Apex trailers to stay

DENISE RIDEOUT

Two dilapidated trailers in Apex are stirring up controversy again.

A group of angered Apex residents have been fighting with the Iqaluit city council for more than a year to get the old, run-down trailer homes out of Apex.

When Auyuittuq Ltd., the development company that owns the trailers, moved them to a lot in Apex last summer, residents complained the mobile homes were an eyesore in the mostly residential neighbourhood. The siding was peeling up from the bases of the trailers and people called them ugly tin cans.

Last week, Apex residents got word that there are two empty lots in the trailer park in Iqaluit — an ideal location, they say, for the mobile homes.

Madeleine Redfern, an Apex resident who has been spearheading the campaign to get rid of the trailers, is now urging city council to make good use of the empty lots.

In a letter to city council on March 18, Redfern wrote: “The availability of these two lots in the trailer park now provide the municipality and council a simple and viable solution to the trailer problem in Apex.”

According to the letter, Redfern expects city council to start talking to Auyuittuq about relocating the trailers.

But Redfern and other Apex residents may be sorely disappointed.

After some investigation, the city’s land department found out the lots in Iqaluit’s trailer park are not ideal for development. The department took a look at the lots and discovered one has a power pole sitting in the middle of it and the other may also have some impediments to development.

Rick Butler, Iqaluit’s chief administrative officer, said the empty trailer lots were put on the “available lot” list by mistake. New staff unfamiliar with the problems with the lots put them back on the city’s list of available land.

The lots have now been pulled off the market again.

Butler said the trailers just might be staying put in Apex.

That’s because even if there were lots to put them on, Auyuittuq isn’t willing to pay to relocate the trailers. The developer wants the city to foot the $30,000 moving bill.

Butler and several city councillors said the city is not willing to pay.

“We have tried to make an effort that doesn’t cost the taxpayers. We tried to make a deal that’s a win-win situation so that no one ends up footing the $30,000 moving bill,” he said.

Councillor Chris Wilson agreed. “I don’t see why the city should be on the hook for 30 grand,” he said.

The trailer issue has been an ongoing saga for more than a year.

Last February, Auyuittuq applied for a development permit to place the trailers in Apex, but city council rejected the request.

Then Kenn Harper, vice-president of Auyuittuq, went to the Development Appeal Board to challenge the council’s decision

At the hearing, held in March, the Development Board overturned council’s decision and allowed the trailers to go to Apex.

But Apex residents didn’t let the issue die. Twenty people signed a petition asking Iqaluit city council to review their decision to allow the developer to move the trailers to Apex.

With no available lots and Auyuittuq refusing to pay the moving bill, the trailers haven’t budged from Apex.

But the issue isn’t entirely over.

Councillor Keith Irving, who sits on the council’s planning and development committee, wants the city to take a closer look at the lots in the trailer park to see if there’s any way they can be developed.