Annex residents allege heritage home is being intentionally left to rot

Thestar.com
June 18, 2018
Julien Gignac

Residents are calling out owners of a heritage property in the Annex, alleging they are letting the home go to pot -- on purpose.

The house at 6 Walmer Rd. has been boarded up for years, says Albert Koehl, vice-chair of the Annex Residents’ Association.

“The building is clearly deteriorating. I can clearly see an open area at the top, where it peaks, and therefore open to the air, the animals, rain and so on,” said Koehl, an environmental lawyer, noting he believes eventually the structure will be “irretrievable.”

Koehl said he believes it’s a case of “demolition by neglect” -- a situation in which a property owner intentionally lets a building fall to ruin with the hope that when it does, they can build something new in its stead. It’s an situation a city staff member said isn’t “unheard of” in Toronto.

A land transfer deed obtained by the Star, which includes 6, 8 and 10 Walmer Rd., appears to show that a company called New Style Construction Ltd. transferred ownership to NSCL Investments Ltd. in 1988.

Over the span of about one week, the Star made three attempts to reach president Michael Naiberg for comment by phone, then delivered a detailed set of questions to a house associated with his name. On Monday, a man who answered the phone declined to comment.

Two letters have been sent to the city about the property -- one from the Annex Residents’ Association in 2017, and another from residents of 10 Walmer Rd, a nearby highrise, in 2013. Both characterize ongoing deterioration of the building and a lack of action to see it preserved.

“We want the city to use its powers to force the building owner to repair the heritage attributes, and thereby to convert the building from an eyesore and safety hazard to a properly maintained building that respects area residents and the appearance of the neighbourhood,” Koehl said, adding the property is a “public asset.”

“If it’s been designated by bylaw as a heritage building we should be preserving our heritage, and it’s probably symptomatic of larger problem if the city isn’t enforcing its own bylaws to maintain this building,” Koehl said.

The house, built in 1896 in the Queen Anne Revival style for a reverend named Thomas Goldsmith, was designated as a heritage building in 2013, according to a city bylaw document. Its architect was Frederick Herbert, “one of the city’s best-known practitioners specializing in residential architecture at the close of the 19th century,” the document says, adding he took to designing homes for the rich.

A year before the designation, a notice of objection to the status was filed, then withdrawn. Before that, in 2011, owners had submitted an application to demolish the building, and then withdrew, according to a city planning report the same year.

Neil Jain, who has lived at 10 Walmer for 10 years, complained of large accumulations of garbage around 6 Walmer, graffiti, trespassers, and parking woes. He said he has a bird’s-eye view of the heritage property from his unit and although the street is a no-parking zone, large trucks park directly in front of the derelict properties (8 Walmer is also vacant, but does not have heritage status).

“In the last five years or so, the issues have become worse,” he said. “We’ve had folks climb up onto the roof of 6 Walmer, enter the property through a hole. I’ve personally called the police a couple of times.”

Jain said even basic maintenance seems to be flouted.

“6 Walmer has all kinds of standards the owner’s supposed to abide by. It doesn’t benefit anyone to have these abandoned houses,” Jain said.

According to a city property standards document, owners of heritage properties should be meet benchmark maintenance protocols to preserve heritage characteristics.

Proprietors, it says, should “Maintain, preserve and protect the heritage attributes so as to maintain the heritage character, visual and structural heritage integrity of the building or structure,” adding that vacant buildings must be boarded up.

Mark Sraga, director of investigative services for municipal licensing and standards, said city staff would inspect 6 Walmer this week, adding his office has received multiple complaints about the heritage house over the years.

Demolition by neglect is “not unheard of” in Toronto, Sraga said.

“It’s not just unique in Toronto, it happens everywhere in Ontario,” he said. “Anybody with a heritage designated structure that wants to replace it with something other, unscrupulous developers, property owners will do that,” Sraga said. “If you let the roof rot, it collapses, the building collapses, whatever, well, then you can’t save it. It’s sad, but that’s what they say, ‘Oops, too bad.’”

Whether this is the case at 6 Walmer has yet to be determined, he said, but if an owner doesn’t act to remedy potential problems, the city would make an inspection, ensuring the property is secured.

“We would go out and ask is it secure against illegal entry, if not we would issue a notice of violation with the property owner telling them they must secure it,” Sraga said. “And if they don’t do it, we will, and charge it back onto their property taxes. We are charging the property owner for doing the work that they themselves ought to have done.”