Municipalities call on province to help tackle rising cost of derelict buildings

Derelict buildings are creating increasing safety risks and financial strain, the Association of Manitoba Municipalities says, and it's passed a resolution asking the province to help. 

The AMM passed a resolution at its fall convention this week calling on the province to streamline enforcement under the Municipal Act, provide financial assistance for remediation and demolition, and introduce penalties for property owners who abandon buildings.

They say abandoned properties have become fire hazards, structurally unstable and costly to clean up, stretching already strained small-town budgets.

In the RM of Riding Mountain West, the costs are quickly adding up, says Reeve Grant Boryskavich. The municipality co-sponsored the resolution with Brandon and Thompson.

Some cleanups have uncovered asbestos and other hazards that push municipal costs between $50,000 to $100,000 after remediation, testing and transporting waste to certified landfills.

The resolution passed “pretty unanimously” because many communities are facing the same challenges, Boryskavich says, noting the problem has always existed, but is getting worse with red tape, cost-of-living pressures and new environmental rules.

“People are learning that if you leave it in tax sale, the taxpayers have to pay, clean it up and pay for it instead of them,”  Boryskavich said. “To a bunch of municipalities and probably everybody in the province that’s just wrong.”

This year, the derelict building cleanup bills in the RM came to about $40,000, though in past years they’ve climbed as high as $150,000, Boryskavich says, adding that money comes at the expense of infrastructure, roads and recreation. 

A building or house can become derelict for many reasons, Boryskavich says: a death, an out-of-province owner, or someone holding multiple properties and neglecting one. 

“They just leave it. The grass isn’t cut, the buildings fall apart, there’s no siding on them, the windows fall out,” Boryskavich said.

He says they often become fire hazards, are a health concern and are linked to crime.

“If you have a derelict property or something that isn’t worth value I think … some of the shadier people in life might want to buy that, use it as a drug house,” Boryskavich said.

Glenda Lemcke, CAO of the RM of Riding Mountain West, says the costs add up fast for small communities — even without including staff and law-enforcement time.

“We’re all just asking for the same tools, some way to deal with it that doesn’t cost the rest for the ratepayers exorbitant amounts of money,” Lemcke said.