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ALBANY – South End resident Charles Moore Jr. remembers a time when everyone kept their homes on Third Avenue neat and clean, and children walked to school together.
It was a peaceful Albany neighborhood with homes inhabited by working families, recalled Moore, who has lived at 90 Third Ave., since 1955. Now the residential block is lined with boarded up homes, many affixed with 2-by-2-foot red placards marked with an X meant to warn firefighters, police and paramedics that the structures are unsafe.
“It looks like it’s a quarantine going on here,” Moore, 67, said. “The red ‘x’ thing, it’s a deterring sign to the eye.”
While the placard is meant to ensure firefighters will know at a glance that a building is probably too dangerous to enter, residents living amongst the vacant homes fear the eye-catching sign will deter future investors and further hold back improvements in already struggling neighborhoods.
“It’s so painful to even see it. I’ve got six where my home is,” said Albany County Legislator Lucille McKnight, who has lived at 79 Third Ave., since 1989. “From a residential point-of-view, you don’t want to live in a community that has a bunch of red X’s.”
The largest concentrations of the over 1,000 vacant buildings in Albany are within the South End, Arbor Hill and West Hill neighborhoods. In the South End, on Third Avenue, there are 27 vacant structures. On a longer stretch of road, Clinton Avenue – which runs from Ontario Street in West Hill to Ten Broeck Street in Arbor Hill – there are 100 dormant buildings, according to a city list of vacant buildings. Of the vacant buildings, 289 have been affixed with an X.
Last year, Albany decided to follow the lead of nearby Troy by physically marking dangerous buildings. Previously, the capital city relied solely on computer systems to inform dispatchers of building conditions. Troy has been putting the signs on buildings for five years.
A growing state and national standard, the specifics outlined for the placards prevents communities from changing the look of the posted notifications. State Fire Prevention and Code dictates unsafe buildings be posted with the placard, outlining the size, color and location of where it should be attached – to the side of buildings’ entrances.
By the numbers
The top five streets with the highest number of vacant buildings:
Clinton Avenue: 100
Second Street: 71
Third Street: 69
First Street: 60
Orange Street: 43
Total vacant buildings: 1,009
Total buildings placarded: 289
Source: City of Albany vacant building registry.
Since firefighters can’t always get into the interior of a building, a building may be marked with an X if there’s a cracked foundation or boarded up windows, Deputy Chief Joseph Toomey said.
“If they are seeing certain things that they feel might be dangerous to them, but they can’t do an interior inspection, they are going to err on the side of caution,” he said.
Toomey said if owners let firefighters do an interior inspection and no structural concern exist, the sign can be removed.
Local officials recognize the concern residents have about the vacant buildings in their communities, and want placarded buildings to help emphasize the need to fix up the properties.
“This places even more urgency around the work we have to do to get these red X’s off the building,” Mayor Kathy Sheehan said. “They are magnets for trouble, they are challenges in neighborhoods and a huge safety concern for our first responders. I couldn’t agree more with anybody who says we want them gone.”
The city is in the final stages of hiring a neighborhood stabilization coordinator, whose job will be to be on a “first name basis with every single one of the red X’s,” said Sheehan.
The coordinator will monitor and record vacant buildings. The coordinator will work closely with the residents, city officials and outside organizations to improve the city’s approach to tackling these structures. The position is funded by a $250,000 grant from the state Attorney General’s Office.
Albany also is launching a $1 million vacant building initiative, which will offer grants of up to $50,000 to homeowners and developers to purchase and rehabilitate vacant homes.
But the placards haven’t held back buyers from tackling the dilapidated buildings, said Adam Zaranko, executive director of the Albany County Land Bank, which helps put vacant and abandoned property back on the tax rolls by selecting responsible owners, are largely concentrated in the same Albany neighborhoods that have the most vacant properties.
“Across the board, we’ve seen increased interest,” Zaranko said, adding in February, the land bank authorized the sale of 15 vacant properties – from Albany to Berne, the most approvals the organization ever made in one month. “When we put a land bank sign in the window, we want that to symbolize forthcoming change.”
Albany resident Kiri Roberts late last year purchased 250 Clinton Ave., a vacant building affixed with an X, through the Land Bank. He plans to renovate the property to house his multimedia and computer training business as well as residential living.
“I saw that the building needed a lot of work, but I saw the potential,” he said. “I saw the character of building, a nice old building with high ceilings and big windows, and of course, the price was also good. It just made sense to me to be able to bring the business into this up and coming neighborhood.”
afries@timesunion.com • 518-454-5353 • @mandy_fries
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