Articles & Publications

Article, Staff | |

Tree Protection: Trees, Unlike Dogs, are All Bark and No Bite

This paper provides a review of the regulatory tools that municipalities and local governments use to protect urban forests and environmentally sensitive areas through tree protection bylaws and the regulation of development. Regulation depends on enforcement, and this paper discusses some strategies for achieving effective enforcement in relation to trees.

Presented at the LIBOA Annual Conference, June 1, 2023.

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Article, Staff | |

Legal Issues in Municipal Tax Sales

Tax sales have been a municipal collection remedy in British Columbia for over a century. More recently, tax sales of property in Penticton, Spallumcheen and Pemberton have attracted media attention and revealed the significant financial and emotional risk to owners, and the significant liability risk to municipalities, that can arise from misunderstanding or being unaware that a property has been sold for municipal tax sales. When conducting a tax sale, a collector’s first reference should always be to the procedures set out in the Local Government Act and the Community Charter. The intention of this paper is to provide supplementary commentary on legal issues that arise from matters not expressly covered in the statute.

Presented at the GFOABC Annual Conference, May 30, 2023.

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Publication, Staff | |

What Builders Should Know About Public Procurement

Government contracts represent a big opportunity for many builders. However, builders who pursue public procurements may be surprised to encounter very different rules and procedures than private procurements. This article seeks to explain some of these differences, and their implications, so that builders can better know what to expect in a public procurement.

As published in the NRCA’s Northern Construction Connection May 2023 Newsletter, and VICA’s e-New.

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Article, Staff | |

The British Columbia Arbitration Act & Construction Disputes – Questions of Law and Grounds for Appeal

Disputes and conflicts routinely arise between owners, builders, contractors and other parties during the planning, design, construction and post-construction phases of a construction project. Delays, unforeseen work or property damage are common grounds for such disputes, which can often result in one of the parties incurring unanticipated costs for which they may seek recovery from the other parties. To address the risks that such disputes may arise, dispute resolution provisions are routinely incorporated into construction contracts to establish a process whereby the parties to a dispute will be required to participate in mediation, arbitration or other alternative dispute resolution processes.

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Article, Staff | |

City of Revelstoke v. Gelowitz 2023 BCCA 139: A Cautionary Tale for Local Governments on the Duty to Warn Public Facility Users of Hazards

The British Columbia Court of Appeal has affirmed the lower court decision in which the City of Revelstoke (the “City”) was held liable for injuries sustained by the plaintiff after the plaintiff dove into a lake and into shallow water.

Although the plaintiff made his dive from private lands owned by a third party those lands were accessed by the plaintiff as part of a swim that began from the Williamson Lake Park and Campground, a pay-for-use park owned by the City. The plaintiff had been camping on the City-owned lands with friends and family and had entered the lake without seeing the “no diving” signs that had been posted elsewhere. The decision is notable because the City was held liable for not warning of the danger of diving from lands that were not owned by the City. This liability arose because the City invited members of the public into its lakefront park, had been made aware of the dangers posed to individuals diving into the lake area, and was aware that park users were routinely accessing other lands surrounding the lake where this danger was present.

The City was found to have failed to warn the plaintiff of the danger of diving into the lake by failing to have adequate warning signs placed in the vicinity of the lake warning of the dangers posed by diving into the water.

 

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Article, Staff | |

Liability Claims for Ineffective Enforcement – What’s Scary and What’s a Scare Tactic

It can be difficult to distinguish the situations in which liability is a real legal concern from those in which claims of potential liability are overblown and used to scare local governments into prioritizing a particular enforcement action. This paper discusses the legal principles that relate to the duties and discretions of a local government in conducting bylaw enforcement and how the risk of a successful claim being proven in court in relation to ineffective enforcement can depend significantly on where the contravention occurs.

Presented at MIABC Risk Management Conference, April 6, 2023.

 

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Publication, Staff | |

Not the Cost of Doing Business: Deterrence and Denunciation Considerations Mean Individuals and Organizations can Face Serious Consequences for Workplace Safety Violations

In 2021, there were 1,081 work-related fatalities in Canada. The construction industry had the highest number of fatalities, 212. According to the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada, workers in the construction industry submitted 28,721 claims for lost time due to injury. Serious injuries and fatalities are devastating for workers and their families. They also place employers at risk of liability.

As published in the NRCA’s Northern Construction Connection March 2023 Newsletter, and VICA’s e-New.

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Publication, Staff | |

Construction Litigation: How a Negligence Claim can Fail if Parties Allocate Risk by Contract

A summary of Centurion Apartment Properties Limited Partnership v Loco Investments Inc, 2022 BCSC 2273

In settling the terms of a contract, parties often address how liability will be handled in the event of a loss, whether through limitation of liability clauses, indemnity clauses, or otherwise. In some cases, parties may also wish to seek redress outside of the terms of the contract through claims of negligence. As discussed in this article, however, such a claim may not always be successful.

As published in the NRCA’s Northern Construction Connection February 2023 Newsletter, and VICA’s e-New.

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Article, Staff | |

Tax Sales for Municipal Finance Officers

This paper will discuss current legal trends regarding notices, upset prices and post-redemption period court challenges to tax sales as each of these can have a significant impact on municipal liability. This paper assumes the reader has a general understanding of the mechanics of the tax sale process and is not intended to be a step-by-step guide.

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Article, Publication, Staff | |

New Energy Efficiency Requirements under the BC Building Code

The BC Energy Step Code is a provincial building standard incorporated within the BC Building Code (BCBC) that provides an incremental approach to achieving more energy efficient buildings that go above the base requirements of the BCBC. The Energy Step Code is designed to slowly introduce and increase mandated efficiency requirements so that local authorities and the construction industry can adapt to the process in a management way.

The standard was first introduced in 2017 as a voluntary, compliance-based roadmap that both local government and industry could choose to use to incentivize or require builders to meet a level of energy efficiency in new building construction. Managing Partner, Sonia Sahota, wrote an article about these standards when they were first introduced. That article can be found here.

However, beginning in early 2023, all new buildings constructed in BC will be required to be 20 percent more energy efficient than those built to the requirements of the 2018 BCBC. This article looks at the updates and changes being made under the BCBC. 

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