City council has ordered the owner of a dilapidated mobile home located at 7003 Adam Dr., which was the subject of dozens of RCMP calls, to clean up.
The property owner must demolish the damaged mobile home and clear away the derelict vehicles, discarded household appliances, tarps and other trash littering the yard. The owner was given until April 30 to complete the clean up, or the city will do the work and bill the owner to recover the costs. If they don't pay, the bill will be applied to their property taxes.
"This is one of the worst properties I've seen, and I have seen a lot of bad properties in my career," said the city's new manager of bylaw services Charlotte Peters, a former RCMP sergeant in the city. "Having this property abandoned is a good opportunity to remediate this property, because we don't have to evict anybody."
Peters said the property was a "flophouse" or "crackhouse," and bylaw officers suspected that at some points people were living in a pair of derelict campers on the site, two of 17 derelict vehicles on the property. Several of the residents were identified by the RCMP as being frequent offenders in the city, she said.
Since August 2020, the RCMP had been called to the property 45 times or roughly once a week, city director of community services and public safety Adam Davey wrote in a report to city council. The complaints ranged from noise complaints to drug activity and dangerous dog complaints.
"The residents of this property had some large, very dangerous pit bulls," Peters said. "We weren't able to remedy that situation."
The dogs were allowed to run loose and charged at postal workers on multiple occasions, resulting in Canada Post cancelling mail service to the neighbourhood in August, Peters said. Eventually, animal control officers investigated the situation and mail delivery was restored in the area in mid-December.
"People who didn't have transportation were required to go to the post office downtown to pick up their mail," she said.
In addition to the RCMP calls to the house, bylaw officers were on the scene at least 17 times since May 2020. And since August 2020, firefighters were there five times – four times to respond to drug overdoses and once because the residents were burning copper wire in the yard.
On Feb. 4, the RCMP informed bylaw officers the home was abandoned and left unsecured. Bylaw officers issued an order to board the property up, but despite at least six attempts to contact the owner, he has never responded to the city.
City crews boarded up the mobile home but the problems have continued.
Peters said she interviewed a longtime neighbour, and that person said that people, vehicles and trailers continue to come and go from the property at all hours of the day.
"The property owner has never stepped up," Peters said. "I think he's 100 per cent complicit."
Coun. Cori Ramsay said she is concerned the cost to remediate the property could be more than it is worth. If the owner refuses to pay and defaults on their property taxes for three years, it could go to a tax sale.
The city would try to sell it for at least the amount of money in back taxes and costs it is owed, but if there are no bidders, the city becomes the new owner by default, city director of finance Kris Dalio said.
"I don't want the city to end up with an inventory of properties that we've paid more for then they are worth," Ramsay said.
Coun. Kyle Sampson said it's a risk the city has to take to deal with negligent property owners.
"It's affecting the other residents in the community," he said. "I say we throw the book at him. I have no time for people like this in our community."
Coun. Murry Krause said the city, through bylaw services, has given the owner numerous chances to work to resolve the issues, but there has been no effort to comply.
"I think of the neighbours," Krause said. "The neighbourhood deserves some resolution on this."
