Benson commissioners said no.

After years of prodding Dixon to take action, commissioners agreed last week to raze the houses Dixon owns at 102, 104 and 106 E. Harnett St.

Town Planner Jeremy Smith said he had tried every means to get the houses fixed up. “This [condemnation] ordinance comes to you at the end of an exhausting process,” he said. “Any means my department has to get some remedy is gone. This is my last resort.”

Dixon told commissioners that personal issues had kept him from repairing the houses.

But in the meantime, Smith said, the houses at 102 and 104 E. Harnett had crumbled beyond repair. “The deterioration ... is to a point that the cost and value of the repairs is more than 50 percent of the value of the building, so [the Minimum Housing Code] calls for demolition, which means no permits can be issued,” Smith said. “Number 106, the duplex, is in the best shape. It is possible to remedy that if there is a valid work plan and licensed contractor.”

Don Denning and his son, David, run a mini-storage business near Dixon’s houses, and both were in favor of the houses coming down. Don Denning said “undesirables” were living in the houses, urinating on the street and making his customers feel unsafe at night. Also, the houses are close to Alicia’s School of Performing Arts.

“I would be appalled if this was not carried out,” David Denning said of the demolition. “The time for fixing these buildings was a long time ago. What good is the law if we say, ‘Well, we’ll give you some more time?’ I don’t think anyone would have spent the money to fix those buildings to code. It is just a nuisance of a building.”

Commissioner Fred Nelson supported tearing down the buildings.

“I for one think it’s been too long folks, too long,” he said.