Victoria councillors will today consider issuing a 60-day demolition order for a Cook Street apartment building that was damaged beyond repair by fire last month.
The apartment at 2321 Cook St., owned by Vancouver businessman Robin Kimpton, had sat boarded up and without tenants for a decade when it was ravaged by fire.
If council agrees, the owner will have 60 days from July 24 to demolish the building or the city will do it.
“We’ve deemed it as unsafe. We’re quite concerned that it’s a danger to the public especially when the rains come in the fall, or heaven forbid, the snow,” Mayor Dean Fortin said Tuesday.
“So he has 60 days to demolish it or the city will demolish it and put the cost onto the tax roll.”
Kimpton could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Prior to the June 12 fire, area residents had complained of squatters crawling through fencing to enter the building, located near Empress Avenue.
The city ordered Kimpton to board up the windows and erect a fence around the property in April 2013. The city has also cleaned up graffiti and waste on the property, billing the owner.
Fortin said demolition orders are rarely issued by the city, which is reluctant to interfere with a person’s property rights.
In October 2013, Victoria council voted to give the owner of the Turner building — a long and narrow two-storey building on Richmond Road near Fort Street, distinguished by rounded walls at one end — 28 days to either apply for a demolition permit or plan a redevelopment.
The building, which was built in the 1940s and for decades was home to the beloved Ian’s Jubilee Coffee Shop, had fallen into such disrepair that it needed to be immediately demolished, a report for council said at the time.
However, the order was put on hold and the building still stands after it was purchased by new owners.
A report to council on the Cook Street apartment says the fire left the property beyond repair and a threat to public safety.
It’s been frustrating to see the building sit unused for so long, Fortin said.
“I actually could never really understand the economics of having a building sit empty,” he said.
“That has been, for me, the personally frustrating piece, when you see something like this that should be adding life and vitality to the community. It is a shame it is wasted, and unfortunately, we have far too many properties like that.”
The three-storey walk-up apartment building sits on a 6,361-square-foot lot and was built in 1913, property assessment records show.
Its assessed value is $536,000 — the land is valued at $419,000 and the building at $117,000.
Kimpton, who ran unsuccessfully for Victoria council in 2011, owns several properties in the city.
In July 2013, three of Kimpton’s properties — once part of the now-disbanded Traveller’s Inn chain — were put on the market under a court-ordered sale. A lender foreclosed on Kimpton.
NAI Commercial (Victoria) Inc. offered the properties — an apartment-hotel at 760 Queens St., an apartment at 723 Field St., and an adjacent parking lot at 715 Field St. — as a package for $5.99 million.
The Field Street apartment was sold, said NAI real estate agent Tim Taylor.
Kimpton was able to keep the other properties after he paid off his loans, Taylor said.
— With files from Carla Wilson
