Somerset House on Bank Street has been unoccupied since a wall collapsed three years ago.
Businesses surrounding the abandoned Somerset House are complaining over its unresolved fate as the third anniversary of its partial collapse passed last week.
The century-old building sits on the corner of Bank and Somerset streets as the wait continues for the authorization of a building permit to construct a three-storey commercial space.
City authorities declined to comment, saying the situation is tied up in litigation because the owner of the building is suing the city.
The owner, Tony Shahrasebi claims that tearing the wall down was not necessary and at the same time has put in a building permit application that is allegedly incomplete.
The city is waiting on Shahrasebi to send in the complete application.
However, he says the city is yet to get back to him concerning the permit.
“We applied around March 2008 for two permits. One permit was to save the partially demolished wall and we also applied to get a permit to build the building. They approved the former one, but claimed we had to do some seismic work on the building,” says Shahrasebi.
“They came back after about a year with this information and this summer we sent in all the documentation that the city required. We were ready to mediate with them but the city sent back more required work to be done.”
Derek Crain, chair of the Somerset Village BIA and architect for the building, is attempting to convene a meeting with the city to talk about the issues pertaining to the permit.
“We have been in continual dialogue back and forth with the city and we received 16 more minute detailed structural questions for which we have gone back to the structural engineers to clarify,” says Crain.
“The city is being absolutely prejudicial in going into such permit details. There needs to be a kick by the mayor for this issue as it is stuck in limbo.”
The location of the building is among high-end restaurants and bustling commercial spaces and residents of the area are not happy with the situation.
“Everyone who is part of the BIA wants something done, and to move it ahead,” Meg McManus, owner of Benitz Bistro, told CTV in an interview.
“Quite frankly, Diane Holmes should have made this a priority to get it moving. There are no technical issues here, it is a political problem. You expect the mayor and the councillor to stand up and fight for something but they have both sat back without doing anything,” says Crain.
In response to complaints about the slow progress, Shahrasebi says he is quite unhappy with the situation.
“Certainly the businesses are very upset because the project is just sitting there idly. Three years have gone by and I’m very disappointed. . . I hope we can resolve this when we get a new mayor,” he says.
“It has hurt the owner, the village, and is hurting the city as a whole,” says Crain.
Somerset Coun. Diane Holmes says the city is currently working through a mediation process with the owner.
“I’ve talked to the BIA members on a constant basis and yes everybody in the neighbourhood wants to see that building repaired and proceed forward,” says Holmes.
“The owner is suing the city and what I have done is brought the city and owner together in a mediation process and so we postponed the lawsuit while I’ve insisted that mediation take place between our legal department and the proponent’s legal lawyers.”
Holmes says she hopes Shahrasebi will move forward with his plans to redevelop.
Crain says the city is engaging in delaying tactics to force him to drop the lawsuit.
“Never in my 40 years as an architect have I submitted a building permit that needed so much detail. The problem is at city hall's end. The sooner the city will issue a permit, the sooner we can have a piece of our city back,” says Crain.
Shahrasebi says he feels he is being harassed so that he will drop the pending lawsuit against the city.
“If the current mayor of Ottawa would pay attention, if he would have met me and my engineers, we could have come up with a solution three years ago,” says Shahrasebi, after he described what he called the unpleasant experience he had with Larry O’Brien when the wall first collapsed.
Crain says he cares about getting the corner of the city up and running but the politicians are to blame for not allowing the permit to be available.
“I’m never going to give up,” Shahrasebi says.