A vacant home in Winnipeg’s St. John’s neighbourhood has become an eyesore so big an area resident will not stop until it is dealt with.
A property located at 339 Mountain Ave. has sat vacant since 2013 and since fallen into disrepair and been subject to vandalism and multiple fires and fines.
“Anyone who looks at the property could tell pretty basically that it is not a recoverable building, it needs to be torn down and it’s not saveable,” Shaun Jeffrey told 680 CJOB’s Connecting Winnipeg.
The vacant home sits across from Machray elementary school. Jeffrey said as the area expands as families move in, his advocacy against the property has ramped up.
“We’ve just had enough.”
Jeffrey is also a landlord of a property near the derelict home and said it’s become increasingly difficult to rent out due to the danger the vacant building poses.
According to an email from the city, bylaw officers have been conducting enforcement on the Mountain Avenue property under the Vacant Buildings By-law since July 30, 2013. There are currently three open bylaw enforcement orders on it.
There have also been 12 tickets issued to the property owner and the fire department responded to two fires at the vacant home, both in 2020.
Jeffrey said he’s been in contact with the ward’s councillor, Ross Eadie, who told him he’s made multiple reports to city bylaw officers on the state of property.
Eadie told 680 CJOB’s The Jim Toth Show the issue extends beyond derelict buildings, as recent bylaw changes prohibit the demolition of vacant homes unless a development plan is submitted prior to the tear-down.
“We’re allowing people to demolish the house without a development plan, but then that means we end up with a bunch of vacant properties. And if you look around that particular neighbourhood, what you’ll find is a vacant property collects bulk waste and garbage,” Eadie said.
In May, Mayor Scott Gillingham said the city had identified 685 vacant or derelict buildings throughout the city, a figure that has seen a steady increase since 2018.
Jeffrey called the inaction ignorant, adding that the neighbourhood has become frustrated with the growing problem of vacant and derelict homes.
“Issuing 12 tickets over the last 10 years and doing nothing about it is not acting in a responsible manner,” he said.
“When you do something 12 times, and it doesn’t get fixed, doing an additional one time is just non-productive.”
The Mynarski councillor said the only viable solution to the problem is to change the bylaw.
“If you want to resolve it, tell the mayor and city council and everybody to raise property taxes, so we can just go right in there and buy it instead of forcing tickets,” Eadie said.
In all, the landlord said the inaction speaks to a lack of care for the area, but Jeffrey – and others in the neighbourhood – won’t stop advocating for the building’s demolition.
“If it would have been picked up and moved to a different area of the city, would this still be a problem? And I can see that it wouldn’t be because there would just be no tolerance for it. Well, I’m telling you, we have no tolerance for it.”
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