A garage on Alpine Court is perched precariously at the top of a dangerous slope, but no one was sure who should pay to fix it at the June 24 District of North Vancouver council meeting.
District staff recommended demolishing and replacing the garage, which sits atop an eroded hill that dips down 28 metres on the way to a hiking trail near Mosquito Creek.
"This is a public safety issue. We have an unsafe condition and the potential of a garage coming down a slope where people walk," said Coun. Roger Bassam.
The garage is a hazard, but the hazard was created by a lack of slope stability work performed by the district, according to homeowner Peter Twist.
"The erosion behind the garage . . . has been caused by a cutting away of the base of the slope, far off our property," said Twist, a former Vancouver Canucks conditioning coach. "We wanted to make you aware that the slope in question that is a problem, 95 per cent of the slope, is on district land.
"There's approximately six feet that is on our property."
If council endorses staff's recommendations, Twist could be on the hook for the cost of stabilizing the slope, a problem he said he inherited.
"We're being asked to fund a local solution for a global problem," he said.
Erosion is graduating up the property from municipal land, according to Twist, who said the district has done no work to add vegetation and shore up the slope in the last decade.
The potential remediation order would come at a difficult time personally and financially, according to Twist.
"It's not something we can afford to deal with, so we did put the house up for sale," he said.
Dealing with the district has made it impossible to find a real estate agent who wants to handle the $1.4 million property, according to Twist.
"Once they looked into it and assessed the district land around the property and how that's analyzed in your reports, they all ran," he said.
"The agents and the builders that have talked to us have given us the opinion our property's an un-sellable property and the value's now at zero."
A second attempt to sell the house for $900,000 also drew no interest, according to Twist.
"We can't even fire-sale it."
Whether the problem is caused by an abundance of fill, district work performed in Mosquito Creek in the early 1980s, or the natural process of erosion is unclear, said Mayor Richard Walton.
"It does not appear to be fill, it appears to be what you see all over North Vancouver District where you have an eroding conglomerate surface with a clay fill," he said. "My suspicion is the work the district's done has decreased, rather than increased the risk."
The issue should be studied and decided before council takes its vacation and the rainy season begins, according to Coun. Mike Little.
While there may be a variety of factors, Little said the fill is probably the biggest issue.
The item is scheduled to return to council July 15. If forced to perform remediation, the owner would have approximately 30 days to submit a comprehensive plan to district staff and 60 days to begin work.
A 2005 landslide near Berkley Avenue swept away two houses and resulted in one death.
