Demolish the house. Or renovate and tidy up. That’s the warning District of North Vancouver has for a home owner who has ignored the district’s orders to act on an unsafe property in Woodlands neighbourhood of North Vancouver.
“This building is clearly in a very unsafe condition and efforts to achieve voluntary compliance to remedy this have proven ineffective. Therefore, staff is recommending that Council impose a remedial action order on the owner in accordance with the Community Charter,” says a staff report that will be presented to council today.
The district has received a number of complaints from neighbouring property owners regarding the run-down state of the home (building in staff report) at 5748 Sunshine Falls Lane, which has lost all structural support from the front row of foundation.
The District has also received a complaint from the British Columbia Ministry of Environment. Ministry officials are worried about the safety and environmental impacts if the building collapses into Burrard Inlet.
The district has been trying to do something about the house since early this year. On January 23, district sent a letter to the owner advising about the unsafe condition. In response, the staff say a man made a phone call on behalf of the property owner to say he would address the concerns but nothing happened. The district hasn’t heard from him since.
Now, the owner of 5748 Sunshine Falls Lane must demolish and then rebuild or return the building to safe condition by September 3. The home owner will have to obtain a demolition permit to demolish and remove the building.
Another choice before the home owner is to provide a structural, electrical and mechanical analyses of the building and a remediation plan by September 3 and complete the remediation by April 6, 2020.
If that isn’t done, the district will demolish the building at the owner’s expense. The cost of demolition will be treated as debt to the District of North Vancouver, which, if unpaid, will be added to the property taxes for the home.
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