Demolition delayed for abandoned Briarwood home

The owner of a house in Briarwood that has been the subject of complaints from neighbours has been given 10 days to make its case as to why the house shouldn’t be demolished.

A Queen’s Bench judge ordered the owner of 166 Beechdale Cres., Yu Liu, to bring an application to court on Oct. 11.

Assistant Fire Chief Wayne Rodgers said the fire department checked out the house after receiving complaints earlier this year. The department found that the house had been abandoned.

“As it turned out, it had been unoccupied for a number of years,” Rodgers said. “The electrical utility was shut down  sometime in 2016, which caused freezing in the home.”

Rodgers said that freezing and thaw created significant water damage to the inside of the house and caused a lot of mould growth.

That’s when the fire department issued an order to the owner for those things to be fixed.

The owner did not respond, and no repairs were made. That’s when the decision to demolish was made.

“Upon re-inspection, we were able to determine that nothing had been done there, so by the end of May we rescinded that original order to repair and issued an order to demolish,” Rodgers said.

The order to demolish on the front door of the home at 166 Beechdale Cres., on Sept. 27, 2019.
(Justin Blackwell/650 CKOM)

The city had been set to take the property down, and will now remove the construction equipment until the judge makes a decision.

In a release Tuesday afternoon, the city maintained the property has become a serious health and safety hazard to the neighbours.

It also said because of the extensive mould and water damage, the house is structurally unsound.

Should the demolition end up going ahead, the cost will fall to the owner of the house, according to a release put out by the city.