More than a month after they were abruptly evacuated from their homes, dozens of condo tenants in Fort Saskatchewan will be able to move their belongings out.
Residents of the 44-suite Riverview Estates condo complex at 9930 100th Avenue were given 30 minutes to gather essential belongings and leave the building on Aug. 2, after engineers deemed the building structurally unsafe.
At a meeting Tuesday evening, held at the Fort Saskatchewan Legion building, about 50 residents and condo owners were told the City of Fort Saskatchewan had accepted the request of the condo corporation to allow tenants to move their possessions out of the building, starting on Friday.
The decision to allow the tenants to remove their belongings now was made because of the uncertainty of how long the complete assessment of the extent of damages will take, said Rose LaRochelle, vice president of the condo board.
“It’s going to take longer than we expected it and people want to get their belongings and move on,” LaRochelle said. “They don’t want to have their belongings in there for months on end.”
Series of complaints
The investigation into the construction of the 16-year-old condominium building was prompted by a series of complaints from residents, including complaints of spongy floors.
After the condo was evacuated, engineers found joists and beams weren’t in the proper place. Tenants at a meeting Aug. 12 were told the building wasn’t constructed according to its original plan.
Jacobsen Hage Engineering, the firm that worked on the condo, had its permit revoked by the provincial engineering regulator in late 2004, one year after the condo was built. The professional engineer on record was Sven Hage, who gave up his license to practice in February 2005, the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA) said.
The investigation
An investigation of the condo’s crawl space has been completed, with investigations of the first, second, third and fourth floors now in the initial stages.
Hugh Willis, a lawyer for the condo corporation, said the evacuation of items such as furniture will help with completion of the assessments, which will involve cutting drywall to determine the condition of the building’s frame.
The corporation is still trying to determine what insurance will cover, if anything at all.
“There’s certainly lots of challenges ahead for this corporation,” Willis said.
Condo owner Frank Garritsen said tenants and owners still have a lot of questions, but are hopeful the building can be repaired.
“It’s looking more positive than what I thought,” Garritsen said. “But again the answer is they don’t know 100 per cent yet but I feel a little bit better if that means anything.
“Everybody’s going to be frustrated up to a point but the communication that has been ongoing has been actually very good,” he said.
Move out plan
The City implemented a number of conditions for the “safety-based move out”, including that movers hired by the board assist with the packing of residents’ belongings.
Only the hired movers will be allowed to move the furniture and boxes. It will then be up to residents to arrange and pay to have their belongings removed from outside the building.
The move out will start on the fourth floor and work down, one suite at a time. The City hopes to complete the process by Oct. 22.
As for Garritsen, he said his tenant has found a temporary place to live, and will likely move back if and when the building is deemed safe.
“I’m one of the lucky ones. My tenant is probably a tenant from heaven. She wants to come back,” he said.