3 EMPTY HOUSES RAZED; PALMDALE HOMES FIRST OF 57 TO BE DEMOLISHED BY EARLY JUNE.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Daily News Staff Writer

Demolition crews tore down Thursday the first three of 57 vacant homes the city is clearing from the ghost town-like neighborhood south of Desert Sands Park.

The rest of the homes are scheduled to be razed by early June, and city officials plan to go to court to compel the sale of the land to pay off the demolition costs, expected to total about $335,000, City Attorney Matt Ditzhazy said.

``There's continuing problems with people breaking in, starting fires, vandalizing,'' said Mike Miller, Palmdale's housing coordinator.

Owned by Beverly Hills neurosurgeon Dr. Milton Avol, who in the 1985 was ordered by a judge to spend 30 days in a rundown property he owned in Los Angeles, the homes have been the focus of a battle for six years between their owner and Los Angeles County and Palmdale officials.

Some have been vacant for as long as five years.

Avol's attorneys tried three times to get judges to block the demolition of the homes - which had been declared a public nuisance.

The most recent attempt came last month, after the city issued a contract to ATE Environmental Inc. of the City of Industry for the demolition, but a Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied the request Feb. 22, Ditzhazy said.

Avol's attorneys had argued that the city denied him the opportunity to repair the buildings by withholding the permits he needed to bring them up to code.

But city officials said Avol had been given ample opportunity to make his case at hearings to determine whether his houses were a public nuisance.

Avol acquired the two-bedroom, single-story stucco homes in 1964, when the Antelope Valley housing market was in a slump following aircraft industry cutbacks. The neighborhood was then outside city limits.

In April 1993, Los Angeles County fined him $16,000 for building and safety code violations in the homes. Palmdale assumed jurisdiction when it annexed the area in 1995.

In October, some of the homes served as a backdrop for a video for shock rocker Marilyn Manson, whose production company wanted an area with a ``post-apocalyptic L.A. look.''

A handful of occupied homes will be left standing on the four blocks north of Avenue P-12 and east of Third Street East.

One is owned by 84-year-old V.A. Underwood, who bought a house on Stanridge Avenue in September 1997 after moving from Northern California to be closer to her daughter and doctor.

``These houses don't bother me,'' she said Thursday morning while working in the garden she and her daughter cleared of weeds. ``I can't understand why they didn't fix them up and sell them.''

Tina Sylvia, who has rented a house on Stanridge for five years, agrees with the demolition.

``I'd rather seem them gone. They are an eyesore,'' Sylvia said. ``Kids can get in them and play and they can get hurt.''

Most of the houses on Stanridge were kept rented by Avol until about eight months ago, Sylvia said.

``He was renting out beds, $250 a bed, for like halfway houses for people who were just getting out of jail,'' Sylvia said. At one time two convicted child molesters lived on her block, she said.

Both Sylvia and Underwood said they have seen break-ins or signs of burglaries in the uninhabited houses around them, but neither felt fearful.

``You get used to it,'' Sylvia said. ``It's quiet, because there's only three people here.''

But Sylvia fears her house will be torn down, too. Staffers at nearby Desert Sands Park told her the city intends to extend the park southward when the homes are gone, she said.

But city officials said they have no plans to expand the park to the Avol land, which is now zoned for industry.

``There's no plan for the park,'' Ditzhazy said.

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1--Color) Crews in protective gear remove asbestos from an abandoned house south of Desert Sands Park in Palmdale, one of 57 slated to be demolished.

(2--Color) A bulldozer makes a scrap pile of a house in a Palmdale neighborhood full of empty homes.

Jeff Goldwater/Daily News