City takes action on Forrest Drive resident
Tara Kearsey
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Nov 15/00) - A Yellowknife man who refused to remove debris from outside of his home now has to pay the city more than $1,600.
For more than a year, the city has been warning Lumen Marianayagam to clean outside of his Forrest Drive Trailer Park residence.
Marianayagam was first contacted by the city in June 1999 after a complaint was filed by an area resident. City employees inspected the property and found a large amount of debris strewn about the property, including broken-down machinery, furniture, household items, appliances, lumber and old tires.
A clean-up order was issued, but after the property owner didn't take action, a ticket was issued. Marianayagam appealed the ticket, and the matter then went before the Territorial Court.
However, the trailer owner lost his appeal. He was fined $50 and ordered to clean up the property within 60 days.
Another inspection
Last month, the property was again inspected by city bylaw officers, who determined the Territorial Court Order had not been met.
Marianayagam then asked for another 10 days to remove the garbage and was told that if the property was not cleaned by Oct. 24, the city would clean it.
City workers revisited the property on Oct. 24 and 25 and removed five end-dump truck loads of debris, said city planner Dave Jones. An end-dump truck is twice the size of a regular dump truck.
"It was mostly used building materials, if you could characterize it. A lot of things like used plywood, panelling from houses, a lot of dimensional lumber, plumbing equipment, fridges, stoves, washers, all kinds of plastic, metal piping. You name it, it was there," said Jones.
"Somebody said to me, 'It looks like a load of stuff that somebody took to the dump.'"
Debris in storage
The debris is now in storage at the city garage. Marianayagam is required to pay the city $1,615 for the clean up.
"We attributed the cost of our equipment time and our labour. We had six guys doing this work, four of them physically moved the stuff around, one person operated the front-end loader and we had a bylaw officer at the site the whole time because we were anticipating trouble, but it never happened," said Jones.
The property owner was not at home when the debris was removed.
Jones said Marianayagam visited City Hall after the removal to speak with city administrator Max Hall.
Marianayagam was given an opportunity to comment on the clean up of his property, but did not return calls to Yellowknifer.
