Farm owner calls for changes to building inspection process

The owner of a popular U-Pick in Kings County is calling for a change to the building inspection process.

Allison Maher, the co-owner of Dempsey Corner Orchards in Aylesford, says she almost closed her business over a dispute about an occupancy permit for her 160-year-old barn.

"Many times my husband and I thought, let's just live here like a house. Let's just pull down every tree, cut them down, close the doors," she said.

Independent third party

Maher said she has spoken to other business owners in Kings County who told her they also had difficulty with inspections and weren't able to make the required changes because they were too expensive.

"We need an independent third party that you can go to when you have an issue with a building inspector, that you can say, look, he's asked me for this, I think it's unreasonable."

Maher said she was repeatedly told there was no appeal process.

Tom MacEwan, the CAO of Kings County, said the county learned a few things from the nearly five-year Dempsey Corner dispute, and also in talking to the owners of some other large projects.

"We've changed our process a bit internally for these kinds of large projects," he said. "We now have a joint meeting, a kick off meeting, where the property owner or their consultant meets with engineering staff, planning staff, our economic development specialist."

Few appeals

"Anybody who disagrees with the building inspector's position can appeal directly to the Building Advisory Committee," Zach Churchill, the minister of municipal affairs, told CBC.

"There's also a higher level of appeal,if they're not satisfied with the Building Advisory Committee's decision they can actually go to the supreme court and the court of appeal as well. So there's actually a very clear appeal process that people can utilize."

But there are relatively few appeals handled by the provincially-appointed committee.

A spokesperson for the department of municipal affairs explained there are about five to six appeals made to the NSBAC annually. The appeal process began in 1987. Before that, appeals were generally made to municipalities.

Building inspectors do answer to municipalities and have "a duty to uphold all provincial and federal building code regulations," Sarah Gillis wrote in the email.

Appeal process

Gillis said that the Nova Scotia Building Advisory Committee is meant to resolve disputes between a property owner and a building inspector about any of the following topics:

• the technical requirements of the Building Code
• the sufficiency of compliance with such requirements
• an order made by the building official

The property owner has to apply in writing to the committee, which is supposed to decide within a matter of weeks how to proceed. The committee can call experts to give advice, or view the disputed building site.

A more expedient approach

The MLA for Kings West, Leo Glavine, said he has heard complaints from constituents in the past about delays due to issues with building inspection.

"In some cases, when all of the codes and all of the requirements are met and there seems to be some other reason for delay, those are unacceptable situations. And I've had a few others where I felt there could have been a more expedient approach," Glavine said.

"We want our province to be open for business," he said.

Glavine, who is also the provincial health minister, said he was not aware of the appeal process until he directly asked his colleague Zach Churchill about it last week.

He said he had concerns that the existing process should be easier to use and betterpublicized.