by Bill McBride on 8/17/2014 10:59:00 AM

We had hoped that with these settlements we could bring down the number of never-to-be-lived-in houses, said Jim Rokakis, director of the Thriving Communities Institute, a program of the nonprofit Western Reserve Land Conservancy that works to take over and repurpose vacant properties in the Cleveland area. Vacancy rates are 15 percent or higher, all as a result of the crisis. Now its a matter of burying the dead.

Mr. Rokakiss organization also works with 22 county land banks throughout the state, nonprofit entities that take over distressed properties and sell them for nominal amounts to people who will rebuild on them or, more commonly, turn them into gardens or community spaces.

Studies show that bulldozing distressed properties reduces foreclosure rates in the surrounding neighborhoods and can improve the values of nearby homes. An analysis conducted for the Western Reserve Land Conservancy found that demolishing 6,000 homes in and around Cleveland between 2009 and 2013 helped slow the fall in property values, generating a net benefit in retained property values of $1.40 for every dollar spent on demolition. In January 2009, I proposed adding a demolition plan to the stimulus package. This would have helped remove blight from many areas, and would have employed many idled construction workers. I think this was a small missed opportunity.

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Demolition as Stimulus

Deck Demolition Part 1 - GoPro Time Lapse
It was time to take the deck out so me and Carie turned on the GoPro Hero 3+ Black and went to work. The GoPro stopped taking images for some reason after 1740 of them. Had plenty of battery...

By: Billy Madrid

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Deck Demolition Part 1 - GoPro Time Lapse - Video

A small section of the demolition industry has been dumping earthquake waste illegally and giving the industry a bad name, Environment Canterbury (ECan) says.

A review by The Press of offences since the February 2011 earthquake shows a raft of demolition contractors have been prosecuted by ECan for offences including burning, burying and dumping earthquake waste illegally.

Earthquake waste can include hazardous material such as asbestos, arsenic and other toxins.

Nearly a dozen directors and/or companies have been fined about $300,000 by ECan and the courts for offences against the Resource Management Act since February 2011.

ECan has also served a number of abatement notices and investigations are continuing.

In one of worst examples brought to light by the prosecutions, 5000 cubic metres of earthquake demolition waste was used to form a half-metre-deep farm track about 1000 metres long and 10m wide on Coutts Island Holdings land.

It was delivered to the site by Canterbury Greenwaste Processors.

The waste had not been screened for contaminants and contained asbestos from several inner-city buildings.

The farm property is on land adjacent to the Otukaikino Stream, which runs into the Waimakariri River.

In July, Judge Jane Borthwick warned of an "emerging trend" of illegal disposal by contractors when fining Tom Thumb Ltd shareholder Aaron Cooper $33,750 for burying 30 truckloads of earthquake demolition material.

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Fines for illegal disposal of debris

By: Melissa Randall mrandall@abc6.com

Demolition crews at Warwicks Rocky Point have some catching up to do. They lost 4 days making repairs to vandalized equipment. Friday morning shards of glass from the smashed windows still covered the ground.

Must have been, maybe kids trying to have a good time. Some sort of twisted good time though, said Mike Garofalo, Supervisor of HK&S.

Garofalo discovered the damage Tuesday morning. He says 8 of the 11 trucks had the glass windows smashed, a trailer was broken into, and items were stolen. The timing puts the men between a rock and a hard place.

We are on a tight time line. 75 days total for the project and we're creeping up on it September 8th so it was very, very frustrating to come in and see that kind of damage when we are trying to accelerate schedules as fast as we are, he said.

While a portion of the walking path down by the water is open to the public the construction site is owned by the state and is off limits. The area is patrolled by both DEM and local police. It is also surrounded by chain link fence. Even still the spot is prone to mischievous behavior.

Police were called to the site and a report was taken. They said the damage appears to be malicious. Officers dusted for finger prints. The investigation is ongoing.

You're really hurting the city of Warwick to be honest with you. Because this is there project basically and their place to enjoy when it's done so you're hurting everybody not just us, said Garofalo.

DEM calls the incident an unfortunate, yet minor setback. Demolition crews say they are doing everything they can to keep with their deadline. The official grand reopening of rocky point is still planned for sometime next month.

WLNE-TV 2014

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Demolition equipment at Rocky Point vandalized

Billings Public Library Director Bill Cochran is laying 50-50 odds that the parking lot will indeed be constructed on the site of the old Parmly Billings Library before cold temperatures this fall preclude the laying of asphalt.

Removing asbestos from the building is expected to take about two more weeks, he said on Friday. That work will be immediately followed by a Department of Environmental Quality inspection, after which construction work on the parking lot which was originally scheduled to open this summer can begin.

Im cautiously optimistic this time that we will see the start of the (demolition) work the week after next, he said.

Last Monday, the Billings City Council unanimously approved an emergency demolition order for the old building, at 510 N. Broadway. The order calls for the demolition to occur ASAP or as soon after is possible after all environmental impacts have been remediated from the building.

