City seizing derelict homes sooner would be game changer: William Whyte resident

With an estimated 200 vacant and derelict properties in his neighbourhood, a William Whyte resident is welcoming a new city proposal to crack down on their owners.

“We need to stop allowing these properties to become vacant and boarded up… and we need to keep them in the housing market,” said Darrell Warren, president of the William Whyte Neighbourhood Association.

The proposed policy would see the city take steps to seize abandoned homes sooner, in some cases without compensation to the owner, while also charging higher fees the longer properties are left empty.

“Vacant and derelict buildings are a social and economic blight, contributing to fire risk, public safety concerns, and neighbourhood disinvestment. Unfortunately, the number of vacant buildings in Winnipeg has been increasing and disproportionately affecting some of the most impoverished neighbourhoods and low-income, newcomer and Indigenous residents,” writes Jonathan Hildebrand, the city’s manager of strategic planning, in a city report.

The number of vacant buildings across the city grew substantially in recent years, reaching 788 in October 2025, up from 543 in 2021, with many located in William Whyte, the report notes.

The Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service responded to 232 fires in William Whyte in 2024, which the report links partly to the area’s high number of vacant buildings.

To address these concerns, the city would take the following key steps, if city council approves:

• Partner with Manitoba Housing and Renewal Corporation and social enterprises to increase affordable housing, beginning with a pilot at 400 Pritchard Ave. The city would provide the lot to the corporation, which would work with social enterprises to create a home and find an ideal client to move in and own it.
• Increase the use of rules that allow the city to take title of some properties without compensation when the owner has violated vacant building bylaws.
• Reduce the time required for the city to seize homes with unpaid taxes. That “tax sale” process can now start once someone fails to pay property taxes for three years, then takes an additional two years to complete, for a total of five years. Changes would see the city begin action when someone fails to pay taxes for two years, which would shorten the overall process to four years.
• Replace the city’s current empty building fee, which is charged at a flat rate of two per cent of a property’s value once a property has been vacant for three years. The new model would charge one per cent of the property’s value after one year of vacancy and rise by an additional one per cent of the property’s value each year, up to a maximum of five per cent.
• Formalize and promote a program that allows the city to accept ownership of “distressed residential properties” whose owners volunteer to give them up.

Warren said he expects the measures would speed up action to replace or repair neglected properties.

“A house that sits empty is just a temptation for arson or for squatters… This will eliminate that,” he said.

Warren, whose organization is a partner in the strategy, expects some property owners might deem the changes too punitive. However, he believes strict measures are needed.

“You shouldn’t be able to hold a neighbourhood hostage and that’s what’s happening. I, by no means, encourage taking people’s property but there’s just too many properties that are being neglected,” he said.

“We need to stop allowing these properties to become vacant and boarded up… and we need to keep them in the housing market.”

Hildebrand said the changes should see the city take over more vacant and derelict properties.

“This is a controversial (change) … because not everyone thinks government should take people’s property and not give them compensation for it,” said Hildebrand, in an interview.

Meanwhile, the increased empty building fees aim to prevent properties from remaining vacant for an extended period.

“This is designed to disincentivize homeowners from maintaining property as vacant for a longer period of time, even starting at year one,” said Hildebrand.

Currently, it is cheaper in some cases to abandon a property than sell or maintain it, the city report notes.

The proposed strategy is the result of the city’s participation in the 2024-25 Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative.

A city councillor who has long pushed for a crackdown on empty buildings hopes the new changes will help encourage people to sell vacant properties.

Coun. Cindy Gilroy (Daniel McIntyre) said including the small pilot project that encourages ownership of affordable homes, not just the renting, is also promising.

“A house that sits empty is just a temptation for arson or for squatters… This will eliminate that.”

“That’s really, really important in the revitalization of communities … (Long-time residents) are more apt to taking care of their properties and invest in those properties,” she said.

If approved, the tax sale changes would take effect on Jan. 1, 2027.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

X: @joyanne_pursaga