Lansford Borough hopes to see several condemned properties razed this month.

Council President Bruce Markovich said on Tuesday during a municipal administration committee meeting that Carbon County is still looking at January.

The borough has been waiting for four properties to come down under the Community Development Block Grant program. Some have been waiting for years to come down.

The properties include: 151-151½ W. Ridge St., 118 W. Ridge St., 316 W. Patterson St. and 334 W. Bertsch St.

Markovich said the county recently sent the borough an economic viability form for 118 W. Ridge St., a building in the borough’s business district which began to collapse in May.

That form has to do with housing, Markovich said, and the building was never used as housing.

“It was always a commercial building,” he said. “They haven’t gotten back to me on how they want to deal with this yet.”

On 151-151½ W. Ridge St., a towering double home has been buckling for years. Markovich said that the building was sold at a tax sale. The owner was OK with half being torn down, and the other half to remain standing, he said.

“We explained to him that, according to our engineer, there’s no way you can maintain a five-story building like that on its own,” Markovich said.

The new owner plans on sending his engineer to look at the building, he said, and he also bought another home ready to be razed, 334 W. Bertsch St. and wants an engineer to look at it.

“Our position on it is, they were condemned,” Markovich said, adding that the borough solicitor agrees that they were lawfully condemned and issued tear down notices.

“When the money becomes available, we’ll take them down,” he said.

The borough is using CDBG funding to raze the structures.

Resident Joe Genits again suggested the borough attach condemnation notices to the deeds of buildings that are condemned so that any new owner would accept all of the violations and condemnation.

Genits said that it costs about $35 to do so at the county Recorder of Deeds office, and said they may not even need the solicitor to file, a secretary could file it with a notarized statement from the code official detailing the condemnation.

Markovich said that this gentleman called about the property and was told not only that it was condemned, but that you could stand in the basement and look up through missing floors.

Genits pointed out that talking wasn’t the same as a legal document.

Markovich said that he will look into the process, especially if it’s something that the code enforcement officer or borough secretary can do.