Quote:
Originally Posted by bcedhk
The area in question is subject to the Riparian Areas Protection Regulation (RAPR), which falls under provincial jurisdiction. Consequently, the City would note the Watercourse or Environmental Development Permit in their OCP to ensure that the property owner has obtained provincial approval based on the recommendations of a qualified environmental professional.
Most City's would only require a building permit for a laneway house.
In this case, no Watercourse DP = No Building Permit.
MY guess is the City would register a lien on Title to their property if they continue to not comply with the orders.
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City registered a lien. They have 60 days to tear it down as of last week.
From how I read it, the owners are trying to focus their argument on the environmental side, since originally this was flagged as an issue by the city's environmental protection dept for the reasons you mentioned .
If you ignore the building permit violation and look at it only from the environmental side, the owners are asking the city to allow them to modify the building so it no longer goes past the 5m setback from the top of the bank, and then getting the proper variance permits.
But the staff are saying look: forget about the environment stuff, it was built without a development or building permit to begin with (which they likely never would have received due to the creek), and therefore should be torn down.
Owner's lawyer is arguing there's no proof as of yet that it's not safe, and that people build without permits all the time and the city usually works with people to allow for inspections after the fact, so they want the same approach here too.