East Williston Deputy Mayor Bonnie Parente said Tuesday the village will move ahead with plans to demolish an abandoned house at 8 Sumter Ave. following an order issued by a Nassau Supreme Court judge that gives the village permission to act.
Parente said an auction on the property scheduled for next week would not have an impact on the village’s plans.
“The demolition has more to do with the property being unsafe for the residents than who owns it. The change of ownership doesn’t change the physical condition of the house,” Parente said. “We would want it to be removed anyway.”
East Williston village attorney Jeffrey Blinkoff said he received a copy of the order from Nassau Supreme Court Judge James McCormack late last week.
The order, which Blinkoff said he drafted for the judge’s signature, affirms a ruling McCormack issued in a June 9 hearing to permit the village to demolish the Sumter Avenue house. At the time, McCormack gave the house’s owners, John and Theresa Muzio, 45 days until July 28 to remove their personal belongings from the house.
Parente said she and her fellow East Williston trustees reaffirmed their decision to demolish the house at a recent workshop meeting.
“The general position of the board was that whether or not there is a sale, the property demolition should move forward,” she said.
Blinkoff said the Muzios will be served with a copy of the judge’s order. He also said the Muzios could seek a stay of McCormack’s written order in state Appellate Court, which he said they unsuccessfully attempted to do before the order was issued.
At a village board meeting last month, Blinkoff said the next step would be for the county to disconnect utility lines to the house to prepare it for demolition.
Last October, the East Williston village board approved a bid of $28,500 from East Williston-based J Galvin Construction to demolish the house.
The house has been a source of recurrent complaints from residents for several years over health, safety and aesthetic concerns, including the presence of raccoons living in the home.
McCormack said at the June 9 hearing that Dean Koutsoubis, an engineer retained by the village board, found that the property’s condition “had deteriorated since his inspection in 2010” when the village first began its legal battle with the Muzios over the house.
“I don’t have the order. But we will certainly do something because we have other plans,” Theresa Muzio said.
She said she and her husband still have plans to sell the property, which has been in a foreclosure proceeding. In the June 9 court session she told McCormack there was no contract in place to sell the property.
A Great Neck-based company is seeking to foreclose on the property.
Josh Levy, a lawyer representing L&L Associates, said in July the company had purchased liens on the property, which he said were scheduled to be put up for sale at an auction in Supreme Court on Sept. 9.
Levy said the company doesn’t care if the village demolishes the house.
“Even if they took down the house, the value of the land itself is enough to pay all the lienholders,” he said.
The total liens against the property, he said, would be calculated on the eve of the auction.
At an October village board meeting, village Treasurer Michael Delury said Muzio owed the village $36,724 including $20,459.53 in unpaid village taxes and water service fees, $10,860 in engineering fees from various surveys over the last several years to determine the structure’s viability, $3,285 to maintain the property and remove raccoons that had inhabited the property and $2,119.77 in legal fees.
At the time, Blinkoff said there are also liens against the property of $279,440 resulting from a judgment obtained by a private party and a tax lien of $14,000 owed to another municipality.
Blinkoff had previously secured a court order granting the village the right to refurbish or destroy the house.
But the village delayed action last year when Mineola-based BNL Construction co-owners Bruno and Luigi Calleo expressed interest in acquiring the property
The Calleos dropped plans to purchase the home after failing to get a variance from the village planning board to subdivide the property to allow two houses to be built on the property.
Luigi Calleo has said in recent months he and his brother were hoped to purchase the property to construct a single house on it, but said his company had been unable to strike a deal with the Muzios.
