Sunday, Nov. 22, 1992 - North Shore News - 3 on cary monsters | New home outrages Delbrook neighbor NORTH VANCOUVER District resident Harry Mayor found out how much the wonderful view from his home was worth in dollars when he lost it: the new owners of . the lot below him demolished the existing house, replac- _ed it with something more massive and as a result Mayor’s house is worth an estimated $85,000 iess. In North Vancouver District, . zoning bylaws do not protect views from homes. In a letter written to a Saville Crescent couple concerned about redevelopment in their neigh- borhood, North Vancouver District director of planning and development services Richard Plunkett said, ‘‘Zoning bylaws can only present methods of mathematically calculating the maximum size of houses. “Unfortunately there are no solutions to ensuring ‘good’ design or neighborliness of new construction in older, established areas. “Thus regulations cannot By Michael Becker News Reporter guarantee view retention, privacy, sunlight protection or neighborly design and scale. **Zoning bylaw regulations cannot ensure the maintenance of unobstructed views from your property, or any other property in the district,” Plunkett noted. Mayor has lived in his Delbrook home since 1985. A sweeping view of the city and beyond was an important factor in his decision to purchase on Saville Crescent. WHILE RATEPAYER groups say the latest proposed bylaw amendments to slow ‘houses in West Yancouver years ago, Iccal architects, the proliferation of monster should have been instituted builders and owners of “. smaller lots are concerned that the proposed changes will penalize homeowners without controlling monster house construction. At West Vancouver District Counci!’s Nov. 16 public hear- ing, district planner Steve Nicholls jokingly requested “about a year’’ to write @ report “gompiling the comments and ~ concerns expressed at the hearing into: Phase 3 of the ‘‘bulk”’ housing amendments. ‘In its attempts to control monster house development in the municipality, West Van- ‘couver has already: ’ @ reduced the allowable floor- space ratio (total square footage of a house in relation to its lot size), site coverage and side-yard dimensions allowed in municipal home construction; @ taken steps to paving of lots; @ increased its control over de- velopments on steep grades. Phase 3 of the municipality’s lirnit over- By Maureen Curtis Contributing Writer seven areas: . @ Height: limitations remain the same, except that rooftop equipment and high skylights will be included in calculations. @ Accessory structures: will be treated as accessory buildings and limited to 12 feet in height. @ Massive house facades: to control such facades, the highest building face of a house will be limited to 22 feet above ground level. Above that, the structure would have to be stepped back from the front. e@ Sideyards (distance from house to property lines): will in- crease by 50% for two-storey homes with basements. In September the two-storey house located on Granada Cres- cent, just below his property, was demolished. A new “monster home’’ is nearing completion. Said Mayor, ‘‘My wife says I should quit being emotional. I’m ‘angry because I thought I was protected. I guess being English I thought my right to the view and everything was protected. “I’m screwed. Even if I win and prove that the house is wrong, they’re not going to tear it down. “‘The real estate agents say to me if I list now nobody is going to buy it (his house). The killer is I can’t sell. It’s not fair,”’ he said. While Mayor said he and his wife are relative latecomers to the neighborhood, some older homeowners have lived in the Delbrook area for decades. “The houses are their nest EO aT WEST VANCOUVER DISTRICT COUNCIL @ Floor-space ratio: will include basements and open area on the second floor in two-storey homes. @ House site coverage: stays at 30% of w house site, but ex- empts eaves (to encourage caves for which the ‘West Coast” ar- chitectural look is known). @ Wails: restrictions will be placed on reestanding and re- taining walls. British Properties and Area Homeowners Association presi- dent Jim MacCarthy told council that the bylaw amendments should have been passed two or three years ago. During that time, MacCarthy said the ‘‘bulk-housing syn- drome’’ in West Vancouver has become ‘“‘the walied-city syn- drome.’’ “Sn West Vancouver, are we buiiding houses or are we build- ing fortresses?’’ MacCarthy ask- ed eggs, and then this can happen to them,”’ he said. Mayor is attempting to orga- nize a meeting with council and residents who have an interest in the monster home issue. A number of Delbrook-area homeowners are asking council to issue a cease-and-desist order against the construction of a house at 560 Granada. According to acting North Vancouver District mayor Ernie Crist, an initiative to control the size of new homes by reducing allowable height is in the works. But Crist argues that the underlying problem is the district’s policy of selling land to pay for municipal operating ex- penditures. “There is an atmosphere of corruption in the District of North Vancouver. Corruption not meaning stealing, but pursu- ing policies that are bankrupt, immora) and intellectually not people are objecting to were designed and approved under the old floor-space ratio. “You're trying to solve a problem that has already been solved,”* he said. Others at the hearing said the bylaw would have a devastating impact on smaller properties in older residential areas such as Ambleside and Dundarave because it would reduce building potential and thereby reduce property values. For example, the inclusion of the basement in the flocr-space ratio for a 3,000-square-foot house cauld reduce its building