate said the city depends on people such as Allen to call city inspectors who then look at potentially unsafe structures.
“We do not have the luxury of going out and looking for buildings that seem unsafe,” he said, noting the city has four code inspectors and perhaps thousands of building and demolition permits. “Honestly, they don’t really rise to the surface until someone brings them up.”
A four-unit apartment building on Betty Jo Drive, for instance, sits ruined after a major fire almost two years ago. The city has checked on it every three months or so. The last time was Feb. 1, a deadline for the owner to have the structure cleared out down to its frame.
That work wasn’t done, Pate said, and the process began for the City Council to condemn and raze the structure. The owner has a couple more weeks to finish the work before the city starts seeking bids from contractors on the building’s removal.
Several attempts to reach the owner by phone this week were unsuccessful.
Since 2002, the city began condemnation proceedings for 94 properties, but owners did the work for all but nine, Pate said. The last time the city razed a building was in October on East Township Street. A lien is placed on the property to recover the removal cost.
Rudy Hatcher, who bought the Sycamore property after its fire, said he was simply waiting for the housing market to recover.
Fayetteville’s dependence on complaints — some of which are for compliant properties like his — shows the city stretches too far, Hatcher said. He pointed to properties nearby that he said didn’t meet code but get little attention.
“It’s kind of a lot of bark and no bite sometimes,” Hatcher said, saying Fayetteville residents should look into whether there are enough inspectors, whether inspectors are worth it and what the city does with old houses in general. “I do think they need to look at how much stuff they have on their plate. I think all of these are tied together.”
In Springdale, building inspector Tom Evers said he aggressively pursues unsafe properties. Owners have a month, maybe two, after a fire or other instance to straighten out the property before the city will take over.
“I go after them,” Evers said. “We don’t have much stuff sitting around for years.”
He said he had about the same number of staff as Fayetteville. The two cities have removed about the same number of buildings in recent years.