Delaware Supervisors Refuse Buyout Request to Avoid Owning a 'Pocket Park'

LAKE DELHI- A Delaware County homeowner expressed disappointment Wednesday when he heard county officials would not agree to participate in a federal buyout program for his flood-damaged home.

Michael Gearhart, 24619 198th Avenue Manchester, was driven out of his home on the far western end of Lake Delhi when floodwaters swamped his home and the homes of neighbors in July of 2010. That was just hours before the same high water overwhelmed the Lake Delhi dam and drained the entire lake. The water in Gearhart's home retreated when the dam failed.

Gearhart said he got a full basement but only about six inches of water on his main floor. And all of his neighbors in the area near Bailey's Ford repaired homes and returned. But Gearhart said the high water pressure in the ground literally exploded the concrete floor of his basement. There is a “mound” covering half the basement of broken concrete rising at least 16 inches above the normal level of the floor. Gearhart, a contractor who built his own home, is not sure the home could be repaired because the floors fractured by the water pressure may have made all the walls unstable. He saw a buyout as his only real hope of recovery.

“I don't want to let the house go back to the bank, but the buyout was our last resort,” Gearhart said.

So last fall, he started petitioning the Delaware County Supervisors to participate in a federal buyout program that would allow him to walk away with his mortgage paid and let him rebuild elsewhere. But this week, the county turned down the so-far only buyout request from last summer's giant flood event in Delaware County.

Supervisor Jerry Ries said part of the decision to say “no” was based on money. The county's 15% share of the buyout would have amounted to just over $41,000. But a more compelling reason is what would have happened to Gearhart's half acre lot after the buyout and demolition of the apparently unsafe home.

Supervisor Shirley Helmrichs said the county would have ended up with a piece of property that could never be sold and could only be used as green space. In effect, the county would have a small “pocket park” in the middle of a rural housing development with perpetual upkeep and no real use for recreation.

“We'd have to monitor it on a continual basis and that takes extra people power and it's not really something I'd like to see out there hanging over the county,” Helmrichs said.

In response, Gearhart said “if they can't see it off I can see their point to an extent. But I wish there were other options out there for us as a family.”

Gearhart said he has continued to pay the mortgage on his flood-damaged home while renting another residence for his family. His next option may simply be to walk away and return the unrepaired home to the bank.