Dover, Ohio (WJER) - Two vacant houses are facing demolition following action by city council.

Council on Monday began the process to tear down the structures at 218 W. 12th St. and 529 Shawnee Drive. Service Director Dave Douglas says the house on 12th Street is on a faster track as it has been vacant and damaged for nearly a year.

“That house is a very large house. It was damaged last May during a storm we had where a very, very large tree fell on it. If you look at the house, it actually, I think, moved some of it off of its foundation and also kind of pushed the frame of the house itself,” he says. “[I] don’t know if that would ever be repairable again.” 

Council approved the demolition of the 12th Street house but will be waiting until April to vote on the other property. Douglas says the Shawnee Drive house doesn’t look bad on the outside, but inside is a different story.

"There is probably about four-foot of water in the basement, had been there for a long time, extremely bad shape, a lot of mold, things that people don’t want to deal with and is very hard to deal with if you ever go to try to remodel something like that,” he says. “ I believe ceilings are falling in, a lot of other things, so this has created a big, big issue.”

Douglas says it appears the homes are bank-owned, but efforts to contact the owners have so far been unsuccessful. He says city officials have started collecting cost estimates, but they don’t know when the buildings would be demolished. He says the city could potentially recoup the demolition costs through property liens collected through a sheriff’s sale.

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