Housekeeping of bylaw complaints finds two unlawful dwellings
Bylaw Enforcement Officer Peter Phillips did what he called a ‘housekeeping’ of the complaints file relating to unlawful dwellings recently. This involved inspecting a number of homes on Gabriola which had been reported to Peter’s office as being unlawful.
At the end of the investigation though, Peter said not many of the homes inspected actually were unlawful.
“Of the investigations I’ve done in the last few weeks on unlawful dwellings, two of them were found to be unlawful.”
Both homes had extra kitchens in the building.
Peter said, “One complied immediately, which is easy because they could just remove and disable their cook stove.
“The other one is unlawful. It is an unoccupied ‘for sale’ home. So there is not an offence taking place. It is a technical offence that they have an extra kitchen in the house.”
Peter said he would be writing up a formal letter which will inform the owner the home is unlawful.
Asked if there was anything which caused the housekeeping of files, Peter said, “It was triggered by concerns [that] were brought about.”
There were five investigations into dwellings on Gabriola which had been sent to Peter as complaints of dwellings suspected of being unlawful.
Peter explained the other three homes “were found to be lawful by various reasons – illegal non-conforming – in other words they were built before any regulations existed or when regulations allowed that particular set up.
“So all in all we had very few that were unlawful. Just the one is outstanding from the group of complaints.”