The Committee maintains that, since the property lies in a special City parking lot district, the CVS lot is a conditional use according to the law. The buildings the community wants to save may thus be torn down before the hearing. For months, activists had been watching the buildings for signs notifying demolition. No one saw any signs posted on the buildings before they were taken down. All the required documentation was forwarded to the owner of these properties and once the building code requirements were met, this agency demolished these unsafe structures.
Legalese follows in somewhat smaller type.
At the same time these signs are posted, a notification letter is sent to the property owner. Costs of HCD demolition and related expenses are then billed to the property owner, who is required to pay within 30 days. Joan Floyd, one of the 25th Street Committee members, says no one reported seeing any demolition signs posted on the Charles Street buildings that have been destroyed. Doug Armstrong, a leader of the Committee, reports that only two of the four now-demolished Charles Street buildings, numbers 2504 and 2508, were posted with condemnation signs last fall. Activists point out that each of the four contiguous Charles Street buildings should have been posted with both hot pink and bright yellow signs for at least a week ahead of time.