Projects in the Nakusp Area

Projects in the Nakusp Area

I did a subdivision for an astute person in Denver, a federal Member of Parliament, called Mr.

Bert Herridge (CCF, Kootenay West). He was an MP for many years running, and he was a

socialistic chap. He had a problem property up north near Nakusp, a very nice place where he

lived.

Mr. Herridge was getting quite elderly, and he knew that he would have to leave the property in a

few years. He felt that it was too big for anyone to buy, so he wanted it subdivided into several

parcels, and he was really easy to deal with. I gave him good advice and created a subdivision,

which immediately sold as parcels. Then this ski development came to the area, and its developer

bought one or two of the lots right away, later buying the rest of his property, which they tried to

subdivide further.

Another project I worked on was creating a landfill site for the Regional District of Central

Kootenay and Nakusp. It was a devil of a thing to get access to, and it was challenging to create a

suitable parcel of land. With lots of juggling, we finally managed to get approval of the site, and

it was developed as a dumpsite. I think it's still a dumpsite today, so we must have got it right.

One Nakusp party was buying out a campground facility, which included mobile home parking

spots and trailer sites, camper units, and parking. The mortgage plot plan was done by a surveyor

from the Okanagan. Even though he hadn’t seen the land, the lawyer wanted a superficial plan

because it was a five-acre block. But it still had to go through the formality of a plot plan. Well,

when people bought the land, they realized that there was a problem.

The boundary lines were not well defined. On one side, people were parking their motorhomes

on land owned by their neighbours. They were portable so could be moved. But on the other

side, the parking spaces and campsites—with a fire pit and sewer, sewage connection, water

connection to everything—were actually ten feet on the neighbour’s property. So, the fellow that

wanted to build the facilities did not know where the boundary lines were.

This situation was serious. The company sued for compensation and sued the surveyor who had

made the errors. I got involved with it. The court eventually ruled that the surveyor was not at

fault. Rather, the instructions from the lawyer were the problem.

In my opinion, the surveyor got off the hook for having done an inadequate job. But, as I said in

court, he only did what he was told to do, and the company was not suing the lawyer. But in the

end, I know that the Law Society compensated the person for his losses.