Infill friction: Southeast Edmonton residents oppose construction of three-storey building; owner gets safety order

There is conflict over new infill apartments planned for the Kenilworth neighbourhood in southeast Edmonton.

Neighbours speaking to CityNews Monday are opposing plans for the three-storey building with seven units, filing an appeal with the city.

They argue it’s too big for the area, and they’re concerned about traffic.

“They’ll be parking all over, including my side of the street,” said Liz Thomas, who lives in Kenilworth. “I know it’s public parking, but it is gonna be congested.”

The residents are pointing to safety issues with the upkeep as construction moves forward, and how the builders have handled asbestos before the home was demolished over the weekend.

“Essentially it’s a really terrible neighbour that nobody wants,” said Allison Greyeyes.

“It’s really disheartening. It’s like the city doesn’t really care. That’s how it feels.”

Yash Singh, the site supervisor for Yash Homes, says construction is being done by the book.

“If I’m looking at it, I think it’s pretty safe,” he said. “But, once again, we’re law-abiding citizens. We like to follow, and we are following the law, and we’re also following all the permits issued by the city.”

The fire department and the city both declared the property unsafe last week, posting an order on the fence before it was demolished. It says the property is dangerous to the public and first responders, and a fire risk because parts of the property were not closed up and secure.

While it’s been demolished now, CityNews spoke to the property owner who denied there were any safety issues at all.

“We put the fence around it, and all the fence clamped and tight locked,” said Gurjinder Signh, the CEO of Yash Homes. “And I don’t know how it’s unsafe.”

Singh tells CityNews that was all done before the order went up.

“Because they don’t like the community over there,” Singh said. “They don’t like the new buildings, stuff like that. They’re trying to give me a hard time. They’re trying to go everywhere, they call police, they do this, that, and everything.

“They want to stop my work. That’s why.”

Neighbours are not happy with communication from the builders so far. They also expressed frustration with the City of Edmonton, feeling left in the dark about what’s going up next door.

“I had to pay for a variance, and the notice went out to a significant amount of people around my home to give me permission to build onto the back of my house within my property line,” Greyeyes said.

“But residents have no say when a developer comes in to build something that does not fit within the community.

“So then my question to the entire city council is, ‘would you be happy if this went up next door to you?’”

The City of Edmonton tells CityNews the property is being addressed through the Problem Properties Initiative, which deals with residential and commercial properties that have “significant harmful impacts on the surrounding community and/or those living in them.” Those properties are either cleaned up, secured or demolished.

The city says demolishing the site brought the property into compliance with the order issued last week.

With regards to new builds in general, the city says “staff review permit applications and plans, conduct inspections to identify and address compliance issues early, educate builders on development rules and proper construction practices and penalize non-compliance.”

–With files from Lauren Boothby