Editor:
Subject: Jordison “Opinion”: Why I Watch Seawatch (Coast Reporter, April 29, 2022)
Although the subject column appeared some months ago, the phrase “buyer beware” as it relates to Seawatch continues to needle me. It’s seemingly a phrase that’s helping to ease the conscience of many in Sechelt, akin to sweeping a nuisance under the rug.
This is not your average rug sweeping. The residents of Seawatch were thrown under the proverbial bus. All have “survived,” all struck in varying degrees, yet all deeply wounded. Not until after the June 2012 sinkhole daylighted did the reports of this not-so-natural disaster begin to emerge, revealing repeated “sweeping under the rug” events over many years by no less than five different mayors and councils and, yes, municipal employees. Information then daylighted faster than the sinkholes that the controversy had been going on since the 1990s. And still, homes were permitted to be built.
The term “buyer beware” implies that there was no due diligence completed prior to the house purchase. How much more due diligence does it take on the part of a home buyer? – licensed realtors, house inspectors, independent valuators, building and occupancy permit checks, land titles registration, legal conveyancing, property insurance – all within an incorporated municipality and permitted subdivision with their own sets of rigours.
So, please, do not pull the “buyer beware” card on this one and use as a scapegoat to this horrible situation that is Seawatch. With upcoming municipal elections, my suggestion is “voter beware” of questionable motives, cowardice, bungling, and denial under the protection of the so-called Community Charter. Municipalities can go on in perpetuity, regardless of the humans vested – and sheltered – in taking care of them. Real humans, on the other hand, have feelings and an expiry date.
Licia Paddison, Former Seawatch resident
