The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
They're eyesores. They're potential hazards. They've outlived their usefulness. Now five more derelict homes and buildings in downtown Flin Flon have a date with a wrecking crew this summer. The city has hired a contractor to demolish the abandoned homes at 72 Hill Street and 67 Callinan Street, the old apartment building at 22 North Avenue and the former Reminder offices at 8 and 10 North Avenue. The city acquired the properties through tax sale. At their meeting Tuesday, council voted to award the tender for the demolitions to the lowest bidder, Don Holmes Trucking. Over the last 11 years, the city has made a concerted effort to tear down abandoned buildings across the community. In addition to aesthetic issues, the buildings may be structurally unsound and have been known to attract children, who could get hurt while inside. The structures can also be targets for vandals and vagrants. Derelict houses are an unsurprising side effect of Flin Flon being roughly half the size it once was, but not all of them are owned by the city. Reach a deal Last year, Coun. Ken Pawlachuk publicly urged the owners of derelict buildings to try and reach a deal with the city to get rid of the structures. 'If you don't want it and you don't plan on doing anything with it but having it sit there as a fire trap or a place that people break into, come to the city,' he said at a May 2012 city council meeting. Coun. Pawlachuk called derelict houses 'eyesores' that must be watched by Fire Chief Jim Petrie. '...a lot of people are moving into them, they're squatters,' said the councillor. 'The fire chief finds guys in them all the time. I would just encourage people to come to the city and make us a deal and maybe we can get rid of some of them somehow.' Added Coun. Pawlachuk: 'It's a mining town, but it doesn't have to be a dirty old mining town. We can get rid of these buildings.' At the same meeting, Mayor George Fontaine endorsed the notion of creating incentives to have such houses torn down. 'I think that's one of the directions we're going to go,' he said, adding that empty lots are better than derelict houses.
