City Hall tries to salvage D&D properties

LAWTON – Seven of the owners of 15 houses the City Council condemned recently indicated they intend to rehabilitate those properties.

Those individuals have six weeks – 30 business days – to secure a remodeling permit from City Hall, and afterward their work will be checked by city inspectors once a month. If improvements are being made the city will initiate no further action.

“Our ultimate goal is to promote redevelopment,” Mayor Stan Booker told Southwest Ledger. The goal of the D&D program “is to help with neighborhood renewal,” he said. In addition, “We want to get these lots back on the tax rolls.”

However, if no progress is made the property will be returned to the “dilapidated and dangerous” list.

That’s what happened to the structures at 401 SW Summit Ave. The owner appeared before the council in April and indicated he had a pending sale contract; therefore, the council temporarily withheld judgment on condemnation.

The property reappeared on the council agenda June 25, and this time it was declared a public nuisance subject to demolition by a cityhired contractor.

It was joined by structures at 621 SW 26th St., 916 SW D Ave. a/k/a 404 SW 10th St., 1611 NW Lawton Ave., 1612 SW E Ave., 2025 NW 24th St., 2609 SW E Ave., and 4628 SW G Ave.

Each of the owners was directed to renovate or raze their property, and the city attorney was authorized to initiate legal action in Comanche County District Court to abate the nuisances.

The City of Lawton had 79 properties, to which liens were attached, that were on the county’s delinquent tax sale June 10, City Manager John Ratliff said. Property taxes had not been paid for three years on any of those properties, Councilman Kelly Harris noted.

Of those 79 properties, 29 of them had demolition liens that totaled $195,591, Ratliff said. Only 10 of those, which were encumbered with $51,657 in liens, were purchased at the county tax sale auction, he said. Consequently, the other 19 properties will have their $143,934 in city liens removed, and those properties will be transferred to Comanche County “for maintenance and eventual sale at the commissioners’ sale,” Ratliff said.

Those 19 structures will be among other properties placed on the county commissioners’ sale that will be held in August or September, Comanche County Treasurer Rhonda Brantley said.

The county has no desire to become a landlord, so it goes to great lengths to offload properties that are on the tax sale lists, Brantley told the Ledger. The city’s liens – which often amount to perhaps $300 to $500 for unpaid lawn mowing fees and “thousands” in demolition fees – can make that difficult, she said.

Buyers who are considering whether to acquire a structure that’s already deteriorated are reluctant to absorb a lien that may increase the purchase price to an unacceptable level.