Westside Development Under Siege.

[OnTheRoadAgain]

Yup. The bank is the bad guy.

[Disneyland]

Good luck with that one. WFN runs their own courts of law, outside BC supreme court.

Where do you get your information? That is such a crock, and you post stuff like this! Not so long ago there was an issue with one of the towers over by the Dolphins, a leaning tower. Should the City of Kelowna have fixed that? I am sure every taxpayer in the City of Kelowna would have had an issue with that one. I get tried of people spouting BS on these forums and continually taking shots at WFN with no facts or substance to what they say. Copper Sky went into recievership and the receiver is now the owner and has to assume responsiblity for the defects. The receiver will have to go after the engineers and architects that signed off on the pool and the wall, its called "Professional Reliance".

[OnTheRoadAgain]

http://www.wfn.ca/government.htm

Westbank First Nation is a self-governing nation. The Westbank First Nation Self-Government Act (Bill C-11) received Royal Assent in Ottawa and became law on May 6, 2004. The Order-In-Council bringing WFN Self-Government into force took place on April 1, 2005.

http://www.wfn.ca/residentenant.htm

Westbank First Nation has its own law governing landlord-tenant matters called the Residential Premises Law or RPL. The Provincial Residential Tenancy Act does not apply on WFN lands. Although similar in many respects, the two laws differ in a number of significant ways and it is important that both landlords and tenants understand their rights and responsibilities under the WFN law.

The RPL is administered by the Residential Premises Administrator. One of the primary roles of the Administrator is to educate and advise landlords and tenants regarding the RPL and is available to do so either by phone, email or in person. As well, all of the forms required to be used under the RPL are accessible below.

The Administrator is also responsible for managing the dispute resolution system established by the RPL. If a landlord and tenant cannot settle a matter between them, the RPL provides that either may initiate an arbitration process. These arbitrations are conducted by trained and experienced third-party arbitrators and their decisions are binding upon the parties.

If you are denied an appeal process with WFN you can apply to the Supreme Court of BC for a Judicial Review. That judge may make a different decision, but the only place he can send this decision is back to WFN to have another look. It is very likely they will not comply. The supreme court judges have no jurisdiction to make decisions for non natives living on WFN land.

[OnTheRoadAgain]

Good luck with that one. WFN runs their own courts of law, outside BC supreme court.

Where do you get your information? That is such a crock, and you post stuff like this! Not so long ago there was an issue with one of the towers over by the Dolphins, a leaning tower. Should the City of Kelowna have fixed that? I am sure every taxpayer in the City of Kelowna would have had an issue with that one. I get tried of people spouting BS on these forums and continually taking shots at WFN with no facts or substance to what they say. Copper Sky went into recievership and the receiver is now the owner and has to assume responsiblity for the defects. The receiver will have to go after the engineers and architects that signed off on the pool and the wall, its called "Professional Reliance".

The receiver won't be the 'owner', as the 'owner' is the Westbank First Nations band. They will always have ownership on those lands. They issues leases for others to temporarily live on their lands.
There are developers, contractors, lessors and lessees involved, while the owner is in the background.
Ownership of a time-limited lease on WFN is not quite the same as ownership of freehold land.

The big concern is with regard to disputes and disagreements and the process to mediate and judge them, and make decisions that are as strong as a supreme court decision. It is not an objective process.

[blueberry]

http://www.wfn.ca/government.htm

Westbank First Nation is a self-governing nation. The Westbank First Nation Self-Government Act (Bill C-11) received Royal Assent in Ottawa and became law on May 6, 2004. The Order-In-Council bringing WFN Self-Government into force took place on April 1, 2005.

http://www.wfn.ca/residentenant.htm

Westbank First Nation has its own law governing landlord-tenant matters called the Residential Premises Law or RPL. The Provincial Residential Tenancy Act does not apply on WFN lands. Although similar in many respects, the two laws differ in a number of significant ways and it is important that both landlords and tenants understand their rights and responsibilities under the WFN law.

The RPL is administered by the Residential Premises Administrator. One of the primary roles of the Administrator is to educate and advise landlords and tenants regarding the RPL and is available to do so either by phone, email or in person. As well, all of the forms required to be used under the RPL are accessible below.

The Administrator is also responsible for managing the dispute resolution system established by the RPL. If a landlord and tenant cannot settle a matter between them, the RPL provides that either may initiate an arbitration process. These arbitrations are conducted by trained and experienced third-party arbitrators and their decisions are binding upon the parties.

If you are denied an appeal process with WFN you can apply to the Supreme Court of BC for a Judicial Review. That judge may make a different decision, but the only place he can send this decision is back to WFN to have another look. It is very likely they will not comply. The supreme court judges have no jurisdiction to make decisions for non natives living on WFN land.

What does the WFN Residential Premises Law have to do with this? That only governs the relationship between landlords and tenants. It has nothing to do with the leases signed by the people that bought these condos.

And, by the way, these leases (or subleases) would have been signed with Copper Sky. NOT with WFN.

[kay-c]

[Ditch Digger]

The article says that there is a problem with the retaining wall? Is it referring to the giant Allen (gravity) block wall along Old Okanagan Highway?

I couldn't beleive when they put that up. Even properly laid and drained with the soil mesh, it's just a bunch of blocks stacked on top of each other. no mortar or concrete!

