City council has ordered the owner of a home on Vance Road with a yard full of old tires, discarded building materials and garbage to clean up, or the city will do it for them.
On Monday night, city council voted in favour of issuing a remediation order to the owner of 2677 Vance Rd. to clean up their act by July 29. The Citizen has chosen not to name the owner of the property, to protect their privacy.
The city has received multiple complaints from seven different people about the property, particularly that it posed a fire risk, city manager of bylaw services Charlotte Peters said.
"There were discarded propane tanks, discarded building materials and discarded tires in the front yard and the back yard," Peters said.
While the owners had made some efforts to clean the property and removed a number of derelict vehicles, the most recent complaint on April 13 "was exactly the same," she said.
The other homes in the area are tidy and well maintained, she added.
"There is a marked difference that is causing the angst of the neighbours," Peters said.
If the owner fails to clean up the property by the deadline, the city will hire a contractor to do the work and charge the cost against the owner's property taxes, Peters said.
The city has received multiple complaints about the property going back to May 2020, and bylaw officers have made repeated attempts to get the home owner to clean up the property, city director of public safety Adam Davey wrote in a report that went to city council on Monday.
“The most recent complaint in relation to the property was received at Bylaw Services on April 13, 2022. This complainant reported an accumulation of tires, tree branches, woodpiles, paint etc. throughout the yard and possibly an illegal dwelling in the back yard,” Davey wrote. “The complainant believed that this debris in the backyard posed a fire hazard. This belief was amplified as multiple fire trucks attended as a result of a fire call on March 18, 2022. At that time, 10 people were evacuated from the residence on the property due to smoke.”
The incident was later determined to have been caused by a smoke bomb set off inside the home, he wrote. Prince George RCMP have also been called to the home on multiple occasions over the past year, Davey added.
Bylaw officers responded to complaints about the property in July 2021, and after speaking with the owner’s adult son, gave the owner until Aug. 20, 2021 to clean up the property.
“There was a concern that the property was a fire hazard due to the accumulation of discarded building materials, propane bottles, trash, tires, and other debris. There was also a canvas tent erected in the front yard. Derelict vehicles littered the front yard, and the debris in the back yard could clearly be seen from the street,” Davey wrote. “The property was again inspected in early September and it was determined that the required work had not been completed. As a result, on September 9, 2021 a Maintenance Order was hand delivered to the property owner with a compliance date of September 30, 2021.”
Some improvements were made, but by Oct. 14, 2021 the condition had worsened again, he wrote. The owner was ticketed for causing or permitting an unsightly property. Bylaw officers also discovered that a building permit for a 336 sq. foot shop in the backyard had expired, “as a result of numerous deficiencies that had been noted by the building inspectors but were never addressed by the property owner,” Davey wrote.
The owner was ticketed again in November 2021, and the complaints slowed down over the winter only to resume this year, Davey said.
Under the proposed order, the owner will be required to remove the non-compliant shed, car tires, building debris and other garbage.
