PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Migdalia Mendez's modest two-story home was the last one standing on the 400 block of Hewson Street in North Philadelphia.
The lots around her were vacant. She told Philadelphia City Council’s Committee on Licenses and Inspections (L&I) on Thursday that she kept them clean and fenced them in to prevent illegal dumping.
Until a man showed up at her door one day and said to take the fence down, because he had bought the lot next door.
It turned out that the lot had been sold at auction for $5,500, then flipped to a developer for $50,000. That developer planned to build a house on it, then flip it himself.
“I had a lot of problems when they started construction,” she said through a translator, “because they broke one of my walls.”
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Mendez was one of a dozen witnesses testifying in support of a bill sponsored by Councilmember Mark Squilla.
It would require developers to present structural studies and proof that neighbors are aware of their plans before they can get a building permit for work on a house that shares a common wall with another home.
Mendez was not the only one with a horror story about the damage they suffered when construction started on an adjoining row home or twin.
The stories followed a similar pattern: An initial outreach to L&I at which they were told it was a civil matter, the endless resources developers can bring to a fight for compensation, the lack of repairs, and the devaluation of the damaged home.
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“The devastating effects, not only what it does to their home but their emotional well-being and their mental health — it’s damage all the way around,” Squilla said, conceding his bill is a small first step.
He said he hoped to follow it up with stronger legislation, including a way to hold contractors responsible for the damage they cause.
“For us as a city to say, ‘Go hire an attorney and do it on your own,’ is just not feasible,” he said.
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Squilla's bill was inspired, at least in part, by two highly-publicized cases — one in Fishtown in 2019 and in South Philly in 2020 — in which homes collapsed and residents narrowly escaped injury due to shoddy work on an adjoining structure.
Fishtown resident Debbie King thanked Squilla for the legislation. Like the other witnesses, she said it was too late to help her. She had spent thousands of dollars after a developer put a hole in her wall during work on a next-door property.
She was happy, though, to know there would be safeguards in the future.
“We spent five years trying to get it fixed. They had a stop-work order issued. Then they came back and tried to do it again in violation of the stop-work order,” she said. “It was a nightmare that you can’t imagine.”
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Mendez, too, is living with the cracks that opened up during construction of the three-story house that now adjoins hers.
“My house is colder,” she said, “and when the wind blows at night, the bed shakes.”
CORRECTION: In a previous version of this article, Migdalia Mendez's name was misspelled.
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