A building at the center of controversy in Warren is now set to be torn down.
City council voted to have the outbuilding at the corner of Schoenherr and Masonic declared a nuisance and demolished within 21 days.
The building is a part of the Life Application Ministries Christian Church. Construction started on the building several years ago and it was never finished, the building has set empty and incomplete.
Jeffrey Curle lives across the street from the building and he has been fighting to see something changed for the past couple of years. He said it’s now a danger to the community.
"We've had panels that actually through the wind, blown off, flying on to Schoenherr, we’ve had rodent problems, transients coming through here,” said Curle.
Curle said the church bought another piece of property for their expansion and left this one to sit.
"No homeowner would be allowed to do that, start a building, withdraw and let it sit, year after year after year,” said Curle.
LAM Christian Church didn't return 7 Action News’ request for comment, after business hours on Wednesday, but the church could sue.
"The church could take us to court and say we improperly condemned the property that would be for our lawyers to handle,” said Warren City Councilman, Ron Papandrea.
Papandrea said the city will foot the $50,000 bill to tear down the building. He thinks the money should come from the contingency fund, not new taxes.
"Compared to the trouble it's causing, $50,000 is not a lot of money in my opinion, I would vote, every day of the week to spend $50,000 to knock that down,” said Papandrea.
He said he hopes it doesn’t come down to litigation.
"They should sit down with our city planners with the residents and decide on something, whether it be a small picnic area or a green space something that the church people use and the residents could use and share, I think that would be a great thing,” said Papandrea.
