By the end of November, 2017, Bowen Islanders contacted the municipality 128 times regarding Land Use concerns including land alteration such as tree cutting or stream diversion, property uses such as short-term rentals, and non-conforming buildings and structures. These concerns are up 40% from 2016, and have doubled since 2014.
Two cases of construction projects undertaken without building permits have come before council in the past year. In one situation, a builder created the forms for the foundation of a 5,500 square foot house without a permit and then went on to apply for a Development Variance Permit (DVP) so that the structure and deck could be closer to the water than normally allowable. Council debated offering the permit and decided against it.
In another situation, a property owner wanted to legalize a non-conforming building with a variance to the new detached secondary suite regulations. The property owners legally built a home in the 1990s. More recently, they re-built the previously existing cabin to a size larger than allowable under the detached secondary suites regulations – with out a permit. In 2015, BC Assessments alerted the municipality to the existence of this newly built non-conforming building. On November 27, 2017, council decided not to give the permit that would make the second building legal, and left staff with the project of determining how to deal with these situations in the future.
“We don’t have a strong sense of what our powers are, and what are obligations are in this situation,” said Mayor Skeels.
In conversation with The Undercurrent, Municipal Planner Daniel Martin said that if it is clear that the building doesn’t conform or the proper permits have not been issued, the municipality would simply act by issuing a stop work order. However, in situations where the building is already complete, municipal action is trickier.
“The Municipality of West Vancouver has gone to court in the effort to carry out it’s plan to demolish a home that was built without proper permits or inspections,” says Martin. “The other option is fining, but even with fining mechanisms in place, the municipality would likely need to go to court.”
Councillor Gary Ander says that in his view, the practice of asking for forgiveness instead of permission was “worse in the old days, when we were asking Victoria what we were allowed to do, but something needs to be done to stop people from doing it. There has to be a fee structure, and it’s got to be very punitive. That said, I do have empathy for people in situations where they’ve gone forward after having been given the wrong information.”
