Photo: District of Summerland

A Summerland property that continues to be in non-compliance with the district's building bylaws could face harsher cutoffs, as council reviews its latest issues.

Structures have been built on a property at the south side of Hillborn Street since 2005, and all have been without a building permit or the required building inspections.

On Tuesday, staff will be requesting council to approve a Remedial Action Order for the construction of a new cherry sorting facility and occupancy without a permit. If changes aren't made, the district is looking to disconnect water and electrical services.

According to staff's report, site visits to the property as well as multiple letters of notice have been sent to the owners in attempts to resolve the non-compliance issue of occupancy, specifically with the packing plant building that was constructed in 2021.

"Do Not Occupy Notices and enforcement measures including ticketing have proven ineffective at gaining compliance as the property owner has continued to utilize the building without occupancy despite these enforcement actions," staff added.

Additionally, the existing non-permitted storage and farm worker accommodation building has not been brought into compliance.

Staff said the cherry sorting facility has been operating for the past two sorting seasons, despite not having achieved building occupancy approval.

At first, district officials said they chose to work with the owners in 2023 to bring the new packing building into compliance rather than initiate immediate enforcement action. They were hoping to fix the safety concerns present in the pre-existing temporary farm worker accommodations on the property as well.

Picking operations ran from June 2023 to September 2023.

Staff said on March 14, 2024, a further illegal occupancy of the new cherry sorting facility was identified by them. Do Not Occupy notices were posted.

On May 24, 2024, staff said the owners were given a letter confirming that the packing plant did not have occupancy and that it should not be occupied.

"Despite this, cherry sorting operations began in June 2024 and continued throughout the season," staff added.

Bylaw Services issued an Illegal Occupancy notice on June 21, 2024.

Multiple fines were given to the property owners every week from June 15, 2024 to August 7, 2024.

'To date, these fines total a balance of $25,500.00 and remain unpaid and outstanding. A recent site visit on February 24, 2025, confirmed that the illegal occupancy persists with the building being utilized for storage of pallets and supplies for the upcoming sorting season," staff said.

"Further, there are many life safety deficiencies that have still been observed during site visits by the District’s Building Officials and the Summerland Fire Department, including but not limited to, blocked or inoperable means of egress, incomplete Fire Separations and inadequate Fire Department access."

In regards to the other building, which holds un-permitted storage and farm worker accommodation, it's been in non-compliance with the District’s Building Bylaw since 2014.

"The building continued to be utilized as temporary farm worker accommodations until enforcement measures in the Summer 2023 proved successful and the structure ceased being utilized for residential use," staff said.

A Remedial Action Order was approved by council on Sept. 26, 2023, which required the removal of all items, securing both floors of the building from access and the disconnection of power.

On Nov. 10, 2023, this work was confirmed to be completed by the owners and subsequent inspections have shown that the temporary farm worker accommodations have remained unoccupied. Some storage of tools still occurs in the lower level, which workers access.

Further work has not been done by the property owners to resolve the non-compliance issue.

Later in November of 2023, council passed a motion deferring the decision to place a Notice on Title until April 30, 2025, to allow the landowners an opportunity to develop a plan to bring the building into compliance or demolish it.

Staff added that if council approved the Remedial Action Order and the owners do not comply, there may be costs incurred in the future, including legal fees if an injunction is needed.

Council will discuss the property at Tuesday's meeting.