Building Condemnations

A property owner has until the end of January to renovate his five-unit apartment complex in Monrovia, or the city will do it for him. With a wrecking ball. The City Council unanimously declared a dilapidated building at 919 W. Walnut St. a public nuisance last month, prompting the owner to make plans for more than $25,000 worth of changes, said Robert Kastenbaum, assistant director of community development.

Slated to get under way Tuesday, the bulldozing of an earthquake-damaged Studio City fire station was postponed temporarily after officials found additional asbestos not spotted during earlier inspections. "While we were there this morning, looking up in the attic, we saw a couple (of) pipes that were wrapped," Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Louis Roupoli said Tuesday. "It was only a couple little pieces."

Moving to eliminate dangerous quake ghost towns, a Los Angeles City Council committee Tuesday authorized police sweeps of the vacant quake-damaged buildings, to be followed by boarding up and patrolling by private security guards. The get-tough strategy will begin with a blitz by city building inspectors on Monday to identify which buildings are public safety hazards.

Moving to eliminate dangerous earthquake ghost towns, a Los Angeles City Council committee this week authorized police sweeps of vacant quake-damaged buildings, to be followed by boarding up and patrolling by private security guards. The get-tough strategy would begin with a blitz by city building inspectors to identify which buildings are public safety hazards.

San Fernando city officials have found that 53 structures need to be demolished, at a cost of about $47 million, because of unexpectedly heavy damage from aftershocks. The updated assessment, which more than doubles earlier loss estimates, includes 30 businesses, or about 4% of those in the city, and 87 residential units, about 1% of the total. "It's more than I had anticipated based on the initial assessments that were made," San Fernando Mayor Dan Acuna said Friday.

While state officials earlier this week ordered a Downtown parking garage shut because of concerns that it could collapse in an earthquake, they chose not to close a nearby Caltrans office annex with 800 workers that is officially rated as posing the same risk. The decision has triggered outrage among some who work in the Caltrans building. "Is a Fiat convertible more important than a human life?" asked D.T. (Doc) Maloney, chief of Caltrans' office of business management.

A man was sentenced to three months in jail after being convicted for a second time in less than three weeks of trespassing in earthquake-damaged buildings, authorities said Thursday. Rabindranath Goswami, 24, was taken into custody Wednesday to begin serving his jail term after a court commissioner found that the Silver Lake man had violated his probation. Goswami was convicted March 1 for trespassing and spent four days in jail.

City Hall has survived fire, earthquake and even condemnation in its seven-decade history, but its final days may be approaching. Built in 1924 as the George Washington Elementary School, the building at 11391 Acacia Parkway was renamed the Stephen R. Fitz Middle School in 1938 in honor of the retiring superintendent of schools. It managed to ride out the powerful earthquake of 1933 without major structural damage.

About 15 parents demonstrated in front of San Fernando Elementary School on Tuesday, protesting conditions at the quake-damaged south building. Although the facility has been vacant since the 1994 Northridge temblor, parents said the condemned structure poses a danger to children and teachers working out of 10 portable bungalows on the school playground.

Earthquake damage to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is so extensive that the historic stadium might not be repaired in time for next fall's football season, officials said Monday. One Coliseum aide said that a structural engineer's report is pending, but there is a possibility it might have to be demolished and rebuilt. In any event, the officials now believe that the costs of reopening the stadium could vastly exceed the estimate of $35 million made last week.