Revere councilor on weed patrol as summer looms

REVERE – Ward 5 City Councilor John Powers is pleased with city efforts demanding upkeep of abandoned property across Revere, but he wants several lots bordering city property spruced up.The Sears Street foot bridge and the overgrown vegetation and makeshift structures at its base are one of the targets of his cleanup requests. Powers wants city officials to ask Suffolk Sheriff Andrea Carbral to dispatch an inmate work crew to the bridge.He also wants weeds chopped down around 8 Calumet St. and around the old Dairy Queen site. That commercial location in the city’s center has been an ongoing location for development proposals brought before the council and neighborhood complaints about weeds and debris.Powers also wants Carbral to dispatch a crew to Sagamore Street where, he said, weeds are overgrown on the edge of the Wonderland Marble lot. He also wants fire hydrants at the corner of Neponset and Sagamore streets painted.A sharp increase in bank foreclosures over the past two years has prompted the city to make mortgage holders accountable for the upkeep of foreclosed properties.Sanitation and safety concerns posed by overgrown lawns, abandoned swimming pools, broken windows and neglected plumbing are an ongoing worry for city Inspectional Services Director Nicholas Catinazzo.His inspectors periodically check on vacant buildings and bill their owners for administrative costs ranging from $500 to $3,000. Only $9,250 out of $40,500 in fines were collected in 2007 but Catinazzo said the fines are meant to motivate owners to fix up their property or replace it.Two-thirds of the buildings on a list of 45 vacant properties compiled by Catinazzo’s office in 2007 were vacated within the last year.The city’s vacant property fine system is modeled after a system adopted in Wilmington, Del. where municipal officials charge building owners an annual “registration fee” ranging from $500 for a building vacant for less than a year to $3,000 for a building vacant for three years or more.A Chelsea homeowner counseling organization in 2008 estimated 358 Revere homes were in foreclosure with mortgage lenders threatening to take the properties away from 1,147 other owners.Chelsea Restoration counsels homeowners on their options for refinancing loans or selling their property.