You guys are brutal.
Anyone can grip but little choose to do anything about the problem. Granted the mayor has been closing his eys as he drives by those destroyed buildings. I think I figured out how u posted the Ansonia picture but u missed one:

Stop complaining.
Just like all home owners in the area we keep our structures in shape to avoid frivolous fines.
Fix it and your done....no issues.

Blight blight blight... You know, not everyone needs to be Martha Stewart and not every building has to be the Pottery Barn. It is high time yuppies and the ilk realize that places like Ansonia are working class towns with working class values. We like places with character and we have more important thinks on our minds than you making a poor footwear choice while taking a hike.

Good comeback "Tombotronic" .....LOL.
Working class yes....sure wish I could be working in one of those empty dust-collectors myself as I have to travel 42 miles one-way for my job. Targets, BiGY, Stop & Shop would put me into our heavy, southern hemisphere type rental community mode if I chose our town's working class conditions. Amazing… isn't how things have traditionally turned a 180 in a generation?

I live here in Ansonia Tombotronic and NO the buildings don't have to be like Pottery Barn but they don't have to make Ansonia look like a dump either. I am not a yuppie and this town is now working class anymore, not that factories have either moved out or closed. P.S. there is a differents between character and a dump

These buildings are privately-owned, not under any city control, and are zoned for industrial use. As industrial property, they would not considered blighted under any town ordinance that I am aware of anywhere in Connecticut. Both buildings cited are occupied and provide employment for a couple of hundred people in the area. Farrel has also announced that it will be continuing operations in one of the buildings and is working with a developer to convert the rest.
Sure, they look lousy, but they are the heritage of 175 years of industrial prosperity that provided tens of thousands of jobs to Ansonia residents, that in turn allowed those residents to move out of the downtown and into the suburban enclaves of the Hilltop.
Lastly, these buildings comprise one of Ansonia's top 10 taxpayers and generate millions in tax revenue that keep residential taxes that much lower.
It will take more than a couple of years to turn these properties into something more pleasing to the eye. I'm impressed with the continued improvement of the Main Street area and feel confident that the town leaders know what they're doing. We can't expect everything to be done overnight.

WOW..quite deep but confusing ????
Quote: “ These buildings are privately-owned not under any city control, ….
Sure, they look lousy…buildings comprise one of Ansonia's top 10 taxpayers and generate millions in tax revenue that keep residential taxes that much lower.”
( taxes lower in lieu of deflated property values due to town attributed demographics & infrastructure, economics 101 )
Well we see one individuals opinion represents something that has many “bloggers” confused, disoriented, displaced or perhaps wondering if he or she had a chance to escape
from the devastation of the Main and North Main area based on industrial days mind-set of the past instead of moving forward in the present. These obvious remarks socially portray a sympathetic, symbolic and cherished strong-hold on ones town history with the remote possibility that one could get emotional if something, anything could be done to band-aid a visual disaster. Any simple thinker would ask a property owner who may even be selling a property, “ hey…would you mind taking the t-shirt off that building and simply put a clean dress shirt on instead.” Even a quality 5 year paint job would help.
I heard city residents being fined for trashing a property they may own which encompassed less than a ¼ acre…. so any Ansonia resident living in the area of the Farrel properties (5 + acres) can now translate this as a double standard based on what is visually acceptable within the 1 mile radius as visual precedence. Highlighting the condition of the Farrel properties as benchmark, acceptable, visually, by theory will now become a case-law example to substantiate a City Official choosing a private property violator. Private Party ownership of blighted property may or may not meet ordinance by means of being part of the entire towns demographic as a whole.
One can not base it through non-equality because of being a corner stone as a tax payer. The City Official will need to compare by standard joining a revised ordinance and determine what health and safety issues are aligned by comparison. A lawyer with minimal competitive skills proofing the comparison against clients blighted home property brought to a court of law by a Ansonia Official will now be an easy win for his client resulting with the clients ability to leave his property as is. Blighted. Thus setting a new standard on what is Blight and what is not. I suggest everyone in Ansonia to achieve the same house-keeping practices as Farrell, it’s holders and sellers from this point forward. The road is paved. Someone else brought up a valid point in a publication; the Riverside Apartments in Ansonia from the 60’s look far more pleasing from their exterior than the Industrial mess of the Farrell & American Brass properties from the civil war error. Thus why tear them down. Self-interests or personal hidden agendas perhaps. Another topic. I can even see this as I pass by that section of Ansonia, Ct on occasion.

