The City of Port Alberni is trying to get the province to take on the cost of cleaning up the Port Pub.
The Port Pub on Argyle Street, which housed approximately two dozen people, was evacuated last month after city officials discovered airborne asbestos in the building. The owner of the building, Peter Wang, was issued a remedial action order back in January, but after he failed to clean up his property city council voted to proceed with repairs at his expense. This is what led to the discovery of asbestos.
City staff brought a report to council on Monday, June 10 recommending that the building be demolished due to its "hazardous condition." Wang will have 14 days to appeal the demolition order and 30 days to take action on demolition.
“If no action has been taken by the owner, then the city will go in and undertake the remediation through demolition,” explained the city's director of corporate services Danielle Leurebourg.
City CAO Mike Fox said the city had a professional architect and engineer go into the building to provide the costs of remediation versus demolition. There are "some unknowns," said Fox, but it is expected to cost more than $900,000 to remediate the building, versus $200,000 for demolition.
“If the owner didn’t do the remediation or come back and pay the city, it could go up for tax sale,” said Fox. If the tax sale is not successful, the cost of remediation would be an “undue hardship” on the taxpayers, he added.
“We believe that this is the safest way to move forward on remediating the building,” he said. “It is sad that the city has been put into this situation. We have limited tools in our toolbox as a municipality. The lesson learned out of this situation is we need to come up with a better plan with the province and service providers to make sure we don’t get into this situation again.”
He said the city has already spent around $200,000 on the Port Pub and continues to incur costs each day, which is why staff is recommending demolition.
Port Alberni Mayor Sharie Minions said it was "really disappointing" that the city has not seen any action from the owner of the building. She acknowledged that the city should have taken action "much sooner" on the Port Pub. Some of the building's residents have found alternative housing, while others have only found temporary shelter.
“As much as I think many people in town would like to see this building torn down, what we know in certainty is people have lost their homes," Minions said. "Although we are building more supportive and affordable housing, that housing is not going to come overnight.”
She made a motion that council defer the decision on demolition until their next meeting, scheduled for June 24. In the meantime, she said, she wants to see the city ask the province to take on the cost of repairs and get people back in their homes.
Council agreed to postpone the decision. Coun. Debbie Haggard called it a "very difficult" and "very sad" situation. She said she worries that the Port Pub is "too far gone" to be remediated.
“I think we have to place the blame right on the province,” said Haggard. “I don’t like to blame other people, but ministry employees...paid the owner of the building to let tenants live there. That makes absolutely no sense.” She added that she wants to see the province set minimum standards when it comes to subsidized housing.
Other councillors agreed that the province should foot the bill for the property.
“When you hear about people sleeping on the stairs or in the hallways and being charged rent, no human being should be sleeping in those kinds of conditions,” said Coun. Cindy Solda.
