Jefferson County Commission plans to clean up county, demolish dilapidated houses

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The Jefferson County Commission is making plans to clean up the county and demolish dilapidated houses.

According to Birmingham Watch, at the commission meeting last Thursday, commissioners moved the matter of demolishing a structure at to the consent agenda.

“It’s something we haven’t had in our toolshed, our repertoire to work with,” Commission President Jimmie Stephens said at the meeting. “When we have a dilapidated home that becomes a public nuisance, whether it’s been abandoned by a storm, tornado or whether it’s been abandoned for lack of use, we need to have the tools – and now we do – to go in and demolish that home and clean it up for the neighborhood.”

Stephens further explained that he hopes more money is added to the budget to demolish more dilapidated homes next year.

“It’s long overdue,” Stephens added. “We want to put funds in the budget next year so we can do that in a meaningful way… If you have 10 (dilapidated) homes in a community that need to be demolished, it won’t do any good to do two of them,” he said. “We need to have a plan in place where we can … work on X community this year and next year work on Y community.”