Building Controls: Farce or Scandal

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A simple, sensible project to improve safety at my house has turned into a frustrating fiasco.
Blame the municipal Building Controls department, and the regulatory regime that they insist governs their conduct.

Here's a quick recap of where things stand.
The plan was uncomplicated. Create a new entrance/exit for the basement of my home. This was because there was only a single way in or out of the large basement, a not very convenient one at that.
In the unhappy event of a fire downstairs, the single exit path could have been easily blocked. A second way out would be a big safety upgrade.

Because the bottom half the lower level was below the natural ground level, a small landing had to be excavated outside the door. The landing would be surrounded by a 3 sided retaining wall, with a set of 4 steps from the landing to ground level.

I knew that the project would require a building permit to comply with the rules. The rules of course are complicated. Very complicated. Too complicated I say. Kafkaesque. But I was committed to do this by the book.

I hired an architectural technologist with BCIN credentials to design the entrance way and landing. For $600. +hst Dan created the digital plan with specs, and gave it his stamp. I brought it to City Hall to get a building permit. There I got grief. Dozens of questions were asked, many of them irrelevant and outside the scope of their concerns. I cooperated best I could.

That session ended without a permit. The inspector I spoke to determined I would require a structural engineer to review the project, and give it an engineer's stamp. This would be another $500. +hst.

Eventually the permit was issued, with all sorts of red ink stamped cautions and additional specifications defacing the drawings.

The work got done at serious expense to me.

Then I called for a final inspection. Turns out a few years back I had met the inspector in connection with a client file. I ended up bringing a legal action against that inspector and Building Controls. (The gist of our complaint then was that an inspection order had been prepared evicting my client and shutting down the job - even though it was admitted no inspection had taken place.) He remembered me. Darn.

Of course my new entrance way job did not pass muster.
And now I must incur further effort, with delays, and more cost.
The system is flawed, and somewhat corrupt. It is sad.

What to do?
Option One: keep head low, keep on plugging, submit to the arbirtary lunacy, and move on.
Option Two: stand up for what is right, and press for justice, for me and others in this situation.

Sure, I know the aphorism: You can't or shouldn't swing at every pitch. One has to pick one's battles.
But geez, this is a tough call to make.

More later...

PART 2
The Zoning Bylaw Fiasco
first draft 2017.08.07

This piece is about Sudbury's Zoning Bylaw.
It drives me almost crazy thinking about it, or reading it, or searching it.
Honest to goodness, I believe it is just so wrong, and so misguided.

I believe sincerely that if the voters in our community, the citizens, the people,
had an opportunity from scratch to consider all of this bylaw,
(first having been schooled in a neutral way about it, in all its complexity)
and having had the opportunity to consider sensible proponents and opponents for it in an open debate,
that the bylaw would fail to pass on a referendum vote,
and further that large parts of it would be excised or simply cut out,
or at a minimum, massively simplified.

I believe this would also be true for our municipal councilors.
(And as an aside, I would wager a day's pay or more, that not one current councilor of this community, has taken the time or trouble to read, with a view to trying to understand, the whole of the document - which they voted to make the law of our community. Sad.)

It bears noting here that Sudbury is quite typical of other communities in its zoning bylaws.
Indeed they all come from the same template.
And for the record, there is not the talent or the available municipal resources in a community like ours to draft such a law without the a template being followed.

How then did the last zoning bylaw of 2010 pass?
Well, by a series of realities and also strategems.
First there is no organized opposition.
Second the proponents are paid, full time municipal employees or others who have a vested interest in the document. This is their life, their job, their raison d'etre.
Third, the 2010 bylaw did not start from scratch, but was promoted as a modest revision or updating to the prior bylaw, which in turn arose from a series of a dozen bylaws that preceded it.
Each of those earlier versions of course was a little simpler, a little less complex, a little less draconian.
And fourth, the bylaw is but one of a hundred similar bylaws in other communities, initially generated in a community much bigger and more complex than our own. Sudbury is just following the provincial trend and pattern.
And fifth, it is so egregiously complicated that it is not reasonable to expect that ordinary folks ( by which I mean those who do not make a study of these things their life's work) can mount a sensible challenge to the promoters of the zoning bylaws.

What are the consequences of an overly complex, overly restrictive, tough to understand zoning bylaw? (Aside from pissing me off.)
1. It transfers power to bureaucrats - the planners, the administrators, or their counterparts in private industry, who work for a fee.
2. It stifles innovation and progress.
3. It unduly infringes on what otherwise would be sensible property rights of land owners.
4. It causes disrespect for the rule of law.
5. And importantly it adds huge and unnecessary costs to ordinary land users (owners and tenants) and citizens and for that matter visitors. Everything is much more expensive than it ought to be.

There are probably other negative consequences, but these 5 are what came to mind just off the top.
It's quite an indictment in any case, if you ask me.

Do you think I'm crazy?
Before you settle on such a conclusion, pray Just give the Bylaw a read.
It's online.
Which is mostly a blessing - though being online is to my mind a contributing factor to its girth and craziness.

As a challenge consider a simple question about a proposed land use on a particular property and whether or not the proposed use complies with the zoning bylaw.