Faulty condos will be gutted (KELOWNA)

By J.P. SQUIRE Tuesday, July 18, 2006, 12:01 AM
http://www.kelownadailycourier.ca/article_2584.php

The 236 condo owners at Discovery Bay learned Monday they may not have structural repairs to their building completed for up to two more years.A representative of the strata council and a senior city manager were the only two people who emerged from a two-hour meeting willing to speak to reporters.Bill Tzetzos, who owns one unit, said owners learned repairs will apparently involve tearing out virtually every piece of drywall on load-bearing walls, installing more studs and re-drywalling.Another assessment will be conducted during the next 10 weeks, he said, but work is not scheduled to begin until January 2007.That is in addition to repairs to inadequate foundations, the first problem with the project to emerge three years ago.Monday’s meeting of all those involved in Discovery Bay was called by Ken Cameron, chief executive officer of the provincial Homeowner Protection Office.He was concerned some of those involved were not living up to the spirit of the provincial legislation, said Tzetzos.Cameron was unavailable after the meeting, but in a letter, he told those involved: “This situation is not in keeping with the intent and purpose of the mandatory home insurance warranty program . . . which is that construction defects should be rectified as quickly as possible, and the risk and the damage to the homeowners as innocent parties should be minimized.”He proposed a meeting to determine if there are ways of expediting repairs and/or mitigating the legitimate concerns of homeowners.“We’ve been asking for a meeting like this, unsuccessfully, for a long time,” said Tzetzos.Owners began complaining of deficiencies to Pointe of View Developments (the developer), the city and National Home Warranty program in August 2003, he noted, adding the cityfinally recognized the problems in October 2005 and the NHW in recent months.Ron Dickinson, the city’s manager of inspection services, responded the city has been involved in looking for solutions for more than a year.“The city has not washed itself of the situation. We don’t have the solutions yet. It’s coming now, when it didn’t appear to be coming months ago,” he said.The latest engineering report, released on June 30, concluded the six-storey building at 1088 Sunset Dr. was not safe to occupy and recommended everyone move out pending repairs.The safest units are apparently the two-storey townhouses at the front and back since they don’t face the same demands on structural integrity. Tzetzos, who paid $301,000 for a one-bedroom unit in the centre, said Monday he hasn’t seen a lot of people move out, but some are leaving every day. Some of the owners of 100 rental units are asking renters to sign a waiver agreeing not to sue if something happens.Those owners expected to collect $1,600 to $2,000 a week during the lucrative summer months to help pay mortgages or as investment revenue. “I can see litigation over that loss of revenue,” said Tzetzos.Owners who live in their units can get $100 a day or $3,000 a month for living expenses from the national program, based on receipts, but those with rental units don’t qualify. At this time of year, the only accommodation that Tzetzos could find is a spartan dormitory room at UBC Okanagan.The 236 units average $400,000 each for a total assessment of almost $100 million.