Sydney business hit with neighbour's roof twice

A Sydney, N.S., business owner is calling onthe Cape Breton Regional Municipality to do more to address vacant and derelict buildings.

In Thursday'shigh winds, the roof of a vacant building on George Street detached and landed on the hair salon next door, forcing the evacuation of the salonand the closure of a section of George Street until midday Friday.

"This is the second time we've had their roof kind of shiftto our building," said Mike MacDonald, owner of Revive Salon. "Thefirst time it was just a simple layer of membrane. But this one, there's more wood attached to it."

MacDonald had just put a new roof on the salon three months ago, at the cost of $150,000. He's insured, but he expects dealing with the mess will not be an easy process.

He's also lost business at his busiest time of year.

"We are back to back with clients. So we had clients last night that had to leave with colour on," he said.

MacDonald would like to see more accountability when it comes to vacant properties.

"If we have bylaws and policies in place that are supposed to enforce that these buildings are maintained and secured properly, then maybe we need to do a better job at enforcing those policies," he said.

The municipal councillor for the area, Eldon MacDonald, agrees that the municipality should be doing more, but says the problem is money.

"We have $120,000that we allot to the budget to deal with tear downs," he said. "Most commercial buildings would cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars."

CBRM recently hired another staff person to deal with derelict and unsightly premises. And it has reduced the number of derelict properties on its list from 800 to 400.

"We are making improvements. We are getting there," said MacDonald. "Would it be great if we could do it quicker? Absolutely."

The CBRMsays it has requested increased funding from the province to help deal with the backlog, to no avail.

Peter Arapis owns the vacant building on George Street that lost its roof Thursday. He declined to do an interview, but said he will address the roof damage as soon as the winds die down.

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