Harrison neighbors welcome demolition of abandoned houses

Weeds and cats are the main nuisances Alisha Laime says she has to live with because of an abandoned house next to her home in Harrison’s Natrona neighborhood.

Hearing that it could be torn down was welcome news.

“I absolutely want it down,” she said Friday. “You don’t know what kind of animal is going to come out.”

But the cats aren’t all bad. “As long as they get the mice, I’m fine,” she said.

The house at 76 Pine St., where a tree is growing at the foot of the steps to the porch, is among nine on Harrison’s next demolition list.

Of the nine, six are in the Natrona area. A total of three are on Pine Street, at 47, 76 and 79. The other Natrona houses are at 57 Spruce St., 41 Walnut St., and 70 Chestnut St.

The three not in Natrona are on Eighth Avenue — two neighboring houses at 1263 and 1267, and 1292.

Township Manager Rich Hill said the township is working on legal clearances for the properties. Once completed, he said the project will be sent to the Allegheny Valley North Council of Governments, which will seek bids from contractors.

The township has an $85,800 federal grant with which to pay for the work, said Tom Benecki, executive director of the council.

“Demolition is a very important thing for the communities, the removal of blight,” Benecki said, adding that getting grant money to pay for it is not tied to benefiting low-to-moderate income areas. “Demolition is a presumed benefit.”

After the legal clearances are received, Benecki said the properties will be checked for asbestos, for which he and Hill said Allegheny County is paying.

Benecki said they would like to begin seeking bids in March and award a contract in April. He expects the properties to be torn down over two-to-three weeks between May and June.

Notices from the township warning that the buildings were deemed dangerous and that they would be torn down if not repaired were attached to them.

A discarded tube television was among the garbage and other debris on the porch of the house at 41 Walnut, where several tires littered the back yard. The building to be torn down at 70 Chestnut is awkwardly shaped, coming to a point where an alley splits off the road.

Conrad Zylinski’s home of 30 years on Spruce is across Center Street from a demolition target at 57 Spruce. The lot is overgrown with weeds, now dormant in the winter, and the front doors are boarded up.

Zylinski’s home has twice survived fires in buildings next to it, most recently in 2019. That house was torn down after the fire.

“The more the better,” he said of the coming demolition of 57 Spruce. “It’s another fire trap.

“You’ve got people who have been trying to keep their property up,” he said. “They (township officials) have been dragging their feet on this.”

Hill said the township is eyeing nine more properties for demolition, paid for with another round of grant funding. Specific addresses were not given, but Hill said five are on Walnut Street and four are on Spruce Street.

Benecki said Harrison has asked for $182,500 in grant money for that work. How much the township will get will not be known until sometime in April, he said.

The county would do the asbestos surveys on those properties as well, Benecki said.

Harrison commissioners previously awarded a $30,150 contract to Minniefield Demolition Services, of West Mifflin, to tear down houses at 998 Ivanhoe St., 14-16 Philadelphia Ave. and 92 Spruce St.

Olivia Minniefield could not say Friday when work on those properties would begin.