Jeannette leaders say they have a plan to address blighted properties
There are about 19 blighted buildings that Jeannette is looking to demolish. The city wants to bring those buildings down because they're a public nuisance, officials said.
Driving around Jeannette, you can see some properties and buildings that need some work, but then there are properties that are condemned with roofs caving in, windows boarded up and warning signs on the doors.
Those are the properties that the city says must go. Jeannette Mayor Curtis Antoniak says these buildings are dangerous.
"We once had a population of over 17,000 people. Now, we are a little bit over 9,000 people," Antoniak said. "You are going to have empty buildings with rodents. People go in and sleep in them. They are drug havens for drug addicts, and it is very unsafe."
Jeannette City Manager Ethan Keedy says that Westmoreland County received over $10 million from the federal government's American Rescue Plan and has put that money into the Westmoreland County Land Bank to deal with issues like blighted homes.
Keedy also said that while there was a demolition hearing last week and a few landlords said they may appeal demolition orders, he expects many of the buildings to come down next year.
"These are properties that don't currently have anybody living in them," Keedy said. "They don't have a suitable property manager that is rehabbing them and doing the yearly maintenance on them. They are just becoming more and more dilapidated. And now that the county has those necessary resources to demolish those structures, we are trying to make sure we get most of them down in the time frame that we have."
Now the city says that if there are no challenges to the demolitions from property owners, demolitions on properties could start as soon as six months from now.