BY JEFF CHUDZINSKINorth Country This Week

MASSENA — A public hearing will be held Oct. 15 at the beginning of the next Village Board of Trustees meeting as officials seek to remediate an unsafe structure.

Trustees say the former Woodlawn Hotel, located at 40-42 Woodlawn Ave., is a problem property that needs to be addressed.

Code Enforcement Officer Aaron Hardy said he issued an initial report detailing the structure’s integrity and condition, prompting him to recommend the board take action on the property.

He recently said the structure has been on his radar multiple times in recent months.

The structure, which has been boarded up in the past, has had water issues for some time, he said.

Along with those issues, the village also is forced to utilize a contractor to maintain the yard of the property. Those bills are then passed on to the owner, who then pays them on their tax bill, officials said. 

Just what prompted the review and public hearing? Hardy said he received a call from the company that mows the property, requesting he assess the structure. 

Hardy said he received a call, saying he “had to come take a look at the side of the building.”

Upon review, Hardy said the structure “hit pretty much every single” requirement to be legally deemed an unsafe structure.

Broken doors, windows and significant structural issues persist, he said.

Hardy submitted photographs to the village board for their review.

“The structural issues are my biggest concern. If you look at the opening on that one corner of the building, you can see weather rot. You can see the structural members starting to collapse floor by floor on that thing,” Hardy said.

Hardy said the public hearing will allow the village to determine what to do with the property by either requiring it be secured or even removed.

“Just looking at it, from what I’m seeing so far really being inside of it, I don’t think anybody should be going inside of that. Maybe even trying to secure it would cost way too much money to try to do anything other than tear this thing down,” he said.

Like many other structures, Hardy said the property is owned by an absentee landlord, this time one from Flushing, Queens. Prior to that, the previous owner was from Amsterdam, New York, Hardy confirmed. 

“We’ve had zero communication. We have nothing,” Hardy said.

But the list of properties to be addressed won’t end there. Hardy said another structure is very likely going to be addressed at the October meeting, along with the Woodlawn property. 

“I can tell you that there’s a very good chance we’re going to have another one of these to discuss with you next month,” Hardy said.

Trustees have already taken action on 18 Park Ave., 31 and 33 Pine St., along with 21 Tamarack St., all of which were deemed unsafe structures that were not fit for habitation by humans. 

Violations have piled up for each property , with 18 Park Ave. proving troublesome for residents, code enforcement and law enforcement alike.

In the case of the Pine St. structures, they were deemed to pose a risk to pedestrians and neighboring properties, according to Code Enforcement Officer Walter Bean. 

Hardy also commented on the Tamarack St. structure, saying it had multiple code violations that, if left unanswered, would give Hardy’s office the authority to address the issues at the property.

“I think this is the right way forward with it. Once we get it cleaned up, we may have to come back in a month or two to establish an emergency and board it up for an unsafe structure. But, we need to be able to really see this whole property from top to bottom,” Hardy said.