Oak Ridge Today

City buys, demolishes blighted home in Woodland

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South Purdue Avenue Home Demolition

A work crew demolishes a blighted home on South Purdue Avenue in Woodland on Thursday. (Photos courtesy City of Oak Ridge/Matt Widner)

 

The city of Oak Ridge bought a blighted home at the corner of Northwestern and South Purdue avenues in April and demolished it on Thursday, June 26.

“It was in really bad shape,” Oak Ridge Community Development Director Kathryn Baldwin said. “This one was past saving.”

The home, which had been vacant, was extremely contaminated and dirty inside, and there were problems with every system in the small, single-story house, including the electrical and heating and cooling systems, said Matt Widner, Oak Ridge Community Development housing specialist. The ceilings were collapsing.

“It was a mess,” Widner said.

The straw-covered quarter-acre lot is now vacant. Before the demolition, a yard sign said the project was “Turning Blight into Right.” [Read more…]

Council approves expansion of residential rental inspection district

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Rental Property in Manhattan District Overlay

Rental properties in the Manhattan District Overlay could be registered and regularly inspected under a proposal unanimously approved in the first of two readings by the Oak Ridge City Council on Monday. The rental properties are pictured in red above. (Image courtesy of Oak Ridge city staff)

The ordinance was already on the books, and on Monday, city officials agreed to expand the area where inspections of rental homes are allowed to include most of the center of the city.

The expanded residential inspection district, which had originally applied to the Highland View Redevelopment Area, could include about 1,700 rental units.

The Oak Ridge City Council unanimously endorsed the expansion during a Monday night meeting. [Read more…]

Council considers electronic signs, land bank, rental inspections

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Oak Ridge City Council

The Oak Ridge City Council on Monday will consider new regulations for electronic signs, expanding the city’s residential rental inspection district, and creating the first-ever land bank in Tennessee.

Oak Ridge officials could prohibit animated electronic signs, expand the city’s residential rental inspection district to include about 1,700 homes, and officially set up an Oak Ridge Land Bank Corp. during a Monday night meeting.

The Oak Ridge City Council will also consider approving contracts with economic development consultant Ray Evans and state lobbyist Bill Nolan, and terminating the lease on the building that once housed the Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic on Badger Road. Now partially empty, the split-level two-story building still houses the Oak Ridge Civic Music Association, and city officials said they haven’t decided what to do with it yet.

The Monday night City Council meeting starts at 7 p.m. in the Oak Ridge Municipal Building Courtroom. [Read more…]