Can you imagine a worse nightmare than being told you must leave your perfect dream home in the dead of winter – perhaps never to return?
That nightmare is the reality for the families on 14 “view” properties in the Seawatch subdivision in West Porpoise Bay, who are facing a 1 p.m. Friday evacuation order.
The province this week washed its hands of any responsibility for this human tragedy, having “played no role in assessing the risk or in approving or denying necessary building permits,” as Public Safety Minister and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth said Monday in a statement.
The sinkholes that have plagued the subdivision, Minister Farnworth went on to say, “relate to a known risk when building decisions were initially made.”
The District of Sechelt, of course, approved the “necessary building permits” for the development, but also denies any responsibility for the residents’ misfortune.
In a response last November to the civil claim by the Storey family, who were forced out of their home due to a sinkhole formation in 2015, the district unwinds a convoluted legalistic tale of blamelessness. It all began in 2004 when the district “reasonably relied on the geotechnical report obtained by Concordia Homes Ltd. from Geotactics Engineering Ltd., authored by Mike Martin Eivemark, a qualified geotechnical engineer.”
Based on that report and a supplement the following year, the district authorized a development permit with terms and conditions.
Co-defendants Concordia Seawatch Ltd., Ronald Antalek and Ronald Davis, in their response last November to the Storeys’ claim, also deny any wrongdoing and reference reports by the same engineering firm, which they spell “Geo Tac Tics.”
Both the district and the developer quote a 2006 Geotactics report on site drainage that noted two sinkholes had developed the previous fall, but still concluded: “Provided the site preparation, earthworks and foundation construction follow the general guidelines outlined above, the property can safely be used for the intended purposes. Conventional single-family permanent or recreation residences constructed in this subdivision are expected to be safe against reasonably conceivable geotechnical hazards, including slope instability, erosion and flooding. The probability of occurrence of geotechnical hazards is estimated to be less than 10 per cent in 50 years.”
Geotactics Media Engineering (2007) Ltd. and Mr. Eivemark are also co-defendants in the lawsuit, along with many other parties, and also deny any wrongdoing. None of the claims has been proven in court.
And that’s one snippet from one civil claim from one Seawatch family. The legal nightmare has only just begun.
The District of Sechelt doesn’t have much to say about what’s in store for the residents, or for the Seawatch site, even though its engineers are warning “in the strongest possible terms that all stakeholders proactively address the problems at the site ... [or] it is likely that the area affected by sinkholes will expand with time, creating new hazardous areas, requiring additional road closures and the extension of the Sinkhole Management Area boundary.”
The residents of Seawatch, and the community as a whole, need a clear statement on where things stand. If the politicians are too timorous to speak plainly, perhaps they should waive solicitor-client privilege and let their lawyers do the talking.
