By Sebastian Kanally, Times Chronicle

Gold Hill Winery is facing another Regional District of the Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS) deadline for a non-compliant building on their north property. This comes two weeks after the winery was given a deadline to bring a different non-compliant building into compliance, or face remedial action. 

On Feb 2, the RDOS board voted in favor of a motion to put a section 302 Notice on Title on the property at 3547 Fruitvale Way, and to take injunctive action against the winery if they are not in compliance by a July 15, 2023 deadline. 

Mark Petry, Manager of Building & Enforcement Services, clarified to the board the Notice of Title that is being applied to the property means that if it were to ever be purchased the new owner would be informed that there are non compliant actions that were taken against RDOS regulatory requirements. 

The issue dates back 13 years to November 2009 when a Farm Permit Exemption was provided for the owners to construct a two story farm storage building. The building meant for farm storage is now housing an upper two bedroom unit, a lower three bedroom unit, an exterior bathroom addition, and half of the first floor is storing farm equipment. 

If the winery is not in compliance by the deadline, injunctive action will be taken against the owners which includes seeking a court order to force compliance with the regulations. The administrative report says that since both occupied units are in an uninspected building meant to store farm equipment “liability to the RDOS could be substantial”. 

The owners have three options for compliance: demolish the building, decommission the suites and return it to the approved use as a farm building, or apply to the RDOS to rezone to allow for the units. 

Gold Hill Wineries second non-compliant building on their north property. Google photo

Jesci Parsons, Operations and Administration at Gold Hill Winery attended the meeting in an attempt to persuade the board otherwise. She noted that the building has been recently inspected by a separate party, and was determined to have “safe living conditions”.

She noted that there are fire alarms, extinguishers and the building is up to safety codes determined by this “qualified inspector”. She conceded however that this inspector does not concern themselves with local government regulations. It was made known that the winery has 125 acres of vineyards and is expecting foreign workers next week who would live in the building. 

Director Riley Gettens was vocal about the apparent disrespect of the rules. “It seems a little bit disrespectful of the process that we are trying to put in place and we hold other people accountable for, and I hear the struggle for the vineyard, nobody wants anybody to not get their foreign workers . . . but I feel like we kind of have to stand by our bylaws here, they have been given fair notice over and over and over, and I think this is a problem.”

From the original Farm Permit Exemption in 2009 to construct a two story farm storage building to Jan. 2021 nothing transpired until a building official noticed an addition was under construction on the north side of the building. 

In May 2021 the building official did a site visit and determined multiple facts: firstly, construction had continued on the addition, which is a large bathroom with no access from inside the building, both the upper and lower floor of the building are now dwelling units with bathrooms and kitchens. 

In May of 2021 there was also a final letter sent to the owners in regards to the bathroom addition. By June there was still no response from the owners. 

Fast forward about a year, the building official did a site visit with an Agricultural Land Commission (ALC) Compliance Officer and the owners’ son and determined that the farm building had bedrooms on both floors.  Each unit was occupied by tenants, with the lower level appearing to have some space still dedicated to farm use. 

In June of 2022, an employee of the winery said they would start the process to bring it into compliance, but six months went by and there was no further contact from the owners. The RDOS thinks reasonable time and efforts have been made on their end to try and come to a voluntary compliance with the property owners.