Photo by Deb Gau Tom Dobson, Tracy community development director, brought Lyon County Commissioners a request to tear down two hazardous buildings in the city of Tracy. The buildings are on state tax-forfeited land.

MARSHALL — This week, Lyon County Commissioners gave the city of Tracy permission to tear down two vacant houses on state tax-forfeited land. Tom Dobson, community development director for the city of Tracy, said the two buildings were in poor condition and posed a safety issue for the community.

“The issue with these is they are part of what we would call legacy tax forfeiture – properties that are kind of stuck in the process of three years trying to sell these,” through Minnesota’s state surplus property auctions, Dobson said. In the meantime, the two vacant houses were falling apart, he said.

The affected properties were located on the 200 block of Union Street and the 400 block of Rowland Street in Tracy.

“These two, we did have inspected by our own building inspectors, and declared as hazardous or dangerous buildings,” Dobson said. “The foundations are crumbling. You can actually see from outside into the basement,” he said of the houses’ condition. Two years ago, the house on Union Street was already too much of a hazard for county staff to enter for a walkthrough, Dobson said.

Dobson said Tracy’s demolition request was following a process that was originally done in Dakota County. In that case, the city of West St. Paul asked Dakota County for permission to tear down a hazardous building.

Agenda packet materials for Tuesday’s commissioner meeting included resolutions passed by the Tracy City Council in April, calling for repair or replacement of the buildings within 30 days. The city resolutions said if the work on the two homes was not completed in that time frame, the buildings would be ordered to be razed.

In two separate votes, county commissioners approved resolutions allowing the city of Tracy to tear down structures on the two tax-forfeited parcels.

Dobson said currently the city of Tracy could afford to tear down the two vacant buildings. Depending on what funds are available in the city budget, it’s possible that they could come back to the county with more teardown requests in the future.