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City Inspector: Developer's Work Led To Landslide

Jason Fair
/
WCPO

Cincinnati's city engineer is ordering a developer to come up with a solution to sliding land in Mount Adams. Concrete blocks cascaded down the hillside between Oregon and Baum streets last week, crashing into the back of homes.

According to a letter from the city, the developer is responsible for the slide. City inspectors found Metropolitan Design and Development employees didn't follow safe building operations. The city’s complaint says workers built a gravity wall that wasn’t strong enough to shore up the hillside.

"While the developers were cutting into the base of the slope to install a segment of gravity wall at 406 Baum Street, earth began to loosen and triggered a slide into the excavation for the wall base completely covering the area and partially covered the excavating equipment with earth," the letter reads. "The movement of dirt continued unabated in the days following until the slide pushed the gravity wall into the homes at 402 and 404 Baum Street, also constructed by the developer, seriously damaging the dwellings to the extent they were ordered vacated and kept vacant."

The city says the slide is still causing problems to nearby structures.

Metropolitan Design and Development has until noon Friday to submit a stabilization plan to the Department of Buildings and Inspections. The plan must be finished within 30 days of approval.

Bill Rinehart started his radio career as a disc jockey in 1990. In 1994, he made the jump into journalism and has been reporting and delivering news on the radio ever since.