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BY STEVE ZABROSKI
Times Correspondent | Sunday, April 01, 2007 | (No comments posted.)
EAST CHICAGO | An Elm Street two-flat has been empty since a raging fire gutted the building last fall, and inspectors say its collapse is imminent.
"Only two or three rafters were damaged in the fire," Hobart resident Gerardo Lozano, the building's owner, pleaded with the Board of Public Safety on Wednesday. "At least give me a continuance."
The board was considering condemnation and demolition orders on a dozen buildings, including the house at 3729 Elm St., one of several Indiana Harbor properties owned by Lozano.
A vigorous enforcement of city safety codes that started last year has led to the removal of more than 30 dangerously derelict structures so far, with dozens more awaiting hearings before the safety board.
"They're hazards to public safety," Building Commissioner Ernest Hagler said. "The neighborhood suffers if conditions like these are allowed to continue."
The Nov. 11 blaze that engulfed the Elm Street house completely destroyed the second floor, according to the inspectors' report, and the entire roof collapsed onto the first floor of the structure.
The inspectors determined the building -- just steps from the Katherine House Boys & Girls Club -- to be structurally unsound, a threat to neighboring homes and beyond reasonable repair.
Lozano told the safety board his insurer had paid off on the house as a total loss, but the cost to rebuild it was greater than the money he received, so he planned to repair the structure.
"The way it looks, you've got a lot of work ahead of you," Chairman Raymond Rucoba said after scrutinizing photographs of the ravaged rental property.
Lozano formed Greentree Builders LLC last October, and is a licensed remodeling contractor in East Chicago.
"We are adamant about removing this building," Hagler said. "Unless he can demonstrate some good-faith action in cleaning it up."
Ultimately, the safety board granted Lozano a 30-day stay of condemnation on the two-flat, provided he boards up the building, cleans up the piles of debris around it and gives Building Department staff a timetable for his rebuilding plans.
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