Property owner surprised by demolition

SUFFOLK, Va. (WAVY) - A Suffolk man says he was stunned Tuesday morning when the city demolished two of his buildings.

Click here for photos of the demolition. 

He says he had no warning that the city would demolish his properties at the intersection of Saratoga and Wellons Streets, but the city says it gave him plenty of warning and demolition was its only option. Two buildings were torn down Tuesday morning.

The property owner, Clifton Winborne, 82, wanted to build a youth center at the site.

"[Maybe it could have housed] Boy Scout meetings, Girl Scout meetings, whatever you want to do pertaining to the community," Winborne said.

Winborne told WAVY.com he had no idea his buildings would be demolished Tuesday.

"My niece called me this morning and said, 'Uncle Cliff, they demolishing your building.'" Winborne said.

Winborne admits he has received warning paperwork about the building getting demolished.

"I've been getting paperwork for the last three years about demolishing this building," Winborne said.

Assistant City Manager Pat Roberts says Winborne was given plenty of warning.

"He has been fined a number of times," Roberts said. "He has not demonstrated any effort to rehabilitate the properties."

Roberts says those fines date back to January of 2008 and a final notice was sent to, and signed by, Winborne in Fall of 2011.

"I acknowledge this: the roof was in bad shape," Winborne said. "The outer structure of it was good and it could be fixed very easily."

Winborne says he bought the property in 1949 for $16,000. Roberts says Tuesday's demolition is going to cost Winborne $28,000. Winborne says he is devastated, and says all he needed was more time.

"It was a dream of mine, just a dream to help young people," Winborne said. "Somebody's got to help these young people out here.

However Winborne says if the city alerted him 10 to 15 days before the actual demolition, he could have hired someone to do the work from half the price he now has to pay.

"That's usually what happens and we try and encourage people to do that," Roberts said. "So far this year, we've had probably twice as many buildings demolished by the property owners for that reason and that stresses we only do this as a worst case scenario. We've issued twice as many demolition permits to private property owners this year. We're dealing with a lot of property owners all throughout the city. We've got too many of them to deal with all at one time and that's why we've really started prioritizing the most unsafe."

Roberts says Winborne had ideas but did not follow through.

"This really rose to the surface as a good example of not only an unsafe structure, but one that's deteriorating and one that's really just a drag on the entire neighborhood," Roberts said. "This building was sited as an example of properties that we want to remove. Back in April of this year we talked about the new multi-agency initiative we have with city council at a work session we had in April. We used [pictures of Winborne's property] as an example of how much effort it takes the staff to work with a property owner before we ever get to demolition."

The initiative Roberts is talking about focuses on blight abatement.

"We really work with the police department, the fire department, social services, planning and community development to identify buildings like this in the hardest hit neighborhoods in the city where blight has really set in and started to deteriorate housing conditions, but also started to attract other elements like street level crime, drug dealing, arson, and other social roles that really take hold of properties like this," Roberts said. "We're focusing on those and that's why this particular property would rise to the surface."

Roberts says the neighborhood is on the rebound.

"The city's made a lot of investments in the storm water system," Roberts said. "Within the last 15 years, we've upgraded water and sewer in the neighborhoods and as a result people have really started to fix their homes up, build new houses, and we're seeing a lot of quality of life improvements in Saratoga, because of the investments we've made and because of the property investment."

Roberts says the city demolishes buildings as a last resort, but guarantees more blighted buildings will be torn down before the end of the year.