City turning over north Sacramento street to business owner to clean up on his own
SACRAMENTO — It's a drastic step by a business owner surrounded by crime and blight.
He's asking the City of Sacramento to turn over the public street where his business is located so he can clean it up himself — and the city is telling him, "It's all yours."
"I think I bought it in 2018," Sacramento businessman Kabul Singh said.
Singh bought a north Sacramento gas station and reopened it after it had been sitting vacant for five years. The problems surrounding it are easy to see.
Altos Avenue is a partially paved street that runs behind Singh's business, lined with a homeless encampment, crime and blight.
"They light up fire, doing a bbq, and stuff like that. [A building there] caught fire," Singh said.
The area is so bad, Singh can't get liability insurance to cover it.
"Today, I got declined from almost eight or nine insurances," Singh told CBS13 Monday.
He shared an e-mail from his insurance broker that said "coverage was declined because of crime scores in the area."
Now, the City of Sacramento is agreeing to vacate a block of Altos Avenue and to hand control over to Singh to clean it up himself.
"City is not going to do anything. They just abandon the property," he said. "Basically, they don't want to maintain it, so I'm going to maintain it."
Jeanett Ochoa and her daughter live close to Singh's business, which also has a children's playground across the street. Ochoa won't take her child there.
"I don't even feel comfortable walking by them, you just never know," Ochoa said.
Daniel Savala is the executive director of the business improvement district for the area, trying to help businesses succeed.
"How important is that corner to what you want to see in north Sacramento," CBS13's Steve Large asked Savala.
"That's the gateway to old north Sacramento. Grove and El Camino. It's right to the community of Noralto and getting into Del Paso Boulevard. Thousands and thousands of cars a day pass that corner," Savala said.
A public street is now a private investment, and this business owner is hoping to turn a blighted block into a building block for a better north Sacramento community.
"What would you like to see this be one day?" CBS13's Steve Large asked Singh.
"I want to be, one day, anybody can walk in here, fearless, enjoy this area," Singh said.
The Sacramento City Council approved turning over the block to Singh last week. As part of the deal, Singh will need to pay for new sidewalks and curbs.