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JAMESTOWN, NY (WNY News Now) – As of Monday night, a quarter of a thousand houses in the city of Jamestown are uninhabitable, we spoke to those at the Department of Development about what comes next for the dilapidated properties.
Director of Development, Crystal Surdyk, told members of the Jamestown Housing Committee that there are a slew of condemned houses with many slated to be demolished.
“In order to capture all current existing condemnations dates back to 8/15 of 2003, that’s when we started to use that platform, so everything on there is current as far as being condemned,“ explained Surdyk. “So there’s 255, some of them have been condemned more than once. It may have been condemned, then uncondemned, and then regained their condemnation status.”
She also went on to explain that the process takes time and will not be completed overnight.
“I’ve got a whole list that I’m going to inspect, and by noon, you’ve gotten called out three times by JPD and had to board three other places or go back and replace boards that were ripped down or whatever so, it’s not a simple answer,“ stated Surdyk.
On the lighter side, Surdyk says the Jamestown Urban Renewal Agency has hired Jay Schultz as the new 19A Homeownership Program Contractor. A program for the city to purchase, fix up, then sell dilapidated properties to first time home owners.
“We did hire our 19A contractor,“ explained Surdyk. “He started last week, I actually was out of town for a conference so I didn’t get a chance to work with him directly a whole lot yet, but we are meeting later this week to go over his strategy. He’s a former contractor, who we’ve done a lot of work with.”
The city’s partnership with the Chautauqua County Land Bank has already approved the first round of demolitions, with the second coming soon after.
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