November 13, 2009

City rescinds sale of Broad Street house

City councilors recently rescinded a real estate deal approved last month to sell a decrepit house at 406 Broad St. for $55,200.
The city acquired the house in June when its former owner fell way behind on taxes. It put the house on the market a month later.
Councilors agreed in October to sell it to Michael Baillargeon on the condition that he keep it as a single-family house. Officials said he planned to restore it.
But city Councilor Kevin McCauley, who heads the Real Estate Committee, said a zoning issue arose that complicated the deal.
Mayor Art Ward said there was a misunderstanding with Baillargeon about the caveat which the city put on the sale.
The real estate panel plans to review the terms again. The city still intends to sell the property.

*******
Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

34 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mayor Art Ward said there was a misunderstanding
``````````````

Campaign fund contribution check bounce ???

Anonymous said...

Nicastro had been heading that committee so McCauley was cleaning up his mess.

Anonymous said...

Why are you blaming McCauley? I watched that council meeting, and it was Rimcoski who said the building should only be used as a home. The rest of the council approved it without question. Great leadership from the former chairman of the real estate committee (Nicastro).

Odin said...

This is what happens when councilmen try to impress the public and sound like they know more than they do. It should have been tabled and sent back to committee, so their professional staff could have caught this problem.

Anonymous said...

This is what happens when you have Mayor Ward in charge.

Anonymous said...

Bring back Stortz

Just Venting said...

Have any of you seen this house? It is between the bank and a small machine shop. Frank decided to change the zoning to make it stay as a single family as long as the city wanted it that way. Who would want to purchase that house and not change it to a office building or even a multi rent building. Way to mess up a sale and get revenue from a sale.

Anonymous said...

Now that Frank is gone, along with his attorney friend, maybe we can start to do things right.

Anonymous said...

Bristol planning dept is the biggest mess around. Try to get some one to help you in ten minutes you would never want to go back.

Anonymous said...

What Planning???

Anonymous said...

As usual, people like the first poster are clueless and have an agenda of their own. get the facts because it seems to me that you're the one who is messed up. By the way, Steve, must you print stuff like what the first poster printed? we all know what swear word he is using. it's inappropriate and should not be printed regardless of who they are speaking about. there are better ways for the public to express their opinions.

Anonymous said...

DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT THE PLANNINGDEPT DOES ALL DAY THE DEPT HEAD TURNS EVERYONE OFF . TAX PAYERS CANT EVEN ASK HIM A QUESTION . HE GOES OFF ON THEM . BUT YET HE HAS A BIG PAYING JOB.

Steve Collins said...

9:59 -- The first post has been deleted. I rely on your folks to let me know of problems. Truly, I've ceased reading all these comments carefully. It's too time-consuming to keep up with them all.

Anonymous said...

7:38

No, BDA is !

By Far!!!

Anonymous said...

A MESS AGAIN IN BRISTOL POLITICS.

Anonymous said...

the whole story: the fellow who wanted to buy the property came to real estate and asked if he could maybe a few years down the road change the house from single family to business. This is a slum lord, mind you. the real estate comm. did not want to do that and had it brought back to the council to decide what to do about it. mccauley didn't do anything other than bring it forward to the council since he is now chair of the real estate comm. end of story.

Anonymous said...

SOON MOST OF BRISTOL WILL BE AUCTIONED OFF.WHEN TAXES GO UP THIS YEAR MANY HOMES WILL BE VACANT.

Anonymous said...

Hey, 10:12 AM, you seem to have a bug up yer butt about anyone and everyone who works for the city. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps the problem isn't with them but with you? You sound like a big crybaby who didn't get his way about something, and instead of sucking it up like a man and moving on, you're on some sort of blind rampage against every city employee and official. Give it a rest, will ya?

Anonymous said...

there is no mess in bristol politics. This whole topic is absurd! it's the city's property and they have conditions on selling it. the fellow who was going to buy is totally understood those conditions and now wants to reneg and do his own thing. why don't we talk about what the motive for this fellow is? the city is trying to do what they feel is best for the city. this fellow is only concerned about how much money he can squeeze out of that property.

Anonymous said...

8:26

And the electe dofficials aren't interested in squeezing money from the citizens?

Anonymous said...

How does this squeeze money from the citizens? This is about selling property and a proposed buyer RENEGING on the deal!

Anonymous said...

11:45

Almost tripling the cost of the yard waste bucket.
Going up on fees.

And so on.

