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Philadelphia's City Controller: Abandoned Property Poses Public Safety Threat

By Pat Loeb

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Philadelphia's City Controller is calling for the demolition of more than 100 vacant buildings that he says create a public safety hazard.

Controller Alan Butkovitz says he reviewed Licenses and Inspections records on more than 1,200 vacant properties and found, together, they'd accumulated some 2,300 citations that have gone unaddressed, from weeds and trash to collapsing structures. He says 101 were considered imminently dangerous, unsafe or hazardous.

"Each of these imminently hazardous properties, these hundred properties, are all a time bomb ready to go off," Butkovitz says, "and it is only by the grace of God that they don't go off on any particular day."

Butkovitz is revisiting a topic that he's covered several times, going back to 2006, when he recommended the Department of Licenses and Inspections add 52 new inspectors to enforce code violations. At the time, he estimated it would cost $3-million, and though he expects the cost may have gone up, he says there's nothing more important to spend money on.

"The most critical city government functions are those that deal with life and safety," he says, "and if they do not enforce the basic safety requirements on building construction and demolition, people die."

Butkovitz called for immediate demolition of the properties deemed hazardous

"Most of these properties have adjacent properties," he says. They have people walking by them, there are lives at risk and it's the reason the city regulations authorize demolition first and billing of the owner later."

Butkovitz says L&I has started the process for some buildings since it got his report but still needs to increase its staff and budget.

The L&I commissioner, Carlton Williams, did not respond to requests for comment.

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