Time to address a burning issue

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/01/2024 (595 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As famous New York Yankees catcher and manager Yogi Berra once famously said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.” The saying may be funny, but the issue isn’t.

With 2023 now in the rear view mirror, the city of Winnipeg and its fire department are facing a troubling and ever-increasing problem with fires in abandoned buildings.

By the end of November, Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Services had responded to 125 fires in vacant buildings in the city.

To put that in perspective, that’s close to a 50 per cent increase over the city’s worst year for vacant building fires (84 fires in 2022). And 2023’s total doesn’t even include statistics from the month of December yet.

As trend lines go, that’s more than alarming. If that rate of increase continues, the city would be on track for more that 180 similar fires in 2024.

And it’s more than just nuisance and expense.

Abandoned buildings pose particular hazards for firefighters: such buildings may have lost their structural integrity due to earlier fires, vandalism or even the theft of crucial materials, leaving firefighters at risk as they search properties or battle fires.

Often, firefighters can’t get detailed information on whether or not there are people in the buildings, and have to put themselves at additional risk to establish that no one is trapped in a burning structure.

On the other side of the coin, firefighting resources deployed at burning abandoned buildings are not available for other fires or medical emergencies.

It’s almost tragically comic that, on Wednesday, Winnipeg firefighters were fighting their fifth fire since 2020 at the vacant Coronado Apartments on Furby Street — almost comic, because that was the exact location where city officials announced a crackdown on abandoned building owners in May of 2023.

If there was an apt metaphor for the city’s seeming inability to get a handle on abandoned building fires, that would be it. Insert joke here about the city “fiddling while Winnipeg burns.”

There’s no joke about the fact that it’s a complicated problem, one that balances property owners’ rights, the safety of neighbours, and any number of other factors.

While the crackdown included new requirements for owners to secure and fence their vacant buildings, along with the ability to bill owners of such properties for firefighting costs, the problem is continuing to grow, putting neighbours, firefighters and those choosing — or needing — to shelter in abandoned buildings at clear risk.

It’s tragic that, when this city and country is facing a shortage of affordable housing, vacant properties are being allowed to crumble and decay. Surely there are better ways to address the issue.

Maybe it’s time to be direct and clear with absentee owners that the city — and its taxpayers — are unwilling to financially backstop the dangers abandoned properties represent. After all, everyone but the absentee owner is suffering from the effects of the absentee owner’s neglect.

Set a clear standard of what constitutes a building beyond repair. When a building reaches that standard of hazard and public risk, tear the building down, take court action against the owners, and attach a lien to the now-vacant property to cover the cost of demolition. And if those tools already exist, start using them.

That sounds like a draconian solution. But keep in mind that there are a plethora of safety bylaws and regulations that every Winnipeg homeowner and landlord is required to follow, and no shortage of efforts made by the city to ensure that those rules are followed.

No one is getting a free ride.