First to Go Under Cleanup : Escondido Owners Raze Buildings That Housed 67

Escondido knocked down the first buildings this week in its aggressive program designed to rid the city of substandard structures.

The first condemned buildings to come down under the new city program were a former store, two houses and several outbuildings at 5th Avenue and Maple Street that formerly housed 67 members of eight families. The dilapidated buildings were torn down Monday and Tuesday by the landowner--on the eve of a city deadline.

Dan McFarland, Escondido building director, said the city ordered immediate eviction of tenants in the shacks last June after city inspectors found life-threatening health and safety conditions there.

Gary Duffield of Vista, owner of the property, said the land is in escrow and that future owners plan a commercial structure on the site, now zoned for multifamily residential uses.

The 5th and Maple site was the second property that the city condemned in its newly instituted enforcement program designed to rid the city’s core of aging, substandard structures.

The first condemnation action was ordered against five shacks on East 2nd Avenue. Four families and an elderly man were evicted by the city in June.

Under the tough enforcement program, city inspectors made an “eyeball” survey of the inner-city area and began inspections on the buildings that appeared in the worst shape. The two properties were condemned and ordered torn down after inspectors found broken plumbing, cockroach infestations, unstable construction and a variety of other violations.

The Escondido City Council approved $1,000 relocation grants for each of the ousted families and, in July, ordered city inspectors to cease enforcement until a system could be devised to provide housing for the evicted tenants.

The new slow-growth council majority (council members Jerry Harmon, Kris Murphy and Carla DeDominicis) outvoted the holdover council members (Councilman Ernie Cowan and Mayor Doris Thurston) in ordering the slow down in the code enforcement program until a relocation program can be worked out.

Earlier this month, the council, acting as a community redevelopment agency, created a housing commission. One of the new group’s charges is to provide a program to house the displaced tenants of condemned buildings.

McFarland said that routine code enforcement is continuing as it operated in the city in past years, with inspectors responding to complaints and ordering improvements or abatement of nuisances.

He said the new enforcement program also will undergo some changes that will shift the full cost of razing substandard buildings and relocating tenants to the property owner.

Now, McFarland said, the city demolishes buildings if the property owner fails to act, then places a lien on the property to recover the costs of the demolition and administrative costs incurred by the city. Relocation costs, which have amounted to $12,000 in the first two cases, are not charged to the property owners involved.

McFarland said that the 2nd Avenue properties also are going to be razed by the owners--two doctors who plan to build a clinic on the site. The owners had offered to donate the buildings to the city to be used for Fire Department practice burns, but the plan was deemed too dangerous because of nearby buildings.