Steep Roads

Steep Roads

I did a nice subdivision on a very difficult hillside. A couple of young developers decided to

undertake this development, but I knew it would be extremely difficult. The layout of the lots

was suitable, but the road was too steep. The policy of the Highways Department was that roads

should not have a gradient of more than eight percent. In the wintertime in the West Kootenay,

the road would get slippery. People would not be able to drive up this road and would demand

that the maintenance people from the department sand the road. When a new senior supervisor

for the department came into the area, he was adamant that even eight percent should not be

allowed. It was impossible to make our planned road less steep. The subdivision could not be

done. I stayed away from making the road too steep and stepped away from the project.

In a different subdivision (that I, fortunately, had nothing to do with) and where the planners

were not careful, their road was over eight percent and probably more like ten percent. The chap

from the Highways Department should have ensured that it was never built. He was severely

reprimanded and transferred out of the area. But, in this case, I did not think it was such a great

problem; there were a dozen houses up that road and people put up with the incline.

Another subdivision that I did along Redfish Creek had nice frontage lots. But they were really

low lying. The planning officer was convinced that the land would not be suitable for sewage

disposal. But I just stuck my neck out and pointed out that within a year or so Kootenay Lake

would be lowered by more than a dozen feet because of the building of the Duncan Dam, which

was just under construction.

I got the subdivision approved on that basis. I guess people trusted me to know what I was doing.

I told them that lake’s highest level would be six feet lower in the future and that the property

would be high and dry. This was a case where having a little bit of foresight and special

knowledge about what was happening made a difference. The subdivision went through, and the

properties are very nice and desirable to this day.

On another project in the same area, I found myself in a catastrophic situation that surveyors

really dislike. We were being asked to stake a boundary line between two owners who were in a

long and acrimonious conflict. Even their dogs were fighting each other. The guy with the

stronger, more vicious dog did the courteous thing. He hired us to mark out the boundary line, so

that he could rebuild the fence. At that point, the fence was not high enough to stop his dogs

from jumping over the fence and clobbering the neighbour's pet.

I went out there to oversee my men. I was coming back from checking up the line, which was

probably three or four hundred feet long. I had not paid too much attention and came over a hill,

face to face with a gentleman who was fifty feet away from me and seemed prepared to shoot

me. It was scary. Most of us would not know what to say when a man points a gun at you. It

turns out he was intent on shooting the neighbour's dog. His dog had barked and let him know

that something was going on there.

I had done a survey for the fellow about two years prior to that. So, I treated it seriously, but I

didn’t panic. I identified myself very quickly and pointed out that I was the surveyor. I told him

that he better behave himself and just go back to his house. He did that but obviously mentioned

the incident to his wife. She phoned the police. The police then called me right away, almost

reprimanding me for not making sure that this couple knew I would be there doing the surveying.

It is now almost compulsory that you serve notice on the boundary owners if you plan to go on

properties other than your client’s land. While the person you are working for knows that you are

there, the neighbour does not necessarily know. And as I discovered in this case, you never know

the full story of the dispute.

Another fellow discovered that we had been on his property the previous day. He was adamant

that he would have chased us off if he had been there at the time. I pointed out to him that under

the Trespass Act, a land surveyor is allowed to go on anybody's property at any time to carry out

his work. Period. If a person attempts to stop you from going there, you can have the person

reprimanded and even arrested. I reprimanded a person once, to the point of having the police

phone the fellow up. So, I knew the regulations and went through the whole rigmarole of making

the person stop chasing me off his property.

I made a big production of letting the police officer know that I knew my rights and was

behaving within the law. The officer responded to my statement that I was authorized to be there

by saying simply, “Well, Mr. Johnson, you could have been dead, right?”

I know another young fellow who had a similar experience. He got shot and killed by the other

property owner—the one that had not hired him. The killer was never arrested because he was

supposedly protecting his property. His act was therefore considered legal and authorized. The

victim was a young fellow, just a thirty-year-old. He up and died. The other fellow got away with

it.