Darlington prepares to demolish dilapidated houses

By: Candace Jarrett/Morning News | SCNow
Published: November 29, 2007

DARLINGTON — The city of Darlington is undertaking an effort not only trying to make itself more beautiful, but also to help its residents by demolishing some condemned houses that have been vacated.

City manager Rodney Langley said there is a system for deciding which houses will be demolished first.

“What I’ve talked to Sandy Kendall (the city’s code enforcer and building inspector) about are some burned houses around town where the owners haven’t been responsible for cleaning up,” he said. “We’ll take care of those, and then get the rest of the worst of the worst.”

Twenty-five houses are on a list to be demolished, Langley said.

This effort will begin soon, but a spending freeze is in place. Until the money is released and all property owners are informed, Langley can’t say what properties will be addressed.

“We have to make sure we get ahold of all the absentee owners before we can give out addresses,” he said. “With a lot of these house,s the owners don’t even live in Darlington so they don’t see the debilitating state of the houses — out of sight, out of mind.”

Most of the local property owners have been notified. But because about 40 percent of the property owners are absentee, the city still has a lot of people to contact.

City council approved the use of $25,000 in city funds to pay for the demolition. Many houses can be torn down with that amount of money.

“These houses have become a public nuisance,” Kendall said. “When they get to be in the state that many of them are in now, infestation from rats and rodents becomes a concern. That causes sickness, and it’s not right for the neighbors of these homes to have to live next to that.”

Kendall said although the city is using its funds for the project, the city is not take over the properties.

“The owners are still responsible for the land and any taxes or whatever,” he said. “If they try to sell the land or anything like that, what we would do is put a lien on the property so the demolition fees have to be paid back to us before they can do anything.”

Kendall noted that in most cases, the houses get to be in such bad condition because either the owners get up in age where they can’t do work on the houses themselves and can’t afford to pay someone else to do it, or they die and the children inherit the property but live somewhere else and don’t move back to live in the home.

Darlington prepares to demolish dilapidated houses

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