Clean it up, CBS council tells property owners
By Craig Westcott / September 22, 2023 Edition
After weeks of asking politely, CBS council is now ordering two different property owners to clean up their properties.
The first order was approved during council’s discussion of the planning committee report.
Councillor-at-large Rex Hillier, who chairs that committee, brought forward the group’s recommendation that the Town order the owner of 34 Hopewell Gardens in Seal Cove to remove or repair the main building on the property, which is a large house, and relocate or remove an accessory building.
“This is a large building that has been unoccupied for some time,” Hillier explained. “I believe at one point in time it was probably a personal care home. It’s certainly fallen into disrepair. It’s a concern of the neighbourhood for safety, and so on. We’ve reached out to the owner on several occasions, and we find ourselves in a position now to issue an order that the owner will submit to us a plan for either demolishing the building or repairing it. That order was actually served on September 13, so two weeks from September 13 we’re looking to have a plan… I know it’s become a real concern for the neighbourhood and it’s something that we need to address.”
Mayor Darrin Bent agreed with that assessment.
“It’s unfortunate that we have to go to an Order, but here we are, and this is what we’ll do,” the mayor said. “Of course, there’s a procedure time for this, so it isn’t going to happen overnight, unfortunately, but it is in the process now to get to an endgame on this… Hopefully, this will get it to the next level and we can get this taken care of for the residents up there.”
Hillier said it is a slow process. “There are stages we have to follow within this process and there are things we have done leading up to this point that have taken time, and this is just the next step,” he added.
The second order, for 37 Conways Brook Road in Long Pond, came during the presentation of the finance and administrative services report, which was presented by councillor-at-large Joshua Barrett, in the absence of Deputy Mayor Andrea Gosse, who is the Finance chairperson.
Barrett moved that the Town order the owner to “remove debris including metal, wrecked cars, car parts, trailers, wood and other miscellaneous debris.”
The councillor said this order was similar to the previous one. “This again is part of the process,” he said. “We’re aware that this property is here and there are a number of things that we need to get cleaned up and it’s just one of the steps in that process that we have to do.”