posting for Darren Cichy/Tucker Bay Holdings, Ltd.

Obviously we are new to Lasqueti Island, and I hope any of you reading about or following the Tucker Bay Road issue over the past week or so, could at the very least attempt to understand our position. We were unaware of any registered or unregistered public rights-of-way on this property other than that of a government road providing access to the brown house as described in the document provided to us by Ministry of Transport, and described on the disclosure statement.
The gun sign everyone has been in a stir about was located near our belongings left on the property,  as we were unaware of such widely perceived public access on our property (try and keep in mind that we are new to Lasqueti, unfamiliar with things and places on Lasqueti and unfortunately very accustomed to the ways of Errington...) A big part of the reason we purchased land on Lasqueti I might add.  But now I see some postings on here regarding stolen generators or gas etc...  Irregardless, this sign was most likely intended as a novelty or to deter would be thieves who did not belong on that part of our property. It was never intended to suggest anyone who came there would die!!!  We had no idea this area was thought of as such a public place and one would assume proper public access locations would also be well marked and defined by proper signs. We figured that if people read our signs posted along the road they would understand and respect the property had changed hands and was no longer to be what we viewed as basically a bit of a  "free for all" now that new owners were present. In my opinion this whole gun sign thing has been blown way out of proportion and it was never our intention to be taken the way people have twisted it to seem. Either way, we are not too stubborn to simply apologize for it, and try to understand how some would be offended if they thought the sign was placed on a public access. Either way this "gun" sign has been removed and we would sincerely hope any of you who were offended by it can accept our apologies. 
 

Just so all of you fully understand, we did in fact contact the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure before we signed off on the property purchase agreement, and Ministry of Transport told us there was very little information available regarding Tucker Bay rd., and they only had this road document for Tucker Bay Road on file. On this document there are dates compiled as well as dates revised, and a measure to road end of 0.80 km. My partner called the employee of Emcon Services as the ministry suggested to do in addition to reviewing the Road Register document regarding the end point of his maintenance, (I have listened to this conversation carefully I might add) I can accurately confirm that the Emcon employee we were recommended to speak to regarding the extent of his maintenance clearly stated during this conversation that: his maintenance ended before the road opened up to the clearing by the house. This maintenance contractor employee also stated that in turning around from time to time they may have used the clearing by the house to turn around and may have bumped the ground with the grader blade here or there, but he definitely did not maintain that area or the area to the boat ramp. Upon measuring the distance of .80km this location was also confirmed to be before the road opened up to the clearing.  We are not disputing this road or its distance, and Tucker Bay Holdings Ltd. has made no attempts to remove it from the public road inventory as people have suggested. 

 

We also, called Islands Trust 3 times regarding the road and any public access or any foreshore access that may possibly be on this property, It has been confirmed on three separate accounts of researching with Islands Trust prior to our purchasing the property that there was in fact no public access at Tucker Bay. We question why Islands Trust would not be aware of or have noted on file all public access locations across the island If they are in fact public access locations?

In addition, we have a property disclosure statement provided to us by the previous owners of the property which was written sometime back in June 2013 (well before we were even aware this property was for sale) stating exactly as follows: "There is a public road on the property that provides access to the existing cottage. Except for this public road, I am not aware of any encroachments, unregistered easements or unregistered rights-of-way."  One of the major deciding factors of purchasing this property was based on there not being a public access or rights-of way at the end of Tucker Bay Rd.
 
It is our understanding that there have been past attempted negotiations to purchase a small portion of this property in the area of the road and boat ramp to provide access for public use. However these attempted negotiations to acquire land for public access were unsuccessful, to the best of our knowledge and research this area remains private property.
I believe it was Karl who made a very intelligent and possibly accurate comment regarding the dock at Tucker Bay which he had once used and seen, the theory of the boat launch area possibly being private, and commenting on describing the location of an access to the float which he remembered to be to the left of the boat ramp, which would confirm our understanding of the boat ramp always being private property. If proven correct or accurate there may be a possibility of a slim trail of public access leading to the rocks wherever the float may have been. However to the best of our knowledge the department chose to remove the "public floats" wherever they may have been, having no interest or intent of maintaining or constructing a road of public interest further than described in the road document, which information was obviously compiled back in 1962.

