Hamilton councillors review ‘gaps in enforcement’ over Gore Park buildings collapse

Members of Hamilton City Council were expressing concern Wednesday about the safety of old, empty buildings in the city.

They went over a report during a General Issues Committee meeting on the collapse of two buildings last November in Gore Park in the centre of Downtown Hamilton.

It was a preliminary report from city staff on the buildings’ collapse, which focused on a number of issues in building inspection and the enforcement of building orders in Hamilton.

With the preliminary report on the building collapse in front of the city’s General Issues Committee, Hamilton Mayor Andrea Horwath recalled the collapse of the Eastwood Mall in Elliott Lake in 2012.

“This particular thing that’s happened in our city is not dissimilar to what happened there,” said Horwath.

Two people died in the collapse of the Eastwood Mall, which better known locally as the Algo Centre Mall.

There were no injuries in Hamilton when two mid-1800’s buildings caved in last November, but the report leaves councillors with a lot of questions.

WATCH MORE: No one injured after building collapse in Hamilton’s Gore Park

The Building Collapse Report from city staff said the buildings had been “vacant for over a decade and with a history of bylaw violations.”

It says there were “gaps [in] enforcement processes” for building orders.

It cited two cases where the Director of Licensing told staff to “pause enforcement” and “not to proceed with any enforcement” on the Gore Park buildings.

“I was surprised that the director had stalled enforcement a couple of times deliberately, and I don’t know why,” said Brad Clark, the city councillor for Ward 9. “We’re so quick to jump on people whose grass isn’t cut enough, and we seem to be reluctant to put the same type of enforcement on buildings.”

Councilor for Ward 2 Cameron Kroetsch said there’s a disappointing pattern of a lack of enforcement.

“I take from the report that there are a lot of issues with us trying to continually seek compliance from people, and them kind of doing something and thus accepting that behaviour and not enforcing our bylaws,” said Kroetsch. “When people are not complying with our orders, we should be swift about this.”

The report presented at Wednesday’s meeting was an interim report on the collapse that happened at Gore Park, with a final report due later this year.

“I’m really trying to figure out how this kind of thing happened when professional engineers are involved, and the building just falls down,” said Horwath.

The Hamilton mayor said in the case of the Gore Park buildings, it’s frightening that the city didn’t get advance warning they could fall in.

“If it’s very obvious all the pieces are there in the puzzle that says ‘this building is about to fall down’, but the engineer doesn’t provide a report that identifies that,” said Horwath, “what are the ramifications for something like that – how does something like that happen?”

The preliminary report did not deal with the cause of the collapse last November.

That information should be covered by an upcoming report to council, but this one says enforcement tools like penalties and inspections need to be strengthened.

READ MORE: City to consider raising vacant building fines after Gore Park collapse last year