Council Approves Building Demolition

City leaders hope to have demolition of a condemned building underway by April 18, but have not yet secured a temporary construction easement to provide city crews with easier access to the structure.

“Our building inspector, he’s condemned it for public use,” said . “We need to get it down before someone gets in there and gets hurt.”

The city-owned building is located on property adjacent to a 50-foot-by-90-foot strip of land owned by Dacula resident Sam Hinton. The city hoped to acquire Hinton’s lot at the corner of Second Avenue and Wilson Street and to provide construction crews with access to the city's land in order to demolish the now-condemned building. In December of 2010, after several unsuccessful attempts to purchase Hinton’s property, . Last month, a .

After the motion failed, Hinton said he would be willing to allow crews to use his land to access the building. .

Councilman Tim Montgomery said he had spoken with Hinton’s attorney, Denise Griffin.

“She said that the problems they’ve had seem to have been worked out between her and our city attorney and that she would be sending a fax to Mr. Hinton and get him to sign that,” Montgomery said. “She’ll have that taken care of in the next four or five days.”

City attorney Dennis Still clarified Montgomery’s account of the current situation.

“It’s my understanding after talking to Mr. Hinton’s attorney that they’re going to submit me a proposal Monday,” he said. “At this moment, I have nothing.”

Still said Hinton was “out of pocket,” but that his attorney was “going to communicate with him and get whatever they’re wanting to me.”

Neither Hinton nor his attorney were present at Thursday night’s council meeting.

In other business, the city voted 3-1 to repair the city’s 25-year-old leaf truck instead of purchasing a new vehicle. Montgomery was the lone opposing vote.

The council also voted to authorize the city to engineer plans for a . Mayor Wilbanks cast the deciding vote after Montgomery and voted in favor of the proposal and Councilwoman Sue Robinson and Councilman Wendell Holcombe voted against the measure.

Mayor Wilbanks expressed reservations concerning whether the new design would allow buses to safely turn on and off of Second Avenue, but ultimately cast his vote in favor of authorizing the plans to be developed.

“I think it’s good to go ahead and improve the street if we can,” Wilbanks said. “I want to get the plans in hand so we’ll have a better idea of what it’s going to look like and how much money it will eventually cost us to do that.”

Early estimates place the project costs at about $125,000.

The council also:

• Awarded an architectural design contract for a city maintenance facility building. The contract calls for $10,470 to be spent on construction documents.
• Awarded a construction bid for the Freeman Mill Road/Franklin Drive road project. The project is expected to cost $680,156 and will be paid for by SPLOST funds and other grants.
• Adopted by reference five Gwinnett County ordinances dealing with food services, tourist accommodations, on-site sewerage management systems, vector control and swimming pools.
• Met in executive session regarding a real estate matter. No action was taken as a result of the executive session.