 

 

Everything in our knowledge and research clearly indicates to us that the area beyond 0.80 km is not public property,  we are exceptionally comfortable with our legal position in relation to this issue. As such, we will not tolerate such behavior as has been suggested - for example:  occupying the area, bringing chainsaws and having fires or cleanups on our property, etc. There has been talk about an 840 meter measure on the Emcon contract. The maintenance contractor's employee gave us a description of the extent of his maintenance to end before the road opens up to a clearing which has also been confirmed by several photographs showing the area of maintenance has not been carried out as specified on the contract anytime recently to its full extent. Possibly not at all in recent times. 
 

It is very frustrating when people collaborate and basically make us look like the heavy handed villains trying to steal the public access, or make us out to be the new guys trying to come in and suddenly change things in our favor with false claims such as "these people have made applications to have Tucker Bay road removed from the public road inventory."  This is not at all the case. We have legally purchased this property, and are doing nothing more than taking measures to ensure that our property rights are protected and respected. In addition to several other issues it is our opinion that there is a lot of disrespect and abuse regarding the use of the boat ramp area which is without question located on our private property, when left open to the public there are no enforceable public rules as the area is not public, there are no definitions of boundaries. People are getting in our face telling us the area is all public infront of family and children causing upset and invasion of our privacy,  bringing logs into the boat ramp and cutting them up and splitting them on our property, leaving wood and other debris laying around on our property for weeks, we at one point assumed these pieces of wood were left abandoned, so we built a fence to keep the kids from accidentally falling off the cliff, to our disappointment one day the fence we built had been disassembled and removed while we are not present and without our knowledge or consent, there are abandoned vehicles, boats, and trailers parked randomly in inconvenient locations and left on our property creating either unsightliness or pollution from oil leaking or garbage left behind as well as presenting liability issues of damage if we are to remove these items people see fit to leave at their leisure in what is essentially the front yard of our cabin, This cabin historically has been in its current location for approximately 70 years. How many of you would appreciate a public access being insisted on your property closer than 40 meters of your front porch?  Moreover, we need to protect ourselves legally - in particular, there is an archaeological midden site in the area of the boat ramp which is uncontrollably being disturbed by peoples poor judgement, carelessness, and actions, people get stuck and spin their wheels while launching boats creating deep holes disturbing the site, material looks to have been removed to provide road base etc., and we are obviously (and reasonably) not able to always be there to stop this from happening, nor are we prepared to be held liable for damage caused by others carelessness or disrespect. The Heritage Conservation Act (HCA) provides substantial penalties for destruction or unauthorized disturbance of archaeological sites including imprisonment for up to two years and fines of up to $1,000,000.

However, all this being said we can still understand and appreciate the desire for community to have public access to Tucker Bay.
 

 A POSSIBLE SOLUTION:

 

I would like to bring to everyone's attention an old but surprisingly intact road leading down to the head of the bay which is located in the vicinity of our southeast corner property line/corner/water boundary area leading down to the head of the bay. To the best of my knowledge, our property has not ever been properly surveyed and the boundaries may not necessarily be exact. So I am unsure if the road I am referring to is located on our property or the adjoining parcel.  Nevertheless, I believe it's very close to the property line area between the two parcels located in the southwest quarter of section 13 and possibly on both parcels. Our impression is that it possibly straddles both properties roughly equally and may have been a determining factor in a strange angular property line.

 

 

 

We would be willing to help with costs involved including the costs of registering the notation of this road's location and unrestricted public access of this location described to property titles etc...   As well as helping by providing equipment and any equipment work necessary to restore this old road.  We are also interested in properly dedicating any portion of this southeast corner of our property this old road to the head of the bay lies upon as goodwill to provide proper registered public access to Tucker Bay once and for all. We feel public use of this area would not interrupt us or take away any valuable areas of property from either us or our neighbors across the bay and would not interfere with anyone's yard or direct safety or privacy.

 

I believe we could achieve registering this old road as an access without a costly property survey, avoiding excessive costs of surveying by simply noting its location which could be described via GPS coordinates and registering this notation to our property title. However without a costly property survey, the possibility of this option would essentially be based on assuming the co-operative generosity of our neighboring property owners, whom I would hope should have the same interests in accomplishing an amicable solution to provide access for the community to Tucker Bay.

We understand that some individuals on the island had different intentions or desires for the land at Tucker Bay, and that these people may be disappointed that these plans of conservancy or pubic ownership were not able to come to fruition. However, we would hope that this disappointment wouldn't manifest itself as bitterness, ridiculousness, or refusal to co-operate and we would hope that common sense, respect, understanding,  good neighborliness, and the best interest of the community would prevail.