Teresa Williams, a councillor for the Town of Gravelbourg, acknowledged the frustration and disappointment expressed by tenants of the Gravelbourg Convent following their eviction notice, but said the town could not continue subsidizing the rising costs of keeping the building operational.
She also noted that town council had safety concerns for the Convent, which is over a century old and still provides heating during the winter using the original boilers.
“Regarding the tenants in the building, we have been renting space for the past five years, and the building, as it gets older, it gets more expensive to heat and maintain,” Williams said. “We have reached the point where we had to make a decision, and the decision was to terminate the lease for all of the tenants of the building.”
Critics of the decision include Anna Smandych, president of the Gravelbourg Artisan Co-operative (GAC), one of the organizations that will have to pack up and leave by March 31. Smandych led a delegation that presented to council during their meeting on March 7 to ask for an extension. She said the GAC and its fellows were shocked by the short notice and hoped to persuade council to give them more time.
Council’s answer was a 4-3 vote to deny that request and reaffirm the March 31 eviction date.
“At this point, we’re going to be putting it on life-support, so it has the absolute minimal services that will still maintain the building as best we can, so that it can be sold, utilized, or whatever,” Williams explained. “But the town really can’t afford to put monies into the repairs, as they’re getting quite costly now.”
The Town of Gravelbourg took possession of the Convent for a nominal price in 2016 from Prairie South School Division. PSSD had used the building as an elementary school from 1970 until 2016, when a newly built replacement opened nearby.
Since then, Williams said, the town’s taxpayers have essentially been subsidizing the arts communities and businesses renting space in the Convent.
A financial report for the building covering the last three years shows that in 2020 revenue was $18,256 vs $50,901 in expenditures. In 2021, revenue was $12,612 vs an expenditure of $41,626, and the pre-audit report for 2022 shows $16,130 coming in vs $68,729 going out.
“We fix one thing and something else goes, and we fix that, but we can’t fix the next thing because there’s another problem that needs fixing first. It’s just skyrocketing,” Williams continued. She cited safety concerns such as falling plaster and the risk of a boiler incident as reinforcing council’s reasoning.
“We are a community of 1,000 people and we are trying to do our best to balance the needs of our tenants in the building — there are nine of them — with the expectations of the 1,000 taxpayers, and it’s a fine balance. It’s not easy to do.”
Williams said the convent tenants are taking the decision personally, which is unnecessary.
“The one thing I’d like to really get across is that … it was not a personal decision,” she added. She said the decision to place the building on life support means cutting off all services, meaning no one can be allowed in the building.
“They cannot operate in a situation with no heat, no light, no water, and we are not a slum landlord,” Williams said. “We’re still open to selling the building, we think it has great potential, strong bones, good foundation … but it needs a lot of work to make it habitable, and the town just really can’t afford to do that.”
