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Should an Occupancy Permit been issued?

April 11, 2013   ·   0 Comments

Dear editor:

I am again writing with respect to the County of Simcoe Works Garage located on the 8th Line west of Beeton and directly east of our property and, in particular, the fire that was discovered at this facility on the morning of February 26th, 2013.

According to media reports, the fire started in one of the trucks that was parked inside a vehicle bay located in the works building and was discovered by a Simcoe County personnel arriving for work at approximately 6 a.m.

It now appears that it was only by the swift and competent actions of the New Tecumseth Fire Departments that the fire was restricted to the Works Building and rapidly extinguished.

However, it is very frightening to consider the possibilities if the fire had started earlier and/or accelerated faster and had escaped the confines of the Works Building before County employees reported for work, and worse case scenario, if, before New Tecumseth Fire arrived, a well-intentioned but uninformed employee had opened one of the doors and introduced oxygen into the building – terrifying to contemplate – especially since the facility also includes a fuel dispensing area and propane storage. It is an absolute certainty, however, that the resulting conflagration would have spread to our property and our concerns are greater than most because my husband, Ed, is a paraplegic and a quick retreat to safety is, for us, an impossibility.

Also, it seems to be taking an extraordinarily long time to investigate this fire and make the results known to the public but it shouldn’t be too difficult, even without the results, to answer questions such as these: Were mandatory smoke alarms in place and functioning and, if so, when smoke was detected by the alarms, why wasn’t this activity relayed automatically and immediately to the Fire Department? An early response time would probably have saved the building since it has been reported that the fire in the truck must have smouldered for hours. It is inconceivable that, in this age of such sophisticated communication, someone would have to be on the premises and hear the alarm and then have the responsibility of alerting the Fire Department.

However, the question in my mind that I really want answered is quite simple, this one: Should that truck, or, in fact, should anything, have been in the Works garage on February 26th, 2013, and in this regard, I would provide the following:

Item #6 of Schedule “F” of the Site Plan Agreement – Requirements For Occupancy – states that PRIOR to the issuance of the Occupancy Permit by the Chief Building Official ALL external impacts or damages to surrounding lands and or buildings, as attributed to this development, have been fully resolved and rectified to the satisfaction of the Municipality.

In this regard, I am now repeating the following:

We, Ed and Doris Max, have many unresolved problems that have occurred as a result of this development and these problems are known to both the “Owner” – (The Corporation of the County of Simcoe) and the “Municipality” – (The Corporation of the Town of New Tecumseth).

Therefore, in my opinion, if this requirement was strictly followed, the Occupancy permit should not have been issued on January 21st, 2013.

However, there is another possibility to be considered. Under Section 21 of the Site Plan Agreement, the County of Simcoe may have made application to the council of the municipality to request relief from the provisions of Schedule “F” – Item #6. If relief was granted, an Amendment to the Site Plan Agreement would have been required and I am assuming, perhaps naively, that we would have been advised of such a development.

The only other possibility that comes to mind is that the Occupancy Permit was issued on January 21st, 2013 because the municipality has deemed our concerns to be of a frivolous nature and should be dismissed in their entirety.

You, dear reader, can decide for yourself. Our unresolved issues are as follows.

In June of 2011, I Advised the Township, in writing, of the fact that the County had installed a large culvert under their access road that diverted water from their property directly onto ours. I stated that this culvert was not shown on the site Plan and was in violation of the Storm Water Management requirements that were included in the Township’s report of August 23rd, 2010. I also advised that, after its installation and following a heavy storm in the spring of 2011, water from the County’s property flooded our property and provided dated digital photos to support my claim.

This matter, as well as others, was then discussed during a meeting held at our residence on September 8th, 2011 and this meeting was attended by representatives from the Township and the County as well as town councillors. Christian Meile, a Simcoe County rep., confirmed that the second culvert was not originally proposed for the site but it had been installed because they were already experiencing drainage problems. A visual observation followed and it was determined that the culvert under our driveway was undersized and would not accommodate the increased flow of water and it was decided that the County would replace our culvert with a standard 450mm culvert with appropriate end protection. The up-sized culvert was installed but we are still trying to get the County to return to complete the “end protection” as the integrity of the driveway is now compromised.

It was also agreed that the County would install rip-rap protection at the new culvert on their property to reduce the velocity of the water and prevent scouring prior to water entering onto our property. This has not been done.

Most importantly, I made it very clear that, if the proposed solutions to this drainage issue do not prove to be adequate, and flooding of our property then occurs, additional measures will have to be taken by the County to correct the problem. This item was included in the Minutes of the Meeting but we felt that we really needed written assurance from the County that they would commit to this demand and so, in October of 2011, I wrote to the County requesting such assurance. Simcoe County has never responded.

Additionally, we asked that a fence be installed from the north end of the acoustical wall to the public right of way to stop trespassing to our property. You may recall, that our home was broken into and items stolen from October 12th, 2010 and even the investigating officers felt that it was a strong possibility that entry to our property was achieved by going through the County’s property first.

Also, we are hoping that the damage done to our Century Home as a result of the construction of this facility does not escalate.

We certainly have no expectations that any of our concerns will be addressed because, rightly or wrongly, the Occupancy Permit has been issued and what incentive is there for the County to resolve anything now.

I would like to conclude, however, with an excerpt taken from a letter sent to us in July of 2010. The letter was from Christian Meile, Director, Transportation Maintenance, County of SImcoe. The excerpt reads as follows: “It is our intent to be good neighbours and attempt to address any concerns as best we can both during construction and into the future.”

Doris Max,

Beeton

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