A Turo woman plans to sell her beloved 35 -year -old house due to the stress caused by the expropriation of the city by her property.
Anne-Marie Westman says she first learned of the intention of the city to take care of her property in August, when she was contacted by an engineer who told her that the city needed a servitude to direct a storm sewer line through her land.
She says she was asked to sign an agreement within two days offered by a dollar in compensation.
She declined, and since then has been locked in a dispute with the city on the matter.
“That’s when stress began to me,” he said. “And since then, it has been increasingly stressful. The fight is not my cup of tea, but what are you doing when you are forced in the corner?”
The project aims to alleviate floods
The city wants to use a strip of land that extends between Westman’s house in Clifton Court and its neighbor to administer an underground pipe to help relieve floods in the area.
At this time, the street behind Westman’s house does not have a curb or capture basins to direct the water when there are heavy rains, so the water flows through a hill and the pools in its patio and those of some of its neighbors.
Westman’s own house, as well as other nearby houses, have flooded more than once in the past. The most recent flood last summer caused damage worth $ 28,000 in Westman’s basement.
The city project would divert the runoff to the pipe that would run along Westman’s property to a stormy pond on the opposite side of the street from home.
But Westman is concerned that any excavation necessary to complete the project could damage his home because he would be too close to his base.
She says that the space between the two houses, where the sewerage line would run, is about nine meters. While the pipe itself would run through the middle of that gap, the land that expropriated the city is close to approximately one third of one meter of its foundation.
Westman’s partner, Ian Booth, who does not possess the property, but has been helping her deal with the problem of expropriation, says they both want a solution to floods, but they want a better solution than the city has offered.
“We are certainly not trying to get in the path of flood control,” said Booth. “A long time ago and, in fact, I blame the city’s engineering department for how bad the floods is here.”
The city of Turo Cao Michael Dolter says the project is necessary.
“We have had a great protest of residents … who have had floods in their properties,” he says. “There is no doubt that we had to act for the good of the whole neighborhood.”
Slate says there will not be an important excavation in the courtyards. The pipe, which will be drilling, will be at least two or three meters from the houses. He says that it is “very, very unlikely” that any damage to the foundations occurs.
Dolter says that the city has done this type of work before and that “it never had a problem that something went wrong.” If something went wrong, the city would assume responsibility, he says.
Alternative proposal
Westman and Booth have created an alternative plan that would run the pipe across the other side of the property, much further from any building, in an area that is not being used.
They say they have evaluated the plan of a retired engineer and an excavation expert, and both said that their plan would control the floods and better protect houses from possible damage due to the excavation.
Dolter says that Westman and Booth’s plan was, in fact, the first option of the city, but they had to abandon it because the elevation and grade would not allow water to flow correctly to the stormwater pond. To achieve proper flow in that location, the pipe would have had to be above ground level.
Westman and Booth also say they denied the opportunity to present their perspective to the Council.
They received news on February 28 that the City Council was going to vote on March 3 if you expropriate the Earth Strip.
When they asked to make a presentation to the Council to discuss their case, they were told that they had lost the deadline to request the opportunity to speak. That deadline was the day before having heard about the next vote.
The vote was approved, with only one councilor voting against the expropriation.
However, the couple has met with the mayor, Vicealcalde and Dolter to describe their concerns and review their own proposal.
The mayor of Truro, Cathy Hinton, told CBC News that he voted in favor of expropriation.
She said that expropriation is a last resort, but she feels that the project is necessary to improve floods throughout the neighborhood.
Hinton said he is not an engineering expert, so he must trust the council of the city experts who advised him about the matter, and trusts his experience.
“Look, I’m hard with people. I’m not going through the foot. I mean, if I thought someone was not doing something, I would be telling that Cao,” he said.
Hinton reiterated Dolter’s promise that the crews will be “very particular” and will ensure that the earth is restored later.
Westman says he plans to hire an independent civil engineer to evaluate his plan, and Booth says that “our objection ends” if the engineer supports the position of the city.
Dolter says that the city will also hire a third -party engineer to evaluate the project, and that the owners can talk to the engineer and see their report.
Next steps
Last week, the city increased its dollar compensation offer to $ 15,150. Dolter says that the offer of a dollar is a fairly standard starting point to negotiate easements.
If Westman does not accept the new compensation offer, he can appeal it, which caused an audience with the Board of Appeals and Regulatory of Nueva Scotia, one of the two joints created with the transition of the Board of Services and Reviews of New Scotland as of April 1.
Booth says that the offer “not even in the stadium” of the value of the property, and does not properly consider the reduction in the value of the remaining land.
Westman says that with his property in the market, he will reveal the problem of expropriation to possible buyers.
She does not want to sell, but says that as a cancer survivor and as someone with heart condition, the stress caused by the dispute is not worth the risk of her health.
“I have problems sleeping. I have problems eating sometimes because I’m very stressed,” she says.
If Westman does not appeal to the compensation offer, the city can start working at the property earlier this summer.
