Alt headline- Absentee owners, Gov't policies undermining places though disinvestment and encouraging the spreading out of the region kills St. Louis firefighter.
StlToday - ‘It should have been torn down’: House that killed St. Louis firefighter had history of neglect
The city demolished the house on Cote Brilliante Avenue on Friday, empty for two decades.
It was a day late.
On Thursday, the home caught fire and collapsed with a St. Louis firefighter inside, killing him. Benjamin Polson, 33, was the first on the force to die fighting a fire in two decades.
All indications are the 126-year-old brick home should have been demolished long ago, or at least made it onto the city’s demolition list, officials agree. City inspectors visited the property dozens of times, levied more than $4,000 in vacant building and board-up fees and, finally, three years ago, condemned it.
But St. Louis has 10,000 vacant properties, dotting block after block in north St. Louis and has demolished fewer than 2,000 over the past five years. And that leaves those still standing an ever-present danger for first responders — who can never assume “vacant” means no one’s inside.
“You can dot your I’s and cross your T’s, and at the end of the day, there still can be tragedy,” said fire Capt. Garon Mosby, a department spokesman.
Officials have wrestled with empty buildings, especially on St. Louis’ north side, for decades. On one hand, the 100-year-old brick manors represent the history of the city itself, and officials fight to keep them standing. On the other, police say the houses harbor drug use, prostitution and crime. They’re magnets for the homeless trying to stay warm. And the city often gets stuck boarding windows, cutting grass and catching vermin.
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Stl Public Radio -Effort underway to return partisan elections in St. Louis
Board honors firefighter killed by roof collapse
The board on Friday honored firefighter Benjamin Polson, who was killed Thursday when the roof of a burning vacant building in the Wells-Goodfellow neighborhood collapsed.
Aldermen also called it proof the city needs to take several public safety issues more seriously.
St. Louis firefighters gather after getting the news that one of their own was killed and another injured while fighting a fire in a vacant building in the Wells-Goodfellow neighborhood on Thursday.
“A building that doesn’t have gas, and doesn’t have electric and sets itself on fire, tells me that homeless people” were in there,” said 23rd Ward Alderman Joe Vaccaro. “These buildings are being used nightly as shelters. If we don’t address the homeless problem, buildings will continue to burn where they’re most vacant, which happens to be mostly north, and firefighters will continue to be put at risk.”The single-family home at 5971 Cote Brilliante has been vacant since at least 2004. It was condemned for occupancy in 2007, a status that was later lifted. The city on Thursday issued an emergency condemnation order.
The city’s building division is more than capable of tracking vacant buildings that need to be boarded up or demolished, said Alderwoman Marlene Davis of the 19th Ward. The aldermen, she said, need to stay out of the process.
“We have to get out of the way and get this work done, and most definitely appropriate more money,” she said. “It’s not just the fire, it’s everything else, all the crime that comes with that.”
Two other firefighters who were injured in the collapse were treated at the hospital and released.
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