{"id":29697,"date":"2025-10-01T18:54:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T22:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=29697"},"modified":"2025-10-01T18:54:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T22:54:08","slug":"unoccupied-home-a-decatur-dilemma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/01\/unoccupied-home-a-decatur-dilemma\/","title":{"rendered":"Unoccupied home a Decatur dilemma"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A ramshackle, unoccupied house that&#8217;s been a thorn in the City of Decatur&#8217;s backside for some four years has been targeted for demolition \u2013 but don&#8217;t expect anything happening soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The house, located at 1034 Parkview Drive, was once on the list of the city&#8217;s flood buyout homes. Now, though, it&#8217;s still out there, owned by an unresponsive United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Curt Witte, superintendent of the city&#8217;s building and zoning department, which oversees enforcement of city codes, recently brought the structure dilemma before Decatur&#8217;s board of works and safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;ve been dealing with this house for a little over four years now,\u201d he told the board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>City Attorney Anne Razo added: \u201cAll the while this property has been with the USDA and is in utter disrepair. And the neighbors are up in arms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI&#8217;ve had many complaints on this,\u201d Mayor Dan Rickord said. \u201cUnfortunately, there&#8217;s nothing we can do (in a short time).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Witte explained that the home is now owned by Ruben Soto Jr. and his two sisters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was originally in the local flood buyout program, but a death in the family put a snag in that solution. Now, the USDA holds a mortgage on the property and has foreclosed on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThey&#8217;ve not made any contact with us,\u201d Witte said of the USDA, even following a receipt of a certified mailing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Attempts to get the family involved with determining a resolution have led nowhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So Witte asked for a demolition order and got the okay. A public hearing must be held first, though, and that will be done at the council&#8217;s second meeting in October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If the city approves, then the family will have 30 days to demolish the property. If that gets no results, then the city will do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com A ramshackle, unoccupied house that&#8217;s been a thorn in the City of Decatur&#8217;s backside<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29698,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,21],"class_list":["post-29697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1034-Parkview-Dr.jpg?fit=675%2C290&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29697"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29699,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29697\/revisions\/29699"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}