Kenneth on 9th: Needs help.

[Gloria]

We have lived across the street from Kenneth for the past 8 years. He is really a great neighbor and helps us out whenever we need anything. THANK YOU to everyone who has donated their time or money to help him! His family home is very important to him and he tries to do what he can to keep it looking nice. We love his jazz band that plays on the porch sometimes and we hope his home is able to be saved so we can continue to be great neighbors and enjoy his music, company, and helping hand. THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE!

His jazz band has stopped me in my tracks. I love it when they practice in the lot next to his house, sitting on upturned milk crates and cinderblocks.

[Gloria]

I wonder who was behind this?

Here's the ACTIVE permit:

[Gloria]

Kenneth's house is a duplex. Nothing odd about that in and of itself, but in the case of this house, each duplex has a separate owner (Kenneth owns upstairs and his brother owns downstairs). Each duplex has its own real estate number.

Friday, code enforcement told me that I would have to pull a permit for each floor, upstairs and downstairs (double the price, btw).

I got two building inspection forms filled out, one for each floor, upstairs and downstairs, got them each notarized, took them to get COAs. Was told in historic planning that they would only be issuing one COA for that building. Okay.

I took my two building permit forms to building permit department to pull my permit to make repairs to the exterior. They only wanted to issue one permit and as the plan reviewer said "we'd have to send the inspector out to inspect the same work twice?"

So, he gave me a permit for the house, just one.

This is what is going on.

Total crap. They know that this is a neighborhood project and done with volunteer hours and dollars. I don't think they expected us to do it, frankly.

I have architectural plans, there is a copy on file downtown in both the building department and the historic building department.

[movedsouth]

<sarcasm>
nice show of support City of Jacksonville! I guess you got enough tax dollars so loosing some more properties won't affect the city.
</sarcasm>

[markusic]

The problem with saying that this is because there is confusion over two addresses and one permit is that this inspector wrote the stop work order for BOTH addresses. It appears as if he acted on a complaint or a phone call from MCCD and never bothered to get the facts before he wrote that stop work order. I left a message he won't like requiring him to go remove the erroneous stop work order tomorrow.

Of course since there is a copy of the permit posted, perhaps there is reading comprehension issues?

[Gloria]

Building permit code enforcement and municipal code enforcement playing ping pong with Kenneth's house. Looks like a not-so-nice phone call from Joe may have taken care of Kenneth's permit issue.

The inspector kept saying ..."we were given this address..."

[Gloria]

Kenneth update:

His house is stabilized.

He has been working on cleaning up the yard and painting where he can. Just look at what he has done.



He got a notice this week that he is being taken to Special Masters on November 19 presumably because he hasn't been working on his house.

Joe and I will go with him and tell the special master how this neighborhood came together to purchase the materials to stabilize the rear and that he needs additional time.

[movedsouth]

Great work!

[bananas]

It has been difficult for him to work on the house because he has been forced (by the condemnation of the house) to live with relatives and has to get a ride into Springfield/Jacksonville when he wants to work on the house. Kenny has been the best neighbor to Mark and I over the 8 years we have lived across the street from him. He has helped us countless times and he looks out for us. I really hope to see him back in his home soon - it really means the world to him.

[Yardchick]

It is a lovely home. Nice work.