Resident Tired of Seeing Eyesore in Shrub Oak
Shrub Oak resident Angelo Frangella is proud of where he lives, but he’s ashamed of a dilapidated commercial building on East Main Street that he feels sheds a bad light on the area.
“This building is an eyesore and it’s not fair to this community to have this represent the town,” Frangella recently remarked to the Yorktown Town Board. “It’s boarded up and filled with graffiti, some of it vulgar. How long will this building stay there? Are the people just stuck with this?”
The building Frangella was referring to was the former Undercare establishment, across the street from St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church, which closed about three years ago.
“I’m surprised store owners are not complaining about it,” Councilman Nick Bianco said.
Yorktown Supervisor Michael Grace said while the town has an unsafe structure law and property appearance law, its hands were somewhat tied in terms of what muscle it could flex in forcing a property owner to clean up structures considered to be eyesores.
“There is only a limit that government can do,” Grace explained. “It’s a Constitutional prohibition. All we can do is create the incentive to have the people come back and clean it up. We can’t forcibly force them to take it down.”
Noting Yorktown has been successful in attracting many new businesses this past year, Grace said the building in Shrub Oak was “on our radar screen.”
“We will take a close look at it and make sure it’s secure and safe,” he said. “We’ll do everything we can to try to make it go away as quickly as possible.”
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/