Ellerbe moves forward with demolition plans, wine sales discussion

ELLERBE— Code Enforcement Officer John Ganus presented two additional memorandum ordinances at the Ellerbe town meeting, requesting authorization to demolish properties at 2004 U.S. Highway 220 North and 4383 Main Street.

Ganus explained that an inspection and hearing had been conducted for the property at 2004 U.S. Highway 220 North.

“An inspection was conducted with the property owner on site and she was going to try to do some things with it, which she never did anything,” said Ganus. A hearing was held, resulting in an order being issued that the owner was given until Jan. 12 to either do repairs or proceed with the demolition of the house.

Ganus detailed the structural issues with the house.

“Some of the walls are being held up in place by anchors, cables, quarter brackets and different things like that. There is definitely gaps between the walls, floors and ceilings. There’s a lot of rot in there and different things like that. It appears that the owner isn’t going to do anything to remedy those matters.”

Ganus emphasized that the house is not a safe, livable place and noted that the property’s yard had recently been cleaned up, a task the owner neglected to do.

“Based on what I saw there, the house is not safe and she [the owner] doesn’t appear that she’s going to do anything with it,” he said. “We recently cleaned up the yard, which she declined to do on her own. There was a lot of debris and stuff in the yard, so we got that taken care of.”

“We’re going to be putting on a lien for the property for the cleanup, but we’ve got the conditioned house to deal with tonight and if you approve the demolition, we’ll move forward on the process and begin result will be a lien placed on the property,” Ganus said to the board members.

Bids will be sent out to known demolition contractors in the area and a bid date will be set. Ganus will open the bids in Ellerbe’s Town Hall and contractors will be invited to the bid opening. Ganus noted that most of the time, contractors do not attend the opening, but they’ll drop off a sealed bid and he shared that he’ll make sure that the bids are sealed. Once the opening bids are done, Ganus will provide a bid worksheet to the council to show the bid results. Once a bid is approved, an asbestos inspection must be conducted on the house.

“Hopefully there’s no asbestos in there. If there is, that’ll have to be removed before we can demolish it,” he said.

Ganus also mentioned the idea of speaking with the Ellerbe Fire Department to see if they can burn the house, but it might not be feasible given there’s another house close in proximity next door.

The board made a motion to proceed with the demolition of the house on 2004 U.S. Highway 220 North. Ganus also brought to the council’s attention the proposition of demolition for the building on 4383 Main Street.

The building used to be a commercial building. “Most of you probably have driven by or walked by it,” said Ganus.

Ganus noted that the building is starting to deteriorate.

“The ceiling has fallen in on this thing. Some of the walls are damaged; they’re worn and there’s cracks in them. Some of the window frames and so forth are all rotted, so there’s no telling anything could happen where we have a good storm, those windows could be blown out, somebody could get hurt.”

Ganus shared he has spoken numerous times with the owners of the property. The owners live up in Maryland and claimed that they were going to take matters into their own hands by tearing down the building, but nothing has been done to this date.

“They said they were going to tear it down themselves. That was quite a while ago. They asked for demolition contractors and I provided several names in the area; a list of five to six different contractors. I never heard anything. I’ve asked for status of when they were going to tear it down, never heard anything, so that’s why we’re here tonight.”

This building has another unit attached to it, in which Ganus emphasized that the demolition must be done carefully.

“The demolition of it is going to have to be done cautiously, but there’s contractors all around that have done that kind of thing all the time,” he said.

Commissioner Bennett Hawks asked Ganus the condition of the building attached, in which Ganus responded that a hearing will be held next month to discuss its state.

“I’ve been trying to give the owner of that building to do something. He was trying to sell it, but I don’t know that he’s very actively trying to sell it because I understand he had two or three offers for what he’s asking for and he declined them,” he said.

Hawks asked Ganus if it would be best to wait for the hearing in order to commence the demolition for both buildings, in which Ganus responded saying “we might end up doing that. It just depends on how things shake out, but you know, this process when you guys adopt an ordinance to demolish something tonight, it’s not going to happen overnight. So there’s a good possibility, as they used to say, the star is a line and everything comes into perfect order. There might be something happen where the owner desires to take his down.”

Hawks noted the cost efficient aspects of the demolition for both buildings.

“Because it would be a lot cheaper to just take both of them then to try to save this one by being very careful,”he said.

“You’ll never know what will happen. We were surprised last month you adopted an ordinance to demolish the burned house and the owner went ahead and got it done,” Ganus responded to Hawks.

The city council made a motion to proceed with the demolition of the building on 4383 Main Street.

In other business, the city council discussed wine sales in Ellerbe. Hawks reminded the council that “it needed to be in writing and forward to be put on the ballot by July 31.”

Mayor Brenda Capel also noted if wine sales do get approved in Ellerbe, wine can only be purchased by the bottle, it cannot be by the drink.

“According to what the attorney at the ABC office told me, you have to have an ABC store in your town.” Capel added that if patrons purchase wine bottles, they’re not allowed to drink it on the premises.

“It’s not something we can just go in and approve. It’s not that simple,” said Capel. “This is something we’re going to have to look into and get cleared up at some point.”

Wine sales will be added to next month’s town meeting agenda to further discuss, council said.