Sault Blog

The porch structure at 342 Albert Street East, Downtown Sault Ste. Marie has collapsed; hopefully, no one was hurt. By all initial indications, the culprit should be the excessive amount of this year’s snow accumulation; however, the real reason is a failure of property standards enforcement. Google Maps “Timelapse” allows anyone or any organization the incredible capability to access years of satellite, aerial, and Street View imagery, which are an effective tool for demonstrating the development or regression of cities, damages from natural disasters, and changes in landscape.

Google Maps has Street View images of 342 Albert Street East for these dates: 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2018, 2019, and 2024 under the Google Maps Timelapse feature.

The Google Maps Timelapse dates of 2007 to 2102 show the house at 342 Albert Street East in very good condition: a well-kept home, yard, garage, lawn, and landscaping, demonstrating pride of ownership and civic respect. The next Timelapse date of 2018 shows the house has fallen into disrepair, with multiple City Municipal Property Standard violations. The final Timelapse of 2024 shows the house now severely dilapidated, dangerous, and blighted; the porch roof has already separated from the house, posing a danger to its inhabitants.

In 2018, Mr. Travis Anderson, then FutureSSM Manager, issued a comprehensive city-wide Housing Report. This report shockingly identifies the extent of blighted housing areas in our City using GIS mapping, the fact that 25 percent of that housing “needs major repairs,” 75 percent of that housing is rental, and the extremely low average property assessments for these blighted areas.

Our City Building and Planning Department Managers must have read this report and formulated an action plan to eradicate this housing blight, right? No, the opposite was the case. The City Planning Department issued the policy directive “the status quo is good enough,” and then it was changed to “the light touch planning.” It took then Councillor Shoemaker to flat-out order the City Planner to “produce a Community Housing Improvement Plan.”

Recently, Mr. Peter Tonazzo, City Planner, released the new “Community Housing Affordability Plan,”; however, it lacks a housing blight removal strategy. The Plan does not “force” blighted property owners to bring their properties up to acceptable standards; financial incentives are provided, but there is no mechanism to force them to do so.

Conversely, Cities south of us, like Midland, Saginaw, and Bay City, MI, budget urban housing blight removal using the TARP (Federal and State) funding assistance program to expropriate, demolish, and remove blighted houses. These Cities understand that removing the worst housing on the block stabilizes the neighbourhood decline and frees up the existing space and infrastructure for new housing builds. The TARP fund facilitated a paradigm shift allowing municipalities to become the “developer” by: (1) Expropriating the blighted houses. (2) Land banking the property enabling the municipality to determine best use of property. (3) Create partnerships with social entrepreneurs facilitating affordable housing builds (like Osborne Commons in SOO, MI).

Mr. Freddie Pozzebon, City Building and Property Standards Department Manager, lamented that there was only so much the Property Standards Department could do. Mr. Pozzebon, never took Property Standards seriously; allowing boarded-up, blighted houses to persist for decades, he never fully understood the massive scope of the problem, the ramifications of ignoring the blight, and did not provide any solutions for City Council’s approval. The FutureSSM 2018 Housing Report required a bold action plan, mandating proactive property inspections for all housing in blighted neighborhoods. A significant budget was/is needed not just to eradicate the housing blight in our Downtown neighbourhoods, but to remove the Slum Landlords and Slumlord Corporations that created it.

The housing in the downtown core is approaching 100 years of age; many houses are in terrible condition with structural deficiencies, electrical fire hazards, substandard plumbing, insulation, and other building code violations. The porch structure collapse at 342 Albert Street East should signal to the City Building and Property Standards Manager that every downtown house must be inspected for structural, electrical, and other property standards violations. A proactive approach to ensure safety for our citizens living in the downtown neighbourhoods must be adopted; we no longer want to accept a dangerous “Culture of Blight” downtown.

Mark Menean, http://www.saultblog.com