The Village of Granisle is hiring a contractor to tear down derelict structures at 82 Hagen St. and to clean up the property after the owners have failed to take steps to do it themselves.
The decision follows the village giving listed property owners Raymond Ng and Eric Ng 90 days starting in mid-July to apply for a demolition permit and then to start the work.
“The Village is now taking steps towards hiring a contractor to perform the work,” confirmed village chief administrative officer Sharon Smith.
It is now working out details as to whether it will directly award a contract for the work or put the work out to tender, she said.
“[We’re] waiting for some preliminary assessments and then will ask for quotes/bids before we can even estimate [a cost],” Smith added.
A timeline for the work will depend upon contractor availability and weather conditions, she said.
This course of action, however, has already been taken by the Village once before when it removed a wooden overhang from the North building in 2019. That took place when the owner failed to follow through after being issued a remedial action requirement.
The owner was then invoiced for the cost of the work but, based on a Jan. 9, 2020 letter sent by the village’s lawyers to the owner, that invoice went unpaid.
But this latest village decision marks the beginning of the end to an ongoing saga of what to do with the structures as they began to deteriorate over the years.
The village was aided by a building inspection carried out by a Smithers company late last year. The company assembled a long list of repairs needed for each building ranging from replacing deteriorated concrete blocks to replacing membranes on roofs to prevent further leaks.
But village staffers looked at the assessed values of the buildings and in a memo to council as part of a lengthy package of information concluded “estimates of the cost of repairing the buildings far exceed the assessed value of the buildings.”
And as part of the council motion in July to order the owner to demolish the structures, it declared “the buildings to be a nuisance …. because the buildings are so dilapidated and unclean so as to be offensive to the community.”
“No action has been taken to suggest that the owner will repair, renovate and use either of the buildings in the future,” part of an information package to council at the time stated.
The package also traced the ownership of the structures and property, revealing there was a sale in June of this year in which ownership passed from one numbered company to another.
“The registered officers and directors of both the current owner and the former owner are Eric Ng and Raymond Ng. The address listed on title for the registered owners is in Surrey, B.C. and did not change with the transfer of the title from the former owner to the current owner,” the information package added.