William Whyte resident welcomes city plan to crack down on derelict property owners

The head of the William Whyte Neighbourhood Association hopes a city plan to crack down on vacant properties leads to a transformation in his community. 

Darrell Warren estimates there are about 200 empty, demolished or vacant properties in his north Winnipeg neighbourhood — about 10 per cent of the roughly 2,500 homes in the area. 

"We need to make William Whyte a neighbourhood again," Warren said.

On Thursday, city council's property and development committee voted in support of a strategy that aims to put pressure on owners to make their properties fit for habitation again, or risk losing them to the city.

The city report outlining the strategy calls for more aggressive use of taking title without compensation, a legal tool allowing the city to seize derelict properties tax arrears. It also proposes shortening the timeline before seizure can begin from three years to two.

The plan would also change the city's empty building fee, turning an existing flat charge of two per cent of assessed value into a sliding scale, rising by one percentage point per year up to a maximum of five per cent.

Revenues would go into a new reserve dedicated to vacancy enforcement and redevelopment.​

Warren supports the changes, which he thinks could put pressure on owners.

"I love it, because there’s some properties being held onto by owners and they’re not doing anything with them," he said. 

"If you don’t have some sort of plan for that property, we need to go ahead and take the property away and make it a viable … property again."

The City of Winnipeg has struggled for years to come up with a way to deal with the problem of vacant and derelict properties, which frequently become targets for break-ins and pose fire risks to surrounding buildings. 

The number of properties registered under the city’s vacant building’s bylaw grew from 543 in 2021, to 788 as of October 2025 — a 45 per cent increase.

Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service data shows 232 fire incidents in William Whyte from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2024, according to the city report.

Jonathan Hildebrand, the city’s manager of strategic planning and the author of the report, serves as chair of the city's problem property task force.