NV District says they're ‘unduly distressed’ but this Riverside Drive family IS LLO’ WHEN the’ building began - to. shake amidst a tremoring sound, Christian Avéfjall-dashed out of ‘the house at- 1780 Riverside - -Drive, Vancouver. His ‘first‘thought was that it was an earthquake. He’d experienced tremors before when his family used to live’ in an earthquake zone in California and: knew the first . thing to. do was to’ get out of the house. ° What he saw ‘when he got outside was. a giant earth digger excavating the side of the-hill-immediately ‘behind the fence of the backyard. ' That was just over two weeks ago. A week later he and his mother were startled by another roaring sound. This time they found it was their swimming pool which had burst -wide open, seriding 1,200 gallons of chlorinated — water gushing through a side fence and into their neighbor's yard. . Now the family is left with their pool’ wrecked, much of their gardén.-washed- away and the question of liability for the flood onto their. neighbors’ property. And they feel very uneasy living in a house below a steep hill which has a driveway cut deep into the sand above them. Mrs. Greta Avefjall is convinced that the damage to her property occurred as a result of the work carried out immediately above it. She vividly recalls the devastation of two nearby homes when heavy rains caused -mudslides on Riverside Drive almost two years ago. REPEAT And her greatest fear is of the situation being repeated - from the excavation work area above her home. Mrs. Avefjall can barely believe she’s even faced with the problem,—baving been through it all before. Back in 1972, when the previous owners of the property above were carrying on work to the driveway there, the trees on her lot, which was heavily timbered at thal time, were uprooted by the sudden erosion of her land. She took her problem to the B.C. Supreme Court, which ordered her neighbor to install a concrete retaining wall above her property to prevent the situation occurring again. That wall is now heavily cracked since the latest work in North above her home and the only tree which was left standing on her property after the last slide has been uprooted and hangs precariously over the smashed swimming pool. ‘SLEEPLESS For the past week, Mrs. Avefjall and her two sons -have barely slept for fear "that. the heavy rains might ‘bring down’ a mudslide on top her their home. And Mrs. Avefjall is at her wits end about what to do now that her once heavily treed yard is in ruins and she fears that her house might be next. She says she can’t face” going back to court again but that she’s getting ‘nowhere with her appeals for help from the District. Six days before her pool burst open she called the engitieering department about her concerns over the work on the hillside, when she first noticed her pool had shifted. Monday last week she called District Engineer John Bremner and was told the matter was not his depart- ment’s responsibility but was within the jurisdiction of the chief building inspector. ‘Chief: Building Inspector Ed Carr told the News that same day that work on the hill above her home had been halted and that he had just received an application for the installation of a retaining wall there. Later last week he went to inspect the site and com- mented to the News: “There doesn’t seem to be much up there to concern anybody.” He’ said.a field inspector had - previously found the driveway was being ex- - tended and had ordered a stop on it “because ‘of :the . severity of the work’ The owner of the property ; had since retained a soils consultant with a view to installing. a retaining wall Carr did not see any. and reason why the. application should; be_ refused,.. having seen the soil | -Gonsultant's. report. -SAFE ; Carr: said. of the work being carried out on ‘the. hillside: “It is’ ‘being, done’ under the supervision. of a. soils consultant and he has the thing under control.” “If it is installed in “act cordance with the recom- mendations of the enginner it would be safe.” He described such engineers as “very conservative people who are not going to design something’ which will jeopardize properties. Fhey are people yau can rely on.” As for the damage that has already occurred on Mrs. Avefjall’s property, he commented: “It might be quite unrelated to the work being done. It is presump- tious to blame the failure of the pool on the work up above.” Mrs. Avefjall, he said, “is unduly distressed.” However, she doesn't think her distress is undue at -all as she looks out of her window at the gash in the hill above her property while the rain continues to pour and she recalls the previous Riverside Drive mudslides. “If we get a week's rain or two week’s rain it’s not safe,” she says. “It's alright to start a job and say ‘When we finish it will be safe’ but what happens from now until they finish it?” PERRAULT, SMYTH & COMPANY Certified General Accountants Bookkeeping &A counting . Auditing Income Tax Consulting Management Consulting 102 - 1975 Lonsdale Avenue North Vancouver, B.C. 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