Row home porches collapse after unpermitted work, city plans action
By Tommie Clark
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BALTIMORE (WBAL) — Baltimore City Councilwoman Odette Ramos is taking legislative action after the porches of three rowhomes came crashing down. It happened this week along Gorsuch Avenue in the Coldstream-Homestead-Montebello area.
“I just heard a boom real loud, and I thought it was coming in my door. So, I came to the door, and I looked and everything fell,” neighbor Debra Ransom said.
Ransom walked out of her front door to the porches of the three rowhomes next door toppled over. They barely missed her property.
“When it fell, it just went out to the street, so anybody that was walking past here would’ve been hurt pretty bad. But thank God nobody did,” Ransom said.
Ramos said unpermitted work and “stop work” orders left ignored by the middle homeowner likely caused the collapse.
“When you don’t get permits, you don’t get inspections. And so, there wasn’t anybody to stop them. And then they put too much pressure on it, and the porch fell down,” Ramos said.
She spent all morning working with the other homeowner to make sure their property is stable. Now, the middle rowhome has an emergency condemnation and demolition notice.
“I was like, ‘Wow,’ and when I saw the neighbor who was cleaning up the mess, I shared with him that I’m glad he didn’t get killed, because he usually sits on the porch and when he said he came outside, he just heard something crack, crack, crack and then smash,” neighbor Richard McCants said.
Ramos now plans to introduce legislation to make sure incidents like this don’t happen again. She reiterated how she wants homes to be improved, but that must be done correctly and safely.
“This is not the first time that we’ve seen where people are doing work without permits. I get that we have challenges in our permit office, and they’re being worked on, but contractors can’t just do this. And property owners are trying to skirt the law. They can’t do this,” Ramos said.
Neighbors said one of the three homes impacted is vacant, and they’re concerned about that home, too. Ramos said the city is seeing if it can take possession of that home.
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