Patricia Kilday Hart:
The removal of a condo eyesore in Alief is a community victory.
Early afternoon Monday, the roar of a bulldozer will prompt a celebration in an Alief neighborhood whose residents have waged a four- year battle to get rid of an abandoned, burned- out condominium complex. The machinery, which will demolish the public nuisance known as the Winfield I, represents a triumph of civic activism.
Will champagne corks pop? I asked neighborhood activist Beryl Hogshead. “We’ll have lemonade and cookies,” she said in an excited voice. “And we’re going to fly an American flag.”
It’s been almost a year since I wrote about Winfield I, after being contacted by neighbors whose patience was wearing thin. Years of complaining to city hall hadn’t produced any results. The 1980- vintage complex deteriorated over the years as absentee landlords took over and the residents became more transient. Then, a July 2007 fire gutted part of the building, leading the fire marshal to declare the complex a safety hazard in 2008. Over time, it became a garbage dump and magnet for crime.
The Metropolitan Organization of Houston, along with determined neighbors, thought the disintegrating structure was so dangerous that the city of Houston should spend money
to bulldoze the darn thing, but legal and budgetary impediments precluded quick action.
Meanwhile, the shabby structure in theirmidst continued to draw criminal activity. One year, two dead bodies had turned up within a block of the complex, no doubt connected to the furtive prostitution and drugdealing conducted behind its boarded- up, spraypaintdefaced doors.
“It’s been a long haul,” said Hogshead said of the road to demolition ofWinfield I. “It’s a victory for people who endure and persevere. When there is blight, you keep your shoulder to the wheel and it will go down.”
Cutting red tape
Last year, neighbors were particularly frustrated that city officials cited budgetary constraints as reason not to demolish the property. As I wrote then, the complex was “amalignancy on a neighborhood, threatening to invade surrounding condos and apartment communities as the ugliness metastasizes and property values decline.”
TMO representative Franklin Olson argued it was “penny- wise and pound- foolish” not to move forward, given destructive impact that an abandoned property has on a neighborhood.
But Olson and Hogshead now credit Council MemberMike Laster and city hall employees for cutting through legal red tape.
They doggedly tracked down condo owners, all of whom left the complex years ago when a fire marshal declared it uninhabitable.
After all, a city can’t just demolish private property: owners have to be notified first. That presented a giant hurdle, since manyWinfield I owners live overseas.
“It’s been a challenge,” said Leah Olive- Nishioka, communications director for the councilman.
Laster had been on the job only amonth when the concerned neighbors told them they had a problem that had been festering for too long.
“My position was we should tear this down as soon as possible,” he said. “It’s been a long time coming. My office has been pushing and pushing and pushing ever since.”
In conversations with the attorney for the condo association, Laster argued the owners would have a more marketable property if they razed the lot. It didn’t hurt that the city’s legal department, working with the Houston Police Department and the city’s neighborhood department, found “creative solutions.”
“It’s fair to say there was a threat of enforcement,” Laster said. Rather than face possible fines and legal action, he said the “conscientious” condo association agreed to bear the cost of demolition.
That fortuitous result can’t be counted on in most situations involving abandoned building.
ButMayor Annise Parker says the bond proposal on the ballot Nov. 6 will help the city eradicate urban blight by providing funds to raze other buildings that, likeWinfield I, are a serious nuisance to surrounding residents.
‘ A positive affirmation’
The bonds “include $ 15 million for the removal of blighted properties,” Parker said. “It’s a housing bond referendum, but the money will all go toward demolishing dangerous and abandoned buildings like the Winfield Condos to make way for new affordable housing.”
For Franklin, Monday’s demolition should be an inspiration to people turned off by the tenor of political discourse. “The political atmosphere we are experiencing, nobody wants to give an inch or come up with solutions,” he observed. “It’s a positive affirmation that people can pull together and make a difference.”