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Youngstown receives award for housing-deconstruction program
TweetBy DAVID SKOLNICK
YOUNGSTOWN
An organization that promotes government climate protection honored Youngstown with an award for the city’s housing- deconstruction program.
The program is scheduled to cease at the end of the year unless grant money is obtained to keep it going.
The ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability, formerly known as the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, awarded Youngstown its runner-up honor for midsized cities in its planning process innovation category. The city received the award at the organization’s summit in Washington, D.C., over the weekend.
“We’re honored to be recognized as an example of leadership in government sustainability,” said Steve Novotny, the city’s deconstruction-program coordinator. “Our program is innovative, and it’s good for the community. This award says, ‘We’re doing something right and making progress.’”
But with funding for the program set to expire at the end of the year, deconstruction in Youngstown is in jeopardy.
The city received a $39,000 grant last year from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for deconstruction. Additional money to pay for some of the deconstruction costs came from money the city received from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The city submitted another grant request to the EPA and should hear from the agency in October or November, Novotny said. Also, the city is looking at other ways to provide funding for this program, he said.
Deconstruction systematically takes apart a dilapidated house by removing portions of the structure, such as entire wooden floors or chunks of brick, rather than using a traditional wrecking ball.
The city hired US Green Building Materials of Youngstown to deconstruct 16 houses with seven of them already done, Novotny said.
Also, the city hired Premiere Demolition Group of Youngstown to do partial deconstruction of eight other houses with items such as lumber and metal not going to landfill, Novotny said.
So far, the city’s deconstruction plan has struggled to find markets for the items saved using that method.
Comments
ICLEI was founded in 1990 as the 'International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives'. The Council was established when more than 200 local governments from 43 countries convened at our inaugural conference, the World Congress of Local Governments for a Sustainable Future, at the United Nations in New York.
http://bit.ly/alNDNo
ICLEI provides technical consulting, training, and information services to build capacity, share knowledge, and support local government in the implementation of sustainable development at the local level. The premise is that locally designed initiatives can provide an effective and cost-efficient way to achieve local, national, and global sustainability objectives.
With funding from friends and concerned citizens anxious to see urban blight removed from Youngstown’s neighborhoods, Anthony Brucoli founded US Green Building Materials. The Mahoning Valley’s first deconstruction company. Brucoli — along with fellow Youngstown natives Tom McClure, the company’s chief operating officer, and Nancy Brill, who manages sales and marketing — have set up shop in the former City Asphalt & Paving building on Gibson Street, which the owner has leased rent-free until the company gets on its feet. The trio is working on a volunteer basis until US Green Building Materials can achieve profitability. (gwyler@vindy.com)
http://bit.ly/c0yEyO
This operating framework looks similar to a familiar concept that has caught on throughout CA and other communities that have Victorian style dwellings - Renovator's Supply. The deconstructed materials have to be inventoried or cataloged, and marketed via web (like E-bay) to the network throughout the US (and elsewhere) in order to create a market and begin to get an ROI.
http://bit.ly/bEA1T6
However, it may be that the "good" stuff is already being sold and their left with commodity materials of lesser potential value. Either way, good luck with the additional grant application.
Some how it just seems wrong to get an award for tearing down your community, it's like getting praise for doing a bad job of running your city
lee is not seeing the big picture. Whose fault is it that the Youngstown community / infrastructure is in decline? The city's for not planning properly when forces beyond their control took place? The steel industry's for not staying here when the global industry was drastically changing? Labor's for not staying in Youngstown when it needed them when jobs were being abandoned left and right? You have to shrink with wisdom. If your houses are abandoned by the hundreds, you have to deal with dilapidation. If you must tear them down, better to do it in a pattern of wise recycling if you can, and make room for green space or whatever new landuses will eventually occur.