The President of the Kamloops Accommodation Association says the hotels and motels along the Columbia Street West corridor will continue to work to shed their nuisance property labels.
Tyson Andrykew says while the declaration by the city was a gut punch and a ‘disappointing move’, the property owners will continue to remain in regular contact with RCMP and city bylaw staff.
“We have felt that some significant progress has been made and nuisance calls have been going down over the recent weeks according to these members so the hope is that we can continue that trend, and keep that open dialogue going,” he said. “You know, I don’t want this announcement around the nuisance element to derail that progress.”
The city declared nine hotels and motels on Columbia Street West as nuisance properties, which means the owners will have to pay the costs incurred from excess police, fire, and bylaw calls to their properties.
“Some of the public sentiment it very much quickly seemed that the hotels were entirely being blamed for something that we see is more of a shared responsibility so we wanted to make sure that that was clear and that this was a larger issue than any of these individual hotels,” Andrykew added.
“Hopefully the public recognizes that and that partnership can continue.”
When it comes to designating homes and businesses as nuisance properties, the Mayor of Kamloops says the city does not take that lightly.
Ken Christian says the city has a committee that reviews if a property should be deemed a nuisance based on the number of times that bylaw, RCMP or firefighters are called.
“And when the behaviour on the properties get so egregious that we are sending crews there all of the time, its not fair for the rest of the taxpayers of the city to be paying for that,” Christian said on NL Newsday.
“Those property owners I’m hoping will see that this is going to either be something they want to correct or they are going to start paying dearly for the number of times we have to roll equipment and man power to their locations.”
Andrykew says some of the owners are concerned that if things don’t improve, they will be responsible for the costs of emergency services a time when revenue is down because of COVID-19.
“Its a tough one to take but hopefully we can continue to move in the trend of downward nuisance calls for everywhere and in particular for these properties so they don’t have to ensure those additional costs,” he said.
And Andrykew says he also wants Kamloopsians to know that these property owners are not solely to blame for the issues, noting many complaints are the result of things like homelessness, mental health, and drug addiction.
