Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 12, 1994 TAG: 9406140081
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MICHAEL STOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The front door and first-floor windows of the brick structure are boarded up and hidden by plywood. Only jagged glass is left along the edges of the broken windows upstairs. A tattered couch sits on the front porch.
Empty, rundown structures like this aren't uncommon to this section of the Gainsboro neighborhood, but the house at 315 Harrison is different from the others.
It belongs to the U.S. government, which, much to the dismay of neighbors and federal officials, has been unable to get rid of it.
Now, after watching the house sit empty for three years, both groups agree that the best solution might be to donate the property to a neighborhood group that will renovate it.
But first they have to sit down together and figure out how to do that.
The house at 315 Harrison sits at the road fork of Fairfax Street and is visible from the front door of the Gainsboro Neighborhood Development Corp. at 304 Fairfax St. It is one of six properties that federal authorities seized after convicted drug dealer Wallace Fisher violated a bond agreement in 1990.
The government allowed loanholders to foreclose on half of those properties, but the three at 315 Harrison Ave., 1126 Gilmer Ave. and 308 12th St. are still government property and still empty.
The house at 315 Harrison, which is surrounded by several modest, well-kept homes, appears from the outside to be in better shape than the other two properties.
But neighbors of the property say they are tired of watching the structure deteriorate.
"It's amazing to me that the government can own a house sitting right here in the middle of the street, and they don't even cut the grass," said the Rev. Carl Tinsley, president of the Gainsboro Neighborhood Development Corp. "It takes away from the community."
Longtime Gainsboro resident Ethel Avery lives at 317 Harrison and has to look at the rundown property next door every time she walks out on her front porch.
"Oh, it's just awful," she said. "We've even seen rats over there."
That's not to say Avery isn't thankful that federal authorities seized the house. She just wants them to maintain it, sell it or tear it down.
"There used to be drug dealers all around there," she said. "I'd rather see it empty than see that."
Federal officials aren't happy that they still own any of the properties taken from Fisher and would like nothing better than to get rid of them, said Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal George Sterling.
Only they can't find a buyer because Fisher, who is still serving a seven-year prison sentence, accumulated thousands of dollars in liens against the property that a new owner would have to assume.
The amount of the liens is roughly equal to the value of the three properties, Sterling said.
According to the last available tax records in 1990, the land and property on Harrison Avenue was assessed at $8,200. The Gilmer Avenue property and its rundown frame house were assessed at $4,000.
"Five and Ten Club, Members Only" reads the sign on the concrete building at 308 12th St. that Fisher once owned. It was assessed at $30,000 in 1990.
A title search done on the three properties revealed that liens totaling about $13,000 are held by a variety of entities, including Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone, Community Hospital of the Roanoke Valley and the city of Roanoke.
So why would the federal government seize a worthless piece of property?
Steve Sikkema, a deputy U.S. marshal in charge of asset seizure, said federal officials didn't realize there were liens against the property until after they had control.
When a defendant puts up property as part of a bond agreement, the judge usually simply asks about the lien status of the property and no formal title search is done.
In this case, the feds were burned, and now they are stuck with the three properties.
The properties were advertised for sale last year. Sikkema thought he had a buyer, but the deal fell through after the person learned about the liens.
"We can't get rid of it," the deputy marshal said.
Tinsley said the Gainsboro Redevelopment Corp. would like to renovate all of the properties or at least the one on Harrison Avenue into new homes, but the nonprofit organization can't afford to buy them.
"If the government can donate them, then we can apply for some grant money to revamp," he said. "It would be a good chance for them to do something positive for the community."
Sikkema said he has approached neighborhood groups about purchasing the properties but hadn't thought much about donating them.
The deputy said donating the property to the Gainsboro group or Habitat for Humanity sounds like a good idea, but right now the Justice Department doesn't have the authority to do it.
The federal Weed and Seed program allows the government to give properties seized during drug busts back to the community, but that practice doesn't apply here because Fisher's properties were taken after he violated bond.
But a new program is in the works that might make it possible, Sikkema said.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development does have the authority to donate and renovate properties, and Sikkema said federal authorities are developing a way to transfer property from one federal department to another.
Rich Lloret, an assistant U.S. attorney who deals with federal seizures, said he couldn't speak for U.S. Attorney Bob Crouch, but he believed that Fisher's former properties sound like good candidates to be given back to the community.
Two important things must happen before that can be done: Federal authorities have to convince the lienholders to drop their claims against the property; and federal officials have to sit down with members of Gainsboro Development.
"I hope something good happens," said U.S. District Court Clerk Morgan Scott, a former prosecutor who petitioned to have the land taken from Fisher. "It's a shame to have that property and not do anything with it."
by CNB