On May 2, 2024, a bylaw officer from the Cowichan Valley Regional District on Vancouver Island knocked on the front door of Lori Acheson Hamilton and her husband, Gord’s, Cobble Hill farmhouse. The visit was a surprise. No early warnings had been issued.
The officer pointed to two cottage dwellings located on Lori and Gord’s 4.3-acre property. The dwellings had been there for more than 50 years and were originally built to house farmhands. He asked if anyone lived in the dwellings. When Lori and Gord answered yes, he told them the tenants were being evicted and had 30 days to leave. Lori asked why the tenants were being evicted, but says the officer couldn’t give her an answer. He left without issuing any kind of written citation or opportunity to follow-up.
Shocked, Lori and Gord scrambled to figure out what was going on. Lori called bylaw but no one there could give her answers either, so she wrote an email cc’ing members from five levels of district management. “Then I got an answer,” she says. “It took them four days to get out here.”
Gary Anderson, a building inspector for the district, was the one who made the trek. Anderson had been Lori and Gord’s inspector when they built their farmhouse. Despite the farmstead’s long history, Lori and Gord only purchased the property in 2015, building a new farmhouse in 2017. At the time, the district had approved their building permits, raising no warning flags.
But when Anderson returned to the property, he pointed out that the survey the couple submitted with their building application in 2017 had not divulged the existence of the two cottages. Perplexed, Lori pointed to the two cottages, both visible on the survey. The issue, Anderson explained, was that the cottages had been listed on the survey as buildings not dwellings, and they were not allowed two additional dwellings.
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“I said to him, How am I supposed to know these things? The professional surveyors came, they measured and walked all over the property, recorded all the buildings, and then they drew the survey and submitted it,” Lori says.
After Anderson’s visit, Lori and Gord hired a lawyer to appeal their case. They soon discovered that the mislabeling of their cottages hadn’t popped onto bylaw’s radar by chance. It was prompted by a complaint. A member of the community had reported the dwellings to bylaw.
Lori couldn’t see any reasoning behind the complaint. The cottages are small dwellings, only one bedroom each, and the tenants are quiet and respectful. Plus, she says the cottages are only visible from the bottom of Lori and Gord’s driveway. They were also built long before the district’s current zoning bylaws, so the couple expected them to be grandfathered in, but the district said it doesn’t operate that way.
Thanks to their appeal, one of the cottages’ tenants was allowed to remain. Lori and Gord pointed out to the district that with their zoning, they were allowed one additional dwelling on their property. The tenant is an elderly resident who has lived in the cottage for 21 years. Lori says that she has a limited income, so they only charge her 40 per cent of market rent. But their ability to subsidize her rent comes from the income they receive from the other cottage, which has now been vacant for over five months.
“We’re worried about covering those costs,” Lori says. They’ve now spent close to $7,000 in legal fees, bills, and insurance for the vacant cottage.
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Lori and Gord are still hoping the district will allow them to use the vacant cottage for something, but they’ve received limited communication. They were also instructed to remove the stove so no one could live there.
In the meantime, Lori has reached out to their provincial representative, explaining to them that the district is removing homes at a time when B.C. is mandating municipalities to build more—a response to the province’s housing crisis.
“This is an existing house. You don’t have to do anything,” Lori says.
The Cowichan Valley Regional District did not respond to comment on the status of Lori and Gord’s case.
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