Landlord’s infamous home demolished
Developers slowly buying pieces of Terry Good’s network of neglected properties
KITCHENER — Two more properties that once belonged to one of Waterloo Region’s most notorious landlords have been demolished.
Terry Good’s former residence at 101 Mount Hope St. in Kitchener — where he was shot and left for dead by an ex-lover — and the adjacent property are being redeveloped by Burlington’s Stefan Cechovsky.
The demolition of the abandoned homes is the latest in the slow transition of Good’s network of vacant properties that have long been an eyesore for neighbours and a headache for bylaw officials.
When the developer bought the properties last year through a private sale, they had been boarded up by the city to keep squatters out and were overrun with weeds.
The deal was difficult, Cechovsky said, in part because Good is so famously elusive.
“This was honestly the strangest real estate transaction I’ve ever been a part of,” Cechovsky said. “In negotiations, you normally set deadlines. But none of that makes any difference in Terry Good’s world.”
Once the deal was finalized, someone broke into the home at 101 Mount Hope St. and cut holes in the wall, Cechovsky said. He was ordered by the city to board up the property again.
Neighbours say they’re thrilled the homes have finally been knocked down, and the squatters the buildings attracted are gone, too.
“It’s a relief ... I had the city’s bylaw officer on speed dial. There was people in and out of there all the time,” said Doug Levasseur, who has lived next door to the Mount Hope properties since 2015.
Two years ago, Levasseur had the city shut off water to Good’s former home after pipes burst in the winter. From open fires to break-ins to apparent drug dealing at the properties, it’s been awful living next door, he said.
The home at 101 Mount Hope St. had some notoriety dating back to July 1998, when Good was shot with a sawed-off shotgun by George Carter in what a judge called “one of the most heartless, calculating, cold-blooded acts” he’d ever seen. The attack left Good bleeding on the front steps and maimed for life.
In court, Carter said it was revenge shooting after the former lovers had a falling out. Carter felt he had been set up by Good for a drug conviction that cost him his $60,000-a-year job as a director of the Canadian Cancer Society in Waterloo.
To the municipality, the sale of the Mount Hope properties is welcome news, since it meant Kitchener could finally collect on thousands in unpaid property taxes.
Good owes both Kitchener and Waterloo a significant amount of back taxes — but they can’t seize his properties for a tax sale until the landlord is more than two years in arrears.
Lately the market has been doing their work for them. The municipalities get to claim their back taxes before Good gets the proceeds of the sale.
Cechovsky, who plans to build a pair of townhomes on the sites through his company Vitali Design/Build, is the latest developer to buy a piece of Good’s crumbling real estate empire.
In recent years, new owners have restored or demolished apartment building and homes on Erb, Weber and George streets and Margaret Avenue that once belonged to the landlord.
It’s believed Good still owns another eight or nine properties in the region.
Cechovsky said he’s trying to compile a list of all Good’s remaining properties — not an easy task, considering the landlord registered many of his buildings through a network of numbered companies.
Nik Poulimenos, the Realtor who represented the developer in the Mount Hope sale, said there’s a lot of interest in Good’s remaining properties, despite their neglected condition, because of their central locations.
“Terry Good had the foresight to buy a lot of properties in highly desirable locations,” he said.
“Based on what I’ve seen, it appears he’s slowly releasing these properties, and it appears he’s trying to liquidate his assets.”
But developers are learning that buying a property from the notorious landlord can be an unconventional process.
“You either get really lucky, or you find someone who has a way to contact him. And that’s a very short list,” Poulimenos said.
All that’s left of the Mount Hope home where Good used to run his network of rental properties is a hole in the ground and a yellow security fence.
But getting the city to approve the redevelopment of the site, that’s proved harder than expected, Cechovsky said. He’s had to make significant alterations to the design for the townhomes, he said.
“We’re trying to develop Kitchener, and this is the neighbourhood we want to be in,” he said.
“The neighbours supported it, but the city said we can’t do it.”