No help from the city of Saint Jerome for the 48

No help from the city of Saint-Jérôme for the 48 owners in difficulty

The 48 condominium owners in Saint-Jérôme who are struggling with dilapidated buildings will get little help from the authorities. At least that’s how they understood it when they met the city’s mayor on Tuesday.

• Also read: 48 condo owners forced to evacuate their poorly constructed buildings

“They don’t want to bear the abomination of throwing 48 people out into the street,” commented Lucie David on Tuesday afternoon after leaving a meeting with the mayor of Saint-Jérôme, Marc Bourcier, as well as councilor André Marion and the engineer and deputy general manager, Daniel Lemieux.

Ms. David is President of one of the three syndicates of co-owners of the three buildings at 600, 620 and 640 Castonguay Street.

On Tuesday, Le Journal revealed that two of the three 16-unit buildings are the subject of a termination notice from an architect. Work on the most damaged of the three is estimated at $4.2 million, or $262,000 per condominium, which is more than the condos’ market value.

“They repeated to us that it was not a municipal problem and assured us that we could still live there,” Ms. David is surprised.

However, the termination letter mentions “significant problems with regard to the safety of the occupants, particularly in the event of a fire”.

GEN - RIUE CASTONGUAY BUILDING

Lots of empathy, little action

The city agreed to send its fire department to inspect the buildings, but didn’t give a date.

Which leaves the 48 owners with great concern.

“They thought we would evacuate them immediately. It’s not at all. If it’s dangerous for these people, we have to take action,” Councilor André Marion said in an interview with Le Journal.

He says he’s very touched by “all of this,” reiterating that it’s a first for the city.

The local deputy, the Caquiste Youri Chassin, declined to comment. “It’s absolutely awful, we have a lot of empathy for her, but the situation is a private dispute,” he said.

He will “follow the file further”.

Go to the slums

However, this is nothing new and empathy will not change anything, says the Secretary General and founder of the Regroupement des managers et coproprietaires du Québec (RGCQ), lawyer Yves Joli-Coeur.

“What’s happening in Saint-Jérôme isn’t a unique phenomenon, it’s starting to spread across Quebec,” he says.

Quality control in housing construction is not mandatory and not the subject of a law, he recalls, “because our parliamentarians never had the courage to do it”.

However, the alarm bells have been ringing here for a long time. “If we’re talking about $10 million for the repairs in Saint-Jérôme, we’re certainly talking about a few hundred million dollars for all of Quebec,” he says.

For him, the state is responsible and must release funds from our taxes, “otherwise we will end up in slums”.

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