June 8, 2009- Clarification: It's stated in this piece that thieves "held up" the Skylark Club. The club was burglarized in the past, however, it has never been robbed while customers, or employees were there.

(Editor's note: The following article appears originally in Seattle City Council member Sally Clark's newsletter "Seattle View.")

In early April council member Tim Burgess and I toured abandoned homes in the Delridge neighborhood with Mike Dady and other fed up neighbors.

Abandoned homes prove to be trouble magnets in many neighborhoods as anyone who has lived next door or across the street from one knows. At best you have an eyesore. At worst, your own home may be endangered if squatters lose control of a fire inside a boarded up house.

The tour with Mike and others started near the Skylark Café where a nearby eyesore likely harbored the thieves who held up the bar late one night recently. We then looked at three other houses moving south through the neighborhood. All had a slightly different story.

In a couple of cases, people bought the houses when they were already falling down apparently thinking they could resurrect them and "flip" them. That clearly hasn’t panned out. In one case, the owner lives in Seattle in what might be called an "upscale" neighborhood, but leaves the Delridge house falling down and attracting trash.

At the last house we found the front door kicked in and trash strewn throughout the house. The owner is currently hospitalized with apparently no nearby next of kin.

The department of planning and development tracks abandoned buildings and when necessary tracks down absentee owners to hold accountable. The planning department can force someone to make a structure safe and to clean it up to certain standards, but they can’t force them to make it lived in. If you know of a problem property, report it here.

As a result of the neighborhood’s advocacy we will be looking at a change in the land use code to allow quicker demolition of a single family house. Right now you can’t demolish unless you have a plan and permit to rebuild.

This concept makes sense in protecting housing stock and should be retained for multi-family areas. In single-family zones the requirement prevents owners who want to do the right thing from removing derelict homes. It’s not a perfect solution. I would rather see these houses reclaimed and lived in, but for some neighbors the wait for the perfect solution has already been too long.

Watch for the planning, land use, and neighborhoods committee to take up this idea this summer. If you’d like more information or have feedback about the idea of allowing demolition of single-family homes without a new building permit in hand, please contact me.

Sally Clark is the chair of the council's planning, land use and neighborhoods committee and can be reached at 684-8802 or sally.clark@seattle.gov.