These three 19th century wooden houses on Ovington Avenue between 5th and 6th Avenues were acquired by developer Mousa Khalil during the real estate bubble and left to rot after down-zoning kept Khalil from building outside the envelope.
The tall white metal fence in front of the beautifully-crafted yellow house was erected by Khalil after the white house in the above photo nearly burned down. The rumor was that squatters had been living there.
After the fire, Khalil's workmen covered the windows of the white house with plywood.
The following article was cut and pasted to Bay Ridge Talk: 09/13/2007
Left to rot on Ovington -- Vacant homes are a drag on nabe.
By Helen Klein
Like blind eyes, the boarded-up windows of the three vacant houses on Ovington Avenue between Fifth and Sixth Avenues stare blankly out at the street. Children may play outside, adults may garden or gossip, but the houses at 552, 556 and 562 do not come to life.
Quaint old buildings that appear to be in decent condition, the homes are swathed with yellow caution tape and surrounded by weeds — constant reminders of how some developers have been changing (some say ruining) the character and quality of life across Bay Ridge.
The three buildings on the 500 block of Ovington Avenue are owned by the same developer, Mousa Khalil, and they have all stood vacant for several years, according to local preservationist Victoria Hofmo who said there was discomfort among many residents of the block because of the boarded-up buildings, which cast a shadow over all their daily activities.
...“These homes are perfectly fine to live in, charming old buildings,” contended Hofmo, who said that buying up properties and then leaving them to lie fallow “wrecks the quality of life on a block...“People move out because of things like this,” Hofmo went on. “When we need housing in the city, why is he taking charming houses and letting them rot? If the developer isn’t going to do something better, he shouldn’t touch the properties.”
...One of the buildings, at 552 Ovington Avenue, has two open Department of Buildings (DOB) violations, one dating from April, 2005, and another from August, 2006 — one a construction violation and the other a violation issued under the category of “unsafe building.”
Josephine Beckmann, the district manager of Community Board 10, said that the board office had received numerous complaints about the Khalil-owned houses on Ovington Avenue, “relating to overgrown weeds and garbage. “Unfortunately,” she added, “if a building is boarded up, it can remain boarded up. But, while it may be legal, it is an eyesore, particularly when it remains that way for a number of years.
“Ovington Avenue is a beautiful, tree-lined block and then you have three homes boarded up with overgrown weeds, garbage out front and graffiti all over the place,” Beckmann went on. “It takes away from the aesthetics of the block. Having three on one block is significant for the neighbors. He should develop those properties.”
In fact, while the 500 block of Ovington Avenue has three Khalil-owned properties, many other streets in Bay Ridge have similar, boarded-up structures also owned by this developer. At least 22 properties are identified as being in his hands, and most are unoccupied and exhibit similar signs of neglect.
In another part of Bay Ridge, a near neighbor to one of Khalil’s properties — which she said had been vacant five or six years — underlined all the problems that the neglected home created for the block. “The garden is not taken care of,” the neighbor said. “He doesn’t shovel the snow in the winter. It’s a corner house, so it’s hard getting on and off the block. He gutted the whole house, destroyed the yard in front and put down brick. It’s all boarded-up, and there’s nothing inside. There’s an extension cord hanging for electricity, which could cause a fire, and there’s no one working on it, so it’s just idle, an eyesore on the block. It’s kind of destroyed the character of the block. It’s very sad.”
By press time, Khalil did not respond to a request for comment.
©Courier-Life Publications 2007
Ordinances have been enacted by some cities to address the problem of demolition-by-neglect. A sample ordinance from Washington D.C. is posted here. It addresses the easy case in which the neglected building has either been designated a local landmark or is located in a designated historic district.
The problem in Bay Ridge, of course, is that there are no historic districts, and only a couple of houses that have been individually designated. Ironically, the architectural diversity that makes Bay Ridge so uniquely appealing as a place to live is also local preservationists' biggest obstacle in a preservation scheme that, with few exceptions, values homogeneity.
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