lHlegal suite
legal action
draws fire

RECENT ACTION by North Vancouver City staff against
secondary suite owners has come under fire by some city

council members.

Ald. Rod Clark said it was
unusual for the city to do more
than just respond to complaints.

“My feeling is that the city is
singling out (the owners). The
bylaws are not being uniformly en-
forced,’’ said Clark.

Ald. Bill Bell agreed the city en-
forcement policy was
discriminatory. Bell said that in-
stead of shutting down affordable
housing, council should legalize
suites that aren't creating prob-
lems.

One owner, Mrs. H. Aufoux,
criticized the city’s treatment of
her case as “unjust and disturb-
ing.””

Aufoux said she had understood
that council would only take action
against illegal suites if complaints
had been received by the city.
“There have been no complaints
against them," she said.

The city had threatened to take
legal action earlier this year after
discovering the suites, following an
application by Aufoux for a
business license for the rental of
six suites.

But administrative coordinator
Frank Caouette defended the city’s
enforcement action in a staff
report by saying it is ‘‘the (city’s)
operational policy that enforce-
ment action will be taken when the
existence of a contravention of the
bylaw is determined through the
normal course of duties.**

Caouette said while not all en-

By CORINNE BJORGE
Contributing Writer

forcements would be pursued,
staff believed the Aufoux’s prop-
erty was a ‘‘serious matter.’’ The
report said construction codes were
not approved by the city, and it
criticized the owrer for not at-
tempting to correct the situation in
the past six months.

But Aufoux argued that the
suites had been in existence for 30
vears prior to her purchase of the
property, and that they were well
kept and were affordable.

“To show how desirable and
necessary this affordable accom-
modation (is),’’ there were 88 in-
quiries for one of the suites, said
Aufoux.

Aufoux urged the city to create
“*new legislation affecting
everybody alike (and) giving
everybody the same span of time
to make adequate changes.”’

Clark said secondary suites are
the number one issue in North
Vancouver. But, he said, until
council receives the report on sec-
ondary suites in December, council
could only ‘‘continue to wrestle
with the issue.’’

North Vancouver City is cur-
rently working on 78 iilega! suite
files, and has closed almost as
many files in the past 15 months,
according to Caouette’s report.

3 - Wednesday, March 15, 1989 - North Shore News

NEWS photo Mike Wakefield

THIS WORKMAN wes recently caught reflecting while working on the Sears sign on Marine Drive in North

Vancouver.

WV ALDERMAN RESURRECTS COLLINGWOOD SCHOOL CONTROVERSY

Clock tower strikes discordant note in chambers

THE CONTROVERSY over the Collingwood Schoo) ex-
pansion got a brief re-airing Monday night when West
Vancouver Ald. Carel Ann Reynolds refused to vote on
whether to permit a height variance needed io build a clock

tower on the site.

Reynolds left the council
chambers, refusing to take part in
the vote, because she said she is
concerned that the expansion of
the private clementary/secondary
school may violate the official
community plan.

Reynolds, who voted with Ald.
Rod Day against the expansion
bylaw a few weeks ago, said ‘‘it
would have been the responsible
thing for me to have obtained a
legal opinion from our municipal
solicitor as to whether the rezoning

By MAUREEN CURTIS
Contributing Writer

contravenes the OCP.

**As that has been denied me, |
feel I should abstain because I feel
I cannot cast an informed vote."’

Violation of the OCP was one of
the kingpin arguments of the
Glenmore area residents who, for
months, protested the Collingwood
expansion.

Mayor Don Lanskail said the

question of the clock tower was
different from what Reynolds was
talking about — the whole ques-
tion of the rezoning.

He said she would have to leave
the room if she wanted to abstain
from the vote on the clock tower,
and so she did. The development
variance was passed.

Later, Reynolds toid the News
how she had been denied the legal
opinion she sought.

A memo she had written to
municipal solicitor Paul Wilson
did not reach him, Reynolds said,
and she was told that the decision
on whether such a legal opinion
should be sought would have to be
made by the mayor or council as a
whole.

improvement would reduce toxicity

From page 1
discharges approximately 800 feet
offshore and 90 feet below the
First Narrows waters. Chlorine is
added to outgoing sewage from
May to September to reduce the
tisk of beach pollution during the
summer bathing season.

Dechlorination, according to the
GVRD report, would reduce acute
toxicity of the plant's effluent by
95 per cent and eliminate the
potentially toxic chlorine residuals.

Secondary sewage treatment,
which would improve removal of
suspended solids in the sewage
processed by between 25 and 35
per cent, would, combined with
dechlorination, reduce effluent
toxicity further. The combination

would also reduce discharge of
most heavy metals except copper,
high levels of which are in plant
sludge.

Lions Gate is currently the only
one of the four GVRD sewage
plants that discharges treated
sludge. The substance accounts for
high contamination levels of First
Narrows waters.

In addition, the plant exceeded
its provincial environment levels
for oil and grease discharge in one
of 12 tests during 1988 and ex-
ceeded its overall effluent toxicity
level in six out of 12 tests.

Sewage sludge, which is initially
removed as screened solids from
raw sewage, thickened and treated
in digesters over a 30-day period, is

discharged from Lions Gate on
designated days over a two-hour
period, one hour after ebb tide.

Sludge at the other GVRD
plants is either incinerated or
treated in sludge lagoons and
recycled as fertilizer.

Under the report’s recommenda-
tions, Lions Gate effluent
dechlorination would be c »mpleted
by 1990, while the elimiaation of
sludge discharges from the plant
would be completed by 1991.

The Lions Gate plant services
the entire North Shore, from
Horseshoe Bay to Deep Cove, and
processes an average daily sewage
flow of 17 million gallons from
140,000 customers.

When the Collingwood rezoning
was proposed for discussion at an
in-camera meeting prior to the
council session at which the rezon-
ing was to be decided, Reynolds
protested that it should have been
discussed in public, and left the
room.

A legal opinion was not asked
for and Reynolds says she is sur-
prised that other members of
council were not interested in ob-
taining such an opinion.

Reynolds questions why anyone
should be able to veto an alder-
man's request for a legal opinion
from the municipal solicitor.

“‘And wouldn't it be responsible
for council to ask for a legal opi-
nion when we already have one

Business
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Doug Collins
Comics

case in court and the possibility of
a second case in court?"’ Reynolds
questioned.

Reynolds said she had initially
been in favor of the Collingwood
expansion until she looked at the
way things had been done and
became concerned over the ques-
tion of violation of the OCP.

“1 don’t think residents should
have to put up their own money to
make council abide by the OCP,’’
Reynolds added.

She said she is also concerned
about the school spending moncy
on its expansion project when the
whole thing might be stopped by a
coust case.

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