At the same time, the council approved a payment of about $404,000 to Safetech, the citys asbestos abatement contractor, to complete the removal of asbestos before demolition work can proceed. Payment to Safetech for this required work, Cochran wrote in a memorandum to council members, does not constitute acknowledgement by the City that all or any of these costs are the responsibility of the City and reimbursement will be pursued with the responsible parties.

Before the demolition work can resume, debris that fell into the buildings basement must be removed. After that, a vacuum truck will be brought in to clean out the basement.

Then, after the DEQ inspection indicates the site is asbestos-free, the demolition can begin.

The demolition work will proceed faster than it did this spring, Cochran said, because asbestos abatement wont be going on

simultaneously. He said he expects the demolition process to take about three weeks.

If asphalt for the 100-space parking lot cant be laid this fall, there are alternatives that could still allow for the opening of the parking lot in 2014, Cochran said. One option is to use the gravel base for the asphalt lot to park on until next spring, when temperatures warm up.

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Let the demolition begin soon

BO2 [PC]: Hardpoint and Demolition BACK | Weekend Double XP
Abonne toi ici : http://www.youtube.com/user/GreyNapoleonBeast Merci de laisser un j #39;aime si tu apprci la vido! Twitter (trs important) https://twitter.com/Tra...

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BO2 [PC]: Hardpoint and Demolition BACK | Weekend Double XP - Video

The breeze carries the tinny jingle of the approaching ice cream truck, so Mike Puma leaves the railing he's painting on his two-family, electric-blue home to buy a milkshake.

He pays more for the shake than he did his entire home.

Of course, when he bought this home for $1 this year, it had a demolition notice on the door, walls the consistency of a Three Musketeers bar and mold coating the ceilings. But Puma, 24, feels that he got a bargain. Plus, he takes pleasure in knowing that this century-old house will not be torn down.

"We're reintroducing new life into these properties," he said. "Not only are you taking a stand against demolition, but you're taking a stand on what happens in this city."

Across the Rust Belt, cities are beginning to tear down tens of thousands of vacant homes. But Puma and a small group of other activists in Buffalo are battling the demolition process, trying to find residents to buy the fixer-uppers.

Puma alone has saved two houses on his block by persuading friends to buy them though Buffalo's Urban Homestead program, which allows residents to buy homes for a dollar if they show they have the resources to make necessary repairs and promise to live in them for at least three years.

Gary, Ind., launched its own version of the Dollar Home program last year with an initial six houses sold for $1 each. Other cities, including Philadelphia and Detroit, allow homeowners to acquire vacant lots next door for a small sum.

Puma said Americans were too quick to destroy old homes, and he is fighting "the never-ending rumble of demolition equipment."

Cities demolish salvageable buildings because there's political incentive to clear up blight, said David Torke, a neighborhood activist and blogger who works with Puma to save old homes.

The money spent on demolition $15,000 a home could be spent to repair the houses and make them habitable, Torke said.

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As an alternative to demolition, Buffalo offers homes for a dollar

MUSKEGON, MI -- The lack of an environmental agreement on the demolition of the former Sappi plantsmokestacks has not impeded progress to take down the former paper plant.

Ken Callow, manager of the demolition project for property owner Melching Inc., said work to remove buildings and foundations on the property is more than halfway completed.

The latest use for recyclable materials from the massive plant is crushed concrete, piles of which are visible on the Muskegon Lake-front site. A contractor recently requested 60,000 tons of the crushed concrete, much of it for the U.S. 31 bypass in northern Ottawa County, Callow said.

"That drove us long hours -- weekends and holidays," he said.

That's how the work goes on the huge, 120-acre site. When there's demand for the recyclable material being sorted and piled on site, the work takes off. It slows when other projects Melching is working have deadlines taking priority, Callow said.

"Since we own the site, we can work on it when we want," Callow said.

At this point, removal of buildings on site is about 75 percent complete, and removal of foundations is about 50 percent complete, Callow said.

While work on the former industrial site continues at a steady pace, negotiations over the demolition of two 275-foot smokestacks are frustratingly slow, Callow said. Melching officials are working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to find a solution to concerns over a glaze containing asbestos that covers the length of the smokestacks.

In most cases, the EPA requires removal of asbestos prior to demolition by explosives. Exceptions include floor tiles and roofing materials with asbestos, Callow said. Melching officials are working to convince EPA officials that the glaze, which has asbestos fibers in it, should be placed in the same category as the allowed tiles and roofing material.

Without such an exception, it would be "unbelievably expensive" to remove the glaze, Callow said. It also would be extremely expensive to dismantle the towers from the top down, he said. Other methods of knocking down the massive towers would be too dangerous, he said.

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Demolition, recycling of former Sappi plant continues as do smokestack talks

Quad Feed on Demolition - Nuketown 2025
This clip is from a public match of Demolition on Nuketown 2025, it shows me getting a quad feed. Comment, like and subscribe for more content and follow me on Twitter, Twitch and like my Facebook...

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Quad Feed on Demolition - Nuketown 2025 - Video

2014 Addison County Field Days Demolition Derby 4 Cylinder Heat 2
2nd heat of the four cylinders.

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2014 Addison County Field Days Demolition Derby 4 Cylinder Heat 2 - Video