Demolition begins on dilapidated houses in Huntington
 |
Clark Davis |
September 14, 2012 ·
Officials from both the state and city gathered yesterday in Huntington’s Fairfield West area to announce a project that started just days before.
As many as 17 units in the Fairfield
West area and nearly 50 throughout the city of Huntington will be torn down
over the next month. The dilapidated homes are being demolished by the National
Guard, the state Division of Highways and private contractors.
The effort has
been in the planning stages for several months and is a plan to tear down these
structures in areas targeted for redevelopment. U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin said
it’s something Huntington and other cities in the state need.
“Unless you take down the structures
that breed crime and serve as a place where criminals can congregate then there
going to filter back in, what this means is those places where they congregate
are gone and they’re gone forever,” Goodwin said.
The project will tear down as many homes
in the next 30 days as are usually torn down in a two-year period. It’s a
concentrated effort between the city and state to reduce the large number of
dilapidated structures left by the loss of jobs and population in the city.