Former gas station lot remains abandoned

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This article was published 13/11/2021 (1582 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A former gas station on Rosser Avenue sits unused and deteriorating, but the landowner says it’s too expensive to remediate the downtown property.

The old Esso gas station lot has been deserted since at least 2010, when the Sun reported it was up for tax sale.

Coun. Kris Desjarlais (Rosser) said there are challenges with the property but wants to see it taken better care of in the future.

“Optimistically, I would love to see better corporate stewardship and recognition … When profit is be all and end all of our society, [it] makes it difficult to get to the table unless we can force them in some way,” he said.

The downtown gas station, which is next to the Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation, is closed and in a serious state of disrepair. There is a large hole in the roof with pigeons roosting in it and garbage strewn around the gas pumps.

It is just one of several unused properties around the city of Brandon.

The land is owned by a numbered company, 3446515 Manitoba Inc., according to the property’s status of title.

The address for service listed in the status of title is for a property on Ellice Avenue in Winnipeg. The Sun contacted the auto repair shop operating there, and the owner said he believed the numbered company was registered to a past tenant.

The numbered company, which was incorporated in February 1996, is currently listed as inactive by the province. According to the Company’s Office, it last filed an annual return in 2005.

The Sun reached Barry Uskiw, who is listed as the company’s director, by phone in Winnipeg. He said he has difficulties selling the property and purchased it in 1996.

“Nobody would like to purchase it because it has tanks in the ground,” he said.

He said he would get the tanks removed but needs the money to do so.

“We tried to find somebody to take the property minus the costs of removing the tanks, but that hasn’t been successful,” he said.

The property was listed on the City of Brandon’s tax sale list published on Oct. 25. According to a notice published in the Sun, it was $25,539.76 behind in arrears.

The property no longer appears on the most recent tax sale list, published on Nov. 8.

City treasurer Dean Hammond said the owner would have had to pay at least arrears for 2019 plus any tax sale costs incurred by the City of Brandon to get off the tax sale list. According to the list, the property owed $10,815.04 in arrears from 2019.

The city has the option to deal with the neglected property itself, Desjarlais said, but it’s a “costly endeavour.”

“As much as we would love to go ahead and deal with that, we’re hundreds of thousands if not into the millions [of dollars] in dealing with something like that, and that’s a difficult cost to bear when we’ve got a lot of other infrastructure challenges … in the next 15 to 20 years,” he said.

“You’re sort of stuck in a difficult situation.”

City council approved a Brownfield Financial Assistance program in 2017 to incentivize property owners to remediate and redevelop properties like the former Esso gas station lot.

A brownfield is a property that may be contaminated with a hazardous substance or pollutant, including abandoned gas stations, landfills and factories. In 2017, there were 95 properties in the city’s inventory.

The program offers owners tax credits for properties that increase in value due to remediation and development for up to 15 years. The program freezes municipal taxes for up to 15 years to help cover the cost of remediating the land.

Desjarlais said he was unaware of any discussions between the city and Uskiw on remediating the land.

The Sun reached out to Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation executive director Matt Grills for comment on the next-door lot but was unable to reach him.

Unsued properties in downtown core have an impact on the city’s downtown plan, Desjarlais said, adding it’s an area where the city needs to focus attention.

“Our downtown is struggling, the pandemic was not helpful in any way and so we had turned a corner… But things aren’t where they were pre-pandemic and we need to stop the bleeding downtown,” he said.

Without a viable downtown, which is a significant portion of the tax base, the costs to homeowners could rise to keep up service levels.

“It is imperative we put a lot of thought and consideration into how we can change things for the better in the downtown on a social front, an economic front and an environmental front.”

» dmay@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @DrewMay_