Inquirer: An old eyesore needs some new attention

Who would name a road Sandy Bottom Drive? Someone who loves the beach, I would think, but that’s not the point we’re addressing today.

A Concerned Reader named Mark, who is retired military, is angry over the state of a part of Oakcrest subdivision off of Buena Vista Road.

"I moved into my community in July of 2007. Now 7.5 years later, my neighborhood has become a huge wasteland dump site," Mark wrote, and he's right.

Turning onto Crestline Drive off Buena Vista, the neighborhood looks great. Nice houses with well-tended yards line the streets, which all follow the "sandy" theme. Sandy Ridge, Sandy Oak, Sandy View drives all look just fine. But then you get to Sandy Bottom, which looks to have been cleared and graded for development but never got beyond that stage.

The high weeds and sapling pines that cover the undeveloped lots are bad enough, but people have apparently decided to use parts of the place as a dump. Tires, construction debris, at least one old mattress and other trash litter the landscape.

"It's a huge eyesore and has made it extremely difficult to sell our homes due to huge neglect," Mark wrote. He also said the city had in the past forced the developer, who according to city tax records still owns the lots, to clean things up, but that hasn't happened again in the last couple of years.

So I called Drale Short, who manages the city's Special Enforcement Division, and asked her if she was aware of the problem. Short said records show that the last complaint to her office was in 2013, and the city ordered the property owner to clean things up and he apparently did.

But as of Friday, there were no active complaints, which is why the city hasn't gone back to the property owner with another notice to clean his land up. Short said she would send someone out to inspect the property "first thing Monday morning" and notify the owner if it needs cleaning up.

Seen something that needs attention? Contact me at 706-571-8570 or mowen@ledger-enquirer.com.

This story was originally published February 8, 2015 at 9:38 PM with the headline "Inquirer: An old eyesore needs some new attention."