City set to step up crackdown on derelict vacant buildings
Residents of core neighbourhoods beset by drug dealing, arsons, graffiti and other crimes connected to neglected vacant buildings are eagerly awaiting the spring start of a beefed-up enforcement program.
Three new city staff — two building bylaw officers and an administrative clerk — are being hired to proactively go after derelict vacant buildings. The initiative received the green light last week when council passed its 2018 budget, after an intense lobbying effort by residents and community groups in the downtown, Ford City, Sandwich and Glengarry neighbourhoods.
There are an estimated 750 of these vacant buildings, many left to rot by largely absent owners and frequently used by squatters and drug users.
“They end up being a really frightening thing for residents living nearby,” said Leonardo Gil, resident engagement co-ordinator for The Initiative: Glengarry to Marentette, a United Way group devoted to helping residents in the Glengarry neighbourhood.
To see this new program becoming a reality is “huge,” he said, “bringing a real big sigh of relief.”
The $264,000 program won’t cost taxpayers. It will be funded by a $470 administrative fee charged each time a bylaw officer issues an order for the owner to repair such things as broken windows and gaping doorways.
Up to now, officers only went after these buildings when there was a complaint, but the new program frees up staff to be proactive, said John Revell, the city’s chief building official.
It will likely be spring before the staff is recruited, trained and out patrolling the streets, looking for vacant buildings in bad shape: broken windows, unsecured doors, missing shingles, detached eavestroughs and graffiti.
“Things that make the neighbourhood look poor,” said Revell.
“The additional resources will allow us to send those two new officers out with the mandate that they target areas with vacant buildings and they write orders.” He said his staff already has a good idea where the bad vacant buildings are, based on complaints to 311 and from daily observations.
Ward 3 Coun. Rino Bortolin figures the new officers will be busy from the start, because community groups in the core have compiled lists of vacant properties causing problems.
“A lot of people in these neighbourhoods put a lot of care and pride in their homes but they live next door to a vacant home that’s completely unkempt, with boarded-up windows, high grass, attracting mice, rats and other animals,” plus squatters and drug users, he said. If left to rot, the houses become unrepairable and end up getting torn down, leading to missing-teeth syndrome for the neighbourhood and creating even more problems.
This new initiative won’t place an extra burden on responsible owners who have a vacant building and are doing their best to keep it maintained and find a tenant, Bortolin said. But in too many cases these buildings are owned by out-of-town investors who haven’t touched them in years.
“When you drive through a neighbourhood and you see a home that’s burnt out, and across the street there’s a home boarded up with overgrown grass, it breeds negative attention,” Bortolin said. “It breeds criminal activity because these are areas that people don’t pay attention to.”
Revell said the city’s property standards bylaw is also being tweaked so that people can’t just board up vacant homes indefinitely. There will be a time limit, after which owners will have to replace plywood with proper windows and doors. Lack of response can lead to court action, fines, even jail time.
“Violating the building code and not complying with an inspector’s order is actually quite a serious matter,” he said.
Revell said city councillors have been “very unanimous,” in speaking out about the problems with vacant buildings. “They’re hearing from their constituents,” he said. “We can improve it and eventually we will get caught up and eventually you’ll start to see a change as you drive around the city.”