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Show wneis A&?ee House SIiobM Be Demolished Hy MARK I )T III KINCHAM NORTH SALT I.AKI-; -'I lie owners of a condemned house at 740 David Way have finally agreed with the city that the house should be demolished. de-molished. The question is "Who should have lo pay for it?" L'NITLI) Savings and Loan Association, the present owners own-ers of the house, are maintaining maintain-ing that since the city allowed the house lo be built in the first place, they should help with the cost of tearing il down. In a recent letter to NSI. Mayor Robert I'al mquist , US&L President John (iod-dard (iod-dard accused the city's building build-ing inspector (supplied by the county) of "gioss negligence" in allowing the house to pass building inspections during construction. "AFTER reviewing the reports re-ports of several civil and structural struc-tural engineers, it is our conclusion con-clusion that the house must be demolished," wrote Mr. (iod-dard. (iod-dard. "hach of three reports stipulated the house was not structuially sound because the footings were not on solid ground." The letter continued by saying that the city's inspection inspec-tion reports indicated that the footings had been examined during construction and found to be satislactory. "It is our opinion that your inspector is guilty of gross negligence in this regard and NSL could be liable." THE OW NERS now believe that construction quality was so inferior that the building inspectors in-spectors should not have allowed construction to proceed. pro-ceed. Having acquired the house when the original owner-builder owner-builder defaulted on his mortgage mort-gage payments. L'S&L has asked the city for "Some assistance" with the demolition demoli-tion to minimize their "rather substantial" financial loss. -IT SEEMS hardly fair we should bear the entire burden of the loss, w hen il could hav e been circumvented by competent compe-tent inspectors rendering qualified qual-ified inspection reports, for which the city was paid a fee to peiloim," said Mr. (ioddard. Responding to the letter, NSI. CM y Attorney Mike McCoy iclused to acknowledge acknow-ledge any city liability for the condition of the house, or any responsibility to help pay for demolition. MR. McCOY stated thai building inspections were a "discretionary function of government" and because of the Government Immunity Act, the city would not likely be held liable for doing one. He recommended the city respond to the L'S&L letter with another letter that said the owner's still had the responsibility responsi-bility to remove the house, and their liability was growing ev ery day that the house remained re-mained standing, since it had become a safety hazard. MR. McCOY said the city would have two options if US&L refused to knock the house down. "Under the Abatement of Dangerous Buildings Code, we could tear it down ourselves and bill the owners. The problem would be in getting our money back," he said. The other choice would be to try forcing US&L to demolish demol-ish the house by going to court . That choice, however, would likely take a long time to complete. com-plete. Mr. McCoy called this the "safer way" since liabilities liabili-ties would be determined before be-fore the house was removed. |