KELOWNA – A B.C. Supreme Court judge has confirmed a lower court ruling that the owners of a Kelowna agricultural property were violating city bylaws.
7 Kuipers Holdings was using its 80 acre property on Frost Road to store 22 motor homes and trailers, nine boats and ten steel containers.
Bylaw 8000 allows 21 principal and secondary uses for agricultural zoned land but they don’t include storing recreational vehicles which don’t belong to the property owners.
7 Kuipers argued storing other people’s RVs should be “grandfathered” as a legal, non-conforming use under a bylaw (4500) that was replaced by Bylaw 8000 in 1998.
In rejecting that argument, Mr. Justice Gary Weatherill wrote: “While I bear in mind…that courts should adopt a liberal approach to interpreting the statutory lawful non-conforming use exemption in favour of the user, I am not satisfied that Kuiper’s use of the Property was lawful under Bylaw 4500.”
The judge ordered 7 Kuipers Holdings to pay the city’s legal costs for the appeal hearing.
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