Alaska city begins demolishing abandoned houses

By Alex DeMarban
Anchorage Daily News

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The city of Anchorage is tearing down abandoned houses that have become neighborhood eyesores and can attract criminal activity.

Officials with the first-ever program say it’s starting small, but they’re looking to expand it.

The goal is cleaning up neighborhoods and making lots available for new housing to alleviate the city’s severe housing crunch, they say.

The Development Services department, working with other city entities, plans to tear down 10 houses under the program, said Kenny Friendly, a spokesperson for Public Works.

The department is using $500,000 in pandemic funding from the 2021 American Rescue Plan, he said.

The property owners have agreed to the demolitions, he said. The removal of the run-down property benefits them, he said.

Four houses have already been removed, including two in Mountain View, and one each in Fairview and Abbott Loop.

The targeted houses are a stain on the neighborhood, residents say.

They also drain city resources, requiring constant attention through the year to keep them boarded up after people break-in, said Scott Campbell, chief inspector for Development Services. People sometimes move in illegally, litter the yard with waste, start fires or do drugs there, he said. The activity can lead to responses from police and fire departments.

“They’re a hazard,” he said.

The units to be torn down are just some of the 174 properties on the city’s vacant and abandoned building registry, which includes about 25 commercial properties, Friendly said.

Six houses remain to be torn down under the program — two in Spenard, two in Mountain View, one in the Abbott Loop area and one in the Huffman/O’Malley area.

Nearby residents have been ecstatic to see the houses removed, Friendly said.

Jorge Colocho lives in Mountain View near a crumbling house on Hoyt Street.

Built in 1950, the house looks like it was once well-groomed. But it’s now covered with plywood and overgrown with weeds. The roof is falling in, and the exterior walls are ripped open. Someone spray-painted “STAY OUT” across the front.

The abandoned house is a problem, attracting squatters and other criminal activity, Colocho said Thursday.

On nearby Lane Street, the charred remains of an abandoned house have already been demolished under the program.

Last spring, a man pointed a gun at other people in the house and barricaded himself inside to evade police, city officials said. He also started a fire, engulfing the house in flames before police arrested him, they said. Fire crews responded and neighbors evacuated their houses.

Krista Chapman, a nearby resident, walked past the empty lot Thursday.

She’s glad the house is gone, she said.

“It was an eyesore,” she said. “A lot of people threw trash there.”

A boarded-up turquoise house in Fairview was recently demolished as part of the program, along Ingra Street near 13th Avenue.

Anchorage Assembly member George Martinez was there.

The house had been abandoned for years, he said. The yard was piled high with debris like old appliances, furniture, car and bike parts. Two junk cars also occupied the lot.

“The house was ripped and shredded internally, the structure was on a property with all sorts of trash,” Martinez said. “It was horrible, incredibly stinky, and the amount of rodents that ran out of the property was terrifying.”

There’s now an empty lot that could support multiple housing units, he said.

“The opportunity here is that we eliminate blight, reset a property and hopefully get it back on the market,” Martinez said.

The city is taking steps to ensure the program can continue, Martinez said.

Mike Robbins, head of the Anchorage Community Development Authority, is applying for federal funds to do that. The entity would purchase vacant and abandoned properties and prepare them for redevelopment, he said.

James Thornton, president of the Fairview Community Council, said there are several abandoned and boarded-up properties in the neighborhood near downtown.

The Fairview council would like to see them gone, he said.

The dilapidated buildings hurt the quality of life and property values in the neighborhood, he said.

“When you see these abandoned, boarded-up houses, it makes the community feel like it’s not a good place to be, like it’s forgotten about and left behind,” he said. “And that’s not the way we feel about Fairview.”

Friendly said the demolitions can cost $20,000 to $50,000. The removal of hazardous materials can increase costs.

The property owners benefit, he said.

They often live out-of-state, but still pay taxes on the property.

The properties are listed on the city’s vacant and abandoned registry, which requires costly annual payments over time.

The demolition allows the property owners to “wash their hands of issues they deal with year after year,” he said.

They’re left with a cleared lot that they can sell, with utilities already in place for development, he said.

Some of the property owners under the program are selling their cleared lots to the city, he said.

“This is a huge win for the community, Public Works, the assembly and the administration as we take these steps to make Anchorage a better place,” Friendly said.

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