Nosy neighbors upset those trying to make a living
Issue was 'blown out of proportion'
Staff reporter
Sometimes it's just exasperating when some people think they have to know everyone else's business.
That's the way Brad Seacat feels.
He recently purchased two and one-half lots on North Cedar Street, Marion, for the purpose of building two homes that will be sold.
On the site was an unoccupied, older house that needed to be demolished.
"I could have buried the debris on the lot and that would have been OK," Seacat said.
Instead the debris was hauled to private property north of town — that property belonging to the mother of Marion County Commissioner Dan Holub and a Seacat contracted laborer.
Newspapers in the area were notified of what was conceived as an indiscretion.
"We didn't purposely do anything wrong," Seacat said.
The real focus, he said, should be the project.
Seacat, owner of Seacat's Do-it-Best Hardware and Lumber of Marion, sees an opportunity to make money and improve the community.
Marion High School Construction Technology Teacher Lucas King and Seacat are building the two homes on North Cedar Street. They hope to have both homes completed by October.
The homes will have identical floor plans — two bedrooms, two bathrooms, 1,100 square feet with a crawl space.
"This is a good starter or retirement home," Seacat said.
Virtually maintenance free, the homes are designed to fill a niche Seacat said is needed.
There are some newer homes available in the $50,000-$60,000 range, and those more than $100,000.
"These homes will be somewhere in-between," Seacat said.
Seacat also purchased an empty lot at the corner of Hudson and Roosevelt where a dilapidated house was removed by the owner.
That lot will be the location for King and his class to build a house with materials supplied by the store.
"I am very interested in the construction technology class because it will produce carpenters who might stay around here and build houses," Seacat said, and purchase their materials from him.
Seacat will own the house and sell it as he will the other two.
"To make money with speculative houses, you need to build a house and sell it fast," Seacat said.
Now, what about the accusation of illegally dumping construction and demolition waste?
According to Marion County Sanitarian Bobbi Strait, she notified Holub of the indiscretion by personally delivering a letter to him.
The letter, dated June 15, stated that "it has come to my attention that you have permitted an amount of demolition debris
Strait said she provided an application for a permit to dump the C&D waste.
Holub did apply for the permit and stated he did "not intend to bury or burn this waste at this site." Holub also stated in the application that the debris was in an old silage tunnel which was "contained."
Seacat said proceeds from the sale of the houses would pay for the removal of the waste, which was planned anyway but now there will be additional expenses.
"Now we're going to have to pass these expenses on to the buyers of the houses," Seacat said.
Seacat would like to remove some dilapidated structures from city lots and build new houses on the lots — ideally one per year.
"I would love to buy every dilapidated house and lot in town, tear them down, and build new houses," Seacat said, but in order to make it feasible, "The county needs to designate an area for a C&D landfill," he said.
Seacat commented that it is cost-prohibitive to take C&D waste to the county transfer station at $40-45 per ton. Hauling it to another county, like McPherson, also is costly, considering fuel and dumping costs.
"It would have been insane to move the construction debris to the transfer station because of the cost," Seacat said, "and we couldn't just move it to the edge of the property since we're building two houses at the same time."
"People who own dilapidated homes cannot afford to tear them down," Seacat said.
He also would like to see the City of Marion get involved in providing an area for C&D waste.
Seacat is not one to mince his words. He tells it exactly as he sees it.
"Those people who turned us in are malcontent son-of-a-bitches," Seacat said. "When did it become their business to tell private industry what to do?
"If state governmental entities want dilapidated areas cleaned up, they need to make it easier for us."
The violation
Strait said KDHE allows short-term disposal.
"At first they gave him 90 days but then KDHE came back and said they had to remove the waste within 30 days," she said.
There was nothing underhanded or illegal — just people's perception, Strait said.
"I'm upset that people are blowing this all out of proportion."
She continued that the end result of a dilapidated house being removed and new houses being built in its place far outweighs the oversight by Holub and Seacat in obtaining a permit.
"This project is for the betterment of the city and the county," Strait said. "This is a wonderful thing that Luke (King) and Brad (Seacat) are doing for the community."
Holub and Seacat will have 30 days from the mid-June date to properly dispose of the C&D waste.
