Demolition of building in Regina catches owners by surprise
Two men say they had no notice the apartment building they own was being demolished by the City of Regina.
Barrie Probe and Brad Warren only heard about the demolition of their boarded-up, 12-unit building when friends alerted them to it.
“I didn’t have any idea that they were ripping it down,” Warren said Friday, a day after the house was reduced to rubble. “I’m glad it’s torn down because of the hazard … I’m just frustrated.”
“It was an eyesore. We can’t blame anybody for saying ‘Get rid of it, do something,’ but it wasn’t in our hands to make that decision,” said Probe.
No one had lived in the building since September 2015, when a second fire in six months made the building uninhabitable.
Probe and Warren had been dealing with insurance claims since a fire in a basement suite in February that year. As they were waiting on their insurance company to pay out the claim, neighbours complained to the City of Regina about the property attracting drug addicts and troublemakers.
Probe and Warren had expected payment from their insurance company by January 2016 — 60 days to assess the claim and 60 days to pay out, per the Insurance Act.
“This has been a year and a half and we still don’t know,” said Probe. The company threw “one roadblock after another roadblock,” he said.
That included demanding a second appraisal, an interview with the owners, a commercial appraisal and finally a structural engineer’s report — requested on the day the city ordered the demolition.
“This is the culmination of a very long and involved multi-step, enforcement process that came to a head on Dec. 13,” said Ernie Polsom, director of Regina Fire and Protective Services.
That day, an appeal board upheld the City of Regina’s order to comply. Polsom said the owners had a month to appeal in court, which never happened.
Probe said it wasn’t clear how to proceed. He said he left two messages with the city and never received a letter.
“They denied our appeal and never did respond to us as far as what the next step is,” Probe contended.
“Maybe they could have pushed the (insurer) to settle this. I’m not a rich man; that is not the richest building in the world,” said Warren.
“If I had $10,000 to give to a lawyer, maybe I would have a little bit better response from the (insurer) than what I have now.”
Thousands of dollars in electrical remained inside the boardedup building, which Warren said he could have salvaged, “instead of throwing it all just straight to the dump.”
“This isn’t something that was cherry-picked in 30 or 60 days’ worth of consideration,” said Polsom.
“There’s been an extensive amount of work on this file going back months and months and months.”