Town to demolish charred Lakeview house

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The Town of Hempstead board last week approved the demolition of a burned house in Lakeview that has been the subject of resident complaints for several years. The demolition, town officials promised, will be done within two months.

“It will be cleared before the summer — I can guarantee that,” said John Rottkamp, the town’s buildings commissioner. Rottkamp said that Town Councilwoman Dorothy Goosby was instrumental in making the demolition happen.

The house, at 406 Barbara Lane, has been abandoned since at least late 2011, and caught fire on Jan. 5, 2012. The town boarded it up several months later. Rottkamp said the town had been notified that there was “an issue” at that property in June 2013.

“No one has come forward. No one has tried to fix it up,” Rottkamp told several residents at a private meeting. “It has just kept deteriorating over the past year and a half.” He added that some residents are in Florida eight months of the year, so the town has to wait a while before it declares a property abandoned.

Rottkamp said at the meeting that the town would be sending out a request for bids to demolish the house, but first it must ensure that the house is clear of any activity, the utilities are turned off and an exterminator is brought in.

Residents have complained to the town board and to Rottkamp about garbage being dumped on the property — which town sanitation has been quick to clean up, they acknowledged.

All of the town’s expenses for maintaining and demolishing the home, Rottkamp said, will be absorbed by whoever ultimately buys the property. “It doesn’t go on everyone’ else’s taxes,” he said. “The new owner will have to incur that cost.”

Alan Jennings, who lives several houses away from the scorched property, said he was concerned that he and other residents in the area would not be alerted when the property was purchased. Jennings pointed out that the town only alerts people in the immediate vicinity of the home. “Three hundred feet from the house is ridiculous,” said Jennings, referring to the limits of that vicinity. “They’re only looking at people who live across the street or two houses down. A little more communication would be good.”