Tearin’ Down the House
Decatur Metro | February 3, 2010
At last night’s meeting, the Decatur City Commission authorized $15,000 to tear down the house at 416 Oakland Street, which is owned by Fannie Mae and was recently deemed a nuisance by Decatur Municipal Court. The property has essentially been abandoned since early last year. We’ve discussed it here in the past. Deputy City Manager Hugh Saxon explained that the cost of demolition would then be applied to a lien on the house.
Funny. My wife and I toured this very house when we were house-hunting a few years back. It certainly wasn’t the worst house we saw, but it definitely needed a good deal of work. I recall a nice, open living space downstairs with built-ins, but really small rooms and bathroom upstairs. Also, the kitchen needed a lot of work.
It wasn’t beyond repair then, but apparently it is now.
FYI: The pic I took above is about a year old.
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Looks like it was sweet little home at one point. Kinda makes me sad to see it neglected and soon to be destroyed. Wonder if it will be replaced with something so modest…
Behind that lot is a large flood plain area. Too bad the City can’t get ownership of the lot to give access to the flood plain area for a community garden or something.
I don’t know about this particular house but I know some others at the very end of the dead end fall under FEMA guidelines making it difficult ( probably impossible) to enlarge the footprint. There are even limitations about how much value can be added through improvements within the footprint.
I wonder what the actual numbers are? Depending on what the amount of the (assumed) property tax lien is, as well as the mortgage, the City could quite possibly work a deal to get ownership. This would be a great space for a community garden (not knowing how much sun it gets). I live in the Ponce Heights neighborhood behind that and I’d be all over a community garden that close.
I don’t know who actually owns all land back there . A long time ago the City or the County – I can’t remember which – used it for heavy equipment parking. They entered from a gate on Northern Ave.
The homes on both Northern and Oakland have deep backyards but I think at least the part of the land right along the creek must belong to either Decatur or DeKalb County.
I haven’t been back there in a long time . Don’t know about the sun but there is some fairly open space .
Let’s not forget that it’s our tax $$ that are being wasted here. Fannie is sitting on an asset that has some value, and no one seems to be interested in recovering that value, regardless of how diminished it may be.
Sounds like Fannie wasn’t interested in recovering the value – they didn’t respond to the City.
Surprising, given how well run Fannie has been. Then again, when you are busy wasting tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, why quibble over a little house in Georgia.
It’ll be a shame to lose that portico. A thing of beauty. (Insert sarcostrophe here.)
Is the Earth curved more right there under this house, or is it the photo?
Have those lots down Oakland all flooded with the recent rains?
Hope the lot doesnt sit vacant, not sure what that would do to property values on Oakland…
So who owns the land now? the city? Will they sell then for new construction I wonder, or would the land, due to flood plain location, just become a vacant weed infestation for the city to maintain…
I would think that Fannie still owns the property, house or no. Not very encouraging.
It’s “interesting” that the column on the left side of the the beautiful portico was detached a year ago in DM’s picture. Seems from the picture that I took this week
http://www.decaturnewsonline.com/news/article_69009f5e-106b-11df-9bb2-001cc4c002e0.html
that it’s back upright and the right column is now down. Maybe it has something to do with the gravitational pull there, Gibbets.
I just read the DNO article on this, sounds like the neighbors would like to see a garden back there, not sure it could be done in the area behind because it is used as stormwater retention, but, if they took the house out, that property itself may be able to be used as a community garden…its still in the flood plain, but its not stormwater retention. The city would have to own the property I assume though. I’m not sure on the leagality of it all though.
I kinda think it would be nice to create a trail along the creek there connecting Lamont to Ponce. Then the folks on Lamont and Vidal would have a direct link to The Grange!…er…whatever its called now…
And if Lamont and Vidal are connected, Garden Lane could be too.
just noticed too that the corner of this house can be seen on the Atlanta Time Machine website, the pic highlights the house next door, but you can see this one with a dumpster in it from 2007. Someone was doing work on the house at one time!
trees sure got big in the background…
Wow, the house next door to me, which I have been hoping for years would be torn down, makes that one look like a PALACE.
Wonder why the city can’t do something ( push) the absentee owner of the house across the street from Oakhurst Elementary School that has SAT THERE empty for years deteriorating, with the property often overgrown with weeds. Guess if the owner pays the taxes they can legally provide an eyesore, eh? THis is not a ding against the city but against a system that allows such things to occur.
I know the house has been empty for over a dozen years.
SAACJack,
Couldn’t agree more with your comment. This same property owner also owns a home on Greenwood Ave that is in a sad state of disrepair (boarded up windows, overgrown yard, etc). I know it has sat that way for 8+ years. We’ve contacted the City and been told their hands are tied. Would love to know how to get these properties demolished!
whoa. wait a minute. i knew the guys who used to live there 20 years ago … I can see that house from my deck …
p.s. years ago, the field behind the houses on oakland and northern was used for ponies (reliable and older neighbor on coventry gave me this info)
then we had a mini-putt putt course back there for a time … we called it “the Peavine Greens…”.But yes, it really floods when the rains get going, and then it just becomes Peavine Pond
More accuratly, there were stables there that the neighbors kept their ponies in. But the City took the land under emminent domain in orde to turn Peavine Creek into a storm sewer.
Very forward thinking folks those bureaucrats.
That is really interesting (COT and Been here longer than you)…Where exactly were the stables? was this before the houses were built on Northern, Coventry and Oakland?…
I noticed on an old plat that Montgomery was originally supposed to connect through to Coventry, cutting across this area, and I would assume Oakland. Wonder why they never did. It seems weird that the grid just stopped.