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Edmond City Council
The Edmond City Council Monday night voted to direct the City Attorney to file suit in district court seeking to abate the New Life Village at 1300 E Ayers which was declared a public nuisance property Feb. 26.
Council members last month ordered the property owner to bring the 90-unit, three-story structure into compliance with Edmond, health, building and public safety codes, hire around-the-clock, CLEET-certified security to patrol the property and install a continuously operating video security system there by March 11.
“I think we've got to move forward with the process,” said Ward 3 Councilwoman Christin Mugg. “We need a safe place for these people to live and living where they're living now is not a safe place. It's not safe for our first responders. It's a waste of taxpayer money.”
Ward 1 Councilman Tom Robins said the nuisance property has had numerous code/safety violations over the past decade, along with numerous police/fire calls. He said a 68-year resident was recently found deceased of a possible drug overdose.
Robins said fire or police service calls can cost about $400 per call, and the taxpayers’ foot that bill.
“You take 100 calls at $400 bucks and that’s a $40,000 bill to the Edmond taxpayers,” he said.
Danny Shadid, the attorney representing property owner Dr. Rajesh Narula, said Narula has acquired private financing to upgrade the property.
“We've already had a contractor come out to look at the property, give us estimates on what it's going to take to bring everything up to code,” he said. “It's a six-figure number.”
The dilapidated property houses veterans, many using housing vouchers.
Christy Batterson, Housing and Community Development Manager, said several agencies are working to find new housing for veterans.
“The VA program and Oklahoma Housing Finance Agency have been working diligently in getting the veterans that want to move out new vouchers. It does take a process,” she said. “Currently there are six of the 20 residents that are vouchered. There are residents that are not vouchered that are in the process of getting new vouchers to move. We would need some time to move the remaining that want to move.”
Deric Duncan, senior post commander for Edmond’s Veteran of Foreign Wars post, and Rex Ice, commander of Edmond’s American Legion Post said they are helping with housing funding.
Ice said the American Legion and VFW have reached out to Edmond landlords for help.
“We had different press events to try and encourage the community to come and give us information about possible landlords that would be willing to help us with finding immediate housing for these veterans. Unfortunately, those calls did not avail much success,” he said. “We only had two individuals call that offered any type of housing, and one of them won't be able to start housing anybody for at least 90 days because their facilities are also under renovation.”