By: Jim Taylor

Outdated laws can sneak around behind and bite you in the backside.
          It happened at a municipal council meeting here in Lake Country. Three people had requested a variance permits from the council. And all three told the council, in effect, that council had neither the authority nor the power to stop them.
          That certainly stopped me in my tracks. I had always thought we elected councils to act in the best interests of the community. But sometimes they can't. Because their own long-ignored rules and procedures work against them.

EXAMPLE ONE
          In the first instance, the owner of a construction company wanted a temporary permit to continue running his business out of a residential neighbourhood. He stored construction materials in his back yard. He parked heavy equipment along the public road.
          When council baulked, he told them angrily: "My truck is licensed for B.C. roads. I'm entitled to park it anywhere, including in front of your house!"

EXAMPLE TWO
          The second application involved a gravel pit. The provincial Ministry of Mines had granted a permit to excavate 1.8 million metric tonnes of gravel from a site directly beside a new subdivision of luxury homes.
          The Ministry of Mines, as I have written before, operates as if this were still the 1860s, when the province was considered a vast unsettled wilderness.
          This applicant requested permission to process the gravel on site. By crushing rock and sorting gravels, he could make more profit from less excavation. He offered to remove only half of the tonnage authorized by his provincial permit, and leave the site landscaped for building lots -- which, of course, could be sold for additional profit -- if he got his variance.
          Otherwise, he indicated, he could legally excavate the whole 1.8 million tonnes. And truck it out on municipal roads. Leaving a hole in the hillside which some other developer would have to refill, imposing more wear and tear on municipal roads.

EXAMPLE THREE
          The third applicant wanted to build a series of eight houses on 25-foot lots along the waterfront.
          The lots had originally been surveyed for single family houses back in 1907. Until recently, all houses in that area had been built on multiple lots -- large enough areas to satisfy municipal requirements for individual septic systems.
          Then the provincial Ministry of Health changed its regulations. It no longer inspected septic systems. It merely set requirements. A professional consultant could design and certify any system that met those requirements.
          Technically and legally, it suddenly became possible to build separate houses on those lots.
          The developer came to council to request reduced side-yard setbacks, so that he could build houses 19 feet wide, instead of 15.
          The original survey, in the days when Okanagan Centre was an isolated farming and commercial village accessible only by the ferries running along Okanagan Lake, envisaged small houses. The lots are about one-twelfth the size otherwise required by Lake Country's regulations.
          But the applicant had read the rules. And he knew that Lake Country's own bylaws included an exemption for owners of existing building lots.
          So he told council that if they didn't grant his variance, he would go ahead and build 15-foot wide houses anyway. And they couldn't stop him. Whether they thought his development suited the community or not.

HASTY REACTION
          In an emergency meeting, Lake Country hastily amended its servicing bylaws. Septic systems now require a minimum of .835 hectares, roughly two acres -- about 12 times the size of those 25-foot lots.
          Fortunately for council, the developer had not yet applied for building permits. If he had, Lake Council would have had to process those applications according to the rules in place at the moment he applied. Because you cannot remove rights retroactively.
          Municipal councils who change the rules in the middle of the ball game face expensive legal repercussions. Breaking a contract with a developer cost the village of Naramata $7 million.
          But in setting new criteria, Lake Country's council penalized many current owners of smaller lots.
          "We planned to replace our present home," said one Okanagan Centre resident. "It's old, and cramped, and inconvenient. Now we can't."
          It would be easy to blame developers for exploiting loopholes, for placing personal profit above community standards. But that's like penalizing hockey players for learning how a rule change could benefit their game.
          It would be equally easy to blame provincial bureaucrats who ignore local concerns. In all three instances -- involving highways, mines, and health jurisdiction -- provincial legislation undermined the best intentions of the local council.

FAILING TO KEEP UP
          But local municipalities must also share some blame. Previous councils failed to consider the implications of granting exemptions for lots surveyed and approved a century before.
          Similarly, municipal staff did not appreciate the potential effects of changes in provincial regulations. "We are overwhelmed with our present workload," admitted Lake Country's administrator Randy Rose. "We do what we do until there's a crisis. We don't have the time or energy to imagine what might happen in the future."
          "This is a very creative developer," he added. "Things happen so fast today, you may not realize you have a problem until it's on your doorstep."
          And the permanent residents of Okanagan Centre failed to see that their community was evolving -- from a comfortable rural retreat to a desirable recreation destination, where soaring prices for lakefront properties mean only oil millionaires from Alberta can afford acreages on which they will live for only a few months a year.
Lake Country enacted new bylaws as a reaction to a crisis. But reacting may not be good enough any more. Councils, community organizations, and governments can no longer coast along, complacently confident that past decisions are still adequate.
          Increasingly, organizations need to be proactive. To recognize when outdated rules and regulations require changing. Before someone else capitalizes on inconsistencies in those rules, and uses them to subvert the original intentions.
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Copyright © 2006 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.