A development company whose owner cut down two trees on public property despite being denied permission by the District of West Vancouver has been handed a $20,000 fine in court.
Lexa Developments Ltd. was handed the fine Feb. 28 by Judge John Milne after pleading guilty to two counts of breaking a municipal bylaw.
The District of West Vancouver voted to pursue a court prosecution against the landowner after two Norway maples on municipally owned land were cut down without permission in October.
The two maple trees – both about 14 metres (42 feet) tall, one with a diameter of about 60 centimetres (two feet) across – were cut next to a recently subdivided lot on Glenmore Drive, where two new homes were under construction.
The developer of the property had recently applied to the municipality for permission to remove the trees. But that permit was denied by the district, after staff determined the trees were healthy and the existing access was sufficient.
District staff received calls from one or more residents on Oct. 17 reporting the trees on the public boulevard were being felled. But by the time enforcement staff arrived, the trees had been chopped.
Lexa Developments will also pay the cost of planting trees in their place, estimated at up to $2,000. The company will also be required to make an additional $10,000 contribution to the municipality, said Donna Powers, spokeswoman for the District of West Vancouver.
Four charges of violating a municipal bylaw laid against Hamid Reza Ghavami, one of the owners of Lexa Developments Ltd., were withdrawn Feb. 28. Reached by phone, a spokesman for the company said Lexa Developments had no comment on the court case.
Normally the municipality would only be able to hand out tickets of $1,000 for violations of municipal bylaws. But pursuing the tree cutters under the Offence Act in court – which required a vote of council to approve the course of action – allowed for higher fines.
West Vancouver has only done that once before – when it went after owners of a property on Chelsea Close who dumped truckloads of fill on their land without proper approvals, and despite a stop work order in 2013.
District of West Vancouver took the couple to court to prove the illegal landscaping caused a landslide that sent sediment into a tributary of Rodgers Creek on March 21, 2013. They were eventually convicted and fined $100,000.
In another West Vancouver case this summer, months after a property owner on Southridge Drive was denied a permit to limb public trees to create views of the ocean, an arborist took matters into his own hands and chopped the trees anyway, taking out branches in the middle sections of four 30-metre fir trees.
In that case, the municipality eventually fined the owner of the tree-cutting company that did the work $1,000.
