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Photo Marilyn Miller
The now dilapidated former Neighborhood Gas Station building. |
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Building inspector wants gas station torn down
Marilyn Miller
Banner Staff
EASTHAM — Plans to turn the run-down Neighborhood Gas Station at 1035 Route 6 in Eastham into affordable housing units are "out the window," said Frank DeFelice, the town’s building inspector who on Monday said he soon will ask the selectmen for approval to raze the building that has been unused for 16 years.
Town Meeting two years ago agreed to spend $300,000 of Community Preservation Act funds to buy the abandoned gas station and convert it into affordable housing. Now, said DeFelice, that money will have to be returned to the town.
A gasoline spill forced the closure of John Carroll's gas station 16 years ago, and the state Dept. of Environmental Protection took steps to clear the ground of the gas, which had affected the neighborhood wells. The site has been remediated, but the state has slapped an $800,000 lien on the property to cover the remediation work it did.
DeFelice, on Jan. 17, sent a letter to Paul Locke of the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, pointing out that the former gas station "has been neglected, uninhabited, abandoned, overrun by plant growth and with sections open to the weather for 16 years." He added that windows recently have been broken and there are holes that "allow mold to grow inside the building."
The building, DeFelice told the state official, "appears to be especially unsafe in case of fire because of its condition and the excess of oil through the inside of it," and the fence surrounding the building "does not stop children from entering it," he said. "Therefore, I am ordering the removal of this building," he said.
Under the law, DeFelice said, if the state has been notified to remove the building, and takes no action to do so, then "if the mayor or selectmen so order, the building official may immediately enter upon the premises with the necessary workmen and assistants and cause such unsafe structure to be made safe or demolished without delay."
He got a letter back from the DEP on Jan. 25 informing him that DEP does not own the property and thus "has no legal responsibility under the building code for its care or removal. Your order is therefore inappropriate and misdirected."
With a response like that, DeFelice said his only option is to go to the selectmen, which he plans to do very soon, and ask them to order him to demolish the building.
Donald Intonti, who lives next door to it, has been complaining to the town about the abandoned station for years, ever since the spill contaminated his water supply.
A year and a half ago, Intonti told the selectmen that he wants to sell his property but can't, since it's next door to an eyesore.
He was told by the selectmen then that, even though DeFelice had condemned the property, since the town did not own it and could not pay the state the $800,000 lien on the property, the town could not raze it.
On leaving that meeting, Intonti told the selectmen that he hoped they would take action on this site "by the next presidential election."
DeFelice, on Monday, said he hopes the building will be razed before then.
"Intoni will be happy," he said. "That's all he complains about."
Since the state won't demolish the eyesore, "I'll ask the selectmen to order me to tear it down," he said. "These state guys won't, so I'll have someone come in with a bulldozer and take it down. The police chief and the fire chief have been out there, and all agree that it should come down."
mmiller@cnc.com
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Apr 17th, 2008