Property maintenance issues in Lac La Biche County have seen more than three dozen property owners not comply this year with the Community Standard Bylaw that requires properties to be free of debris, and routinely landscaped. The onwers' of noteable eyesores around the county have been issued multiple warnings by enforcement officers who are continuing to educate property owners while attempting to crackdown on those who do not comply, said Chris Clark, the county’s manager of enforcement services.
The number of targeted calls for unsightly premises are on the rise. More than double of the 22 reported files issued in the first six months of 2021 have been recorded already this year, said Clark, while adding that more needs to be done to get the message out.
“In 2022 we have 46 properties that are now classified as unsightly that we’re currently dealing with. We have seven orders that are on the verge of escalating,” said Clark.
Unsightly properties include land that is not properly landscaped, clean, orderly, free of building materials and debris, said Clark.
While there is a list of properties that have fallen out of compliance with the bylaw or have complaints lodged by others, Clark and Lac La Biche County councillors say they won’t release the list to the public. They say the offenders are a combination of business locations, residential areas and vacant land.
“Typically someone who hasn’t mowed their grass, or hasn’t shovelled their sidewalk, or maybe has some accumulation of garbage and residential renovation material on their property,” he says, is grounds for issuing an order which is the first step of escalating responses if the issue is not addressed in a reasonable time frame.
“We start off with a warning and give them seven days or 14 days” Clark says depending on
the job load, availability of property owners and urgency, followed by a Municipal Government Act order if the agreement is broken. Afterwards, property owners will then receive 14 to 21 days to comply while having the option to appeal the order to county council.
Expensive service
While enforcement staff hope to have results early on, some landowners are not complying and legally the next step— which comes at a great cost to taxpayers— requires the order to be submitted by staff to the Court of Queen’s Bench in St. Paul, said Clark.
“A Court of Queen’s Bench order takes about three to six months to get. …It takes three trips for our officers to do, and the cost is anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 to get that order issued by the court,” he explained.
Attempting to avoid making the matter a court decision, enforcement staff also offer up contracting services for property owners to pay for cleanup fees through their taxes, added Clark.
“We give them a date to have that completed by or we can send in contractors or crew to have that work done,” he said, adding that three properties last month received lawn services funded by taxpayer dollars that will be tacked onto the property owners taxes, said Clark.
While most matters are hopefully handled before the issue escalates, in the worst-case scenarios, properties where owners take no actions and avoid municipal officials for a substantial period can see the property forfeited to the municipality.
Finding solutions
Clark says one of the most important areas to recognize is the downtown core where several businesses aren’t complying with the Community Standards Bylaw, or were established before the bylaw came into effect, so are “grandfathered” from it. He says it’s important to have a well-looked-after downtown since it’s a main attraction for visitors.
Following a meeting with Lac La Biche County council last week about the need for compliance, several options for businesses were discussed, including moving yard wastes, scrap metal, containers and debris to a municipally-owned property away from the downtown, or offering the offending business another property that is out of the downtown area.
“If we have businesses within our downtown core and they make our downtown core look unsightly…especially with our revitalization plans, we need to come up with a plan to relocate those businesses,” said Clark.
Coun. Darlene Beniuk likes the idea of moving debris to a municipal property out of public view.
“Other than existing landfills, the County owns lots of property. There are quarters of land in any direction that haven’t got anything on them. We have no use for them obviously,” she said, which could ultimately become a useful program to circumvent the problem.
Working together
Ultimately, the intention of maintaining properties and following the bylaw is to keep the county desirable and attractive, while working with business owners and community members, says Lac La Biche County mayor Paul Reutov.
“The goal here is to have a municipality that is appealing, you cannot have abandoned houses or whatever it might be. There’s got to be some type of methods and mechanism in place and if they're not, we’re hoping to be able to establish something,” he said.
In the coming months, enforcement staff will continue working with residents and following up on unsightly property orders as county council members look for long-term legal and land solutions in the coming months.
