REGINA – The provincial government has announced legislative amendments to The Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act to step up efforts to address issues at nuisance properties.
The amendments are set to come into effect Nov. 1. According to the government’s news release, these changes will allow the SCAN unit to target those nuisance properties that are unfit for human habitation and which negatively affect the health, safety and economic well-being of community members living nearby.
The changes will also mean SCAN can make court applications for either a rehabilitation order to demolish a nuisance property, or for a forfeiture order to seize the property prior to demolishing or restoring it to safe conditions.
The new amendments will also add graffiti and the trafficking of stolen property to the list of activities SCAN can address. The province also states this amendment will allow SCAN to identify and target nuisance properties while still following their current mandate of responding to public complaints about buildings regularly involved in illegal activities.
“What we’re talking about there is the ability for our SCAN officers to target nuisance properties — properties that are unsafe in a community,” said Corrections, Policing and Public Safety Minister Tim McLeod at the legislature.
“Properties where maybe trafficking of stolen goods may be happening, excessive graffiti — really, the properties that are creating unsafe neighbourhoods, we’re giving our SCAN officers more ability to deal with those, together in collaboration with the community that also has the authority to target those.“
McLeod said the government “saw an opportunity where additional measures could be taken to really, again, give the law-enforcement officers the additional tools that they need to create those safer environments, not necessarily allowing those properties to continue to pose a threat to the community.”
On what properties would pose a threat, McLeod describes it as “where you have a dangerous property in the community that perhaps it’s been abandoned, maybe it’s got… illegal activity going on.”
McLeod said these would be properties “not fit for human habitation. So if there are people in there, these people are in an unsafe environment, we want to make sure that we can get them into a safe place. The whole idea is to create safer communities, safer environments for families.”
