BOARDED-UP HOMES
Boarded-up houses need outside-the-box solution, safety advocate says
Problem needs innovative solutions
Depending on the area, White Pony Lodge (WPL) volunteers often see up to three boarded-up homes per street during their North Central neighbourhood safety patrols.
“Quite often those places will be in a state of either such disrepair that it’s dangerous to walk through or … you will see things like needles and dangerous construction equipment … lying around,” said Leah O’malley, WPL board chair.
People experiencing homelessness or addiction may use the vacant boarded-up homes as shelter or a place to do drugs away from prying eyes. Some may burn something inside the home to keep warm, causing a fire, others using the property to do drugs risk not being visible if something goes wrong and they need help, she said.
Either scenario poses safety concerns not only for them, but for those taking a shortcut through the property or children exploring, said O’malley.
In the past year, she said, the number of boarded-up homes in North Central has increased, with some properties remaining boarded up for up to three or four years. For an area already struggling with negative stereotypes, she said, it doesn’t help the perception of North Central for those who live there or people driving through.
“I think within the laws that they have (the City of Regina is) doing the best that they can,” she said in an interview Friday. (They) don’t really have any ability to be overly punitive.”
But she’d like to see the city seriously consider a stricter policy that would allow them to deal with delinquent properties “in a greater way,” but the City of Regina doesn’t see a major problem that would warrant a reworking of its current strategy.
“It’s something that we’re aware of and it’s something that we continue to deal with both in terms of service requests as well as working with our partner agencies and … our officers out there proactively,” said Andrea Mcneil-wilson, manager of bylaw enforcement for the city. “If there is an area or an address that a resident feels that we haven’t dealt with or we maybe haven’t dealt with in a timely manner, I would encourage them to contact Service Regina … and we can send somebody out there to investigate.”
According to Mcneil-wilson, the city does not track the number of boarded-up homes in Regina, but it does follow the number of cases of unsecured buildings ( buildings missing doors or windows), which she said ultimately get boarded up temporarily.
Under the Community Standards Bylaw, a structure can remain boarded up for only 90 days. After 90 days the property is declared a nuisance and the city would open a nuisance case or a maintenance case (where an order is given to the property owner detailing which items on the property need to be repaired). The city ultimately tries to work with the property owner “in order to achieve voluntary compliance,” which Mcneil-wilson said is achieved the majority of the time.
For those who don’t comply, the city is given authority to make the repairs and charge the cost back to the property’s taxes.
In 2017, the city had 26 nuisance cases (in which a home was boarded up for more than 90 days). While property owners remedied 25 of them, one was addressed by the city. Of the 269 maintenance cases that same year, six had to be remedied by the city and 263 by the property owner.
Of 14 nuisance cases in 2018, none had to be remedied by the city. Five were dealt with by the owner, five are still open and four were restarted as maintenance cases. Of 309 maintenance cases that year, seven were remedied by the city and 302 by the property owner.
Last year, three nuisance cases were remedied by the city and seven by the property owner. Twenty-eight maintenance cases were remedied by the city and 276 by the property owner. Mcneil-wilson said there may be additional boarded-up homes in the city that were boarded up at the property owner’s discretion.
The majority of the cases occur in Ward 3 (Cathedral, Centre Square and Heritage) and Ward 6 (North Central and Eastview), according to the city.
Mcneil-wilson isn’t aware of a home that has been boarded up for as long as three or four years as O’malley suggests, but said “the length of time a house remains boarded up could depend upon the amount of work that needs to be done and whether or not the property owner is working with us to remedy that situation,” and that the target is a maximum of 120 days to get the issue resolved. There are no fines for property owners who do not comply with city orders.
O’malley would like to see the city consider other enforcement options, like taking over a property that is not compliant.
“This is an extremely complicated situation because while I think that it’s unsafe to live in an abandoned house, I definitely understand why someone who is looking for a place to stay might go for that,” said O’malley. “I think that a lot of our problems in dealing with the money and the cost that are on property owners to deal with these sorts of things lie in our ability to deal with our poverty and homeless problem.”