A brand new house in the village of Carmangay, Alta. was torn down in just hours Thursday morning, after a court order was issued to demolish the home.
The village claims the Carmangay man who built the house did so without the correct permits.
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Kym Nichols, the mayor of Carmangay, said a development permit was taken out, as was a building permit, but the building permit was for a garage, not a house.
“He just figured he could build however he wanted, to build wherever he wanted to build,” Nichols said.
The homeowner was then issued several stop work orders in addition to orders from bylaw officers and RCMP to cease construction.
After the homeowner failed to comply, Nichols said she felt she was left with no other choice than to take the matter to court.
“We went to court to get a court order to get him to stop building,” she said.
“He continued to build and continued to ignore the court order.”
Members of the community told Global News the man built the house himself.
“He was hand-digging the basement at first, then I seen him slowly put the concrete up, the walls up, the roof go on,” village resident Jan Haake said.
Neighbour Wyatt Dahl sympathizes with the property owner, but agrees with the town’s decision.
“It’s a shame that his hard work and money went into this,” Dahl said. “But the law is there for a reason.”
Nichols said the homeowner was given ultimatums to move the structure or dismantle it. The court order stated three separate deadlines were set to comply, none of which were met.
“This was absolutely the last resort,” Nichols said. “None of us wanted to see it come to this.
“We were hoping he would comply at some point.”
Global News was unable to speak to the homeowner and he was not on the premises when the demolition began.
Carmangay is about a 45 minute drive northwest of Lethbridge and about an hour and 45 minutes southeast of Calgary.
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