Because their house exceeds the height allowed by the municipal zoning by-law by 46 centimeters, a couple from Baie-D’Urfé will have to undertake major work to demolish their roof and build a new one.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday at the Montreal courthouse, Baie-D’Urfé demands that owners Alex and Jeannie Moosz, who acquired their Westchester Street home in 2020, modify it so that it does not exceed nine meters regulations.
The court document alleges that a land surveyor’s plan, filed in December 2021 by the owners, was tampered with to indicate that the residence was 8.98m high. The prosecution does not specify who allegedly forged the document.
It was the municipal technician Alexandre Ranger who was intrigued by some incongruous details. He then communicated directly with the land surveyor, who confirmed to him that the plan was “not an official digital document from our registry” and that it seemed “to have been digitally modified”, thus confirming the suspicions of the City that “the plan had been tampered with,” the lawsuit reads.
As the City did not trust the plan given to it, a new report was commissioned. This document, prepared in October 2022, confirmed that the height was 9.46 m, which led to a formal notice from the City to the owners to enjoin them to undertake the required work.
Officials have asked the Moosz couple to apply for a building permit before January 2023.
Size issue
The owners, however, replied that they wanted to have a new verification plan prepared to confirm the actual height of the house, since a previous certificate of location, dating from December 2019, established it at 9.15 m. This first document had been prepared by another land surveyor on behalf of the former owners.
“M. and M.me Moosz would like to carry out another plan since the extent of the non-compliance could change the extent of the work to be done. If the non-compliance is only 0.15 meters, it would require less work than if it is 0.31 meters (for which the[estimation] of the work is $175,000),” wrote to the City last January, Ms.e Lawrence Yelin, the attorney representing the couple.
But according to the City, there is no question of dragging out the case any longer.
The owners were aware of the problem at the time of the purchase of the property, and despite two certificates of location “clearly establishing that the height of the building is derogatory, they persist in delaying the execution of the work which is nevertheless necessary in order to to ensure the compliance of the building”, deplores the lawyer for Baie-D’Urfé, Mr.e Alain Longval, in pursuit.
This is why the City is asking that corrective action be taken within 45 days of a judgment to be rendered by a judge of the Superior Court.
Why sue citizens for a few centimeters? “We gave ourselves rules to have a certain homogeneity in our built environment. If we start not respecting them, we will end up with buildings that will exceed the limit by one meter or more, ”answers Nicolas Bouchard, general manager of the Town of Baie-D’Urfé. “The rules are there to be enforced. It’s like speed limits: you suffer the consequences if you don’t respect them. »
Mr. Bouchard specifies that the City communicated with the notary of the buyers, at the time of the real estate transaction, to ensure that the latter knew that the house was not in conformity and that they would have to carry out major work. Several meetings were then organized with the owners.
Reached by phone, Jeannie Moosz preferred not to comment on the situation.
With the collaboration of Louis-Samuel Perron, The Press