Lancaster Will Pay for Fireplace Repairs

Lancaster city officials, responding to pleas from angry homeowners, have agreed to spend up to $160,000 to pay for repairs to as many as 32 homes with unsafe and potentially flammable fireplaces.

A December fire at a modular home in the Panorama Village tract in east Lancaster was caused by a faulty fireplace and led city officials to order homeowners to demolish or rebuild them to make them safe. Faced with that order, homeowners appealed to the city for financial aid.

Sitting as directors of the city’s redevelopment agency, members of the Lancaster City Council voted 3 to 0 Monday to hire a contractor to make the repairs. Homeowners with low-to-moderate incomes will be eligible for the city-funded repairs.

Residents of the tract, north of Avenue K and west of 25th Street East, had blamed the developer for building the faulty fireplaces partially on wooden supports, and the city for not catching the problem when the homes were built about 1984.

City officials, in turn, suggested that developer Jerry McGuire or Willdan Associates, the private company that did the city’s building inspections at the time, should bear the blame. But McGuire no longer is an active developer in the area, and the city no longer contracts with Willdan.

Other fireplace flaws have been discovered recently in homes in other area cities.