A TV production has been given the go-ahead to come in with a wrecking ball.
Timmins council has approved sole-sourcing the demolition of three buildings to the TV production The Salvage Kings, which airs on the History Channel.
The buildings identified are the former Central Tavern, known as The Zoo, in South Porcupine, the old Tisdale public works shop on Evans Street, and a Schumacher house.
The total cost for demolition and abatement is $249,209. That's $20,574 for 34 Fourth Ave., $77,315 for 84 Bruce Ave., and $151,320 for 59 Evans St.
Last year, councillors asked for tougher bylaws on derelict buildings across the city.
Since then, city clerk Steph Palmateer said there have been three demolitions as a result of property standard violations.
"In keeping with that direction Enforcement Services has identified another residential property that must be removed as it is beyond repair. In this instance, the cost to remove the house will be added to the property tax bill," reads Palmateers report.
The city owns the other two properties — one through tax sale and the other has "reached the end of useful life."
While looking at having the properties removed, Palmateer told council an opportunity came up to work with the Salvage Kings.
He said one of the advantages of it is not doing separate tenders for each one. It's also about 25 per cent less, and it includes remediation, he said.
There was some conversation about the item. Due to audio issues with the virtual meeting some of the discussion was not clear.
Moving forward, Coun. Joe Campbell said he'd like to look at how the city deals with derelict buildings.
“I think with respect to a lot of these houses they could be turned into single-family dwellings and it’s costing us $20,000 to tear this down and in the other case $77,000. I’m not sure that this money would not have been spent wiser going to the owners and giving them some kind of incentive to fix up these buildings to turn them into liveable units because we do have a housing shortage of affordable housing,” he said.
Timmins Mayor George Pirie is glad there is a production company involved.
“The last show that we all watched in horror was the one by TVO that presented an abysmal view of Timmins,” he said.
Pirie noted letters were written to the city about that production, and the city sent a complant to TVO.
He said doing the Salvage Kings sends a clear message that the city is interested in changing its image.
