Sometime in the next couple of months, a crew contracted by the Town of Irondequoit will knock down two adjoining houses on Timrod Drive. The lots will be cleared and seeded with grass, creating a small green space.
The town took ownership of the houses approximately two years ago as part of a legal settlement. The houses border a former City of Rochester landfill, which Irondequoit also used at one time. The homeowners sued the city and town after landfill gases were found to be seeping into their homes.
The houses are now vacant and have become eyesores, says Irondequoit Supervisor Adam Bello. The town was supposed to tear them down soon after purchase, Bello says, but for whatever reason, that didn’t happen.
The town will mow and maintain the properties, he says, but doesn’t plan to turn them into a formal park. Officials have notified neighborhood residents of the demolition plans, Bello says, and are confident that the property is safe.
The town discovered the contamination in 2009, when it was doing testing related to the proposed Lighthouse Pointe mixed-use project. Developers wanted to clean up the former landfill property and build on it, and they wanted the State Department of Environmental Conservation to admit the site into New York’s brownfields program. But the DEC rejected the request.
Town officials, who also wanted the landfill site included in the brownfields program, saw the testing as a way to support the developers’ case, according to a 2009 fact sheet. In the two homes tested, they detected volatile organic compounds in basement air samples and methane under, but not in, the foundations.
Ultimately, a judge ordered the state to admit the site into the brownfields program, but the Lighthouse Pointe project is now dormant.
This article appears in Nov 12-18, 2014.
I can’t help but think about what’s happening in the RCSD when I read this article.
We stand at a critical juncture in our Rochester Community. Laws that could safeguard our children from pesticide exposure are under siege. Record numbers of schools are going up on contaminated land, without protective guidelines against exposure of children to soil, water, and air toxins. Delay in action exposes more children to toxic chemicals in school, day care, and Head Start centers. We must act now, before still more children are unnecessarily harmed.
charlotte project has hazardous materials and the city officals are sweeping it under the rug.. we are having a meeting at the robach center thursday dec 4 at 7pm .. about the materials found and why no local developer will touch it.. who is gettng paid off here.. wait till these condos sink.