Anonymous said...

RENEGING on the deal!?? What if you were bidding on a car at an auction, you win because your the high bidder. Just before you pay for the car you notice the auction house is changing the tires & rims & replacing a good door with a dented door! Would you pay for that car? Is that the car you were bidding on?? I think we need to know more of the details before throwing the word slumlord around!!

Anonymous said...

7:47: talk about making a mountain out of a mole hill! read poster 6:09. this guy puts a bid in. the city accepts it UNDER the condition that it remain a single family home. so the city is about to sell and the buyer asks if down the road he can turn it into a business or a multi family home even though he already has been told this is for a single family home ONLY. Got that, 7:47, HE ALREADY KNOWS THE DEAL! No hidden extras. the city now knows this guy won't hold up his end of the bargain because down the road, like all slum lords, he is going to, most likely illegally, change it into a multi family or try to put a business in there. now I said slum lord NOT landlord. There is certainly a difference and I know full well that not all landlords are slum lords.

we have rules and regulations to follow and so does the supposed buyer and i, for one, am glad that the city is sticking to their guns and not letting this scum lord try to get away with something that too many before him have.

you want to know why the west end is the way it is? it's because we have people who own these properties who live a couple hundred miles away and collect their section 8 housing check from their high rise offices in NYC and leave their properties to rot and poor people to live in squalor and the citizens have to deal with the crime! to city leaders: keep on enforcing your laws because that's all we have to combat this degradation of our city!

Odin said...

6:34 am:

I could be wrong but I think you have the facts wrong. (1) The property was put out to bid with no restrictions. (2) Somebody bid on it (maybe more than one somebody), so (3) the Real Estate subcommittee brought the deal to the City Council for final approval. (4) At the City Council meeting, out of the blue, someone on the Council had the stupid idea of putting a new condition on it: the house could only be used as a dwelling. (5) It turns out the property is in the General Business zone where dwellings are not permitted, so (6) the new chairman of the Real Estate committee brought it back to the city council for them to screw around with it some more.

It looks to me like the City Council screwed up.

Anonymous said...

I spoke to one of the councilmen and he told me that there was always a condition on the property that it be a single family home even though it is in a business zone. Those were the conditions. It went into foreclosure. The city bought it. The RFP that came in was for a single family dwelling, which it has ALWAYS been and continued to be. The person who wanted to buy it decided they would try to change the conditions once their RFP was accepted as a single family. This is not the council's fault. The council does not do things "out of the blue" and this is no exception. I don't know where you got your info from but I decided to find out to get the facts, no supposition.

Anonymous said...

After all said and done, I think the city did a good job here. The tax payers get over $55,000, another plywooded up building gets cleaned up. What worries me is that there were only 2 bidders here, that speaks volumes about this section of Broad street and probably Forestville center in general. With the new highway going by, this area is probably dead or dying. Is the winning bidder going to make a killing here......I think the jury is still out on that one...

Anonymous said...

This guy has always bought single family homes in bad conditon from foreclosure sales, do minimal repairs to get them to pass sec. 8 inspections, and rented them out for top dollar to sec. 8 this isnt really in the best interests of Bristol anyways.

Anonymous said...

Let me get this straight, boarded up & vandalized is better than cleaned up, rented and back on the property tax rolls. I'm not sure I want to live in your Bristol!!

Anonymous said...

I also don't want to live in a Bristol that's overrun with Seciton 8 either. Sometimes boarded up is better. Just ask the people who live next to many section 8 tenants.

Anonymous said...

Solution to section 8 is to make the city attractive to others via Education, the Arts etc.

Demand will increase the value of property and rents would bring in more than section 8

Anonymous said...

the city also needs to put a stop to section 8 coming into the city. we are inundated! Torrington does all the handing out, is my understanding. let's have a moratorium on section 8 because they are always put in the same areas, west end, federal hill. enough is enough.

Anonymous said...

Wasn't Schafrick in charge of Section 8?

Anonymous said...

I have no idea, but whoever's idea it was, they were misled or they purposely decided to contribute heavily to the blight and crime in this town. section 8 only benefits the absentee landlords and slum lords and the tenants are made to live in less than adequate homes and some tenants use those homes for drug dealing and other offenses.