City follows up on permits

Bruce Walkinshaw - Penticton Western News Published: September 09, 2010 6:00 PM

Over the last few months Doug Patan has become a familiar face at Penticton council meetings. Charged with clearing up about 2,100 incomplete permit files, the city’s deputy chief building official has been coming to council with bylaw infraction reports, seeking permission to encourage, pressure or force property owners to compete the obligations associated with the incomplete or expired permits on their property. The problem with most of the files is that no final inspection had been competed on the work that the permits had been issued for. “When a build happens and a registered professional architect or engineer is involved they are responsible to ensure that their design is constructed as per their drawings,” explained Patan. “So when we have an architect or engineer in town that hasn’t done his completion documents through the B.C. building code we cannot close that file out until we get his letter of assurance that he has done his inspections on it.” Worse yet, because a registered professional has not signed off on the completed work, if there is a deficiency in the design or construction of the building or something happens to the structure, the city can be found liable. Plus, it is simply just a matter of protecting the health and safety of the general public.

So far, Patan is almost halfway through the files — he’s at the P’s — with the vast majority of property owners getting inspections completed in a timely manner. “Most of the time, the property owners didn’t even know that they had incomplete files. But once they find out, they get their inspections done,” he said. “You do have some people that realize they are going to have to do some more work on their property, so they ignore us and then we have to take it to the next step.” The next step, depending on the specifics of each case, ranges from simply putting a notice on the city’s file that will red-flag the property to placing a notice on the title of the property. So far, Patan has only had to bring about 20 properties before council to consider such measures. “With a section 57 on the title, if the person wants to sell their house what it does is it says to the buyer, ‘There could be building code issues here,’” explained Patan. “It also makes it hard to purchase the property because banks do not want to lend you money to buy it if you do not have a clear title.” Sections 17 and 72 are placed on a property when there is an imminent danger, and gives the homeowner a set time for when the problems must be remediated. Once that time is up, the city can go onto the property, do the work and send the bill to the owner via property taxes.

In the future Patan said permits will be filed in a new computer program which will allow the city to warn property owners when their permits have two months left to go.