City council's patience is quickly wearing thin, again, with owners of fire-damaged commercial bays in the city's north end.
The property at 2112-100th St. was spared the City wrecking ball Nov. 28 after its Calgary-based owners pledged to repair the building.
However, councillors were crying foul at a Jan. 16 municipal services meeting over an apparent lack of progress at the site since then, especially considering the mild winter weather over the past weeks.
"They haven't done a thing!" said a disgusted Councillor Grace Lang.
"They haven't done a single thing. We've had great weather up until last week. And (he said) 'oh yeah, he was going to start right away.' He didn't."
The car wash, located south of A&W, was badly damaged by fire in 2011 and remained in disrepair until a demolition order was issued by the City in the fall.
Haroon Khatri, representing the owners, made a presentation to council Nov. 14 and was eventually successful in convincing council to lift the demolition order. Council demanded taxes of approximately $27,000 be paid in full, and the owner pledged to commence work to fix up the building over a period of months, including immediate cleanup of the exterior of the building and the replacement of doors and windows.
With council's demand for back taxes met, they voted to lift the demolition order at their Nov. 28 meeting. But the property has remained in disrepair, prompting councillors to revisit the issue this month.
Councillor Brad Pattinson, who had pushed for the original demolition order against the property, echoed Lang's thoughts at the municipal services meeting.
"He was going to clean that up," said Pattinson, referring to pledges to clean up the property. Pattinson noted the inside work was going to wait until the spring anyway, but work was still supposed to get done on the exterior, including cutting the trees.
"He really did absolutely nothing trying to clean up the appearance on the outside," said Pattinson.
City Manager Jim Toye pledged building inspector Jerry Wintonyk will talk to the owners and get their plans for this year, and let them know council is concerned. The City is also not ruling out the possibility of issuing another demolition order against the property.
