by Alex Brooks
The Petersburgh Town Board held a special meeting May 30 to discuss the Leaning Garage, a dilapidated building at 50 Main Street which is tilting at an alarming angle toward the river.
[private]The Town Building Inspector, Doug Hull, found the building to be structurally deficient last winter, and a public hearing was scheduled last March 18 to hear commentary on the Town’s plan to demolish it. The building’s owner, Dan Mitri, appeared and said he had hired a contractor to stabilize the building, but the contractor couldn’t schedule the job until June. The Board accepted the idea of waiting until June to actually do the work but required Mitri to secure the building, move the heavy equipment that is currently stored there, submit renovation plans signed by an architect and take out a building permit for the renovation work within 60 days.
Since then Mitri has moved some but not all of the equipment out of the building, boarded up one window and secured one door.
At the regular May meeting of the Petersburgh Town Board, Building Inspector Doug Hull said the owner had failed to secure the building, submit plans or take out a building permit within the allotted time. He reaffirmed that the building is in an unsafe condition and recommended that the Town continue to take steps toward taking it down.
Special Meeting Vote
At the special meeting on May 30, there were three members of the Town Board present – Supervisor Siegfried Krahforst and Board Members Duane Goodermote and Dick Snyder as well as Town Attorney Kevin Engel. The Board unanimously passed a resolution re-affirming that the building is unsafe and dangerous and in need of immediate action to alleviate the hazardous condition.
The Board plans to create specifications for bids from contractors to take down the building. If the Town does have to follow through with this, the cost of demolition will be paid by the Town and then added to the property tax bill to be paid by the owner. If the owner does not pay it, Rensselaer County will reimburse Petersburgh and try to recoup the cost by selling the property, although it seems unlikely they would be able to sell it for anything close to the cost of demolishing the building.
The Town Board then went into an executive session.
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