{"id":137324,"date":"2025-09-12T00:13:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T00:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/137324\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T00:13:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T00:13:13","slug":"west-van-council-upholds-demolition-order-for-illegally-built-structure-on-6-7-million-property-bc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/137324\/","title":{"rendered":"West Van council upholds demolition order for illegally-built structure on $6.7 million property – BC"},"content":{"rendered":"

The owners of a $6.7-million West Vancouver<\/a> home say they\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEverything we have done, everything we have achieved until now has been by the book,\u201d Kamran Gerami told councillors at Monday\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The mining engineer said his father, cardiologist brother, and janitor mother lived in BC Housing until 2020.<\/p>\n

All their success has been through hard work, Gerami said, and in 2021 they were able to purchase 1145 Chartwell Crescent.<\/p>\n

Gerami said his family later hired the home\u2019s original builder to add a roof and kitchen to an existing deck in order to create an outdoor living space.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t have spent this much money if we knew that the builder wasn\u2019t getting permits for us,\u201d Gerami told council. \u201cHe said he would get us permits.\u201d<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

In court documents filed in April, the builder alleges he is owed more than $148,000 for unpaid work.<\/p>\n

Matt Minapour told Global News in August that he was hired to construct a gazebo on the defendants\u2019 property in April 2023, and the written contract included the provision that the owners shall provide the building permit.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAll our clients are asking for is an opportunity to try to fix it,\u201d said lawyer Nathalie Baker, who is representing the Gerami family.<\/p>\n

In her appeal to council, Baker said just because someone didn\u2019t obtain a permit doesn\u2019t automatically mean the structure is in a hazardous condition.<\/p>\n

The district\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Further evidence, he said, is not required to justify the demolition order.<\/p>\n

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Baker said her clients were willing to allow staff to inspect the building and open up the walls if necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re absolutely willing to work with staff to try to legalize this,\u201d said Baker.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

Under the Official Community Plan\u2019s watercourse protection guidelines, no new development is permitted within five metres of top of bank.<\/p>\n

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Even if the owners applied for permits, Bailey said the structure was built too close to a creek.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was clear that the structure did not and would not comply with our environmental development plan,\u201d he told councillors.<\/p>\n

One speaker, Sprucehill Homes founder and CEO Erik Jensen, said any decision other than upholding the original demolition order would set a dangerous precedent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf 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,\u201d Jensen told council.<\/p>\n

Council ultimately voted unanimously \u2013 for a second time \u2013 to order the illegal structure demolished.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe trusted a reputable builder to build it and he screwed us over,\u201d Gerami told Global News following the decision.<\/p>\n

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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: \u201cThat\u2019s totally incorrect, totally false.\u201d<\/p>\n

As to why they didn\u2019t just apply for a building permit in the first place, Gerami again blamed the builder.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know how to apply for permits,\u201d he said. \u201cThe builder who built the home said he would get the permits.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe building is built in an area that would be impossible to get a building permit for,\u201d Sager told Global News.<\/p>\n

When asked what happens next, the mayor said he hoped the demolition dispute would not end up in court.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just hope they\u2019ll respect that the building has to come down,\u201d said Sager.<\/p>\n

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Gerami was undeterred by Monday\u2019s council decision and said his family will fight to keep the backyard build standing.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully you know, we can get the permits for it, do it ourselves,\u201d he said. \u201cBut yeah, we got screwed over.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The owners of a $6.7-million West Vancouver home say they\u2019re not giving up on saving a 1,500-square foot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44,714,36177,74431],"class_list":{"0":"post-137324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-politics","12":"tag-west-vancouver","13":"tag-west-vancouver-home"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}