Capital Pointe hole must be filled: appeal board

The Capital Pointe hole must be filled-in by the end of March 2019.

That’s the decision from Building and Accessibility Standards Appeal Board Tuesday.

In a written decision, it states “back-filling is the most appropriate remedy in the circumstances.”

Westgate Properties, the owners of the Capital Pointe project, now have just over seven weeks to get the work done.

“Cautious optimism is exactly the way I’d say it,” Regina Mayor Michael Fougere said when asked to respond. “This whole saga has been going on for a long, long time, we want to bring it to a conclusion, wither the building is built or we fill in the hole.”

But the saga may just continue as Westgate Properties has 30 days to file an appeal.

But in its decision, the board wrote, “There has been no building activity for some time and there are no current permits nor any applications for permits. There is no one on site. There is no indication that building will resume any time soon and the building site appears to be effectively abandoned.”

It added, “There is no longer an engineer-of-record and no apparent monitoring of the excavation. This is of obvious and serious concern.”

The board had originally given the owners of Capital Pointe, Westgate Properties, three options to start the building, fix the hole to keep it safe or fill it.

Now though, the board doubts that construction of the building nor permanent shoring would be acted upon by Westgate.

It goes on to say, “The Appeal Board also accepts that if the owner fails to act on an order made by this Board, the only viable action which the City could take would be back-filling.”