HOUSING: Corporations destroy good homes

The 504 W Walnut Ave property (Howerton house) is currently being demolished and loaded like junk into a dumpster. No salvaging of the home or trees. Dust from asbestos insulation and siding is flying through the air. Half a dozen disgruntled neighbors just discovered that this demolition was taking place. 

As you may know, the City does not have a public planning awareness/comment process for demolition or developments even though said activities can directly and indirectly affect our historic neighborhood and our personal properties.

Let me repeat, a $300,000 home is being sent to the dump. It’s ironic because there is nothing more “affordable” than our historic housing base and affordability is a local and national concern. October of 2025, it was a 1906 bungalow at 412 W Linden property that was sent to the dump. Both properties were acquired by corporations that are only interested in the 0.28-acre lot; not the improvements (i.e. existing buildings). Their plans are to build multi-plex’s which the cities “middle infill housing” initiative encourages which contradicts “affordable housing.”

Ideal planning for affordable housing might entail splitting the lot in two and constructing a new home next to the existing home, thus equaling two property deeds and affordable houses for two single families. 

In contrast, rental units or what I call “corporate serfdom housing” are new expensive buildings that will have a higher monthly rent in comparison and will never be owned by single families. I could go on.

JENNIFER DeROSE

Coeur d’Alene