A public hearing and first reading of Red Bank’s fiscal year 2018 operating budget took place at the commission meeting Tuesday night. It includes improvements to infrastructure including work at Kids Corner Park, the purchase of some police vehicles, as well as building sidewalks and paving. This will all be done with no property tax increase, said Mayor John Roberts. The budget is actually $333,000 less than last year’s, he said. Red Bank is doing really well, he said, with commercial development and residential construction both increasing.
Red Bank is also cleaning up blight, and Tuesday night the commission held condemnation hearings for two run-down houses. In both cases, the buildings had been posted with notices starting over a year ago. The property owners had also been sent multiple letters to inform them that their house needed to be brought up to code or face condemnation. Red Bank codes enforcement Officer Dan Knight had also talked directly to the owner or family member of the owners in order to get an inspection warrant to get inside.
Tom Retseck, the structural engineer who made the inspections with Officer Knight, found the house at 423 Bank St. was “non-compliant in hundreds of ways,” he told the commissioners. The house was sitting on a foundation of a single width of stacked bricks that a person could see light through. An apartment in the basement had a ceiling height less than seven feet tall, against code, and it was wet and moldy. The wiring was old and deficient and the electric meter had been pulled in 2015. The walls and ceiling had no insulation, and there was no functional plumbing or operational kitchen. All stairwells were dangerous and missing handrails. Some windows were missing and others were boarded up and there were issues with the roof.
The couple who has owned the house three or four years said through an interpreter that they had planned to fix the house and live in it, but two years ago, $6,000 of supplies had been stolen and they were saving to buy them again. The Hamilton County property assessor has valued the property at $29,100, and Mr. Retseck said that it would cost approximately $65,000 to bring the building up to city code, more than 50 percent of the total value.
Mayor John Roberts said that the city had adequately notified the owners that improvements were needed, and given time to make them. The commission was shown proof that the property is uninhabitable and dangerous and has many deficiencies. Work would be needed to restore the house to the required standards, and would have to be done by a licensed contractor, he said. By a unanimous decision, the building was condemned and the property owners were given 60 days to have the work done after which the city will do the demolition and put a lien on the property.
Another house at 230 Hendricks Blvd. had been bought in 2011 at a tax sale with the intent of tearing it down to rebuild it as rental property or to re-sell. The finances fell through, said the owner, and he has not been able to do what he planned. He agreed that the building was in a severely deteriorated condition and that it needs to be torn down. The estimate from the structural engineer, to repair this house was $73,000, which is more than 50 percent of its value. The commission voted to give the owner 60 days to demolish what is left of the house, or the city will perform the work and put a lien on the property.
When the city was remapped by the planning commission two years ago, zoning of property at 105 W. Newberry Street was inadvertently changed from commercial zone to single-family residential zone. The owner found out about the zoning change, only when he was approached by a buyer. The location has always been used commercially and on Tuesday night his request to restore the original zoning was approved on second and final reading.
City Manager Randall Smith announced that for the month of June meeting times have been changed for the Red Bank planning commission. The work session will take place Wednesday at 6 p.m. and the agenda meeting is scheduled for Monday, June 12, at 6 p.m.