Vacant Properties Pegged for Demolition in Swissvale

“You have to try to more or less be a doctor and identify the cancer and try to cure it. And if you can’t cure it— cut it out. The cutting out is demolition of the property. That’s our only option," Wilhelm said. 

In a public hearing on Wednesday, Wilhelm presented properties for demolition to the council and identified specific problems with each property.

Properties listed for potential demolition included: 7212 Agnes St., 7701 Jeremiah St., 7705 Jeremiah Street, 7728 Stanton Ave., and 2439 Woodstock Ave.

Wilhelm said of the five only three may actually be demolished depending on grant money.

It took a long time for these properties to get to the chopping block— one property has been blighted since 1997. Another woman complained 10 times over the course of 6 years about another property on the list. 

This is not unusual. Wilhelm described the path from finding vacant properties to demolishing them as a tenuous two year long process. 

The Path to Demolition
Properties can remain abandoned for years before being identified. Often times it isn't until neighbors notice signs of overgrowth and neglect that they complain to the borough.
Here's the process as described by Wilhelm:

• Multiple letters and citations must be sent to property owners— if there is one at all— before the borough can even consider demolition. 
• If the owner responds they can be cited but have the right to appeal in court Downtown. 
• A title search must be done to identify anyone else that could have a stake or claim to the property.
• More letters are sent out to lean holders and property owners about demolition. Public notices are posted on the properties. 

Even after all of this, demolition is contingent on finding money through grants. 

"It's a long process," Wilhelm said.  

Path to Vacancy 
Vacant properties are a result of hard economic times, deaths within families and landlords abandoning properties that are not up to code.

Foreclosures and bankruptcies can lead to houses ending up in limbo, where the banks don't want to deal with it and the previous property owner is absolved from all responsibility.

The responsibility for the property then falls on the borough.

“Then you end up with a blighted vacant property and no one you can hold accountable for the property. It’s a glitch in our system,” Wilhelm said.

Family members that have moved out of the borough, sell their deceased family member's homes cheaply in order to get it off their hands. 

This makes room for potential landlords to buy up properties cheaply and oftentimes rent the property out without proper occupancy permits, Wilhelm said. 

“It’s a vicious system,” Wilhelm said. 

"A Short Lived Victory"
In the past three years the borough has demolished 22 vacant properties — but the list continues to grow currently standing at approximately 125 officially registered.  

"We just keep throwing them in the bucket and keep lining the buckets up,”  Wilhelm said.    

Wilhelm said he hopes to have 11 or 12 properties down by the end of the year. 

Recently the list of vacant properties was chiseled down to more than half the original number, but it didn't last for very long.

“Now I think we may be pivoting back over that halfway mark. So it was a very short lived victory,” Wilhelm said. “It’s just a daily battle. We strike two off the list and three more appear.”