By By JONATHAN CLAYBORNE
Staff Writer
Editor’s note: The following article begins an occasional series on building and housing conditions in Beaufort County.
On Saturday this past Valentine’s Day weekend, children could be seen sledding down one sloping, snow-covered side of a piece of land intended to be the home of Love, Faith &Victory Church.
Condemned by the City of Washington about nine months ago, city officials said, the shell of a structure there is not surrounded by protective fences. City police have been asked to keep an eye on the shell, but patrol officers can’t be on hand at all times. Not long ago, a woman was seen walking her dog underneath the condemned shelter.
Two small pine trees have sprouted in the gutters of the frame, which stands off Third Street on a weedy pile of dirt.
Trash piles — cans, bags, bottles — have been left behind a metal outbuilding at the edge of an adjacent parking lot overgrown with weeds.
A for-sale sign is posted near the street, advertising commercial property.
The would-be roof of Love, Faith &Victory has been in place for more than 10 years, said Clarence Gray, code-enforcement officer with the city.
According to tax records, the 2.06-acre lot, last appraised March 24, 2009, has a tax value of $220,579, including land and buildings.
Asked what the city is doing about securing the property, Gray said the church’s pastor, Rev. Alonzo St. Clair, had demolition permits and was supposed to start work to take the structure down.
The city also expected St. Clair to post keep-out signs around the shell, Gray related.
Reached by telephone, St. Clair’s wife, Catherine St. Clair, said the city posted a condemnation sign because it felt the dirt on which the shell rests is unstable.
“They said that they thought the dirt might come down,” she said. “They say it’s a possibility.”
St. Clair disagrees.
“You’ve got 650 loads of sand out there,” she stated. “It’s hard, like cement.”
The property is owned by Love, Faith &Victory, which meets in a building on West Fifth Street, St. Clair said.
St. Clair indicated the church might wish to build under the shell at some point.
“Suppose we don’t want to take it down?” she asked of the shell. “Suppose we want to build there?”
St. Clair said that, like city officials, she is concerned about public-safety issues related to the skeleton of a building.
“I’m very much concerned,” she said. “And the police know that, too, and they are supposed to keep those skateboarders away, but they don’t.”
St. Clair said she and her husband have placed keep-out signs on the lot a number of times, but “they mysteriously get gone.”
History
The Love, Faith &Victory story is an old one to Washington residents and city officials, some of whom have been negotiating its fate for years.
First elected to the Washington City Council in 1989, Judy Meier Jennette served two two-year terms as mayor before being succeeded by Archie Jennings last year.
Jennette said she met with the St. Clairs shortly after she was elected mayor for the first time, more than four years ago.
“I think in their heart they believe they are going to build a church there,” she said. “After a long discussion, they agreed they would put it on the market.”
Jennette said she asked the city manager to estimate the costs of moving the shell so it could be used as a shelter at the city-owned Warren Field Airport or the Seventh Street Recreation Center.
The city concluded those moves wouldn’t be cost-effective, she noted.
“I think the ideal thing would be if the St. Clairs could sell the property and they could go build their church where they could reasonably do it,” she added.
The downturn in the real-estate market presents an obstacle to selling the property, Jennette pointed out.
Another issue that could be blocking progress is that the church doesn’t have clear title to the property, Jennette related.
A check of records at the register of deeds’ office failed to verify who has clear title to the site. Love, Faith &Victory did convey a strip of land to the city through an easement for a sidewalk at one point, and tax records show a deed-transfer date of Oct. 29, 1993.
Title aside, the city has made it clear that it wants something done about the shell after years of apparent inaction.
“I was a little frustrated when I saw the condemnation sign go up,” Jennette acknowledged. “I thought, ‘Why hadn’t they done that before?’”
Complaints
Current city officials are getting complaints about dilapidated properties citywide, and City Manager James C. Smith wants to make sure his inspectors become better armed to address those complaints.
Smith said at least 12 to 15 properties in violation of city codes had been referred to Gray, the code-enforcement officer.
Of those properties, around half — some abandoned, some not — have been secured from trespassers or brought into compliance, Smith said.
“Clarence has been making a real effort,” he said.
Yet, Smith acknowledged that some city regulations need to be updated to give officials more enforcement tools and speed up the process.
“The codes just haven’t been helpful in allowing us to force the owners to do something,” he said.
The city needs a more comprehensive property-maintenance code “with some teeth in it,” Smith said, adding that the city’s Planning Board is preparing to recommend that council members move in that direction.
“There are certainly some owner-occupied structures that need repair, and there are certainly some unoccupied structures that have never been rental units that need repair,” the city manager continued. “Most of the violations are either more minor violations in renter-occupied structures or significant violations in unoccupied structures.”
Smith said a violating unoccupied building is one that harbors vermin, is structurally compromised or is accessible to trespassers — say, through a broken window or a missing door.
Smith acknowledged the city has been working with the St. Clairs to secure the Love, Faith &Victory site while pursuing unrelated code violations at other spots.
One offending property — a long-empty, two-story house with peeling white paint — is located behind a tattoo parlor near the corner of Bridge and Second streets.
“The city’s been pursuing that as a demolition-by-neglect case,” Smith said. “We filed the papers to take the owner to court and he decided rather than to secure or repair the property that he would simply give it to the city.”
The house, situated in the city’s historic district, was the subject of an architectural study that determined it could be repaired, according to Smith.
The city has been applying for funds through the state as part of a plan to convey the house to someone who could rehabilitate it to its historic character, he said.
Efforts to bring properties like the Second Street house into compliance “have dragged on much too long,” Smith said, adding that’s why the codes need to be updated.
Asked whether these code updates could prove controversial, Smith replied by saying, “Sure, for a few folks that aren’t maintaining their property, but where there are buildings that are occupied by the owners and they’re very low income or seniors, we certainly will work with the owners.”
The city gets housing-rehabilitation money through the state-distributed Community Development Block Grant program, Smith noted.
CDBGs are often used to help low-income homeowners fix up their houses, he said, adding, “For a landlord who fails to maintain their property in a safe condition, we have a lot less sympathy.”