City staff are stepping in to put the remains of a former Texas Historic Landmark in South Austin out of its misery, after decades of neglect have left the 173 year old ruins a threat to public safety.
The structure at 6706 Bluff Springs Road, which was once home to prominent political figures at the dawn of Texas’ statehood, has languished for nearly three decades since a fire that left it an assemblage of dilapidated limestone walls. With no intervention from owner David Hemassi, who inherited the property after the death of his father Majid, the unsecured lot just east of I-35 and William Cannon has found itself one of the area’s largest encampment sites.
“There was a very highly publicized encampment here in the spring that the city expended thousands of dollars to clean up,” said Historic Preservation Division Manager Kim McKnight. “Obviously, it’s been on our radar for 30 years… but we have people actively camping between walls that are not stable and it’s very, very serious.”
After reaching an agreement with the Texas Historical Commission, the Development Services Department secured the permit from the City’s Historic Landmark Commission to proceed with demolition. The cost incurred will add to an increasingly hefty bill for property owner Hemassi, who has thus far failed to respond to the city’s pleas.
Hemassi’s father, Majid, purchased the property then known as the Duval-Horton House at auction just four years before the 1996 fire that reduced the home largely to ruins. In 2017, Majid was tragically slain in the parking lot of his North Austin business, AAA Fire & Safety, in a criminal case later ruled a murder-for-hire plot.
As executor of Majid’s many real estate holdings, Hemassi, under an LLC called MT Properties listed in Delaware, has now inherited his father’s entanglements at the long neglected site.
“We have an active Building and Standards Commission order that has accrued probably over $300,000 worth of penalties,” said Case Review & Escalation Supervisor Marlayna Wright. “But we’ve also been mowing and fencing, and abating the activities going on there, and I expect that to be up to around… $5,000 for that alone.”
Earlier this year, concerns over the threat to public safety reached a climax, with KXAN reporting open drug use and uncontrolled fires at the site, which directly borders a major electrical substation. In a press release this March, the City of Austin’s Homeless Strategy Office confirmed it had relocated 25 occupants and a number of animals from the growing encampment to the Marshalling Yard Emergency Shelter.
City staff hope the removal of the former landmark’s ruins will help to make the site more manageable, despite ongoing uncertainty over the future of its real estate. For now, the site will retain its landmarked zoning, leaving property owner Hemassi on the hook to sort out outstanding liens before any future development can take place.
Staff say they plan to recycle the site’s limestone, which was quarried by slaves from the former Sneed Plantation, another similarly abandoned landmark just north of William Cannon. Readers can learn more about that case here.
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