Homeowners wont pay for landslide cleanup, heading to court
Posted August 7, 2013 9:43 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
WEST VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A pair of West Vancouver homeowners is heading to court after a landslide in March that damaged a creek.
The two ignored orders to stop work on illegal landscaping that may have caused the slide.
“Staff had been notified of that,” says Donna Powers with the District.
“They had visited the home owner and asked them to stop work and apply for a permit. The stop work order was ignored and then subsequent to that the landslide occurred.”
The slide happened in March and when neither owner paid up, the district went ahead and funded the costly cleanup which is just now being finished.
Now it’s going after the two in court under the rarely used Provincial Offence Act.
Summer says the area is environmentally sensitive.
“Two of the bylaws that were breached were environmental in nature. One was the creeks bylaw and one was the watercourse protection bylaw.”
Both could face fines up to $560,000 dollars on 56 separate charges.
An initial court date has been set for September 10th.