potential by as much as 25%. Residents also said that high land values in West Vancouver preclude the construction of small homes or homes without basements. Scott Robinson, a West Van- couver builder, pointed out that people like him are in the business of getting ‘‘around’’ bylaw restrictions, because they are always being asked to do so. Sand can be pumped into basements to reduce floor area, acceptable. “As long as we are selling land for road patching, as long as that isn’t changed, there is an element of compulsion on the part of the district to accommo- date the developers because we depend on them,”’ Crist said. Crist said some developers favor the construction of larger homes because they can be sold for more. “If you have to buy a $200,000 tot, you have to put a home on it that’s worth at least $200,000. Those are the econom- ic laws. But you could still put a $200,000 home on it that is a quality home — not cardboard and grade Z plywood. ‘*But the builders prefer this because you can put it up in a hurry and you can put all the junk in it and it looks nice on the outside, you charge by the square foot and the people are buying them,”’ he said. WV monster house bylaw lauded, lambasted On sloping properties, proper- ty owners could remove base- ment area from the calculations by leaving it open and support- ing the building on stilts instead of walls, Barbara Petit, a West Van- couver architectural designer who is completing a doctoral dissertation on monster houses in Vancouver, said that including basements in calculations had increased bulk and ‘destroyed good design."’ The proposed bylaw change that pushes the second floor back from the front of the house can result in a ‘‘wedding cake'’ appearance, she warned. Petit said that reducing site coverage was an effective way of reducing bulk. Local architect Harold Mah foinied out numerous technical ways in which the bylaws affec- ting floor-space ratio and second-floor setbacks undermin- ed good design. “A few extraordinary houses must not send us running for cover and enacting bylaws that Land surveyor Bill Chapman and then pumped out again will hurt the middle class most,’’ said many of the ‘‘monsters’’ later. said Mah. | bulk-housing bylaw addresses ™ Police believed Possee’s sister was selling LSD Drug squad members testify at coroner’s inquest into May 12 shooting incident a A WEST Vancouver Police officer who was in charge of a drug raid in which a 22-year-old North Vancouver man mm died said the police had reason to believe the man’s sister was trafficking in LSD. . Cpl. Doug Bruce, one of two BH West Vancouver Police drug M squad members, was testifying at a coroner’s inquest into the shooting death of Daniel Possee on the night of May 12. f Possee was shot by Bruce’s partner Const. Tim Pollitt after Me the two West Vancouver Police officers, along with North Van- a couver RCMP members, executed Wy a search warrant at 129 East 26th aa St., North Vancouver. a =§©6©Daniei Possee was not named in the search warrant. The police were instead looking § for Possee’s sister Kelly and her boyfriend Justin King. Bruce said he had opened the unlocked door to the basement suite and shouted ‘“‘police, search warrant.”” His nine-millimetre handgun, he said, was in his holster. By Surj Rattan News Reporter Bruce testified that Pollitt was behind him with his gun drawn when he opened the door. As he announced the police’s presence, Bruce said Daniel Possee, who had been target shooting with a pellet rifle, turned towards him and aimed the pellet rifle at him. “Mr. Possee said ‘sh**.” He turns the torso of his body tewards me, says ‘sh**’ and pointed the barrel at my head. I heard a shot and I saw Mr. Possee fall,’’ said Bruce. He added that after the shooting he entered the basement suite with the other officers and took Pollitt’s nine-millimetre handgun away from him. Asked what he did when Possee aimed the pellet rifle at him, Brucs replied, ‘‘I froze.”” He added that he had informa- tion from two different sources that Kelly Possee was in posses- sion of a large quantity of LSD that she had been selling to a West Vancouver teenager, who in turn would sell it to West Van- couver high schoo! students. “We received information from two different sources that Kelly Possee was trafficking LSD. The information we received on May 12 was that the drug was mari- juana. “The information was that the door was unlocked. If it was locked we were going to use a tam,’’ said Bruce. Asked if there were any rec- ommendations he could make that would prevent such an incident from happening again, Bruce replied, ‘‘No.” Bruce also said that the police will pose as drug buyers in an at- tempt to asrest drug traffickers, but he addces that North Shore drug traffickers will only sell to people they know. King has since been charged with a drug-related offence as a result of the May 12 incident. He is scheduled to appear in West Vancouver provincial court on Dec. 22. A warrant had been issued for his arrest, but King turned himself into police on Thursday and was released on bail. Possee’s father Derek told the & Classified Ads W@ Cocktails & Caviar @ Comics 8 Fashion News at the inquest that the police should have knocked on the door of the basement suite. “Knock on the door and perhaps Danny would be here. We pay them (police) to protect ourselves, and they should do everything in their power to make sure there are no slip-ups. “I think there are a lot of er- rors. I said from day one that I can understand that mistakes can be made, but when you start to cloud the issues, I find it dif- ficult,’’ said Possee. Weather Monday, sunny with cloudy periods, Tuesday rain, Highs 9C, Lows 1°C. Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement Number 0087238