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Appeal against stop order for overcrowded Banff home postponed – again

"I need time to prepare for the hearing as the appeal before the board is a complicated appeal and time is necessary to review all the relevant materials and evidence,” wrote lawyer Rick Grol.

BANFF – The owners of a Banff home that was shut down following public health complaints of sick people living in overcrowded and unhealthy conditions have had their appeal pushed back at the 11th hour.

The owners of the 321 Squirrel Street home – Janna-Joy Goff and Gail Morgan – were successful in their last-minute request for an adjournment of their Oct. 27 Development Appeal Board (DAB) hearing against a municipal stop order for operating unapproved bedrooms.

Goff and Morgan indicated they had only recently hired lawyers with experience in municipal planning law, but the DAB was keen to get the appeal hearing going sooner rather than later because it had already been postponed once before at the request of the owners – setting a new date of Nov. 18.

“This is the second request for postponement for appeal,” said Darren Enns, the director of planning and development, noting the appeal against the stop order was received by the Town of Banff on Sept. 15 and the first Oct. 6 appeal hearing was postponed.

In an Oct. 26 letter to the DAB on the day before the scheduled appeal, Calgary lawyer Rick Grol said he had been retained by Goff and Morgan, but could not attend on Oct. 27 because he was in a Calgary Subdivision and Development Appeal Board meeting on the same day.

“In addition, I need time to prepare for the hearing as the appeal before the board is a complicated appeal and time is necessary to review all the relevant materials and evidence,” he wrote in his letter.

The Aug. 22 stop order from the Town of Banff came on the heels of an Aug. 4 Alberta Health Services enforcement order for exceeding the 16-person occupancy limit for this Squirrel Street property.

The municipal stop order directed Goff and Morgan to immediately and permanently stop allowing people to live in the unapproved rooms and return the property to the approved as-built layout within 45 days of the stop order.

Alberta Health Services’ environmental public health report from an inspection on July 28, 2022, was included in the documents for the DAB.

According to the report, the home was inspected based on a series of complaints including illness, such as coughing, sniffles and phlegm from the living conditions, and overcrowding concerns with 25 tenants living onsite.

Michelle Wong, public health inspector, said other complaints included bedrooms without windows, filthy kitchens, flies and potentially broken insect screens, a kitchen shared by 25 people, bathroom shared by 12 people and an outdoor rental tent.

“When asked, (the) landlord initially reported that she had 16 tenants,” said Wong her in her report.

“[The] landlord thought that she could have more than 16 people because meals were subsidized by a restaurant.”

In the inspection, Wong said a total of 42 beds and/or mattresses were counted, of which 35 appeared to be occupied at the time of the inspection.

Wong said the maximum occupancy for this home is 16 people based on the two available kitchens, meaning only eight people can share a kitchen.

“A tenant was observed to be sleeping in a basement room without a window,” said Wong in her report. “No tenants can sleep in the basement room without any windows.”

The owners have filed an appeal with the DAB on the grounds that no unapproved dwellings have been created or used.

In documents filed for the appeal hearing, the owners state the area the Town of Banff says had no approvals has always been used for storage, a greenhouse and an incidental common area, and most recently, for tenants with their cat.

“We have not developed any unapproved dwellings nor used any of the building as such,” write Morgan and Goff.

According to Town of Banff records, there are no valid development permits which would allow the property to contain additional dwellings or to allow for an increase to the gross floor area.

This Squirrel Street home has a history of operating unapproved bedrooms, according to the Town of Banff, and was subject to a stop order in 2017, which was rescinded in 2018 when the owners complied with the order.

Then in April 2020, the owners asked if they could use 11 rooms to house 16 people to help with isolation and social-distancing requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In view of the currently recommended protocol of social distancing, personal isolation and quarantining upon arrival and/or upon returning after travel, we would like to legitimize all 11 to be used as bedrooms,” wrote Morgan in her April 21, 2020 request.

“It will be easier to distance and quarantine with 16 people occupying 11 isolatable rooms than seven.”

The Town of Banff’s development services manager Dave Michaels responded within a couple of days, making it clear that extra bedrooms above the seven that were approved could not be used without a valid development permit.

“We understand that the current circumstances are unique and temporary, however we would not be able to approve the use of 11 bedrooms without the other land use bylaw requirements being addressed, even on a temporary basis,” he wrote on April 23, 2020.

Michaels said that inspections by the municipal compliance officer and Alberta Health Services on separate occasions – November 2019 and March 2020 – had indicated unapproved bedrooms were being used at the property despite previous enforcement action in 2017.

He reminded the owners that use of unapproved bedrooms without proper permission “may result in enforcement action against the property.”

The Town of Banff’s 2022 assessment roll indicates the home was assessed at about $1.7 million.

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