The owners of a $6.7-million West Vancouver home say they’re not giving up on saving a 1,500-square foot unpermitted addition to their property, despite district council voting to uphold an earlier demolition order.
“Everything we have done, everything we have achieved until now has been by the book,” Kamran Gerami told councillors at Monday’s meeting.
In making his plea for council to reconsider its July 21 decision ordering the backyard structure be torn down, Gerami said he is part of a hard working family who immigrated to Canada in 1989.
The mining engineer said his father, cardiologist brother, and janitor mother lived in BC Housing until 2020.
All their success has been through hard work, Gerami said, and in 2021 they were able to purchase 1145 Chartwell Crescent.
Gerami said his family later hired the home’s original builder to add a roof and kitchen to an existing deck in order to create an outdoor living space.
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“We wouldn’t have spent this much money if we knew that the builder wasn’t getting permits for us,” Gerami told council. “He said he would get us permits.”
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Gerami and the other three owners, Naib and Omid Gerami and Ayesheh Mansouri, remain locked in litigation with Shahin Construction Ltd. over the project.
In court documents filed in April, the builder alleges he is owed more than $148,000 for unpaid work.
Matt Minapour told Global News in August that he was hired to construct a gazebo on the defendants’ property in April 2023, and the written contract included the provision that the owners shall provide the building permit.
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Minapour said he stopped work in December and walked away from the job, which was 30 per cent complete, because the owners failed to obtain permits.
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“All our clients are asking for is an opportunity to try to fix it,” said lawyer Nathalie Baker, who is representing the Gerami family.
In her appeal to council, Baker said just because someone didn’t obtain a permit doesn’t automatically mean the structure is in a hazardous condition.
The district’s Director of Planning & Development Services, Jim Bailey, stated that under the Community Charter, buildings constructed without permits in accordance with municipal and provincial statutes are considered to be in a hazardous condition.
Further evidence, he said, is not required to justify the demolition order.
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Baker said her clients were willing to allow staff to inspect the building and open up the walls if necessary.
“They’re absolutely willing to work with staff to try to legalize this,” said Baker.
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Citing a June 2024 letter from district staff stating the new structure, which was built near a steep slope adjacent to Brothers Creek, was in contravention of the Creeks bylaw, mayor Mark Sager said the owners have already had a year to bring the illegal building into compliance.
Under the Official Community Plan’s watercourse protection guidelines, no new development is permitted within five metres of top of bank.
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Even if the owners applied for permits, Bailey said the structure was built too close to a creek.
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“It was clear that the structure did not and would not comply with our environmental development plan,” he told councillors.
One speaker, Sprucehill Homes founder and CEO Erik Jensen, said any decision other than upholding the original demolition order would set a dangerous precedent.
“If these people are given a chance to kind of, sort of remedy the situation, it really opens up the flood gates for people doing whatever the hell they feel like doing and then begging for forgiveness after the fact,” Jensen told council.
Council ultimately voted unanimously – for a second time – to order the illegal structure demolished.
“We trusted a reputable builder to build it and he screwed us over,” Gerami told Global News following the decision.
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When asked if his family was attempting to build a secondary home on their property without permits as the builder previously suggested to Global News, Gerami responded: “That’s totally incorrect, totally false.”
As to why they didn’t just apply for a building permit in the first place, Gerami again blamed the builder.
“We don’t know how to apply for permits,” he said. “The builder who built the home said he would get the permits.”
“The building is built in an area that would be impossible to get a building permit for,” Sager told Global News.
When asked what happens next, the mayor said he hoped the demolition dispute would not end up in court.
“I just hope they’ll respect that the building has to come down,” said Sager.
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Gerami was undeterred by Monday’s council decision and said his family will fight to keep the backyard build standing.
“Hopefully you know, we can get the permits for it, do it ourselves,” he said. “But yeah, we got screwed over.”
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.