Three months before the storm, the district was warned that its culvert had caved in, the suit alleges.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Numerous lawsuits have been filed in B.C. Supreme Court after a North Vancouver culvert collapsed during a storm, blocking a creek and sending water into a Canyon Heights home.<\/p>\n
In May 2024, the creek running behind a home on Handsworth Road overflowed its banks during heavy rains and floodwater ran into the rental\u2019s basement, according to the civil claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
Just three months earlier, the district had received a culvert maintenance inspection report that found the creek culvert\u2019s concrete structure had \u201ccaved in\u201d and that overland water was not properly flowing through, the suit alleges.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite receiving the report, at no material time did the defendant take any action to repair or remediate the culvert,\u201d the court documents state.<\/p>\n
The flood damaged the home\u2019s drywall, flooring, foundation, furnace and hot water tank, the suit alleges, and it exposed asbestos, which required emergency remediation.<\/p>\n
It took until February 2025 for the home to be repaired. While that was going on, property owner Xinchu Zhang had to reduce the tenants\u2019 rent, the claim states.<\/p>\n
In the suit, Zhang is asking the court to award general and special damages plus legal costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt all material times, the defendant owed a duty of care and statutory duties to the plaintiff to exercise all reasonable care, skill, and diligence of a prudent and competent municipality and property owner in inspecting, operating, maintaining and responding to incidents with overland water systems near the property,\u201d the claim states.<\/p>\n
Zhang\u2019s allegations have not been proven in court and the district has not yet filed a response to the suit.<\/p>\n
A second lawsuit from the home\u2019s tenants filed just days after Zhang\u2019s suit makes similar allegations but it also names Zhang as a defendant.<\/p>\n
In their claim, Cara-Lynn Hodgson and Colin Brady Green say they too were faced with uninsured losses, repair costs, out of pocket expenses and inconvenience and hardship.<\/p>\n
A district spokesperson declined to comment while the matter is before the courts.<\/p>\n
Zhang\u2019s lawyer also declined to comment.<\/p>\n
This story has been updated to add information about a second, related lawsuit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three months before the storm, the district was warned that its culvert had caved in, the suit alleges.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,55],"class_list":["post-686056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686056","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=686056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}