The owner of 4 vacant apartment buildings and 4 carports just north of the future site of the Idylwood Walmart now has 9 days left to get a permit and tear them down — or the city will do it for him and send a bill. Zion Ohana bought the already somewhat-decrepit properties bordering Idylwood at 6634 Sylvan Rd. in January 2009, a few years after the previous owner — who had lived in one of the units — passed away. About 20 neighborhood residents and representatives of nearby businesses showed up to yesterday’s city hearing, but Ohana didn’t, and didn’t send anyone to speak for him. One Idylwood resident thinks that might be part of the reason the owner ended up with a $72,000 fine for leaving the structures in their current condition — $1,000 per day per structure for the 9 days since a notice was posted on the properties.
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In this site plan showing the location of the future Walmart on South Wayside Dr., the lot containing the apartments is at the top, on the south side of Sylvan St., almost directly north of the northernmost detention pond:
- Previously on Swamplot: The Discounting Has Begun: Idylwood Walmart Already Marked Down 25 Percent!, Surprise! Walmart Buying Land Next to Idylwood for Houston’s First Inner-Loop SuperCenter
Photos: Swamplot inbox. Plan: Doucet and Associates
Can’t imagine how that will impact the already horrible traffice on Wayside.
Those apartments were half burned when I lived in Idylwood in the early 1990’s. Yet, they could sit
abandoned and in a state of decay for all these years before anyone would do anything about it. Maybe that is the silver lining for a Wal-Mart if one had to search…….
Hard to see how Walmart had anything to do with this……
I was really making a joke but the timing could be considered coincidental. After all, they have sat there burned out, boarded up and rotting for at least 18 years!
There were many years of unpaid taxes on that property when I moved from Idylwood in 2005. The county’s contract attorney (Linebarger I think) was pathetically impotent to do anything about it because the property had a disability exemption. Bravo that Idylwood and Nieghborhood Protection finally got this place on the list for demolition. Goodness knows the county and city couldn’t have cared less until now.
So glad to see another rotting structure removed. I really wish the city had more teeth in enforcing this. In most cases, the property owner is quite wealthy, yet they do not have to live with the consequences of their rotting properties (like the guy that owns two rotting houses on my street in the 3rd Ward – he lives in a mansion in Royal Oaks). Fine those bastards!
Superdave #6–
Call neighborhood protection, organize your neighbors (and/or civic association), keep records, take photos and stay on top of it.
It might take a year or two but it would ‘seem’ that landlords such as this can be fought successfully.