City of Powell River councillors will consider two bylaws to regulate unsightly and unsafe buildings.
At the April 13 committee of the whole meeting, city chief administrative officer Russell Brewer said what is being introduced is the consideration of an update to the existing property maintenance and standards bylaw; the intention is to replace it with a property and building maintenance standards bylaw. Brewer said the purpose for the update is to better define vacant and poorly maintained buildings, to include maintenance standards for buildings, and to give staff some expanded authority and increased fines to help promote compliance with the bylaw.
“There has been a history of challenges with vacant and abandoned buildings,” said Brewer. “You may recall there’s the Inn at Westview in particular and another one on Joyce Avenue. There are a number of other buildings throughout the community that we hear about on occasion from the public.
“There was resolution to a couple of those buildings but that process in itself can be time-consuming to get to that point. It can be litigious, confrontational, it’s hard for staff, for council and for the community. Part of the intent with this is to give the community and city staff more tools to help get to a place where we avoid that, hopefully.”
Brewer said in addition, there is some focus on multi-unit rental buildings because that has been a concern for some time as well, in terms of safety of staff in those buildings, as well as tenants in some cases.
“Really, the objective is to give us increased tools to work with property owners to hopefully avoid situations where we end up with remediation orders and demolition is required,” said Brewer.
He said it’s best to include these changes in an updated bylaw rather than what may have been considered at times within the building bylaw or other bylaws.
Brewer said the current fire prevention bylaw has some limited vacant building bylaw provisions but they are largely restricted to keeping buildings and premises free from debris, as well as openings to be fastened so people can’t come and go in vacant buildings. He said the new bylaw would give staff more tools.
“The proposed updates will help staff to more proactively manage unsightly and unsafe buildings,” said Brewer.
Key areas identified
Proposed updates focus on three key areas, according to Brewer. The first is poorly maintained buildings. The proposed bylaw includes building maintenance standards that speak to building envelopes and roofs.
It also focuses on unsecured or dilapidated vacant buildings. Brewer said with respect to those, the bylaw has a schedule that outlines requirements for how a building should be secured.
The third focus requires building owners to maintain them to the standards of the BC Building Code, the fire prevention bylaw, as well as building maintenance standards in the new bylaw.
“There’s a lot more tools within the bylaw, assuming council adopts this one to allow staff to work proactively among departments, to hopefully work with property owners to avoid going down the path of remediation we’ve been down before,” said Brewer.
Councillor Maggie Hathaway said the bylaws will make it much easier in the future if the city has to go down that road.
“I see some buildings around town that might need a little prodding, so it would be good to have this in place,” said Hathaway.
Councillor George Doubt said it is good to see some development on this and it should make it easier to deal with unsightly and dilapidated properties and to get something done about them.
“Nobody wants to punish anybody,” said Doubt. “The objective is to make a difference and get places cleaned up, taken down or at least secured and safe if they are vacant buildings. It will go a long way toward making this a better place to live.”
The proposed property and building maintenance standards bylaw and municipal ticketing information bylaw amendment will be going to council on May 6 for the first three readings.
