A lot of garbage and red tape for New Brighton family
Posted by calzolari August 05, 2009 15:23PM
Anthony DePrimoThe owners of this house on York Avenue
have been plagued by city violations because of the vacant lot next to it.
New Brighton homeowner Mark Lara, 69, is frustrated, furious, and does not know where to turn
next. He has already handed over $1,400 in fines to the city for Health-Department violations on
property that he does not own, and last week received a written warning that he owes the city another
$800.
It's a bizarre tale of an incorrect property address that started seven years ago, and remains unresolved
until now.
Lara, a retired NYC Transit Authority carpenter, came to the U.S. in 1960, from the town of Caraz in
northern Peru, where spectacular mountains and glaciers mark the landscape. He has lived in his
house at 338 York Ave., since 1974, and also owns the adjoining lot with a one-story garage. Fig trees
from the former Italian owner still fill in the spacious, meticulously maintained back-yard perennial
and herb garden that his wife Shirley tends.
"On the other side of us was a house that went on fire and was torn down a few years after we moved
in," Mrs. Lara explained. That site, still an overgrown vacant lot often littered with garbage, is the
apparent reason for the costly bureaucratic nightmare that the couple has endured for years.
The first sign of a mix-up came in 2002, when Lara applied for a home equity loan from HSBC bank,
to help his son Harold, a 1996 graduate of the College of Staten Island, pay off his student loans. "It
was approved, but then the lady from the bank called me, and said that the city had a $1,399.50 lien
on my house that I had to pay so the loan could go through," he told the Advance.
The lien represented fines for three violations, plus accumulated interest, for "dirty sidewalk"
conditions at 340A York Ave., the address of Lara's street-front garage. The violations were recorded
in October and December 1995, and October 1996. The couple said it was the first time that they
learned about the citations, and they were astonished.
"I'm always sweeping, picking up garbage, keeping everything clean," said Mrs. Lara. The garbage-
filled vacant lot next door was the problem.
Lara reluctantly paid the lien, not wanting to jeopardize his bank loan, but since then he has been
unable to challenge the city to recoup his money.
"They kicked me from one place to another," he said. He visited the borough president's office, and
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