St. Louis County targets derelict properties with $11 million from county council
ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. (First Alert 4) - St. Louis County is targeting problem properties in unincorporated areas with funding from county council.
St. Louis County will demolish five homes in North County next month, with three of those homes being in Castle Point.
The county department of transportation and public works was allotted $11 million to target these problem properties.
The demolition of those first five properties will cost about $83,000.
The code enforcement division within public works tracks, identifies and monitors problem properties.
Dave Wrone with the department of transportation and public works said about 80% of the problem properties are in north county.
“A lot of these properties the owners either can’t be located or identified or an LLC has been formed to own the problem property and once we identify that LLC all too often that LLC changes its name,” Wrone said.
“The homes vacant in the neighborhood need to be torn down,” resident Robert Young said.
After those five homes are demolished this summer, there are 19 next up in the process.
Wrone said St. Louis County doesn’t gain ownership of the properties but instead uses state statute and due process to allow them to demolish the private property. He said that process often takes 8-9 months. About 200 properties are in the midst of that, according to Wrone.
“If you’ve got a structure that’s more than halfway collapsing, you’ve got children in the area, arson suspects running around with incendiaries. It’s a nuisance. It’s an eyesore. It’s damaging nearby property values. Those are the properties we target,” Wrone said.
Cheryl Huston has lived on Count in Castle Point for 45 years. Her street has three derelict properties are being targeted by the county.
“Well you see all the empty houses around here,” Huston said.
One of those properties is just a house away from Huston’s, where she’s seen teens go in to set off fireworks and she has other concerns about the blight.
“We had a gunshot bullet go through our house back there a couple weeks ago. It’s scary. You never know what’s going to go on in the neighborhood and of course there are squatters here and there and you never know what they’re going to do,” Huston said.
The county also has a list of about 1,800 properties being monitored, which could become eligible to be on the list to be demolished.
Huston said she wants to see more people move into her neighborhood and bring life back to her street.
“I hope it’ll make the neighborhood better,” Huston said.
Inspectors are out in the field assessing properties but the county also hears about problem properties from community . If you want to report a property you can call 314-615-3724 to report it.
This blight focus and the millions of dollars backing it is only for unincorporated parts of St. Louis County.
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