A Miracle on Coulter Street: An Eyesore Cleaned Up

Thanks to pressure from our councilperson, Cindy Bass's office, a small miracle happened yesterday. A crew of five L&I workers, wielding saws, wackers, brooms, shovels and admirable work ethic, cut, cleared, bagged & put out the collection of weeds, construction debris, salvage & plain old trash that accumulated since their last clean up in March.

You can view their efforts lined up on the entire Coulter side of the property. They cut up the timbers from the towering "firewood" pile, cut the electric service, so this is no longer a potential source of a fire, sealed the front door and the basement door, which has been open for at least four years, and attached orange "DO NOT ENTER" signs.

I hope that this is the beginning of a solution to this neighborhood eyesore. If a solution really is wanted by Philadelphia to blight, to return this historically certified property to a tax paying status, and to stop providing such an extraordinary amount of city resources in continued litigation & free maintenance, then now is the time to enforce all of the laws. Charge the owner for this clean up. Pursue the tax arrears and fines from previous cases for water and gas fees. Apply the "up to $300 a day fine" to the sealed, broken & boarded up windows. Put a timeline on compliance to the current case.

Mr. Byrne has had 11 years of litigation, in which he has finessed his lack of compliance to have minimal effect on him. Twice, he has illegally bought back the house in sheriff's sale. It is foolish to think that he ever will be anything but a tax arrears scofflaw. It is time to wrest control of this property from him.

Germantown's interests won yesterday. Can we now look to a real solution?

And yes, I did sleep well last night.

Submitted by Julie Baranauskas