Ready for wrecking ball
Eleven Northside properties scheduled for demolition this month
The days are getting shorter for 11 Northside properties scheduled for demolition this month.
The Cape Breton Regional Municipality has issued demolition notices to eight properties in Sydney Mines, two in Florence and one in North Sydney.
The properties consist of unsightly vacant buildings, including a multi-use unit located at 54 Peppett St., North Sydney that’s been boarded up since 2015.
“These buildings are not only unsightly, they’re a risk to the community where they are at and they’re targets for vandals as well as arson,” said Paul Burt, CBRM building, planning and licensing bylaws.
“There’s a chance that a lot of these lots will be sold and repurposed and will be bringing new tax dollars to the area.”
In total, 27 properties across the municipality are scheduled for demolition including the Northside locations.
The tender for the project was awarded to Joe Parsons Construction of Glace Bay.
Demolition work began on the Northside in January when the former Harvest House building was torn down at the corner of Commercial and Caledonia streets.
Burt confirmed the property, which was purchased by Canadian Maritime Engineering, was torn down by the company and not the municipality, this after CBRM issued a demolition order.
“We’ve had a file on (Harvest House) for a number of years. It was vacant a couple of years ago, inspection staff, the fire inspector … noticed a number of issues with the building, including electrical stuff,” said Burt.
“(CME) hired a firm to do an environmental assessment on the building and they had their own contractor come in and get a demolition permit and they demolished it.”
Chris Lawless, CME production manager for the North Sydney division, told the Cape Breton Post, in an email, the company has no plans for the downtown North Sydney corner lot at this time.
Burt said depending on weather conditions, the municipality expects all 27 properties to be demolished by the end of this month.
“We try to do the worst of the worst and every community has its worst building — we’re still working on our 2017-18 list,” said Burt.
“We look at the condition of the building and we have a scoring sheet and that’s how we determine the worst of the worst based on structural integrity, fire risk, neighbourhoods and the number of calls.”
Burt said another list of unsightly properties will be brought to council in the coming months for the 2018-19 year.