Hotel owners have 60 days
By Kenneth Fine
Published in News on October 5, 2010 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/MICHAEL BETTS
Minimum Housing Inspector Ray Fields walks toward The Gold Inn & Suites, located at 808 W. Grantham St., to place a condemned sign on the Goldsboro hotel.
A local hotel characterized as "unbelievable" by Mayor Pro Tem Chuck Allen was condemned Monday evening by the Goldsboro City Council.
And if it isn't on the road to repair within 60 days, the building will be leveled.
The Gold Inn & Suites, located at 808 W. Grantham St., is finally on the chopping block after spending more than a year in Chief Building Inspector Ed Cianfarra's sights -- the Inspections Department first notified the owner, Business Loan Center, LLC, that the structure was in violation of the Minimum Housing Code in October 2009.
"As you'll see, the building is dilapidated and not feasible for repair," Cianfarra told those in attendance, before showing off a series of photos taken during the inspection.
One showed broken windows and moldy curtains -- and in another, a deteriorated, half-covered pool.
There was even evidence of "parts of the roof coming off."
"As you can see, it is in real bad shape," Cianfarra said. "Structurally, it's starting to deteriorate."
But the state of the building is not the only problem.
More than $80,000 is currently owed, by the owner, in back taxes.
Signs announcing the condemnation were posted, this morning, on the hotel.
And despite the fact that one final notice will be sent to its owner -- and 60 days will be given to make amends -- Allen said the way to resolve the issue should be fairly clear.
"This needs to go," he said. "It's just unbelievable."
Other issues discussed by the council Monday included:
In other business, city Engineer Marty Anderson spoke to the board about "traffic calming" methods, in response to a request from a Spence Avenue resident for installation of speed bumps in his neighborhood.
Anderson said "not everybody is going to like a speed hump," but added if measures were taken in one neighborhood to curb speeding, the rest of the city's residents would likely want action taken, too.
"Once you put them in one neighborhood, guess what?" he said. "And none of the traffic calming measures are going to be cheap."
Several options were then unwrapped for the council -- increased police enforcement using radar wagons, road closures and even fake road hazards -- before the mayor and his peers told Anderson more research on the cost associated with each measure would need to be done before they would make a decision on what action, if any, would be taken.
But one thing seemed clear to City Manager Joe Huffman: Increased enforcement, alone, likely won't solve the problem.
"People are going to speed ... the second you're not watching," he said.