They're great for walls a few feet high, but that wall is 15-20 feet high is some places

That isn't how block retaining walls work, the block is simply a facing, even when you see the large 5' x 2.5' concrete 'Lock Blocks' they aren't providing anything structural to the wall. It is the weight of the soil on the meshing that provides the stability. The soil itself doesn't cause the failure, it is when you cannot relieve the hydrostatic pressure when water gets into this backfill. They are built with a course of free draining rounded drain rock right behind the facing (a 'drainage chimney') that allows the water to get to the base of the wall where it is removed via a perforated drain pipe. If you cannot relieve this water pressure is where the problems come up.

This is why when (rarely) these walls do fail they always blow out at the bottom of the wall (see the overpass failure last year, it was the bottom panels where the wall blew out), as opposed to the wall simply 'falling down'.

[bigtdawg]

That isn't how block retaining walls work, the block is simply a facing, even when you see the large 5' x 2.5' concrete 'Lock Blocks' they aren't providing anything structural to the wall. It is the weight of the soil on the meshing that provides the stability. The soil itself doesn't cause the failure, it is when you cannot relieve the hydrostatic pressure when water gets into this backfill. They are built with a course of free draining rounded drain rock right behind the facing (a 'drainage chimney') that allows the water to get to the base of the wall where it is removed via a perforated drain pipe. If you cannot relieve this water pressure is where the problems come up.

This is why when (rarely) these walls do fail they always blow out at the bottom of the wall (see the overpass failure last year, it was the bottom panels where the wall blew out), as opposed to the wall simply 'falling down'.

So what your saying is that this wall will blow out all over Old Okanagan Road unless something is done about it. Using the overpass as a guide, I would say it won't take too long for the same thing to happen here. I am guessing that every brick will have to be taken down and the soil behind them packed into the wire mesh properly, it sounds expensive, glad it wont be covered by my tax money! One question, say this does happen and does damage to the road or injures someone, who is on the hook for that? I should hope the company that built the wall.

[Ari Gold]

That isn't how block retaining walls work, the block is simply a facing, even when you see the large 5' x 2.5' concrete 'Lock Blocks' they aren't providing anything structural to the wall. It is the weight of the soil on the meshing that provides the stability. The soil itself doesn't cause the failure, it is when you cannot relieve the hydrostatic pressure when water gets into this backfill. They are built with a course of free draining rounded drain rock right behind the facing (a 'drainage chimney') that allows the water to get to the base of the wall where it is removed via a perforated drain pipe. If you cannot relieve this water pressure is where the problems come up.

This is why when (rarely) these walls do fail they always blow out at the bottom of the wall (see the overpass failure last year, it was the bottom panels where the wall blew out), as opposed to the wall simply 'falling down'.

Good explanation...that's more or less what I mean. If that wall fails because of a drainage/pressure issue at the bottom, then you have 20 feet of wall coming down. That's not going to be good for anybody.

For block walls only 4 or 5 feet high, even if it fails, the blocks aren't going to be landing on top of anyone.

Anyways, it hasn't failed yet and I hope it doesn't!

Do they allow block retaining walls that high in the DWK or the City of Kelowna? I've seen many landscaping projects completed with the block retaining walls that were pretty high, but a step pattern was used.....not a single 20 foot high wall

[LoneWolf_53]

Anything over 4' is supposed to be engineered but being on native land who knows whether the same rules apply or not.

Anywhere else strict rules would need to be followed, but then again it requires regular inspection to confirm that contractors constructed things according to design. That has proven to be a hit and miss thing in these parts.

[dirtguy]

The article says that there is a problem with the retaining wall? Is it referring to the giant Allen (gravity) block wall along Old Okanagan Highway?

I couldn't beleive when they put that up. Even properly laid and drained with the soil mesh, it's just a bunch of blocks stacked on top of each other. no mortar or concrete!

They're great for walls a few feet high, but that wall is 15-20 feet high is some places

That isn't how block retaining walls work, the block is simply a facing, even when you see the large 5' x 2.5' concrete 'Lock Blocks' they aren't providing anything structural to the wall. It is the weight of the soil on the meshing that provides the stability. The soil itself doesn't cause the failure, it is when you cannot relieve the hydrostatic pressure when water gets into this backfill. They are built with a course of free draining rounded drain rock right behind the facing (a 'drainage chimney') that allows the water to get to the base of the wall where it is removed via a perforated drain pipe. If you cannot relieve this water pressure is where the problems come up.

This is why when (rarely) these walls do fail they always blow out at the bottom of the wall (see the overpass failure last year, it was the bottom panels where the wall blew out), as opposed to the wall simply 'falling down'.

The failure of the wall facing at the overpass was caused by a failure of the wire mesh,it had absolutely nothing too do with hydrostatic pressure.(as per mot)

Also,the 5 x 2.5 loc block walls you mention usually do not have grid in them as the weight of the wall is what holds up the material,an example of this would be the wall behind walmart,it is multiple blocks thick and has no grid.


Other then that it was a very informative post.

[Ditch Digger]

For 3 courses and under. If you go over 4 blocks and aren't using bi-axial grid you are just asking for trouble.

[dirtguy]

For 3 courses and under. If you go over 4 blocks and aren't using bi-axial grid you are just asking for trouble.

um no

[randosh44]

Correct Dirtguy

[featfan]

Highpoint subdivision wall. Kelowna.
http://www.checkmategeogrid.com/project ... hpoint.pdf