Longime resident Cheryl Martens creates ‘mountains’ in hopes of spurring cleanup efforts on Winnipeg’s rubble lots.
Martens lives in the Spence neighbourhood and she is one of many residents of an inner-city neighbourhood looking for answers and action on abandoned properties.
They say that sometimes rubble from demolished buildings is left for months or, in some cases, years.
Martens has a cheeky way of calling attention to these properties around her neighbourhood by building mountains with the rubble.
“The ones on Furby are smaller so those are ski hills and the one on Sargent is only a house so it’s a bunny hill,” she said.
“You just get fed up at some point. At some point, it’s a new year, you think this year I am going to do something about this. It was just deciding I’ve had enough.”
She even names the mountains she creates. The one she made on Sherbrook Street she calls ‘Sherbrook Mountain’. The pile is from a former five-storey building that burned down almost two years ago.
And the lots on Furby Street and Sargent Avenue have looked disheveled for months. “We do care about it. It’s just that we are kind of at a loss on what to do,” she said.
Martens says she has repeatedly called 311 and sent a letter to Mayor Scott Gillingham.
“It is unacceptable, I’m prepared to say that to anyone. Two years sitting beside a pile of rubble. I don’t care, we’ve got to find a way to get it done and you are going to see some concrete action very soon.” said Michael Jack, chief administrative officer, City of Winnipeg.
The three properties mentioned were demolished by emergency demolition from WFPS and the city says the clean-up is the responsibility of the property owner.
“What we’ve ended up seeing is often disputes between property owners and their insurance companies particularly when demolition gets very expensive,” said Jack.
The city says it has hired a consultant to look into the demolition of the property on Sherbrook. As for the properties on Furby and Sargent, it says it will be undertaking the remediation of the sites but the timeline has yet to be determined.
But for Martens, she wants to see more immediate action as she walks by these lots every day. “It’s one of those situations where you can get depressed, demoralized, dispirited, so you sometimes need to do something lighthearted to try and deal with these very difficult issues,” she said.
— with files from Global’s Teagan Rasche
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