Abandoned NE Harris County apartment demolished in hopes to make area safer

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) -- An abandoned apartment building in northeast Harris County has been torn down after county officials say it attracted crime, illegal dumping, and brought drugs to the area.

The building is on Beaumont Place, and neighbors were relieved to see it gone after reportedly causing trouble for years.

"No one would want to live across the street from this or next door to it, but yet that was the reality many have suffered with for many years," Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia said.

The property was demolished as part of a $3 million nuisance abatement program targeting problematic properties in Harris County. Garcia said the federal funds come from the American Relief Program.

Since June 2022, county officials said they have torn down around 300 properties and plan to do 1,000. Without the funds, the county health department said they typically can only tear down about 10 to 15 properties a year.

Nuisance properties causing trouble for neighborhoods is something ABC13 has reported on many times, so we asked why this property is prioritized and how county officials choose which properties to target.

"This particular property poses all the challenges you just laid out," Garcia said. "One of the first priorities we abated was serving as a neighborhood meth lab, and it went up in flames. This can do the same thing, posing unnecessary danger to firefighters who have to go into these properties under those circumstances. These properties tend to be havens for gangs, havens for drug use."

According to Harris County Public Health, all nuisance complaints are taken seriously and investigated.

"If there is a property owner, we will go through the normal recourse," Scott Jeansonne, with Environmental Public, said. "We prefer the taxpayer dollars not to be spent, but when you have one like this that's abandoned and no success reaching the property owner, then we'll use those funds and do the work."

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