SmallCityReviewer: You think someone has a hidden agenda in continuing blight? Do you also know who killed JFK??
You've got far too much time on your hands!

Rejoining this escapade as I suck down a cold one on a Fri eve. and do the surf.
What is the problem here.
Everything is roses in Ansonia.
Does someone have a problem.
Taking this over with some of the guys in the past even in direct eye site of those crappie looking buildings, I cannot tell a lie. A few of these people who choose to diss my home town seem to be right by way of majority when conversing with my brothers. Those old Farrel builds got to go.
Oh yeh…so do the projects.
Just my 2 cents.
To many burning fire hazards around here and those are an accident ready to happen.
Peace.

Inquiry to - "Planner"-

I like to build of a statement as I am concerned, You mentioned: "Both buildings cited are occupied and provide employment for a couple of hundred people in the area. "
If fining them for blight conditions is out of the question when in fact there is potential money for your city to be made, what if someone by the way of connections blows the whistle to alarm OSHA based on exterior conditions tied to public health and safety? Looks like you have a German landlord there similar to many of the absent landlords scattered across your north end of town.

I have lived in Ansonia all my life I am used to way these buildings look they became part of the scenery(lol). My question is why in the world would you pick this spot of Ansonia to take your walk. There are lots of lovely areas of Ansonia that you could have taken your walk. Granted this area could use some work but you can't blame the way the buildings look and everything on the ground for cutting your foot. This was your fault for walking there in the first place. The city is trying to do other things now and in time they will take care of this to.

?? Reply to- FromAnsonia??? - hey fellow townsman.
You mentioned:
...."you can't blame the way the buildings look and everything on the ground for cutting your foot."
That is one classic line when someone trained as an EMT reads this and has to answer an injury call. This is not to mention another law-suit that could occur based on neglect.
It is like saying the nails you do not use to hold up the wall ….just throw them and leave them on the ground as they will eventually rust and someone will eventually pick them up. Some poor SOB is likely trail that area causing injury tied to OSHA self containment regulations which appears to be a problem in some areas of town for our FD brothers.
You are making me look bad with your Valley mentality which is causing people to leave our town thus coming up short on our volunteer status.
Dude!!!...think before you write again or you may be short on several other volunteers who actually give a crap about our city.

The buildings are old factories! They look like old factories and smell like old factories! If you are going to focus on the negatives of this small industrial city, don't bother coming here! Do you complain to the DEP if you are walking in the woods and trip on a log??? Just watch where your stepping as you should have learned as a kid!

Hello Larry ....that is to funny but also holds some truth..."They look like old factories and smell like old factories!" ..LOL, Are you calling Ansonia the Arm-Pit of the Valley?
Dont' bother coming here? ....why would you say that when the 1st poster who started this appears to be a much need patron to a town business. By the numbers we already have a population disappering from the tax rolls and the last thing we want to do is harm them visually or physically. Would you drink sour milk and say wow, this aint to bad for a valley guy on a budjet.
Triping on a log in the woods is a natural form of degeneration caused by natural occurance. I believe what some are saying above, the old factories are obvious neglect caused by man and all who simply turn a blind-eye. Now that is an analogy.

"See_itClick_it_first_timer" - Wow you really put the nail in the coffin on that one and could not be more acurate. Some people like Larry must think before they type. I apologize for him and possibly his livin conditions. I had to see where this was goin.

"blight" laws are the problem, not the cure

Leave my city the way it was intended to look.
The more blighted industrial buildings ( as there are) the less business and crowds from the outside world.

Downtown Ansonia has a number of abandoned industrial buildings in this very area that the City has done nothing about for more than a decade. The owners should me made to clean them up or take them down. Failing that, the city should take the buildings, demolish them and sell the land to recoup costs. NOW.

I have to agree, I live in Ansonia and believe these old abandon buildings need to be taken down. Main street & other new business could attract so much more to our town, if these eye sore were no longer here, or the owners were made to clean up their conditions.

no resolution