Incentive offered to deal with derelict buildings
It has been a “long-time coming,” but Coun. Wayne Thomson says he’s glad city hall will provide an incentive to property owners to remove derelict buildings from the central tourist district.
“This should give the opportunity for the owners to clean up their properties and still remain deferred tourist commercial until such time as something really happens,” said Thomson.
“It took a long time, but it was certainly worthwhile.”
Council approved a staff report Tuesday night recommending politicians support a city-initiated zoning bylaw amendment to apply a site-specific tourist commercial zone to an area along Stanley Avenue, north of Spring Street, on the north side of Kitchener Street at Buchanan Avenue, and on Magdalen Street between McGrail and Lewis avenues.
It would also apply to the portion of the tourist core south of Ferry Street, which was once a substantial residential community.
According to staff, several largescale tourist commercial developments have reduced this community to small clusters of dwellings, particularly along Robinson Street, Peer Street at Allendale Avenue, Fallsview Boulevard, and Main Street at Allendale Avenue.
While some of these dwellings appear to be in good repair, others have deteriorated.
The site-specific zone will enable the zoning of any property in the area to be automatically changed from the site-specific tourist-commercial zone to deferred tourist commercial upon the removal of the existing dwelling on the property on the date the amending bylaw passes.
The site-specific tourist-commercial zone is proposed to be in effect for two years.
If approved, and if the owners don’t take advantage of the proposed zoning by removing the dwelling within the two-year window, the staff report said “it will be necessary to enforce property standards bylaw to have the dwellings repaired or demolished.”
Staff anticipate the removal of the structure and changing the zoning of the property to deferred tourist commercial will result in the property being reassessed as cheaper vacant residential land rather than more expensive commercial.
Coun. Wayne Campbell was the only politician to vote against the proposal, stating he’s concerned it could lead to residents being displaced.
“I have somewhat of a concern with respect to the difference between a derelict building and a building that’s still being used,” he said.
“Unfortunately, I have a sense that the buildings that are being used are by people using it as affordable housing. There’s no affordable housing out there. I fear that there could be a significant number of people being evicted by landowners to take advantage of this.”
City solicitor Ken Beaman said there may be some cases like that, “but I don’t really think there’s a significant number of them.”
“The people that have tenants, generally speaking, want them,” he said.
“They’re not in the business of letting the house fall down, unless there’s nobody in it — that seems to be the pattern we’ve seen.”