Owners of homes in Sunshine Coast sinkhole neighbourhood offered keys to access subdivision

When the B.C. Supreme Court declared a state of emergency in Sechelt's Seawatch subdivision unlawful in January, owners of the 14 sinkhole-affected properties wondered what the ruling would mean for them and their empty dream homes.

On Friday, they learned what the District of Sechelt's response would be: they were offered keys to the gate that's part of a permanent barbed wire fence now enclosing the subdivision.

Ed Pednaud is one of the homeowners. In February 2019, he, his wife Rae-Dene and their two boys, Grant and Henry, were forced to hastily evacuate their home.

Since then, they downsized from the 4,000-square-foot home, just a stone's throw from Sechelt Inlet and backed by a salmon-bearing stream, to a 500-square-foot cabin, then a 1970s mobile home, and finally to a modest home they were able to buy in the district.

"Since the evacuation, it's been an upheaval. The kids are angry — the parents are angry sometimes," said Pednaud on Wednesday. "We're still disheartened with what happened to us and our dream home."

He said he hasn't set eyes on their home since the evacuation, but through neighbours he's learned the home, along with the others in the enclosed subdivision, has been damaged, looted and degraded by weather. Pednaud expects to find hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.

Still, he's not about to accept the district's offer for a key to access the house, which he's perfectly entitled to do, now that the state of emergency has been lifted.

"There was no way we were going to accept keys to go into the neighbourhood at this particular point in time," said Pednaud. "We're not taking that chance with our lawsuit. We're not putting that at risk."

The offer came with strings attached — the district warned that service providers, including fire, police, and Fortis natural gas wouldn't be attending the neighbourhood. And homeowners had to sign a letter acknowledging the risk posed by the sinkholes, which have not been repaired.

According to Jeff Scouten, a lawyer representing the Pednauds and the owners of six neighbouring properties, the District of Sechelt's offer was "untenable," and it was trying to have it "both ways" by leaving the gate in place but offering keys to homeowners.

He said his clients' reaction was basically 'nice try.' Scouten said the district is legally responsible for the public road access into the subdivision — a road still threatened by sinkhole activity — and it must either open the road and repair it, or close the road.

He said his legal advice to his clients would be to not take matters into their own hands and cut the district's lock of the gate, but that since the state of emergency was lifted, "I don't think there's any obstacle to my clients returning to their homes, making use of them again."

Scouten and his clients are involved in a complex lawsuit with the district, province, developer and other parties involved in the subdivision. He's hoping the end of the state of emergency, which had been extended every seven days since 2019, shakes up the inaction at Seawatch.

"We're basically back to the situation that everybody was in before the emergency power was invoked," he said. "Hard decisions need to made about what to do about the problems here [...] Doing nothing is no longer an option."

District of Sechelt's mayor Darnelda Siegers declined an interview request for this story. On Saturday the district posted a statement on its website.

"Although Seawatch property owners were offered keys to the gate that blocks off the Seawatch subdivision, the District of Sechelt advised that owners should refrain from entering the subdivision and should keep the gate locked to prevent others from entering," the statement read.

A district spokesperson told CBC News on Tuesday that at that time, no residents had picked up keys to the gate.