The county is pushing an effort to clear out an unsanitary and
unsafe shanty town just north of the San Benito River Bridge.
The county is pushing an effort to clear out an unsanitary and unsafe shanty town just north of the San Benito River Bridge.
The move, approved by the Board of Supervisors, is intended to clean the lot at 490 Bridgevale Road, which has become a continuing nuisance and a health hazard, according to officials.
“The fire department has been called out to that property 19 times in the past 10 years,” said County Planning Director Rob Mendiola.
The inherent dangers at the property became evident recently when a woman burned to death in a trailer fire on the property about a month ago, he said.
The lot, littered with more than a dozen dilapidated trailers and illegally placed makeshift dwellings, has also been a location for drug use and other illicit activities, the San Benito County Sheriff’s Department said.
“There has been drug dealing, stolen property, squatting on the land, and at one time they were stealing power from PG&E,” Sheriff Curtis Hill said.
By officially declaring the property a nuisance, the county now has the legal authority to clean the property and keep it that way, which will benefit other homeowners in the area, officials said.
“By being part of the process, it enables the neighbors to get their property rights back,” Hill said. “This had a direct effect on the people living in the neighborhood and their property values.”
In recent years, Mendiola said the county has, on several occasions, cleared all the illegal dwellings and tried to rehabilitate the lot for other uses.
“But they just seem to keep coming back,” Mendiola told the Board.
But with the support and assistance of the county’s code enforcement officer and the sheriff’s department, the lot’s property owner must keep the area up to code.
Hill was saddened it took a tragedy to bring this long standing problem to light.
“I think it is great that the county has declared the property a nuisance,” Hill said. “It’s unfortunate that this had to come about through the death of a woman.”
It was the April 4 death of Alice Acosta, 34, that brought the property’s dangers to the forefront. Investigators concluded the fatal fire resulted from an accident.
“A water heater connected to a propane tank, and it malfunctioned setting the room on fire. This was a tragic accident, there are no signs of foul play,” said Battalion Chief Curt Itson with the California Department of Forestry after the incident.
Fire officials said the fatality should have never happened because the trailers and makeshift dwellings that Acosta and other residents are living in are illegal.
“We have had to respond to a number of incidents out there,” Hill said. “This was not our first time out there.”
Hill said the illegal housing units have unintentionally been a magnet for some of the county’s homeless population.
“For a while there we had a guy operating an illegal junkyard,” Hill said. “Don’t forget that is probably not more than about 50 yards from there we, found the body of Eustevio Martinez, 44, on Feb. 11.”
Before that, Hill said there was also a report of a corpse found in a van that was illegally parked near the trailers.
