CORNWALL, Ontario – With the spotlight cast firmly in recent days on the city’s bylaw department, a Cornwall couple wants to know why some complaints are dealt with so quickly, while others seem to take forever.
A Cornwall couple complained earlier this summer to the city concerning a property on Sydney Street, where a swimming pool has become filled with stagnant water and overgrown vines.
The property owner said Wednesday the mess will be cleaned up. But in the meantime the in-ground pool has remained covered since the winter with snowmelt and rain filling its cover and turning the backyard into a swamp-like mess, a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes, said neighbours.
The neighbours, who contacted Seaway News but wish to remain anonymous, said they complained to the city more than a month ago, and at first were told there was nothing that could be done.
A return call days later from a city representative indicated a solution could be on the way.
But that was weeks ago, and still the overgrown backyard at 133 Sydney Street looks like something out of the Florida panhandle.
“Nothing has been done with it,” said the neighbour. “Vines are growing wild in that place.”
Now, with the city’s bylaw department coming under the microscope for enforcing rules concerning the signs attached to a worm-selling business in Cornwall’s west end, the neighbours want to know why more municipal muscle hasn’t been flexed for their complaint.
“People should have to take care of their property. It seems no one is in charge at this point,” said the neighbour.
The city’s chief building official, Chris Rogers, said in an interview the city sent an order demanding that the property be cleaned up about a month ago.
Rogers said the documentation has been ignored, and officials are meeting Wednesday morning to plot strategy.
The city has a number of options at its disposal, Rogers continued, suggesting municipal officials can clean the property up themselves and send the owner a bill.
“But you have to be careful,” Rogers said, adding if the city is challenged in court it has to prove it gave the property owner enough time to address the orders to clean things up.
Neighbours aren’t the only people upset.
Art Levert, founder of the Include Program in Cornwall which leases space at the property, said Tuesday his agency is leaving.
“We have complained and complained and complained,” said Levert. “We just gave our 60-day notice.”
The owner of the property is Vincent Ciccone, who makes his home in Florida.
Levert said on top of the pool mess is a pile of garbage that also sits in the backyard.
Levert said he would be pleased to move the garbage but cannot for two reasons: it’s in the backyard that he does not have access to, and the garbage must be transported out a locked gate for which only Ciccone has the key.
Levert said he considered hopping the fence to dispose of the garbage “because we want to be a good tenant” but decided against it because he feels it would be illegal for him to trespass on a part of the property he has no right to access.
“We offered to help clean it up,” said Levert.
Ciccone, contacted by this newspaper by phone in Florida, blamed a previous tenant for the mess of garbage in the backyard.
“I evicted him, but he left garbage,” said Ciccone, adding the tenant left at the end of June.
When asked why municipal orders have gone ignored Ciccone claimed that he has received nothing in the mail from the city advising him to clean the mess up, and added he has been out of the country since the spring.
The backyard pool, said Ciccone, is several decades old and has not been opened in about 10 years because it needs some costly repairs.
Ciccone said he has retained a service that will begin cleaning the property Wednesday, and added he had left messages weeks ago for similar work to be completed by now.
“I thought it was clean but it wasn’t,” he said.
The property is managed by Ace Property Management here in Cornwall, but a representative of the company said only in so far as finding tenants.
The company rep said Ace does not maintain the property.
