BROOKVILLE — For days, a pile of rubble has sat in the middle of downtown Brookville.
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The owner cannot clean up until he gets environmental samples taken and pulls local and state permits.
The city said the building owner is meeting every deadline and staying in constant communication with the city.
The city said Monday it gave the owner formal notice last Wednesday that he had seven days to get the property under contract for cleanup.
Otherwise, the city would step in, do that work for him, and send him the bill.
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But the city said they don’t think that will be necessary at this point.
“The city has met with the property owner twice and has had three phone meetings with the property owner,” Jack Kuntz, Brookville City manager, said.
The city said the most recent phone call was on Monday morning.
Before any cleanup can start, any contractor needs to take environmental samples at the rubble site to screen for things like asbestos and get county and state permits from the regional air pollution control agency, or RAPCA, and the Ohio EPA.
The city said the owner is “working hard” at getting this taken care of as quickly as he can and is in the process of securing that testing work and those permits.
News Center 7 asked a nearby business owner what she’d like to see done with the property:
“It would be nice to have a parking lot. Every third Thursday they close the street off and they have a downtown thing. So it would nice if people had place to park versus taking up space,” Jordi Worley of Shear Necessity said.
We also asked the city if they’ve had talks with the owner about plans for the property once it’s cleaned up.
“I’m not at liberty right now to discuss the property owner’s future plans, but he has indicated that he does have redevelopment plans for the site,” Kuntz said.
News Center 7 left a message for the building owner to find out what his plans are for the property once it’s all cleaned up.
We will update this story if we hear back.
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