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"After the fire, the city entered into a deal with developers to replace the 61 row houses destroyed in the fire. But the homeowners who lived there found their new homes wanting. "The homes were so shoddily reconstructed after the 1985 fire — nearly every house had leaky roofs, bad plumbing, sagging floors because beams had not been properly installed, cedar siding peeling off exteriors, and faulty electrical wiring — that the original contractors went to jail because money was misused," the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote.
"(Perry Moody, a homeowner on Pine Street whose house was across the street and not destroyed in the fire, told me that the rebuilt homes were "tissue paper.")
"Osage homeowners pushed the city to make fixes to the homes to make them livable, but after about two decades, the city stopped the rehabilitation. Instead, in the early 2000s, the city offered to buy out the folks living in them — $150,000 per building. The buyouts resulted in a mass exodus of longtime residents, some who had been there for generations.
""Today, as you see, we have at least 37 boarded-up homes and all of them are owned by the city," Renfrow said. The homes on Osage Avenue in which people still live are well cared for, with flowers and benches out front. But most of those replacement homes sit unoccupied, with their plywood and padlocks on their doors and windows, while trash piles up." https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/05/13/406175991/what-its-like-to-live-on-the-block-that-philadelphia-bombed-30-years-ago
"35 years after MOVE, homes that Philly bombed for sale"
"Developer AJR Endeavors is wrapping up the rebuild of the block...."
"On the 35th anniversary of the MOVE bombing, a West Philadelphia neighborhood partially destroyed by the city will finally be rebuilt."
"The Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority undertook the process of rehabbing or rebuilding this second set of homes starting in 2016, following complaints from neighbors frustrated by problems with the 36 vacant city-owned properties."
"Now, after the unexpected hurdle of the coronavirus pandemic, workers are finishing the final two homes. Thirty-two of the 36 split-level homes on Osage Avenue and nearby Pine Street, which was also damaged during the bombing, have already sold.
“The project is just about wrapped up,” said PRA spokesperson Jamila Davis. “Thirty-four of the 36 homes are completed and the last two will be ready for final inspection within the next 30 days or so.”
Davis said the pandemic slowed the process of moving the last few homes. All of the homes, developed by AJR Endeavors with modern interiors, sold at prices between $249,000 and $285,000. The development, marketed as Osage Pine, includes rear decks, parking garages and high-end finishes. An online listing shows an available three-bedroom, three-bath home in the development selling for $289,900."
"For years, the vacant homes looked set for demolition, until a report from the Army Corps of Engineers determined that most were salvageable. In 2016, after decades of vacancy and complaints from nearby neighbors, the PRA proposed a second redevelopment of the shuttered homes, without additional public subsidy: Offering the homes to developer AJR Endeavors for $1 apiece, to be resold at market value."
“I know there are concerns about the projected sale price of these homes among neighbors. They are fearful that this will be a catalyst for gentrification and higher property assessments,” Gauthier said. “We do know from AJR that the vast majority of these homeowners are people of color, and a number of them benefited from the Philly First Homebuyer Program. Overall, it’s fantastic to see the community fabric being restored after all this time.”
"The homes are reserved for sale to homeowners who intend to occupy them as primary residences, as per an agreement between AJR and the PRA." https://whyy.org/articles/35-years-after-move-homes-that-philly-bombed-for-sale/
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