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Archive for the 'Kevin Sutherland' Tag

O’BRIEN REMAINS PATRIARCH OF BLIGHT

August 31st, 2011, 12:34 pm by

Months after being warned to accelerate the pace of repairs, Joseph O'Brien has had 15 windows installed and some paint applied to the house at 715 N. 24th St. But Ken Lewis, city code enforcement administrator, said he hasn't done enough.

Kevin Sutherland is learning an expensive lesson about property rights in Colorado Springs. 

Because Joseph O’Brien has exercised his right to let his house sit and rot since it was condemned in 1973, Sutherland now finds it impossible to sell his own west-side cottage and move into a larger place as he and his wife await the birth of their first child. 

“It is becoming a nightmare,” Sutherland said. 

It’s a recurring nightmare, actually, for generations of neighbors of the O’Brien house at 715 N. 24th St., north of West Unitah Street. 

O’Brien reigns as the patriarch of blight in the Springs, having presided over the decay of his family home, built in 1905. It is the longest condemned house in the city. By far. Did I mention 1973? 

It’s hard to explain how it’s been ignored for so long. 

Warped, stained plywood still covers much of the house, awaiting windows, siding and paint. Weeds and brush surround the condemned house. Neighbors are sick of waiting and say they can’t sell their houses because of the cancerous O’Brien property.

 

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Neighbors say Joseph O'Brien's rotting family home at 715 N. 24th St. is a shameful eyesore. Doors remain boarded up. Piles of dirt remain to be backfilled against the foundation. The front porch and stairs have been missing for decades.

Neighbors have complained about it for decades. It was the subject of the very first Side Streets column on July 18, 2002, and several since. 

Code enforcement officers have served their entire careers and retired with the O’Brien file still active. 

It was “Exhibit A” when the City Council enacted a blight ordinance in 2006. 

Still it sits. 

Weeds and small trees grow tall amid scaffolding that has rusted in place. 

Bare, warped plywood, stained from years of exposure to sun and rain, surrounds the house. 

The very first Side Streets, on July 18, 2002, featured the Joseph O'Brien house as one of the worst in the city. Little has changed, even though the house helped inspire the City Council to pass a blight ordinance in 2006.

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Neighbor Kevin Sutherland lives across the street and has this view of the condemned O'Brien house. Sutherland tried for months to sell his house but he said prospective buyers were scared off by the O'Brien house. This photo was taken in November 2010.

 Worse, another O’Brien-owned rental house next door is deteriorating, too. 

Sutherland said every prospective buyer for his tidy little house across the street walked away when told the story of the O’Brien place.

“As a homeowner, I want answers,” Sutherland said. “It’s hurting us. The property is an eyesore. 

“What has happened to all the gusto city officials had to go after these blight kings?” 

The gusto remains, said Ken Lewis, city code enforcement administrator. But enforcing the blight ordinance is tricky, requiring slow, deliberate steps. 

This house, at 705 N. 24th St., is one of 10 properties owned by Joseph O'Brien, heir to the O'Brien Printing Co. on Colorado Springs' west side. It sits next door to another O'Brien property that has been condemned since 1973. It's starting to show signs of serious decay.

And O’Brien has remained out of reach by doing just enough to the house to prevent code enforcers from taking possession of the property. 

“Since we came down on him, he has put in 15 windows,” Lewis said. “He’s painted some of it. Actually, he’s done more in the last few months than he’s done in 10 years.” 

But Lewis said it’s still not good enough and he’s poised to issue a summons against O’Brien and start assessing fines under the dilapidated building code. 

“He needs to step it up,” Lewis said. “At this rate, it’s going to take him 10 years.” 

Lewis wants the weeds mowed, mounds of dirt backfilled against the foundation, the house painted, doors, windows and a porch installed. 

That sounds good, but I can’t help wondering if the Sutherland’s baby will grow up, get married move away before the O’Brien house is ever finished.

Follow this link to a November 2010 blog I wrote about the O’Brien house.

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JOSEPH O’BRIEN: BARON OF BLIGHT IN COLORADO SPRINGS

November 10th, 2010, 11:30 am by

How would you like to live across the street from this house?  

Joseph O'Brien's family home at 715 N. 24th St. has been condemned since 1973. Neighbors are sick of looking at it and suffering depressed property values due to it.

This house at 715 N. 24th St., on the corner of Dale Street on Colorado Springs‘ west side is owned by Joseph O’Brien of O’Brien Printing. It has been sitting and rotting since it was condemned since 1973.  

  

You read that correctly. The house was condemned when Richard Nixon was still in the White House. It has been a blight on the neighborhood ever since. That’s 37 years and counting.  

It was built in 1905 by O’Brien’s grandmother. His son, Glen, has promised the city repeatedly to repair the house. And he has done considerable work, at times, on the structure.  

In this photo, you can see the concrete basement he poured after jacking the structure up. Then he built a large addition on the back with the long, slanting roof that overhangs the original peak of the house.  

  

You can also see, through the shoulder-high weeds, the rusting scaffolding that has stood for a decade or more since activity lurched to a halt.  

For the past three years, neighbor Kevin Sutherland has had a front-porch view of the mess. He’s called the city, like many neighbors, wondering why something isn’t done to enforce the city’s 2006 blight ordinance and require O’Brien to repair the house.   

  

The south side of the house is not much different. A hand-built ladder leans against the wall.  

  

Inside the house, Glen O’Brien has amassed building materials such as doors and wood for his project. But mostly they’ve just sat, gathering dust. O’Brien did upgrade the electrical service to the house. But much more work remains.  

In 2005, the O’Brien house became “exhibit A” in efforts to get a blight ordinance written into city codes. Those efforts finally succeeded in 2006. 

 But Ken Lewis, code enforcement administrator, said he’s been frustrated in his efforts to get the courts to take seriously the criminal summons his officers write for blight violations. 

 

Lewis vows the O’Brien house is going to be repaired now, or else. He has given O’Brien until Friday to start actively repairing it or face a summons, fine and more aggressive action. 

The O’Briens are an old Colorado Springs family. Joseph O’Brien’s father,  William P. O’Brien, operated O’Brien Typesetting and Printing and amassed many properties in the city. 

His holdings included a 10-acre parcel he bought in 1962 on South 21st Street now known as the Gold Hill Mesa subdivision.

 The property included the old Golden Cycle Mill office building, the mill smokestack – a westside landmark – and a crusher building. 

The printing business is on 19th Street, not far from Uintah Gardens Shopping Center. It has suffered the same fate at the house on 24th Street. It is overgrown with weeds and its 10 acres or so includes a collection of junk cars and other things. 

   

If this house sounds familiar, you are a longtime Side Streets reader.

In fact, I featured this house in my very first Side Streets column on July 18, 2002. And I wrote about it again in 2006 as pressure mounted on the city to combat blight in neighborhoods.

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