By Sebastian Kannally
A notice on title has been placed on 6479 Park Drive in Oliver after a lengthy defense by the property owner did not sway council from voting in favour of the action.
Neil Pagett, building official for the town of Oliver presented a report to council detailing the reasons the property was found to be in contravention of the BC Building Code and the Town’s Building Bylaw 1404, resulting in the building on the property being deemed to be in unsafe condition.
Pagett’s report shows that a second dwelling 98 sq.m (1,055 sq.ft) in size was built with no permits on file. The building has a 40.9 sq.m (441 sq.ft) living space and an attached utility room and garage amounting to 57 sq.m (614 sq.ft).
The report notes that not only are there no permits on file, but the building does not meet the minimum interior setbacks, nor the rear parcel line setbacks and exceeds the maximum size allowed for an accessory dwelling.
An inspection was conducted in July 2022 and the building was found to have problems with “egress, radon mitigation, insulation, plumbing, gas meter location, servicing, structural, and a lack of airtight barrier between the dwelling and the garage.”
As a result of these numerous contraventions, the building has been determined to be unsafe. It is also noted in the report that due to there being no inspections conducted during construction “the building may have additional latent deficiencies which could not be identified during the non-destructive inspection.”
The property owner tried arguing many of the points brought up in the report in an effort to convince council not to put a notice on title and to take off the do not occupy notice.
His defense fell into multiple areas. He argued that the building was mostly safe and that “this whole thing should have gone differently.”
“You should have said do not occupy the garage, and do not occupy the laundry room. I can live with that . . . but to condemn a building that was once legal, [because of] a change of bylaws . . . I would say let’s forget about section 57.”
Councillor David Mattes explained that “hearing both sides of this, it seems like you got off on the wrong foot and I am not sure how we can back that up. If you can get back to working together instead of the confrontation you might be able to resolve this.”
Randy Houle, director of development services responded by saying “it’s been almost two years of dealing with the property owners and us asking for the work to be done . . . There is no confidence here that this work is going to be done which is why we are where we are at now.”
After giving a summary of the dates the town reached out to the owners for the purposes of getting this work done, Houle concluded that “to answer your question no, there is no left of working with the applicants in this case.”
The property owner further explained that when he retires in three years he plans on building four to six units on the property and when they are built he will demolish the existing buildings and use the space for parking.
Town council passed the motion to put a notice on title on the property. Council agreed that if the owner’s plan is to build six units and tear down the old buildings in three years then the notice on title should not have an impact if he does not sell the property.
