Polk County has awarded two bids to demolish former homes in the county. The first demolition is in McIntosh awarded to Hagen Construction & Trucking, Inc from Fosston for $6,000. The second property is in rural Erskine and includes two homes each with wells and septic systems, along with three outbuildings. That bid was awarded to Travis Johnson of Nielsville for $24,000.
Jake Snyder, Planning and Zoning Administrator for Polk County, said the county tries to clear out homes and outbuildings before they are demolished to keep materials separated. A structure can go into the demolition portion of the landfill, but if a home isn’t cleared out before being demolished it would go into mixed solid waste which costs the county about four times as much. “That’s four times the cost of getting rid of the materials,” said Snyder. “Demolition rates are fairly competitive in Polk County and that goes into a different area of the landfill. The difference between the different fees is mixed solid waste has to go into a lined cell that is more pollution protected. They are items that can be anything from plastics to furniture, things from inside the house that you wouldn’t have in demolition versus the structure itself which is demolition. If you get a load and even drop stuff off at the Transfer Station and it’s couches and boards from an old shed all mixed together it’ll go at mixed solid waste which is four times the demolition rate.”
Polk County often enlists Tri-County Sentence to Serve to work on clearing the properties before demolition, a partnership Snyder says has been great. “Sentence to serve has been great for these projects,” said Snyder. “We give them a trailer, they go out there, are there for a couple of days and get these houses cleaned out. They take the tv’s and bring them back to Crookston with the other appliances, fridges, stoves, they are doing the lifting on. A great program that aids us a lot in these tax forfeits.”
The home in McIntosh is a smaller home that has already been cleared out. Snyder said the one thing of note is a power line across the property the contractor will need to be careful not to clip. “We awarded one project for a one-story home with a basement in McIntosh, a real small home,” said Snyder. “Again, unfit for resale on a small lot. Not a lot of dynamics with that one, just unfit for resale with water issues in the basement and a lot of mold. It’s one that Sentence to Serve has already cleaned out and it’s ready to be torn down. The only wildcard with that is a utility coming across for a neighboring home. There is a power line that the contractor will have to be careful to not clip the power line to drop power for any of the neighboring residences.”
The second project is significantly larger, with two homes. Snyder said they haven’t been able to coordinate with Sentence to Serve for help clearing out that property yet, but is hopeful they can before the demolition takes place. “We have a tax-forfeited property with two homes on the property,” said Snyder. “One was the original home built pre-1950s, the other was about 1980. Both homes are unfit for resale, haven’t been inhabited for about 10 years and have water leaking in for a number of years. A lot of stuff still in them. It looks like somebody up and left leaving everything they collected their whole life in both of them. We try to have Sentenced to Serve aid us in getting some of the things we need to get out of there – tv’s, appliances, things that aren’t able to go in the landfill mixed solid waste cell.”
If Sentence to Serve is unable to clear out the property Snyder said the county has had good relationships with contractors about sorting as much of the debris as they reasonably have the time to do under their contract. “The contractors are aware we want to get everything as separated as we can,” said Snyder. “They can’t do everything with the time allotted to do the project but we want to get it, so the rates are as low as possible. The tipping fees still have to be paid on this project [by the county]. So, we try to get those contractors to group materials and minimize cost as the taxpayers are paying for a project like this to get demoed. But it will be a good building site for somebody that would want to recoup and buy the site after everything is taken care of. No buildings on the site will be sealed. There are two wells that need to be sealed and a lot of stuff that needs to get taken off the site.”
Additionally, the contractors will spread topsoil and seed the unvegetated areas of the property. Typically the contractors have four weeks to complete the demolition for the date their bid is approved by the County Commissioners although due to the scope of the demolition in Erskine and the hope they can still get assistance from Sentence to Serve to clear the buildings, the commissioners amended the agreement by giving the contractor an extra week to complete the demolition work.
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