Three-year limit good start to evict derelict homeowners

Opinion

Winnipeg may finally be getting serious about cracking down on vacant homes. It’s about time.

If Coun. Cindy Gilroy (Daniel McIntyre) has her way, the city will soon set a firm time limit — three years — on how long a property can sit empty and derelict before the city takes decisive action. That could include expropriating the property, with no compensation to the owner, if they neglect it long enough.

It’s a bold move, and while it will no doubt raise legal eyebrows and prompt challenges from absentee owners, it’s a discussion this city badly needs.

We’ve spent years tiptoeing around the issue of boarded-up homes. You don’t have to go far in the city to see the impact. Vacant homes are magnets for arson, crime, drug use, and vandalism. They drag down property values, pose safety risks for first responders, and erode the very sense of community in many parts of the city.

There are about 700 registered vacant buildings in Winnipeg and the number has been growing. Some have been boarded up for years.

Generations of city councillors and mayors have pledged to fix the problem, but here we are — still fighting the same fire (sometimes literally) over and over again.

The city has taken some steps in recent years to combat the problem, including billing owners for firefighting costs and charging them an empty building fee and a boarded up building fee. But that hasn’t convinced the majority of them to either fix up their properties or sell them to someone who will. They’re happy to let them sit and rot at the expense of area residents.

The city already has the legal authority to take possession of derelict homes without compensating their owners. It’s called “take title without compensation.”

However, the process is agonizingly slow. It requires multiple steps under the Vacant Building By-law and the City of Winnipeg Charter, including repeated inspections, warnings, cleanup orders, and more. It’s a bureaucratic slog that can take years before the city seizes a property. It’s probably why it’s rarely used.

Gilroy wants to streamline that process, proposing a hard cap of three years. After that, if the property is still derelict and the owner hasn’t brought it up to code or returned it to productive use, the city could move forward with seizing the property. In her view, enough is enough.

She’s right.

No one is saying the city should immediately start taking people’s homes. This isn’t about going after homeowners who show good faith in trying to clean up their properties. Those owners should be given flexibility.

This is about cracking down on people who show blatant disregard for area residents by letting their properties sit vacant for years.

No doubt there’s a political cost to Gilroy’s proposal. Any time government moves to expropriate property, there’s a risk of litigation, and some politicians get skittish. That’s part of the reason this has dragged on for so long.

But Winnipeg doesn’t have the luxury of indecision anymore. The risks are too high.

We wouldn’t tolerate this kind of neglect in other areas of city policy. If you don’t cut your grass, pay your property taxes or fall behind on your water bill, the city takes swift action. Yet vacant residential property owners get a pass.

Part of the reason is that the current process is simply too reactive. The city responds after a building becomes a nuisance — once it’s already a danger. What Gilroy is proposing is a shift in mindset: move to prevent the problem before it reaches that point.

A three-year limit is a fair and reasonable timeline. It gives owners ample opportunity to renovate, sell, or repurpose the property. If they do none of the above, then they’re not being responsible stewards of their property, and the city has every right to intervene.

Of course, this plan needs a strong legal backbone. Any changes would need to be carefully vetted to ensure the city doesn’t expose itself to costly lawsuits.

The city should also look at expanding its tools. That could include higher penalties for long-term vacancy or increasing the annual vacant building fee. But the three-year limit needs to be the centrepiece.

Winnipeg has talked itself in circles on this file long enough. The time for polite reminders and sternly worded letters is over. A boarded-up home isn’t just an eyesore — it’s a hazard, a drain on city resources, and a symbol of urban decay.

Gilroy’s proposal isn’t perfect. It won’t fix everything. But it’s a necessary push in the right direction.

The city needs real teeth to deal with this problem. If you let a wound fester long enough, it will infect everything around it. And that’s exactly what vacant homes are doing to many Winnipeg neighbourhoods.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca