The site of a former school named after the Preston area’s longest-serving black municipal councillor is going on the auction block.
The property at 857 Upper Governor Rd. where the Allan W. Evans School used to stand is set to be sold Tuesday to recover more than $84,000 owed to Halifax Regional Municipality.
“It’s been in arrears since 1998,” city spokeswoman Shaune MacKinlay said.
“We haven’t had any tax paid from that property since, so now we’re moving to tax sale.”
MacKinlay said city staff sent notices to the property’s last known contact to no avail.
The property owner is listed as the North Preston Community Development Association, which is defunct. The people that the Registry of Joint Stock Companies lists as directors when the association shut down in 2007 could not be reached for comment Friday.
“We have these tax sales a couple times a year,” MacKinlay said. “People get into arrears on their taxes and we are lenient to the degree that we can afford to be, and then we proceed to sale.”
The former school site, which is a little less than two hectares, is one of 18 properties listed for sale at Tuesday’s tax auction. The amounts owing range from a low of $2,672.95 all the way up to the $84,009.57 owing on the North Preston property.
Though the school is no longer standing, the Black Loyalist Heritage Society still lists it on its Destination Liberty website as one of the historic sites in North Preston, Canada’s largest indigenous black community.
Henry Bishop, curator of the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia in nearby Cherry Brook, declined to comment on the significance of the site. David Hendsbee, the area’s representative on Halifax regional council, and local black leaders could not be reached for comment.
Provincial property records show that Halifax County expropriated the land in 1960 to build the school, which is on the street behind today’s Nelson Whynder Elementary. Just who owned the land that was expropriated is unclear. Two men claimed in 2002 that the land came from either of their fathers, and both sought compensation.
In 1997, the city deeded the land and the school building to the community development association, which held a business training program there that same year. Some graduates of that program wanted to set up businesses in the building, including a convenience store, a laundry, a coffee shop and a communications business, The Chronicle Herald reported at the time.
In 1998, Halifax Regional Municipality granted the association’s application to change the property’s zoning to commercial. But the association didn’t own the property free and clear. It came with a right of refusal agreement attached.
“The grantor (the association) shall not mortgage or otherwise encumber the lands without first obtaining the consent in writing from the grantee (HRM),” it said.
And the association couldn’t sell the property for 99 years “without first offering in writing to sell the lands to the (municipality) for a purchase price equal to the sum of one dollar and the amount of the actual direct construction costs of any building or other structure or improvement which has been constructed on the lands and which continues to be useful for its intended purpose as of the date of the offer.”
If the municipality didn’t signal its intent to buy the property within 30 days of receiving the association’s offer to sell, another buyer could be found. MacKinlay wasn’t aware of those details when contacted Friday but said the municipality may not be interested in owning the property.
“The reality is, you have money outstanding and there’s a couple ways to go about approaching that and one is the sale of the land,” she said.
The public auction is scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Dartmouth Sportsplex.
( pbrooks@herald.ca)