The house at 45 Mercier Boulevard was Olivier Gaborieault-Amar’s home for two years. It took a backhoe just nine minutes to take down.
The homeowner wouldn’t talk to Global News, saying only that the province paid his mortgage and demolition costs. Now he was starting over from zero.
But he had one bit of information many on Ile-Mercier are nervously waiting to find out — he learned comparatively early his home would have to come down. For others on Ile-Mercier, like Stephanie Ansell, those answers are long-awaited and hard to come by.
“We were hoping to have some answers by September,” she told Global News. “But that didn’t happen.”
Her husband and two children have been living out of a friend’s house in Ste-Genevieve while they’ve chased paperwork. In the meantime, she said the province’s requirements changed.
Initially, she said it seemed the province would work up reports on a house’s suitability for demolition or renovation. And then the province requested residents get estimates themselves.
“Some people got complete reports, some were able to renovate right away, some were told to demolish.”
Even the finer points of “value” are in doubt, she said, adding there is doubt as to whether that refers to the municipal assessment or the replacement cost.
Provincial officials have urged patience from residents as paperwork continues to mount. Floods ravaged the island in June.