Charlottetown aims to clean things up with updated unsightly premises bylaw

Tony Davis · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 12, 2025 5:20 AM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

Charlottetown's metropolis council is hoping to velocity things up erstwhile it comes to cleaning up unsightly properties.

Council unanimously approved amendments to the city's Dangerous, Hazardous and Unsightly Premises Bylaw during a regular gathering connected Tuesday night. The update allows the city's bylaw serviceman to bash insignificant spot cleanups without having to get support from metropolis council.

"Things similar your writer oregon garbage connected your property," says Julie McCabe, seat of Charlottetown's constabulary and protective services committee.

"The process was ever rather lengthy by the clip helium would get that done to committee, connected to assembly for support for him to spell successful and really bash his job."

Under the erstwhile rules, it took astir six weeks for the city's bylaw serviceman to beryllium capable to get support from metropolis assembly earlier helium could bash things specified arsenic asking homeowners to chopped their grass, which McCabe said was an unnecessarily agelong delay.

"There inactive has to beryllium notices," she said.

"He has his ain process that helium volition inactive person to follow… helium volition enactment with homeowners to, you know, effort to marque definite that they person the accidental to bash what needs to beryllium done to conscionable the bylaw."

Council volition inactive ballot connected drastic action, specified arsenic demolition, if a spot is deemed unsafe and unsightly, McCabe said.

"There's definite things that benignant of autumn nether the nationalist occurrence code. There's things that autumn nether the unsightly bylaw.

"And it was conscionable to beryllium clear, that this is for the smaller things that we amended tonight, garbage, grass, antithetic things that origin your spot to beryllium unsightly, but it's not for your bigger projects. Absolutely not. Those are things that volition inactive person to get done council," she said.

Council has talked astir wanting to velocity up the process erstwhile it comes to unsightly properties for the six years McCabe has been connected council, she said.

Charlottetown has dealt with respective properties the metropolis deemed unsightly implicit the past fewer years. In precocious 2023, metropolis officials were successful a quality with a homeowner implicit the magnitude of their grass. That led to the metropolis officials cutting the writer and giving the spot proprietor the bill.

In January, metropolis assembly voted unanimously to demolish a vacant location successful the metropolis if the spot proprietor doesn't cleanable it up successful the adjacent twelvemonth and half.