A Hamilton councillor is calling on police to help the city develop a bylaw to allow the bulldozing of homes used to grow marijuana.

Terry Whitehead said one such home on Elena Court in his west Mountain ward has been boarded up for years and become a neighbourhood “blight,” driving down the value of surrounding houses that sell for more than $400,000.

He said Niagara region has enacted a bylaw allowing demolition in such cases and Hamilton should consider following suit because mould and other internal damage from grow-operations often make the homes unlivable.

“These buildings could sit in any neighbourhood for an indefinite period of time and I don’t that’s a good thing for anyone,” said Mr. Whitehead, who raised the issue at Monday’s police services board meeting.

“The neighbours are just frustrated,” he said. “It also becomes a target for youth and vandalism and so forth.”

Deputy Police Chief Ken Leendertse said he likes Mr. Whitehead’s idea, even if police can already seize such properties under the Civil Remedies Act, as occurred with the Sandbar, a downtown tavern that was a notorious crack house.

He said existing penalties – usually jail time of less than two years – make grow operations too attractive to criminals who can make $1 million a year from one home, often purchased with a minimum down payment.

“We need to take a serious, long, hard look at this whole issue,” Deputy Chief Leendertse said, citing BC as another jurisdiction that demolishes grow homes.

“Certainly after they’ve been used for a year to grow marijuana, you don’t want to put children back into the house, and so maybe the solution is that they’re bulldozed down and they become green space,” he said.

“It sends a message to the criminal element, but it also makes other people pay attention, in particular the banks that are loaning out the loans, the real estate agents that are involved in this transaction, and it actually makes the area more safe.”

Discussion of a demolition bylaw comes as a new annual report shows Hamilton police seized 23,300 marijuana plants from 61 grow operations last year – a haul valued at $23.3 million under a police formula of $1,000 per plant.

Deputy Chief Leendertse said police had seized a further 1,700 plants so far in 2009 as of Monday and grow homes continue to be a source of other crimes, including 40 to 50 home invasions each year, as well as a fire risk.

“We never saw home invasions until about five years ago,” he said. “They know they have drugs there, they know they have money there, they go in there and either rip off the crop or they’ll go after the persons for the cash."