At Fourth and Locust streets, where a former restaurant/apartment building once stood, the area has become a parking lot.
Shortly after the building was torn down several years ago by its owner David Doolittle, a curb was cut out and parking meter removed as an access area for the parking. At a council meeting, again a few years back, the meter was ordered replaced.
At Monday's council meeting, the borough took a major step that will return the area to a vacant lot. Council approved a motion to stop the lot from being used as a parking lot and also instructed its highway department to repair the curb on the Fourth Street side and lien the property for the cost of the repair.
4 comments:
Doolittle isn't the only one to blame even though he shares most of it. The Borough should have put safety nets in place to have something rebuilt before tearing this building down. The only thing this did was to move the human trash from one corner to another. And occasionaly provide a yard sale and free off street parking. Its heartbreaking to see buildings being torn down and left as empty spaces.Look at the old telephone building? Dreams cost money and any developer that comes into a town like Columbia should have a financial plan presented to Planning/Council. A plan needs to be developed to follow up on these projects for whatever reason have fallen through. I really don't believe we have what it takes to enforce the codes with the type of staffing this Borough has. If we have a zero tolerence policy most if not all outside slumlords would purchase elsewhere. Cheap properties bring exactly that....cheap looking properties.
JN.........
Council made a really poor decision here (surprise surprise). Since the #1 need and obstacle for growth and expansion in the Boro is the lack of parking, let's take a potential parking lot out of action and replace it with a meter. That'll help downtown grow. How about paving the lot properly, painting some lines and putting in a whole bunch of metered parking? That's what we need around here. (BTW, that's still the best option for the swimming hole downtown too--fill it in, pave it, paint some lines and put in meters)
Doolittle has done the same to all his building. Knock them down. Why doesn't he fix them up? I'm surprised the one on 3rd and walnut st is still standing.
Does Council really have the legal right to do this ?
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