The city has filed another lawsuit in its fight against derelict properties over unpaid fees related to a vacant building.
Under the city’s vacant building bylaw, enforcement officers are granted powers to inspect properties to enforce standards, which include maintaining boards blocking unwanted access via doors and windows and basic upkeep. There is an annual fee for the inspections.
The bylaw also allows the city to charge owners an annual empty building fee, based on the property value assessment.
In a statement of claim filed last week in Court of King’s Bench by the city’s legal services department, it’s alleged property owner Karin Gordon owes $16,247 in fees to the city for her vacant house on Egerton Road in the Glenwood neighbourhood, plus court costs and interest.
It’s at least the fourth civil claim the city has filed over unpaid vacant building fees this year, court records reviewed by the Free Press indicate.
Bylaw officers have inspected Gordon’s Egerton Road property “several times” between 2017 and 2024, the new court filing says.
The inspectors found combustible material inside, including garbage and personal items; mice feces and black mould throughout the building; partially boarded and broken windows and doors; damage to the ceiling and walls and exterior downspouts; and garbage strewn throughout the property, including old appliances, furniture and scrap metal.
The property, the city claims, does not comply with the vacant building bylaw.
The owner has been issued inspection fees annually from 2020 to 2024, as well as annual empty building fees from 2022 onward.
The city has served Gordon notice of the fees and demanded payment, but the balance remains, the civil filing alleges. Gordon has not replied to the claim in court.
One of the previous city lawsuits over vacant buildings this year was filed in February against the now-former owner of the Rubin Block at 270 Morley Ave.
The long-vacant south Osborne apartment block has since been sold to the Fisher River Cree First Nation and the University of Winnipeg Community Renewal Corp., which have plans to restore it.
The city discontinued the parts of its claim against former owner Composite Holdings Ltd. that related to the Rubin Block in June, court records show.
The three-storey apartment building, which was built in 1914, has been vacant since a fire in 2014.
The claim against Composite Holdings for alleged unpaid fees at another vacant property it owns remains before the court.
The vacant building bylaw was enhanced after city council voted to amend it last week.
Boarding procedures were made more stringent, requiring thicker plywood and stronger and longer screws.
The amendment also increased the first inspection fee from $1,355 to $1,685, and adds $1,000 per subsequent inspection.
The empty building fee also increased from one per cent to two per cent of the most recent property value assessment, and it will be charged after three inspections, rather than after five as had been done previously.
Mayor Scott Gillingham, who raised a motion to enhance the standards at executive policy committee earlier this month, said the change would help combat frequent fires in derelict buildings that plague some neighbourhoods and endanger first responders.
The city is currently enforcing the bylaw on 698 properties, 541 of which are residential.
The Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service, which changed the way it tracks fire numbers internally in 2023, has not finished compiling statistics on the number of blazes in vacant buildings last year and this year to date.
However, available numbers indicate 125 fires burned in vacant buildings between January and mid-November 2023, marking a new annual record.
City council voted early last year to amend the bylaw to bill vacant property owners for part of the costs of firefighting, which some took issue with.
Lawyer John Prystanski, representing three such owners, sent a letter to city council in February, demanding the invoices sent to his clients be cancelled, claiming the bylaw was improperly applied.
Prystanski, who was a city councillor from 1989 to 2002, said Monday that he and his clients are still mulling their next move over the firefighting fees.
There had been discussions with now-former city chief administrative officer Michael Jack, but his sudden resignation in June stalled matters, said Prystanski.
erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca
Erik Pindera
Reporter
Erik Pindera is a reporter for the Free Press, mostly focusing on crime and justice. The born-and-bred Winnipegger attended Red River College Polytechnic, wrote for the community newspaper in Kenora, Ont. and reported on television and radio in Winnipeg before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Erik.
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