Former city director called off enforcement at Gore Park building that later collapsed: report

A City of Hamilton timeline of interactions with owners of the Gore Park buildings that collapsed in November shows a former director of licensing and bylaw services advised officers not to enforce deficiencies at the property on multiple occasions.

The timeline, part of a report discussed at city council's General Issues Committee on Wednesday, shows city inspectors were aware of numerous issues at the building before it collapsed, such as falling and missing bricks, cracks and an incomplete roof that was letting water inside, and had asked the owner, Hughson Business Space Corporation, to fix the problems.

In July, four months before the facades at 24 and 28 King St. E. crumbled spectacularly into a pile of rubble and bricks, the city's building division requested a structural engineer's report on the conjoined row of historic buildings. That report was not provided until after the Nov. 11, 2024, collapse, and according to city staffers, who did not include it in their report to council, it said the building was not in structural danger. 

The collapse happened in the early hours of Remembrance Day, metres from where hundreds of people would soon gather to commemorate the event at the Cenotaph.

"I just want to reiterate or say again how horrifying that incident was," said Mayor Andrea Horwath, who appeared at committee by video call with her arm in a sling as she recovers from a recent injury. "It was a day after the garrison parade where there were literally hundreds of people walking past that building. That building could have fallen on people."

'This report was a bit alarming': councillor

The timeline included in the report showed building owners have faced various compliance issues with city departments for over a decade, but city inspection efforts to seek compliance did little to mitigate the deterioration of the row of vacant buildings. Several councillors were concerned to see that a former director of licensing and bylaw, who is not named in the report, told officers to pause or refrain from enforcement on the property at least four times in 2015 and 2016.

"This report was a bit alarming for me," said Ward 9 Coun. Brad Clark. "I'd like to get a sense as to why a director of licensing would ever tell the staff not to enforce our bylaws on a building we're inspecting for safety issues?"

Facing similar questions from other councillors, Dan Smith, the city's acting director of licensing and bylaw, said calling off enforcement falls outside of the purview of the job. 

"Once an order has been issued, [the director] would not have the authority to tell staff not to follow through with an order," he said, while noting staff preparing Wednesday's report did not know the reasoning behind those requests because that information was lost during the city's recent cyberattack. 

City staff mostly inspect vacant buildings from outside

The timeline also showed that bylaw officers had completed quarterly inspections of the property since its registration in the Vacant Building Registry in 2018, and had inspected it just two weeks before the collapse, finding it to be "secured and vacant." Horwath wondered how such inspections could possibly be, given what happened so soon afterward.

Smith responded that many of the inspections were done from outside the building, as with boarded up, vacant buildings it can be hard to access the indoors.

"One of the things we struggled with… is related to the difficulty of internal inspection on vacant buildings related to them being closed off and secure from trespass," he said. "The majority of inspections we do are external."

Wednesday's report said that despite it not being their practice, the city's Vacant Building By-law does allow them to go inside such structures to inspect their safety.

"Interior inspections of vacant buildings rarely take place for a variety of reasons, including accessibility, risk [and] lack of resources," it states. "Staff are giving consideration to amending the vacant building procedure to incorporate at least one annual interior inspection, as well as requiring that a vacant building owner produce documentation at least once per year with respect to the structure and condition of the building."

The report also found:

• The buildings had been vacant for more than a decade "with a history of bylaw violations." 
• Gaps in communication and enforcement processes, including inconsistent follow-up and lack of interdepartmental coordination. 
• 122 vacant buildings across Hamilton remain unregistered despite notification. 
• Hamilton's bylaws are strong but enforcement tools like escalating penalties and interior inspections need strengthening.

A more detailed report, with recommendations, is expected to come by the end of the year. That document will also include a consultant's report on the structural causes of the collapse.

In the meantime, councillors unanimously supported recommendations directing staff to conduct a review of related legislation and bylaws, including "strategies to mitigate vacant building issues; recommended changes to enforcement processes; results of stakeholder consultation; and, additional analysis related to the building collapse."

Staff were also guided to request approval from Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney General for set fines, which they said tend to be higher than those under city bylaws, and to increase existing fines for non-compliance with the vacant building registry.

Several councillors demanded quicker action once staff know a building is not compliant. 

"We've had a compliance issue with this building since 2012," said Cameron Kroetsch, Ward 2 councillor, which includes the downtown, and a member of the municipal heritage committee. "I am actually genuinely worried about heritage assets in the downtown core that are continuing to deteriorate.

"There are properties sitting in our downtown that we care about and they should be preserved."