Construction sites blighting Staten Island

From the Staten Island Advance:

Along the quiet back streets of Travis, you'll find plenty of white picket fences and well-manicured lawns.

In fact, streets like Cannon and Parish avenues are more like modern-day versions of idyllic suburbia, circa 1950, than they are bright-lights, big-city roadways.

The neighborhood is not without its eyesores, though, and some locals have had a trying summer dealing with some of these blights.

Dotting Glen Street and Wild Avenue, several boarded up and neglected properties have given nearby homeowners a headache.

"I've been living here since 1983," said Diane Navarria. "And I've never had any problems like this."

For Ms. Navarria and her neighbors in the northwest corner of Travis town proper, the issue is two-fold.

A residential construction site on Glen between its intersections with Wild and Parish has sat stagnant for over a year now, deteriorating slowly.

"There was a very nice one-family home there for a long time," said Ms. Navarria. "But the gentleman that was living there sold the property to a developer and moved to North Carolina. For a long time, nothing happened. But eventually, they knocked it down and started building."

In place of the home, four attached townhouses began to take shape, first with their wooden skeletons and then their faux brick facades.

Then work stopped.

Since last summer, the windows have been broken, weeds have grown in and the once brand new buildings are becoming more dilapidated by the day.