Stockton Tearing Down To Build Up

STOCKTON — The city is clearing the way for growth.

Using a $292,000 Community Development Block Grant awarded in January 2004, Stockton is demolishing old buildings that have become unsafe eyesores, said City Manager Connie Conyac.

Former City Manager Dan Sarian really got the ball rolling on the federal program. Its purpose is to eradicate slums and blight, she said.

The Northwest Kansas Planning and Development Office in Hill City is administering the grant.

The grant money can be used for demolition of both residential and business properties. A total of 20 buildings have been demolished so far. Three were businesses and the rest residential properties. Bids to demolish seven more were to be opened this week, and four more buildings are marked for demolition before the Dec. 31 deadline.

“We're exceedingly pleased with the program,” Conyac said.

Participation is strictly voluntary. The only cost to the property owner is $100 collected when an application is filed.

Once the application is filed a qualified professional demolition inspector examines the property to determine if it qualifies for demolition through the program.

The criteria for demolition is if the property can be renovated into a safe and habitable building for $17,000 or less. If it can be, it won't be demolished, and the $100 fee is returned to the owner. However, if it passes inspection for demolishing, the $100 is the only cost assessed to the owner.

Conyac said that demolition can be expensive, especially if asbestos removal is involved, so the program has been an economical way for an owner to be rid of a decrepit building.

Each approved project is put out for bid. Some of the buildings have been leveled by companies outside the area, but the greatest percentage have been done by local companies.

“It's generated a lot of business for local companies,” Conyac said.

Owners are allowed to salvage anything from the building they would like to keep. In some cases the owners have let others in the community also take items to reuse. Items such as tin ceilings, doors, woodwork, even siding, have been salvaged.

Plants and trees also can be dug up and removed for replanting. One local man has transplanted about 20 trees from properties slated for demolition, she said.

When the job is finished, the property must be cleared, leveled and grass seed scattered, suitable for mowing.

As city manager, Conyac has signed a permit for a home and garage to be built on one of the cleared properties, and heard that a business property owner plans to put a building on another. There likely will be more to come.

By Judy Sherard, Hays Daily News - October 6, 2005