The operator of an addiction treatment centre that opened last month has promised it will be relocated after he was advised businesses aren’t allowed in the residential condo development in Linden Woods.
Michael Bruneau, president and chief executive officer of Aurora Recovery Centre, a private drug and alcohol treatment centre north of Gimli, was converting 23 condo units he had purchased at 873 Waverley St., into the Aurora Family Reunification Village. The goal was to have children live with their parents as they underwent treatment.
However, Bruneau said he will relocate due to opposition from dozens of condo owners in the development, who said businesses of all types are not allowed to operate there as per condo rules agreed to by everyone who buys a unit — including him.
“I talked to my management team,” he said on Wednesday. “I’m going to look for a new place. It would be too much stress.
“I talked to my managers and they said ‘Oh no, we don’t want that stress’ (and) I said OK, no problem, so we are going to move.
“I can make good money on those condos. I got a hell of a deal so that’s going to be the plan. I’m going to be moving. As a matter of fact, I’m looking at two apartment blocks on Saturday.”
Robert Murdoch, a condo owner and vice-president of the development’s condo board, breathed a sigh of relief after hearing the news.
“If he does that, then that is the right thing to do,” Murdoch said.
“If he is serious, we’ll be at the home plate we are hoping for. But, time is the only thing that will tell us if he is saying BS or if this is true.”
From left: long-time condo residents Patricia Gallop, Linda Sloane and Robert Murdoch, VP of the condo association. Before Michael Bruneau’s announcement he would leave, his actions had worried residents of the development.
Until Bruneau said he would relocate, he was adamant Aurora would stay, even though executive members of the condo board had told him repeatedly he was violating the contracts he had signed for all 23 units.
The condo documents state each unit could “be occupied and used only as a private single family residence and for no other purpose.”
On Tuesday, Bruneau had a different take on the issue.
“I checked with my lawyer before. I didn’t go and buy $600,000 worth of condos without doing my homework,” Bruneau said Tuesday.
“What I’m doing is completely legal, as simple as that… These condos, my lawyer informed me, as long as you keep track of the people living there, and they are in their name, she is on the rent… he said do it this way and you are 100 per cent OK.
“It isn’t Aurora renting it… I’m just providing services.”
MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS FILES
“I checked with my lawyer before. I didn’t go and buy $600,000 worth of condos without doing my homework,” Michael Bruneau said Tuesday.
But an announcement by Aurora on social media not only describes the facility as having one- to three-bedroom suites for people to live in short term, but also a childminding centre, group-use room, on-site counsellors, social workers and client care specialists available 24/7.
“The only way they will get me is if they want to come and take me to court,” Bruneau said. “Let’s go. It will take a couple of years, but that’s beside the point. I know what I’m doing. I’ve been in business all my life. I’m saving lives here, I’m going to keep doing it.”
The condo development, which has two multi-storey buildings and a few townhouses, was built by Qualico in 2005 as part of a development that included a strip mall, A&W, and Co-op gas station.
Aurora was located in the west multi-storey condo building, while two dozen condo owners owned their own units in the east building.
Murdoch said they were only enforcing the development’s rules against businesses there — a document Bruneau had signed 23 times to state he was in agreement.
“It isn’t Aurora renting it… I’m just providing services.”–Michael Bruneau
He said the board had sent Bruneau two letters demanding he stop running the business and its next action would have been in court.
“It doesn’t matter what type of business it is, it could be a nail salon or a tax preparation company, it is not allowed here,” Murdoch said.
“I told him the whole crux of this comes down to 2.3.1. in the bylaw. I even read it to him and twice repeated ‘no other purpose.’ The response was ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ll leave that to the lawyers.’
“We just can’t figure out why he just didn’t buy an apartment building where he could do whatever he wanted to.”
Murdoch said Bruneau is up to date on payment of his condo fees which amounts to more than $13,000 per month for the 23 units.
MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS FILES
“I talked to my managers and they said ‘Oh no, we don’t want that stress’ (and) I said OK, no problem, so we are going to move,” Bruneau said.
Before Bruneau’s announcement he would leave, his actions had worried residents of the development, some who had lived there almost two decades and are now seniors, about the future of the development and where they were going to live their remaining years.
“They didn’t want to live beside a business,” Murdoch said.
“We were seeing more and more real estate agents going in and out of our building. Some people were saying we’re going to go before there is a run on the bank and our values go down.”
Bruneau admitted that since buying the 23 units — from the Salvation Army, which had used them to house its trainees before the program moved to Toronto — he had purchased five additional units.
“We’ve stopped moving stuff in until we know what’s happening.”–Michael Hope
Eric Hope was in the process of moving with his partner to the only unit in the west building Bruneau didn’t have possession of, when he discovered that since he purchased the unit in January, a business had moved in.
“We’ve stopped moving stuff in until we know what’s happening,” Hope said.
“Right now, we are in limbo. We were buying into what we thought was a conventional condo building — but now it isn’t.”
Bruneau did say that while he looks for a new home for the reunification centre, the Waverley facility will still accept clients. He said he will just move clients to the new location when he finds it.
“I don’t manage it. I’m the real estate guy,” he said. “These guys run the recovery centre, not me. I hire people to do that.
“I’m going to do what they want me to do.”
kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
Kevin Rollason
Reporter
Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until 1988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press’s city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin.
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