WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) – Piles of dirt and construction debris. One Watertown City Council Member says an area on Clinton Street has looked like this for way too long.
What’s being done to clean it up?
Construction equipment works on the top of a high dirt pile at the former Medical Arts Building on Clinton Street in Watertown. With it, are overgrown shrubs and piles of construction material.
“If this was a regular property that was out of compliance, it would have been forced to clean up by now. And if the property owner didn’t take action, then the city would have done it on their own,” said Council Member Ben Shoen.
Shoen argues the city isn’t viewing this as a “regular property.”
It’s owned by local developer Mike Lundy, who says he’s working on cleaning it up.
Lundy says the site was used for staging while an addition was built onto Watertown Savings Bank. He told this to Watertown City Manager Eric Wagenaar during a phone call, who didn’t take issue with it.
“Like any citizen or any resident, or any developer, we’re going to work with them. We want developers to work with us and work within the city to make improvements,” said Wagenaar.
With the project complete, and residents expressing concern, Wagenaar says codes will be stepping in.
“I said give us 10 or 15 days and we’ll see what happens. We’re at the end of that time frame now. So I asked my codes department to go over and take a look and see what’s going on. The inspection is ongoing,” said Wagenaar.
Still, Council Member Shoen says every property owner should be treated the same. He says residents are typically given 48 hours to clean up trash before the city takes care of it.
“I would assume that if they’re going to take care of it you’d have dump trucks taking the debris out of here. I haven’t seen it yet,” said Shoen.
Lundy agrees the site needs cleaning up but maintains there’s nothing in the city code that prohibits him from storing the dirt there. He says when he knocks down a one-story portion of the building on that property, he plans to use the dirt to fill in the cellar beneath it.
Wagenaar says any code violations found will mean a violation letter sent to Lundy.
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