Frustrated by the system

BY KIRK STARRATT

kstarratt@kentvilleadvertiser.ca

NovaNewsNow.com

A New Minas man says he’s frustrated with the manner in which the County of Kings has dealt with numerous complaints he has made regarding bylaw infractions.

Dan Bartie, CEO of World Wide AeroMed Inc., said he and his family have decided to move as a result of their ongoing plight and he’ll take his business with him. Bartie moved to New Minas with his family two years ago to repatriate three of his company’s medevac jets to Nova Scotia from the United States. The British Columbia company would have created 75 full-time jobs in the Valley.

Bartie and his family purchased and restored the historic Turner House on Commercial Street as a family home and future office base for AeroMed. In May 2007, the property to the east was regraded to create a parking lot for the new owner’s commercial activities, including strawberry and fish vending and used car sales.

He said the lot has been lowered by as much as 35 feet in one spot and the regrading has created an unstable slope with no retaining wall.

Bartie claims all of these operations have been conducted illegally without appropriate county development permits and without regard for the health and safety of his family, contrary to specific bylaws pertaining to the treatment of commercial parking lots.

Bartie said his home has become almost unlivable for several months of the year due to dust and debris kicked up from the untreated lot next door by the dozens of cars patronizing the business operations. Bartie said his one-year-old son has been hospitalized twice for significant respiratory problems.

He said he couldn’t say for sure that the dust caused his son’s respiratory problems, but he can say with certainty that it doesn’t help and likely exacerbates the problem.

Numerous complaints

Bartie has filed numerous complaints with the county over the past 16 months, letters have been written and at least one ticket issued to the neighbouring property owners, but it took about 15 months for the county to issue the first ticket.

As of the end of June, Bartie said he had made 139 complaints to the county. He said he has called county staff involved with bylaw enforcement and left messages and it usually takes them about three weeks to respond, if they respond at all. He has sent written complaints citing bylaw infractions as well. Bartie said Eric Smith, Kings County councillor for New Minas, got involved in November because there had been no response from the county.

“We want to see the county do their job,” Bartie said during a recent news conference, pointing out he believes the municipality should be issuing numerous tickets. “If the county does their job, everything will be fixed.”

Bartie said an engineer has told him there is nothing holding up the slope that has been created along the property line and tonnes of earth have shifted already. His house has shifted about two inches and he said this has created a significant safety issue.

He said the onus is on the county to take action and they could resolve the situation in a few days if they wanted to.

“The obligation is on the county to investigate bylaw complaints,” he said. “A 15-month delay is unconscionable.”

Bartie said his lawyer has advised him to post a sign indicating an unstable slope, but Bartie said he is not taking legal action against the property owners at this time, although he hasn’t ruled out pursuing legal action to recoup some of his losses. He said the problem he has now is a lack of confidence in the county.

Bartie said council must seize their authority and tell staff what to do. He said council should pass a resolution to make an ultimatum to staff to deal with the bylaw infractions.

Councillor weighs in

Councillor Eric Smith said it’s important for council to follow-up on the matter and, in most cases, council follows up closely on complaints. He said there are currently no bylaws on the books addressing the sloping concerns, but there is a staff report on the issue in the works that came about following a recent presentation to councillors by Bartie. He said hopefully the report would be coming before council shortly.

He said the subject property is zoned Commercial (C1), so the owners could get a permit for their sales operation, for example, and this would cost about $50. Smith said he requested that the ticket be issued to the property owners because they were operating in a commercial area without a permit.

“This is zoned Commercial,” Smith said, pointing out that the county closed down the used car sales taking place on the property. “You have to get a permit.”

However, Bartie said you have to be in compliance with bylaws to get a permit.

Property owner responds

The owner of the neighbouring property, Bruce Kennie, said he had the lot treated for dust control after he became aware of the concerns. This came following Bartie’s news conference and after the county issued the ticket. Kennie said, as far as he knows, Bartie was pleased the dust control treatment had been applied.

Kennie said he is not aware of any county bylaws relating to slopes and his understanding is the dust was the biggest concern.

He said the county wanted him to get a development permit and he has applied for one, but he is waiting on approval from the Department of Transportation. He said he doesn’t think there will be any problem obtaining the permit.

CAO says county took action

County of Kings Chief Administrative Officer Brian Smith said the county took action on the dust concerns through issuing tickets. The site has since been treated with calcium chloride to keep the dust down.

He said municipal staff is trying to improve enforcement. Council spoke to staff a few months ago and asked to have the number of people able to issue tickets increased. Now the county will have three staff members able to do so instead of just one. Council feels there are a lot of long-standing issues the county should move on in terms of enforcement.

The county has recently had the site of a fire-damaged warehouse in Waterville cleaned up and this past week a tender was called to remove an unsightly building on Church Street.

Smith said, in general terms, Bartie is right and the county can do better when it comes to enforcement. They are working on improving county-wide, utilizing existing staff. However, they have to exercise judgment with how many enforcement matters they undertake and how intensively they get involved. Enforcement is one element of the service the municipality provides and, overall, the county’s workload is astounding.

“We’re managing enforcement as a program,” Smith said. “We have to take a very measured approach.”

Bylaw enforcement is important and it sends the signal to the community that the municipality is serious when it comes to such matters. However, overall, he said, enforcement is not a huge part of the county’s work.

“It’s the exceptions we’re dealing with from an enforcement perspective,” he said.

When the county does act through enforcement, they often engage legal advice. Substantial research must be carried out and a solid basis is needed to move a case forward to the court system.

Smith said the county currently doesn’t have any regulations or tools to deal with concerns relating to slopes, although they have been giving thought to looking into a drainage bylaw. However, that’s where the matter bumps into the other planning work on the county’s docket.

How quickly the municipality can deal with the issue depends greatly on the planning priorities approved by council. Planning staff regularly brings projects to the planning advisory committee (PAC) and council to help set priorities.